Vol.6 Ch.12.2 – Sight-Seeing II

Melinoe's Rest was a gorgeous town.

When we'd first visited I had been too preoccupied with our mission and too awed by the Underworld as a whole to really pay attention to it but now that I could focus it struck me immediately.

The Underworld was a very blue place, and I don't mean that metaphorically. The luminescent mushrooms that grew across the plains of moss were colored in light blues and turquoises and the light shining down from the gems in the cave ceiling had a cold tint to it as well. It gave the entire place a cold beauty but it was also a little monotonous. The mushroom forest we'd crossed when first coming here had been a riot of colors by comparison, mushrooms of all hues growing as they wished.

But this town was colored in the same warm light that cities above ground had. Except instead of candles and lantern and fire gems, the light down here came from mushrooms as well. Someone had gone through great trouble to only plant mushrooms with warm colors, ranging from citrus to magenta but leaning towards orange.

It gave the entire place the air of a bustling night market and the fact that the main road was a perpetual night market only emphasized that. But it wasn't just the colors that drew me to the place.

The architecture was an intriguing mix of the Eastern style, the style of architecture associated with the followers of the Olympians, and the Central Trismegistian style that was on full display in the capital. And not the way it was in the capital, where both existed side by side, but as a hybrid between the two. Marble columns supported shingled roofs and small structures similar to the tholoi of the Olympians were built atop Central style brick wells. It didn't clash, either. Everything just fit together, the same way that the dwellings carved into the stone pillar didn't seem out of place.

The village also did not have any obviously low class areas, no shanty towns or slums, and even the peasants lived in stone houses. Though I supposed this was due to wood being too precious a commodity down here to use it for buildings. There were normal trees down here, though they were rare. But it did make me wonder. Were there no peasants in this village? Who grew their food? At least we knew that meat was in relatively short supply, given the group of adventurers we'd met had been hunting monsters for their meat. But then it hit me:

The inn had served us dishes made with Ophiotaurus milk, which meant that they must have livestock. And given the much more dangerous fauna of the Underworld I had to assume they kept their livestock in stables to keep them safe from predators. Similarly, just because I couldn't see wheat growing all around the village that didn't mean they had no agriculture. Their food had included a lot of mushrooms and root vegetables, after all.

So maybe it wasn't so much that there were no farmers but that the farmers made such a good living that they didn't really count as peasants. And wasn't that a thought. It made me like the place a little more.

Either way, I was curious to see what Melinoe would show us here. And so Alisha and I let her lead us through her village.

Evidently while the whole village knew her, not all of them knew her on sight, because very few people turned to look as their ruler led two surface worlders through the streets. We made it through the crowds so easily, in fact, that it took me a moment to realize what was different.

Meli was walking ahead of us. She was confident and walked with a surety I hadn't seen of her. It only made sense. That glaring orb in the sky, so much brighter than any light source down here, was absent and without it blinding her Meli was infinitely more confident. I briefly wondered if there was some kind of magic item to help her with the sun if it made that much of a difference to her.

Finally she stopped in front of a food stall. The proprietor was a beastkin man but I could not for the life of me say what animal he was meant to be. He had fluffy ears and there was some kind of tail wagging low to the ground but I just couldn't tell. And I wasn't going to ask because I couldn't think of a ruder thing to ask. Either way, he was grilling up skewers of some kind of light meat, basting them with a thick amber glaze and flipping them. Meli bought a couple of those skewers, then handed them to us.

“We need to be careful not to eat too much,” she said. “I don't want my chef to get upset later. But a small lunch should be fine. Here, try these.” And before we could even bite into them she was already off to another stall.

I shrugged and looked at the meat. It was a very light meat, about the same shade as chicken breast but looking far more tender. The meat was cut into cubes that were about an inch thick after cooking and the glaze was so thick it gave them a lacquered finish. The grill had left just a little bit of char on them and they smelled of...

“Maple?” I asked quietly.

“Smells like it,” Alisha agreed. “Also pear and something else I can't place.”

I shrugged and pulled a cube of meat off with my teeth. It absolutely was not breast meat. It was juicy and sticky, the fat and cartilage melted down to a lip-smacking texture. The glaze was sweet and salty and a little spicy, and the flavor was so strong that all I could taste of the meat was a slightly nutty flavor.

“So, how is it?” Meli asked as she returned carrying three small tankards, the nice kind that came with metal lids.

“The mouthfeel is to die for,” I said. “I can barely taste the meat itself but the glaze is delicious. What is it?”

“Cave salamander,” she said and I felt my eyes widen. “Have you heard of it?”

“When we first came to the village we came through the mushroom forest,” I said. “We met a group of adventurers there. Saved them from a giant centipede. They were hunting one of these salamanders when the centipede ambushed them.”

Meli narrowed her eyes. “Thank you for saving them but that was foolish. They're supposed to use insect repellent to make sure that doesn't happen.”

“They did,” Alisha said. “But it didn't work. They said they were going to confront the merchant who sold it to them.”

Meli's lips grew thin. “Thank you for telling me this. I will raise this with the council tomorrow. We can't have merchants selling faulty repellent. Everyone here depends on that stuff working.” She visibly calmed down, then asked: “Who were the adventurers?”

I doubted she knew them but I humored her: “A dwarf named Ulrich, a Dark Elf named Karla and an empusa named...” I was blanking on the name.

“Daphne,” Alisha and Meli said at the same time.

I tilted my head. I didn't expect Meli to actually know them.

She read it in my expression. “I know most of the adventurers who risk their lives to feed us. And everyone knows Ulrich, Karla and Daphne. Their love triangle is legendary around here.”

“Well,” I said, “we might have helped them along a little.”

“Helped them along?” Meli asked skeptically.

“They got curious about our relationship,” Alisha said. “And when Daphne learned about it she realized that there was an option that didn't involve fighting Karla for Ulrich's affection.”

“Do you know if anything became of it?” Meli asked.

“Judging by the sounds coming out of their tent,” I said, “yes.”

Meli squealed, actually squealed, and tried to throw her arms wide and hug us but doing so almost caused the tankards to spill and she reined it in. “Thank you, thank you,” she restrained herself to saying.

“I didn't think you cared,” I said, then felt stupid for it.

“Everyone with eyes could see that those three were meant for each other,” Meli said, then began handing us a tankard each. “I'm so glad they finally realized it as well.”

“I think he meant that he didn't think you were this involved with the people of this village,” Alisha said.

“I don't know everyone here,” Meli admitted, “but I do try to know about everyone who does service for the community. And a story like theirs is too interesting not to get invested in. So, how is it?”

I opened the lid of the tankard to find a silvery liquid inside it. It didn't take me long to understand what I was looking at and when I did I took a hearty swig. Alisha seemed more reluctant but when I didn't keel over she tried it as well, then her eyes lit up.

“Mead made from silver honey,” I said. “Incredible.”

“Mead?” Alisha asked. “I've heard the name but I don't know what it is. It tastes nice though.”

“It's wine made of honey,” I said. “It's mostly brewed by the followers of the Aesir though I'm pretty sure I saw mead being sold and served in your village, too.”

“My parents didn't let me have alcohol,” Alisha said quietly. “Before I met you the only time I got drunk was when I had a slice of berry cake that had gone bad.”

“How did any berry cake manage to go bad with you around?” I asked with a smirk.

In response she kicked my shin, though judging by her wince it had hurt her more than me.

“Silver mead,” I mused, taking another swig. “On the surface silver honey is so expensive that nobody in their right mind would waste it on mead but I suppose that's not an issue here.”

“Down here we would say the same about 'golden honey',” Meli said.

Our normal honey being considered a rare delicacy struck me as funny but then I realized that they must be thinking the same thing.

“And you have maples down here?” Alisha asked, waving the empty skewer stick.

“There is a small grove nearby,” Meli said with a nod. “Now, shall we go on? There's so much I want you to see and try.”