Pub after pub after pub. Every night, it was an endless cycle that chipped away at Lilith. At the start, it surprised her by how many pubs there were especially so close to each other, but after consistently seeing how filled each one she visited was, it made sense. She thought it was a joke when people told her that dwarves loved their alcohol, or at least, thought little of it, but now she was a believer. If you want to sit down with a dwarf and talk, then give them alcohol. Drink with them, then they’ll talk… and talk they did.

She didn’t plan to stay here for as long as she had, but it was worth it trying to find this Bram. The only problem was that the name wasn't popular nor uncommon, and the Bram Lilith was searching for wasn't well known enough for any random dwarf to recognize him. She would sometimes come across someone who did, but either didn’t know where he would be, or didn’t tell. This kept Lilith searching, hopping from one pub to the next every night for the past two nights. Thankfully, or unfortunately, she had an extremely high tolerance for alcohol to where it seemed near impossible to get shit-faced drunk. But…

“Next one,” Lilith said with a hiccup and a face slightly flushed. It was already 4 am or at least the last time she bothered to check and she had been drinking since 7. Things were no longer pretty as the alcohol was finally kicking in. She just wanted to find where Bram was, but every time she entered a pub, they forced her to drink. Honestly, it was getting to where Lilith thought it was all planned. That these pubs knew who she was now and planned to get her drunk.

Lilith rubbed her temple while sitting down on a bench to take a break before entering the last pub of the night. “Has it turned into a competition to see who could get me drunk?” She asked as she leaned back, arms spread out on the top of the bench. “You can’t enter a dwarven run pub without drinking until you’re drunk,” something a dwarf told her on her first visit. “Yeah, ok.”

She kept to the bench for a while longer, watching dwarves walk by as some took interest in Lilith, but only for a moment before going about their business. “Alright,” she stood up. After the quick rest, she felt much better. “One more for the night.”

……….

“Ah, she’s here!” One dwarf yelled out while clinking his mug with someone next to him.

“Ay she is!” Another one shouted back.

“I knew it,” Lilith said under her breath.

“Word travels fast,” a female dwarf who seemed to work at the pub came over, handing Lilith a glass of water. “You lookin for Bram, right?”

Lilith grabbed the cup and let the ripples of water calm down before chugging the glass. “I am,” she finally said before handing back the now empty cup. “Is he here?”

“Ey. Bram!” the barkeeper shouted. “The lass made it!” 

“I heard, I heard!” a voice shouted back. A hint of a slur from the alcohol and a deeper voice than Lilith expected.

Lilith rubbed her eyes and prepared herself mentally for the rest of the night. She knew how it would play out, but after the glass of water, and the break from earlier, she was ready. “Ah, old indeed,” Lilith commented unintentionally, as she stood in front of Bram and his group.

“Ay we are. Is that a problem?” Bram answered with a question. One thing she had learned while hopping from pub to pub in search of him was that dwarves were short-tempered and even though they opened up a lot more to the ones who could drink and became much more talkative, it was also more so after drinking.

“No, no. I was told you were old and retired, but it's been hard to tell ages apart.” 

“It seems like it’s true. That you don’t get drunk,” said one of the older dwarves that sat at the same table as Bram. He cut in, bringing the conversation to a different talking point.

“I do, but it’s pretty difficult to reach that point. Plus, I recover quickly.”

“And why’s that?” The same dwarf asked before downing another pint.

“My constitution, which is what I would like to say, but considering my build and all of that, it most likely has to do with me being cursed.” She pointed to her hair, then her eyes to show what she meant. “But maybe that would fall under that category, anyway?” She said with a smile in an attempt to present herself in the best way possible. There were four other dwarves at the table Bram sat at, including him. Three of them were male and two were female, who all seemed past their prime. Yet, their scarred arms and faces told Lilith all she needed to know.

“So you can go for another round, ay!?” another dwarf asked.

“If I must, then yes, I can,” Lilith responded as the barkeeper came back with another glass of water. Lilith grabbed a seat in between Bram and one of the other dwarves. The stares and interest from the others died down as they went back to their mugs and friends. She sipped the water, and after finishing the glass, she slammed the cup down onto the table to grab their undivided attention. “I have a few questions for you.”

“So what are these questions you have, missy?” With each word, his words slurred more and more until they became a jumbled mess.

“I heard you helped a mage  20 or so years ago.”

Bram rubbed his beard, something Lilith noticed to be quite common amongst the dwarves when they thought about something. It also became a positive tell for Lilith when someone sincerely pondered about the question she asked instead of shrugging it off. “Ah, that lad,” Bram finally said.

“So you remember? Do you remember his name? Anything he said? Where was he going?” Lilith kept spitting out questions, and after the second one, Bram stopped listening and took a chug from his mug while Lilith continued, and after a few more questions, Bram interrupted.

“Enough! Too many questions and too late in the night to answer.” A server quickly came over with more mugs than she could hold and replaced the now empty ones, including a new one for Lilith. “Now then, we drink the night away and then tomorrow we talk.”

Bram lifted his mug, and with a cheer from everyone at the table, they smashed their mugs together, leaving Lilith sitting there, staring at her drink. She knew the only way to get the answers she wanted was to drink, but she was tired of the constant alcohol. “One last night,” she finally mumbled out before quickly taking hold of the mug, clashing it with Bram’s, then chugging as much as she could.

The night went on for several more hours. Drinking and talking. Lilith telling stories of jobs she had done, and Bram and the others telling theirs while also occasionally talking about any non sensual thing one of them could think of. It was hard to fully follow the mumblings of the drunken dwarves, but she simply nodded her head, laughed, and continued to drink and when she felt she was drinking too much, she slowed down, letting herself cool down.

However, something that was said piqued her interest. Out of the seamlessly endless stories, one of them was how the dwarves handled demons. Besides the single smaller barrier outside the entrance to the mountain, they didn’t use any other type of tools or magic in the way humans and elves did. Instead, they relied on their own strength and chokepoints to hold them off, even building their own machines to protect their borders, something which Lilith hadn’t seen just yet as the dwarves seemed to hide them. The mountains themselves became its own natural barrier.

The story got Lilith curious about the battlefields which the dwarves fought at and curious of the other parts of the underground. The dwarven tunnels always interested her, but to be fair, it interested most people as they were a mystery to anyone that wasn’t a dwarf.

With blurry eyes, Lilith let out a yawn, sitting up in her bed to stretch her arms and legs outward. She was quiet as she looked around the room with half-opened eyes, taking in the messy sight on the floor as she tried to remember what happened later on in the night. This was a first for her as she normally didn’t get or attempt to get drunk, so that meant she had far more than she could’ve guessed, even after trying to pace herself. Her hair was a mess and so were her clothes, but other than that, she felt fine.

“Glad I don’t have to deal with the aftermath,” Lilith said, followed by a laugh. While getting up from her bed, her attention moved over to a piece of paper sitting on the nightstand. It was what she had written last night, albeit sloppy. “Ah, right. The pub.” She said, reading the note.

Wearing nothing but her underwear, she went around her room, picking up one piece of clothing at a time and putting the uniform back on. Despite being wrinkled and having a stain here and there, she easily fixed it after activating the magic woven within. Just like any magical tool, when pouring her mana into the fibers of her suit, it lightened up softly and quickly removed the stains and wrinkles. It was a handy magic that only magical weavers could make, and clothing with such threads cost a hefty amount.

“The wonders of magic,” Lilith nodded her head while looking at herself in the mirror. “That said,” she leaned in closer, getting a better view of her eyes. “I look awful.” Sure, her constitution may have let her avoid the after day sickness, but it didn’t solve the lack of sleep. 

She carefully fixed her hair, adjusted her cap to cover what mess was left, and readjusted her uniform. Then, after doing a double take in the mirror, she headed back to the pub where they met. It was a surprise that there were a few dwarves still drinking, but it was far less crazy than the night before. She scanned the tables and spotted Bram, who was sitting at the same table as last night. He had a mug in hand, but instead of beer, it was water.

“You don’t look too good,” Lilith mentioned while sitting down across from him.

“And you look fine, for the most part.” Bram shot back.

“I told you last night I would be fine.” Lilith said.

Chugging down the mug of water, he slammed it down on the table. “Now, then. What do you want to know?”

“Getting right into it?” Lilith responded, but quickly took out a notebook, ready to write what he knew.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Bram asked.

“No, you’re right,” Lilith answered. “I have a package that needs to be delivered to a person who apparently is living in the north.”

“And you think it was the mage from 20 years ago?” Bram asked.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “I’m nearly certain of it.”

Bram was quiet. Taking a sip from his now refilled mug, he rubbed his beard. “He was the last person from my memory who went north,” Bram finally said. “I can’t say I was ever interested in mages, but…”

Lilith leaned forward. “But?” she asked, after waiting long enough for him to finish his sentence, but didn’t.

“But he was unique. Stayed for a while and got along with everyone else. Joined us for drinks. He was a good lad, even if he was weak.”

Lilith jotted down quick notes of what Bram had said. Although the information wasn’t anything all too interesting to her, it matched what Scarlet told her, or at least, a similar personality, alongside a perfect time frame. “Did he tell you what his plans were?”

“Hmmm,” Bram mumbled out. “I was drunk most of the time I talked to him. That said, there was one time when I was still sober. He told me something interesting. It was a grand plan or something along those lines.”

“Grand plan?” Lilith asked.

“If I remember correctly,” Bram rubbed his beard and leaned back. “He said there was something far north, and if what he thought was true, he planned to start something.”

Lilith looked at Bram with a puzzled face. “That is… broad.”

“He didn’t go into detail,” Bram responded. “Something was there, and he wanted to know.”

“Did he mention any kind of path? Safe spots? Anything he would do to even make it there?”

“One question at a time,” Bram snarled, putting a hand up to stop another onslaught of questions.