The Retired Abyss Innkeeper Chapter 48: He Was Very Reasonable About the Sewers. The Roo

The room was still looking at him.

He was light green, had pointy ears and ca up to about my hip. Hard to miss once you noticed him.

The coat helped.

Soone had made it specifically for him. You could tell. It had the sort of tailoring that ca from a person with very strong opinions about how a coat ought to sit on a body. In this case those opinions had been correct down to the last seam.

He still had one hand on my sleeve. His expression was settled. He was looking up at .

His two associates hadn’t moved. Still at table two. still writing.

"Is that a creature," one of the council mbers said.

A little too loud. And once it was out there, there wasn’t really a take-back. The man beside him leaned away from the table.

"It’s been sitting there all morning?" soone from the guild bench said.

"I didn’t see it," the first council mber said.

"It was right there."

"I didn’t see it," he said again.

Louder. That didn’t improve his position.

The small guest looked at them both.

He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t change his expression.

"My apologies for the wait," I said to him. "It has been a morning."

"It has," he said. "I found it informative."

I glanced over at the council mber who’d spoken earlier. He was studying the table with a great deal of concentration.

"He’s a guest," I said. "He’s been at table two since before any of you arrived. I moved him to the table myself when he ca in."

I looked down at my board.

"I should have introduced him sooner," I added. "That’s on ."

The council mber shyly nodded. He was still looking at the table.

"Torvel," he said to . "The Sixfold Exchange. We operate across several dinsions including this one, as of about a few weeks ago."

"Aldous," I said. "The innkeeper. As of considerably longer than that."

I picked up the board.

"Are you eating? I’ve got stew now and broth later if you’ve got patience for it."

"Stew," he said. "Three portions."

He glanced over at his associates.

"They don’t stop."

"I’ll bring sothing over," I said. "People who don’t stop tend to forget they’re hungry. In my experience that doesn’t improve the work."

He looked at for a mont. I couldn’t quite place the expression.

Then he nodded.

So I wrote it down.

"Now," he said. "About the matter of representation."

"Go ahead."

"The Sixfold Exchange identified this city’s dinsional positioning approximately four weeks ago," he said. "The position is significant."

He said it the way soone describes property location.

Very practical. Very factual.

"You are sitting at an intersection point," he continued. "Dinsions do not generally stack the way they have here. When they do, the access routes are usually buried in terrain that makes them impractical."

He paused briefly.

"In this case the routes are in your sewer system, which is less elegant but considerably more accessible."

He delivered that in the sa tone. Simply a fact.

"We used the route in the eastern sewer channel," he continued. "Ca through a dungeon dinsion that’s now integrated into your lower infrastructure. Arrived three weeks ago to set up up preliminary operations."

I wrote sewer channel, eastern, dungeon dinsion integrated, check drainage on the list.

The runoff had been going sowhere since the city floated, and I’d been wanting that docunted before sothing crawled back up from the Abyss with opinions about the arrangent.

Now I knew where it went. That answered that.

So I kept listening.

"There’s a dungeon in the sewers?" the council chair said.

"Several," Torvel said. "The one in the eastern channel is the largest. The others are smaller."

He paused briefly.

"Two of them are largely decorative at this stage."

"Decorative," the guild representative said.

And then stopped with a click of his tongue.

"The city is sitting on a dinsional intersection," Vassara said.

Her tail moved once. Slowly.

"That is not sothing my house was inford of."

"Your house was not here when we surveyed," Torvel said in a business-like manner.

"I’m here now," she said.

"Yes," he said, "I’ve been watching."

Brenne quipped in, "A dungeon dinsion integrated into civil infrastructure raises serious questions about the stability of—"

"It’s stable," Torvel said, "We checked."

"You checked," she said.

"Thoroughly. The Exchange does not operate out of unstable infrastructure."

He gave a small shrug.

"That would be bad for business."

"I’m not questioning your business practices," Brenne said, "I’m questioning whether a mortal city with active dungeon presence in its sewer system, floating in the Abyss, at an interdinsional intersection, is a situation that anyone has fully—"

"No," Kern said.

He was already standing. At so point he’d picked up his coat without noticing.

"You have maps?" he said to Torvel.

"Preliminary surveys," Torvel said. "The Exchange is prepared to share relevant sections with the garrison in exchange for—"

"Later," Kern said.

He was already at the door.

The door opened. Then it closed.

The room looked at the space he’d been standing in for a mont.

The guild representative leaned forward. He looked at Torvel. Then at the door Kern had just walked through.

"The transit routes," he said. "If the city is accessible from multiple dinsions without surface transit requirents—"

"Significant comrcial potential," Torvel said.

"The charter doesn’t cover interdinsional comrce," soone from the council bench said.

"The charter doesn’t cover any of this," the guild representative said.

"That is an ongoing point," the council chair said flatly.

Renner was writing. Lenne had her ledger open again.

Vassara looked at Torvel.

"The Exchange’s operations in this city," she said. "Where specifically."

"The eastern district at present," he said.

"My house’s territory," she said.

"Adjacent," he said.

She looked at him for a long mont.

"Torvel," she said. "We’ll speak later."

"I’ve already scheduled it," he said.

One of his associates turned a page without looking up.

"A dungeon integrated into drainage is not a resolved situation," Brenne was saying.

"The charter assigns this council authority over all infrastructure within city boundaries," the council chair said.

Two council mbers were sitting very still. Both of them were looking at the table. The guild representative had found a piece of paper and was writing numbers on it.

I needed to get to the kitchen.

"I’m going to start the third loaf," I said to the room.

The room continued.

"Brenne," I said, a little louder. "Third loaf. Whenever you’re ready."

"In a minute," she said, without turning around.

"The intersection changes the scope of what this situation is," Brenne said.

"The scope of what this situation is," Vassara said, "is my house’s territory."

Neither of them looked like they were stopping anyti soon.

Fair enough.

I added check east sewer channel, confirm drainage resolution, note dungeon integration for maintenance purposes to the list.

I noted Torvel under current guests. Sixfold Exchange. Common room. Three portions stew. Associates at table two. Ongoing.

I noted the second floor would open soon. The count was going to keep moving until it did.

Then I went to start the bread.

Behind the common room was louder than it had been when I ca in that morning.

The bread needed flour and ti. It didn’t care about any of the rest of it.

[SYSTEM LOG]

Guest identification resolved. Torvel. Sixfold Exchange, advance representative. Active. Table two, common room.

Dungeon dinsion, eastern sewer channel: confird integrated. Additional minor instances logged. Infrastructure status noted as stable per subject’s report. Verification pending.

Dinsional intersection, city-current position: confird. Access routes identified and partially surveyed by external party prior to inn’s classification update. Form pending.

Kern: departed premises. Destination unconfird.