Chapter 166 — The Foxglove, Warmer

Chapter 166: Chapter 166 — The Foxglove, Warmer

He surfaced from Floor Six on the evening of his third day down, considerably less battered than his previous stretch had left him, and found the checkpoint guard’s now-familiar nod waiting for him without comment.

The walk back to the Foxglove carried the particular, settled satisfaction of a dive that had asked real things of him and given real things back in return — a crocodile properly hunted, a serpent properly earned, two new names settled quietly into everything he now carried.

He found the common room comfortably busy when he arrived, the evening’s usual rhythm of travelers and off-duty adventurers filling the space with warm, familiar noise, and Pella spotted him before he’d fully crossed the threshold.

"There he is," she said, delighted. "Three days this time, not the disaster you managed last stretch. I’m choosing to take that as personal growth."

"I’ll take the credit either way," Arlen said, settling at his usual table.

"You look considerably less like something dragged out of a collapsed mine this time," she continued, setting a plate down in front of him without being asked. "Progress, genuinely."

Rilla passed through a moment later, offered him the same quiet, evaluating glance she always gave him after a return, and seemed satisfied enough by whatever she found that she didn’t linger with any particular concern.

He ate slowly, genuinely enjoying the ordinary warmth of the room around him, and it was well into the evening, the crowd thinning toward its later, quieter hours, when Yveth finally emerged from the back with a bottle and two cups, settling into the chair across from him without much ceremony.

"Figured you’d earned something better than whatever Pella’s been feeding you," she said, pouring a modest measure into each cup.

"I don’t drink," Arlen reminded her.

"I know. It’s cider, not wine. Try not to look so suspicious of my hospitality." She slid one cup across regardless, and Arlen accepted it, genuinely curious.

It was sweet, faintly spiced, considerably better than he’d expected. "That’s good."

"Most things I serve are, which is why this inn’s still standing after everything the Depths has thrown at this district over the years." She studied him a moment, something warmer than her usual sharp banter settling into her expression, though she kept it light. "Three days this time. You’re getting better at not scaring my staff half to death."

"I noticed the improvement was appreciated."

"Immensely." She took a slow sip of her own cup, and the conversation settled into something easier, less performed than their usual sparring, though no less genuine for the shift. "Can I ask you something, and you can tell me it’s none of my business if you’d rather?"

"Go ahead."

"Why do you keep going back down there? Properly, I mean. Not the guild-approved answer about growth and rank. The actual reason." She turned her cup slowly between her fingers, studying him with genuine curiosity rather than idle small talk. "I’ve run this inn a long while. Watched a lot of adventurers pass through. Most of them are chasing something specific — coin, a title, proving something to someone who isn’t even here to see it. You don’t seem to be chasing any of that."

Arlen considered the question honestly, turning it over the way he turned over most things worth answering properly. "I promised myself, a long time ago, that I’d see everything the world had to offer. Properly see it, not just hear about it secondhand. The Depths is part of that. Might be the biggest part, actually — more world packed into a single dungeon than most people see in a lifetime of ordinary travel."

"That’s not the guild-approved answer," Yveth said, something genuinely surprised beneath her usual composure.

"You asked for the real one."

She studied him a long moment, the easy banter of a moment ago giving way to something quieter, more considering. "Most people who say something like that mean it for about a year, until the danger stops feeling like adventure and starts feeling like just danger. You’ve been at this a while, though, haven’t you. Longer than a passing phase."

"Since I was eighteen," Arlen said. "Feels longer than that, some days, and shorter than that on others."

"And it’s never worn thin? Even after everything I’d guess you’ve actually been through, given how often you come back looking like you argued with the ground and lost?"

"Not yet," Arlen admitted. "I think I’d know by now, if it was going to."

Yveth’s expression settled into something Arlen hadn’t quite seen from her before — not the sharp, teasing warmth she usually offered, not the brief, direct concern of the hearth-side conversation weeks earlier, but something quieter and more genuinely curious, the particular attention of someone who’d decided a person was worth actually understanding rather than simply liking.

"I left somewhere myself, once," she said, after a moment. "Long before this inn. Different reasons than yours, probably, but I remember what it felt like, wanting to see past whatever horizon I’d been handed. Most people who feel that don’t ever actually act on it. You did. Still are, from the look of things."

"You never mentioned that before."

"You never asked before." She said it without any particular edge, simply fact, and refilled her cup with the same unhurried ease she brought to most things. "I don’t tell most people. Doesn’t usually come up, running an inn. Mostly I just watch other people’s leaving and arriving, and let that be enough."

"Why tell me now?"

She considered the question a moment, something faintly wry touching the corner of her mouth. "Because you asked the right way, I suppose. Or because you’re the first person who’s come through that door in longer than I’d like to admit who actually seems to be living the thing most people only talk about wanting." She shrugged, the moment easing back toward something lighter without quite losing its warmth entirely. "Or maybe I just felt like sharing, and you happened to be sitting there. Don’t read too much into it."

"Too late," Arlen said, and found her answering smile, brief and genuine, settling into him with more weight than the simple exchange probably warranted.

They talked a while longer, the conversation drifting into easier territory — her own early years running the inn, the particular challenges of keeping an establishment properly stocked this close to the Depths, his own careful, patient account of a few of the floor’s stranger creatures, offered without any of the anxious calculation he’d once needed to bring to conversations like this.

"You should rest properly before you go back down," she said eventually, as the evening finally began winding toward its close. "Whatever floor’s next. I’ve got half a mind to start charging you for the worry alone, given how often you make me feel it."

"I’ll try to be less worrying."

"Don’t bother trying too hard. I don’t actually mind it as much as I pretend to." She rose, gathering the empty bottle with the same brisk efficiency she brought to everything, though she paused a moment longer at his table before heading back toward the counter. "Goodnight, Arlen. Properly rest this time. That’s not a request."

"Goodnight, Yveth."

He watched her go, the common room settling into its late, quiet hours around him, and made his way upstairs a while later with the particular, unhurried satisfaction of an evening that had given him something he hadn’t quite realized he’d been missing — not the sharp, easy banter he’d grown to enjoy, though that had its own considerable charm, but this quieter, more genuine glimpse of someone he was beginning to suspect he wanted to understand a great deal more than he’d previously let himself admit.