After another day in hospital in case of relapse, I was allowed to depart. They still had no idea what had been wrong with me, and I couldn't tell them, but waiting another day was a sensible precaution regardless. I was cheating the distance restrictions, and if that was going to cause problems, it was best to find out while I was still in Synklisi. Even so, I left a chunk of toe in the guild in case I found myself needing to jump back in a hurry, happy to find they had a dedicated teleport room.

I wasn't going to experiment with sense sharing without Elanor's permission, and while I could 'see' from my loaned finger with [Mana Sight], I very swiftly started to wish I couldn't. I could understand why the gate guard had made the assumption he did, and by the time I was released from hospital, I was doing my best to ignore all senses from that finger, touch included.

We made it back to Dawnhold safely, where the sky was cloudless, but the ground was covered in compacted, icy snow, and the temperature was among the lowest I'd seen. Darren made his bubble again, melting the ice on the ground in front of us, and we walked home. There was no way I was going to be making my way back to the Sapphire Peaks until the weather improved, but I did at least drop a letter for the family off at the guild on our way out. How it would get there, I had no clue. I wasn't sure I'd want to make the journey even if I had wings. Perhaps they had a team of dragon postmen?

I left a chunk of toe there too, albeit in the foyer, since the Dawnhold guild building lacked a dedicated room for teleporting into. Cluma's birthday was in one more week, and I had preparations to make. Grover should be done with my weapons order by now, and it was time to get armour ordered for us both.

Back at the village, I just wanted to collapse into bed and stay there. As much as I'd been stuck in bed for the past week, that was because I had to, not because I had made the choice to relax for a bit. That was spoilt when, the moment we got back, a gaggle of farmers descended on us and dragged me and dad over to the tavern. It was occupied mostly by older villagers, and we arrived just in time to catch the tail end of a toast to Remous. I could only assume he'd managed to get something drinkable out of a still while we were away.

"Hey there!" he shouted as we entered, waving a mug. "Come and join the celebration!"

I abruptly came to a halt and nudged dad. "Who is that, and why is he dressed like Remous?" I whispered, causing dad to burst out laughing.

"You've never seen him with a few drinks in, have you? He gets a lot more eloquent."

"Bah, what're you babbling about now?" he shouted. "There's nothing wrong with the way I speak."

"Depends how much time you have. Anyway, I take it you managed to make something drinkable?"

"Hell no; this stuff tastes like crap. But who cares? There's enough alcohol in it to overcome even rank three levels of endurance! It's been years since I felt this buzz."

No wonder it's the older generation who are here then. They're the ones prepared to drink whatever crud Remous has managed to produce, while anyone at rank two was content with beer. How long had it been since I last got tipsy? In this world of Law, actually getting drunk was probably not a good idea, but I could at least have something. I stored my rings with [Item Box] while dad fetched a couple of mugs.

It did indeed taste like crap. On the bright side, the villagers seemed to enjoy my renditions of Christmas carols, even if they didn't understand the words. Whatever happened to the music box idea? It seemed so long ago that me and Remous were encoding a Christmas tune into one.

The next morning, I woke up with a hangover, and groggily forced my rings back onto my fingers. When my ring's endurance boost didn't help, I added [Endurance] on top, happy to find that took the edge off it, and went to find some water.

Despite repeated attempts, I couldn't bring a ring out of [Item Box] directly onto a finger. While I could [Item Box] clothes off, I was certain by now that it wasn't possible to get them back on that way.

"Ugh, I feel like someone tried to unscrew my head, and succeeded," muttered dad, exiting his own bedroom, so I gave him an [Endurance] cast too. "Thanks," he added, keeping his eyes down on the floor.

Not just me, then. But I hadn't had too much last night, had I? I hadn't done anything stupid, or developed any holes in my memory. It was hard to judge, not knowing the alcohol content of whatever we were drinking, or the size of the mugs, so I'd been going off the feeling.

...Which was probably completely skewed because of the effect of the endurance stat.

So either endurance resisted the hangover to a lesser extent than the drunkenness, which would be completely unfair, or else what we were drinking was a little more methylated than was healthy.

"To be fair, I'm pretty sure the amount we drank last night would have been fatal, back on Earth," I said, keeping my voice down because I really didn't want loud noises right now. "A mere hangover is getting off lightly."

"Wonder if Richard is up yet..." said dad.

"He was there last night, wasn't he? Turned up half an hour after we did, to see what the noise was about?"

"Ah, so he did. And then he... Yeah, he's probably still asleep."

"Was there any left over? I have got to get some of that to the delvers guild." I winced again as the sun came out from behind a cloud, bathing the room in painful brightness. "Maybe after Remous has refined his process a bit more."

"I... don't think so? Didn't it run out? Wasn't that why we switched to the freeze distilled beer?"

"No, that was just you. That stuff tasted even worse than Remous' crap."

"Yeah... Perhaps we all got overenthusiastic there. For some of those old timers, it had been a couple of decades since alcohol last affected them. I think the excitement got a bit contagious."

"It had been fourteen and a half years for me, too," I pointed out. Or more like sixteen, in Earth years. "And I wanted to visit Dawnhold today to pick my weapons up..."

I took a long drink of water, in the hopes of it helping, but I was in uncharted territory here. Endurance protects from poison, and alcohol is a poison. I'd drunk enough to overcome my endurance, but what, biologically, did that mean? How much did I weigh, roughly? And how concentrated was the stuff we were drinking? I'm pretty sure it was just raw distillate, but it wasn't as if Remous had mastered fractional distillation. It came from a low quality still. Let's assume fifty percent? But we were drinking it from mugs. Then I probably had a blood alcohol concentration of...

Why did I think it was a good idea to do maths while hungover?

Point five? Maybe? Could easily be half or double that. Even at the lower end, that was a level at which I shouldn't have been able to walk home unaided. At the upper end, it would be instant death. And yet, hangover aside, I'd been fine. Did my blood actually have that much alcohol in it, or did endurance filter it at an earlier stage? It couldn't just be my liver breaking it down faster, or it wouldn't prevent people from getting drunk so efficiently when they binged; they would only recover quicker.

I was in need of more soul points. Maybe I should start taking blood samples and testing them, and see if [Researcher] kicks in? How do you test blood for alcohol concentration?

After a morning of gently encouraging Darren to not be quite so loud, as well as an only half-joking suggestion that he might not want to play with his flames anywhere near me or dad because our breath may well be flammable, I felt well enough to head out. First, I went to see Remous, who was already up and making more of whatever the foul tasting stuff was, and he was happy to sell me a small keg. Only the one though, and only a small one, until he'd worked out the, as he put it, 'side effects', so advertising at the delvers guild would need to wait. Alas, I'd already informed him about the difference between methanol and ethanol and the perils of distillation the first time around, along with the importance of discarding the head of the distillate, so I had no more tips to give. Perhaps it would just be a case of discarding more.

Next up was Dawnhold, where the trip out of the town and towards the institute was enough to make me wish I could do Darren's bubble of warmth trick.

"Peter! Don't suppose you're up to forging some more orichalcum while you're here? We took a new gold delivery a few days back."

"Not even a hello first? And sure, if you've got my weapons."

"Of course."

"In that case, I have a present for you as thanks," I said, pulling the barrel out of [Item Box] and handing it over, earning a quizzical look. "My village is working on a new line of drinks, strong enough to get all our rank three farmers drunk. Whether it's enough for you, I have no idea, but I thought it was worth a try. Don't drink the whole barrel at once. You'll regret it the next day."

Grover's quizzical gaze transitioned from me to the barrel, which he tapped a few times and then sniffed. "Smells like crap," he commented.

"Tastes like it, too," I agreed.

Grover shrugged, and pulled two metres of sword-staff out of thirty centimetres of bag, casually tossing it over to me. Flashing back to memories of when I picked up my last staff, I reflexively cast [Strength] to catch it.

Adamantite and Orichalcum Svärdstav (Quality: 70)

- Enchantment: Durability (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Sharpness (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Weight manipulation (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Threat reduction (Rank 4)

I gave it a few experimental swings. The increased length, slightly wider girth and extra blade conspired to make it significantly heavier than my old weapon, but the increased range of the weight manipulation enchantment due to the orichalcum meant I could cut its weight down to the same level. As for the upper boundary, I was forced to stop not because of a lack of my own strength, but because the floor started creaking. That test would need to be conducted outdoors, or at least somewhere without a basement.

"I assume you're happy with it?"

"Unless you manage to hit rank five, I doubt I'll ever want to replace my weapon again."

"Hah. You might change your tune with another class change or two. Remember; I can't switch out the enchantments without deconstructing the whole weapon, so if you ever decide something else would suit you better, you'll have the chance to change it. Anyway, here's the rest."

He handed over a collection of blades.

Adamantite and Orichalcum Short Sword (Quality: 70)

- Enchantment: Durability (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Sharpness (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Weight manipulation (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Threat reduction (Rank 4)

Adamantite and Orichalcum Dagger (Quality: 70)

- Enchantment: Durability (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Sharpness (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Critical strike (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Bleeding wounds (Rank 4)

Adamantite and Orichalcum Dagger (Quality: 70)

- Enchantment: Durability (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Sharpness (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Critical strike (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Bleeding wounds (Rank 4)

Like my sword-staff, my short sword had a threat reduction enchantment in place of the spatial affinity enhancement, which could only be applied to staves. Cluma's daggers had critical strike in place of weight manipulation, allowing her sneak attacks to do even more damage, and bleeding wounds in the fourth slot, causing wounds the daggers inflicted to bleed more profusely and resist clotting and healing. As long as our opponents were vulnerable to physical wounds, these weapons would shred them. And if they weren't, I'd just have to rely on lightning. Maybe Cluma could get an elementally enchanted bow?

I spent the rest of the day producing orichalcum, and by the time I got through their new gold supplies, the delvers guild store was closed. Ordering armour would need to wait for the following day, which at least gave me a chance to grab another keg from Remous—which he promised shouldn't have quite the after-effects of his previous attempt—this time claiming it for free for advertising purposes.

The next day I stopped by at Clana's house, where an invisible Cluma came running as soon as she heard my voice, and then... stopped.

"Okay, this is getting silly," I said. "What's going on? Why aren't I being dived at?"

Cluma shuffled her feet and looked down guiltily, ears flattening, and tail jerking sporadically, all of which I could see clearly with [Mana Sight] despite the way she was still using [Stealth].

"Don't blame her," commented Clana. "She's just at an age where her nose is a bit sensitive."

"Mum!"

Cluma blushed furiously as she emerged from [Stealth], her tail frozen behind her, staring at Clana in shocked disbelief.

I was left in a spot of disbelief myself... I wash! Honest! Maybe not as much as on Earth, but enough, given the facilities we have in our small shack. But then, beastkin do have a strong sense of smell. Do they need to be more careful about washing? No-one had ever said!

"Don't listen to her," said Cluma, running up and giving me a hug, although I did note how quickly she back-stepped once she was done. Not to mention the acuity of [Mana Sight] was more than enough to tell me she was holding her breath.

Despite my apparent odour issues, she accompanied me on my visit to Adele, where we both got measured up. Going for dire wolf leather armour when we had super-material weaponry seemed a bit mismatched, but neither of us could handle plate, and Dawnhold hadn't started importing any better materials. Once Cluma had got used to the Dawnhold dungeon and we were ready to move to somewhere higher level, we'd commission something better, but for now, dire wolf leather, with Grover's enchantments and a few bits of adamantite reinforcement, would be plenty.

I pondered how best to attach metallic reinforcement while Cluma discussed her own design with Adele, but it was over quickly enough.

"Thank you!" exclaimed Cluma to Adele, giving her a big hug. Apparently she doesn't smell. "Only eight more days!"

That just left one more task. The two of us headed to the guild's bar, where I left Cluma to deal with the stream of delvers complaining about how much they were going to miss her, while I handed the barrel over at the bar.

"Smells like crap," commented the barkeeper in a spot of complete unoriginality.

"Tastes like it too," I replied, giving my traditional response. "But it's for getting tipsy, not for tasting."

The barkeeper shrugged, then positioned it on the counter. Perhaps I should have done this on Cluma's actual birthday, so that when we went to the dungeon for the first time, it would be a little quieter than normal while all the delvers were hungover?