Further along the bar a customer asks one of the other waiting staff for six pints of Poachers Pale, and heads back to his table, balancing a tray full of beer.

"We Roths are relative newcomers," Berta confides to Tic, "but like most of those who have  come here, trying to move on from what lies behind us."

The call for another half dozen pints takes Berta away from the Halfling as she fills the glasses and watches with some concern the progress of the customer with the laden tray as he navigates the Inn's common room.

It's a new day in the Dragon's Den.  The floors have been swept, last night's rubbish has been cleared away, and the bar  has been polished.

The common room is scattered with tables, there are a couple of semi-private  booths with bench seating - and a stage for  musicians and other performers.  As always it is an open stage, and anyone (with an appropriate skill) is welcome to take a turn.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:15, Sun 08 Nov 2020.

Berta prowls the floor of the Inn, her usual swagger evident in her step as she surveys her domain, stopping to banter with, greet or, occasionally, scare the paying guests as the mood takes her.

"Alisa and Domitius's wedding ?" she smiles. "Yeah, I was there.  For the ceremony at least.  Funny thing - most weddings end with a fight, not start with one !"  She snorts in laughter.

"Not the reception, though - far too formal for my blood.  Imagine me in one of those posh frocks !" This from a woman who feels woefully under-dressed when she doesn't have at least one blade close to hand.  "Wished the pair of them all the happiness they can find."

"Besides someone had to keep an eye on you sots !"

Just for a moment the Dragons Den is relatively quiet and Ged can step away from the bar. He walks over to Berta trying to hide a grin.

"You missed a great joke last night, Berta. There was a grumpy old dwarf in here for a while. I didn't catch his name but we got chatting for a while and he really brightened up when I told him about those three shades of dwarven ale we found out about back home - dark, darker and darkest. He took quite a shine to me after that. In the end he said the funniest thing I ever heard; he reckoned I've got more charisma than the rest of our family put together! Gods, how I laughed! I wish Wyn had heard that one. The look on his face would have been priceless."

Wyn sees his brother walk across to Berta, a grin plastered all over his face, a wonders what they are plotting now.  When it is quiet and those two get bored ....

Making his way across, Wyn slaps his brother on the shoulder, "What gives?" he asks cheerfully.

Berta grins broadly at Gedd's recounting of the previous evening.  "Of course he would say that," she tells her younger brother fondly, "you are the baby of the family after all !"

"We've got to get some Dwarven Ale in or brew our own," she suggests to Wyn smiling at her elder brother in turn.  "We'd sell a bucketload."

"You remember those dwarves back home had dark ale, darker ale and darkest ale, right?" Gedd asked his brother. "I was wondering if we could brew something like that over here. The dark ale, I mean - the darker ale was scary stuff and we'd probably be arrested if we started selling the darkest.

"Do you remember when one of Henry's expeditions fetched some sort of special mushroom from the Mudbowl? It sounded like there was lots of weird fungi over there, with a proper monster guarding it. I'd wager a hundred gold there's something there that'd give a good, honest, dark ale the kind of kick that Dwarven Dark Ale had."

"What?  The darkest dark ale?"  Win looks agog at the suggestion, "And are you suggesting that we make it here? in Tusk?"

Then a moment or two later he looks at the pair sideways  "You two are planning a little trip down there?  Aren't you?"

"There's no actual law against brewing the Darkest Ale," Berta points out.  "At least not yet ... unless the authorities classify it as a poison.  Or taste it ..."

"The hallucinations don't last that long !"

Gedd grinned a very toothy smile.

"No, not the Darkest. Not yet. Maybe never. Just the Dark Ale for starters," he clarified. "There'd certainly be a market for it here. I think the brewing of it had something to do with Shadowrock, didn't it? We don't have anything like that here, at least not that I've heard of. But some of those mushrooms just might do the trick.

"The catch is that monster down at the Mudbowl. It's definitely dangerous but there's a rumour that if that monster gets killed, the mushrooms will die out too. So getting our hands on a good range of those mushrooms to experiment with will be difficult enough in the first place and ongoing supply would be quite a challenge, as well."

Darius walked into Dragon's Den with a rolled up piece of parchment and small bag slung over his shoulder. It wasn't odd to see Darius at the Den throughout the day; he was known to enjoy his ale, good company, and a catchy tune. With a nod to the proprietors he latched onto the few words he heard as he entered, "Where are we going?" And with a smile he turned to Berta, "Looking lovely as always."

Wyn breathes a sigh of relief, although he isn't sure about brewing narcotic ale -  at any strength.  Still, an experiment or two won't hurt , "So  are you two planning a trip down there, or were you intending to hire someone?"

For a moment Berta considers it, raising a speculative eye at Gedd  ... then sighs and shakes her head.  "I must be getting old," she moans.  "No, we should hire someone," she tells Wyn, looking as though she finds the very words distasteful.

"And you just put that chair down Yon Famerson !  Don't make me come over there !"

She glares over her brothers' shoulders at the unruly patron.

"Err ... I don't think we are going anywhere, Darius." Wyn responds to the young man.  "We have an inn to run now!  He says with a sharp look towards his brother.  "Gedd was just reminiscing about something that happened a long time ago, in a very different place."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 15:39, Tue 24 Nov 2020.

"No, not yet anyway," Gedd agreed with a twinkle in his eye.

"I might put the word out, though, that we'd be interested in buying any samples of mushrooms retrieved from the Mud Bowl. Someone's bound to visit the place again eventually."

"Tell them we're buying and you can win any wager the place will be overrun by morning !" Berta snorts.

"I'm watching you Yon Farme ... oh, you just wanted an extra chair.  That's alright then ..." she lets him off this time.

Matters there sorted to her satisfaction, the warrior-woman now turns her attention to Darius, eyes narrowing, ignoring the pleasantry.  The man is pretty enough for her tastes, pretty enough to stand out in this crowd, but spoils it by being what she terms 'friendly', or at least that's the word she chooses to use in polite company or what passes for such around here.

"We are staying right here," Berta tells him sternly.  "And we are keeping our hands to ourselves if we know what is good for us."

"We're staying here?" Darius asks with a sly grin. "Wonderful, that means we get to spend more quality time together," he adds with a wink to Berta. He carries his things to a nearby table and starts to roll out the parchment, which appears to be the start of a rather nice looking map of Midmarch.

After taking a seat, he turns to Gedd, "So what's so special about these mushrooms coming from the Mud Bowl? Maybe I could help you acquire some, that is kind of what I do."

"I hope he's already got a site for his grave marked out on that map," Berta rumbles, leaving Gedd to talk to Darius as she goes looking for trouble elsewhere in the common room.

Wyn looks at Gedd expectantly.  After all, he is the charming one, who knows all about dark beers and mushrooms.  Wyn's hearing might be just a bit  better than he admits to.

"Give me a couple of bottles of the Darkest Ale to share at the next council meeting and we wouldn't have a problem getting a licence for it.  They'll be begging us to brew it.  I'd probably be anointed Queen of Midmarch by the end of the proceedings ..." Berta continues to mutter crossly as she looks for a patron to accost.

Gedd sits down with Darius to talk about mushrooms and dark ale. Darius's map certainly helps with the explanations.

"There's a strange old woman who the locals here call the Swamp Witch, who lives in a hut on the western side of the Tuskwater. She doesn't welcome visitors but will trade potions for black rattlecap mushrooms from the Mud Bowl, which is over on the eastern side of the Tuskwater. One of Lord Henry's exploration expeditions sailed over to the Mud Bowl and came back with one of those black rattlecap mushrooms. That's all they managed to get because the Mud Bowl is guarded by some sort of giant plant monster, or something like that. Anyway, they reported there were lots of different sorts of exotic mushrooms and toadstools in the Mud Bowl. But the catch is this - rumour says if the guardian monster is killed the mushrooms won't grow there anymore.

"As I was saying earlier, back home where we came from the dwarves used to brew three strengths of dark ale - dark, darker and darkest - with progressively stronger mind-bending side effects. One mug of their Dark Ale could knock you on your ear if you couldn't handle it, but I reckon there would be a good market for that if we could brew something like it here. Just the Dark Ale, mind, not the Darker Ale or the Darkest Ale.

"We don't have the key ingredient they used - something called shadowrock - but everyone's heard rumours about 'magic' mushrooms, right? Well, I'd bet some of those mushrooms from the Mud Bowl could give the right sort of kick to an ordinary dark ale to make it into something close to proper Dwarven Dark Ale. So, I would love to get hold of a good range of samples from the Mud Bowl so we can experiment with them over at our brewery."

"Hmm, well that is a quandary, isn't it," Darius asked as he rubbed his chin. "I'm sure you could commission some of these adventuring types to go get you some mushrooms, but you'd have to be careful they're not the kill first, ask questions later type if the rumors about the monster are true. And even if they did get ahold of some, what you really need is to setup a routine shipment of them. I wonder if anyone's tried to communicate with this plant monster, maybe try to establish an agreement of some sort? Maybe commission one of those druid types to go there and sort something out?"

He shrugs as he looks down at the map for moment, "Otherwise, maybe ask some of the dwarves that have migrated here? I know a couple pretty well, maybe you could setup a shipment of this shadowrock with them?"

Wyn rolls his eyes.

Gedd grinned at Darius's suggestions and Wyn's reaction.

"One step at a time. I just want samples of those mushrooms to start with. I am only going on a hunch at this stage. Maybe none of them will work the way I hope. Perhaps someone who is sailing past the Mudbowl will visit and grab some samples for me. I'm not talking about a big enough reward to make it worthwhile funding an expedition just for that purpose.

"Forget I mentioned shadowrock at all. It is too far away to be economical to start shipping it here, and that stuff is too dangerous anyway."