I awoke the next morning, sleeping sprawled over Sigmir in our room, wondering how I had gotten there. My mind was rather fuzzy and indistinct but I remembered talking with the others and telling my story to Drega but I didn’t remember much of the telling, nevermind what happened afterwards. When I started moving my head, I felt as if a band of dwarves was trying to mine my brain for ore, using pickaxes, hammers and all sorts of tools to crack open my head, without regard for the mind currently inside. That focus on my head made me notice the taste in my mouth, it was about what I expected to taste if something crawled into my mouth, died and decomposed without me noticing.

My groan must have awoken Sigmir, but I could only guess that she knew my condition, as she didn’t say anything, just put an arm around me and stroked my head with the other hand.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice slightly hoarse but far too loud for my tortured brain, causing me to shudder.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say that you tried to out-drink a troll. Drega told me that you might have a terrible headache and that I should make you drink a lot of water before letting you try to heal it with magic.” Sigmir answered in a whisper, but even that whisper was too loud and made me groan again.

“Just close your eyes for a bit.” Sigmir told me, her voice even softer than before and I felt myself picked up and placed back into the bed. Breathing in, Sigmir’s smell filled my nose and I did as she had told me, closing my eyes and wondering if death would be the preferable option.

I heard Sigmir leave the room and return a short time later. Again, she carefully picked me up and placed me on her lap, my only responsibility was to keep my head from rolling of my neck, something I managed, albeit barely.

“Open your mouth, I have some water for you.” Sigmir told me, her voice barely a whisper. With some effort, my mind remembered where my mouth was and I even managed to open it and felt a cold, smooth material placed against my bottom lip and some water flow into my mouth, washing away the sticky, sickly-sweet taste that was prevalent inside. After I swallowed the first mouth full, my body seemed to scream for more but Sigmir only gave me so much, probably keeping me from spilling it all over the two of us.

Some time later, my body’s need for water was sated and the banging headache had abated somewhat, so I carefully drew runes into the air in front of me, the mental effort bringing back the headache with a vengeance. I gritted my teeth and pushed through. The information flowing back into my mind from the blood-runes I used for healing was a little garbled, but I managed to parse from them that my body was in need of water - or rather, needed to absorb the water I had drunk, and needed to break down some remaining toxins. By now, I had understood that I was having a hangover, so it wasn’t unexpected, and I managed to channel some Astral Power into both processes, in an attempt to bolster my natural healing with magic. It seemed to work; after quite a bit of Astral Power had drained away, I felt remarkably better, allowing me to open my eyes again and look into Sigmir’s slightly worried face.

“Thank you, love. Please, next time remind me to ask what I’m drinking. I had no idea I was getting drunk. Well, at least I think so, my memories of the evening are a little fuzzy.” I spoke, my voice back to normal, without flinching from the volume.

Now, it was Sigmir’s turn to grin widely. “Aw, really? You are such a cute, giggling drunk, it would be a shame if I never see you like that again. But, yes, I will. Maybe you can keep it to ‘affectionate, cuddly drunk’.” she said, her voice thick with amusement.

Part of me was glad that I had not caused property damage - the idea of the magic I was commanding running wild with a drunken fool at the helm was rather scary - but now I was wondering just what I had done to cause her such amusement. But I decided that I did not want to know, I vaguely remembered that I had set up a floating camera to record the telling of my story, thinking about using it for a video, maybe as a narration while images from the encounters were playing on screen. That meant there was a second viewpoint and I could check, later. If I truly wanted to know.

Looking around, I noticed that Lenore was not in her Hallow and nowhere to be seen outside. I asked Sigmir about it and was told that Ylva and Lenore had opted to sleep in the other room, together with Adra and Rai. My incomprehension must have shown on my face, as Sigmir explained that I had made rather explicit statements about my plans with Sigmir during the night, something neither of the two felt a need to witness. That revelation caused me to blush even more, wondering if I had made even more a fool of myself as I had expected.

“Did I do anything to you?” I asked, remembering an idea I had about two weeks ago, the idea to try using my Mind Magic to learn some stimulus-response patterns in Sigmir’s brain and use them for fun and pleasure. Such experiments, as pleasurable as they hopefully would be, were not something I wanted to try out without being in full control of my faculties and with quite a bit of research and preparation beforehand to make sure that Sigmir would be safe. But who knew what drunken-me had cooked up.

“Nothing more than snuggling, don’t worry. And it’s not as if I’m some delicate flower that you could physically overpower and ravage, am I?” Sigmir asked, making me just shake my head, not wanting to get into my ideas to use Mind Magic - a highly dangerous and powerful type of magic - as, basically, a sextoy.

At that point, my stomach decided that it had a need for further sustenance, that the water I had consumed was well and good but it needed something more solid to settle it, and made its desires known with a loud rumbling sound, causing Sigmir to grin even more. We left our room together and when we entered the common room, Drega was already standing behind her counter, talking to Rai and Adra who sat at one of the tables. All three of them started to laugh when Sigmir and I entered, their laughter clearly directed at me, as Sigmir had been in before to get the water for me.

“Impressive, I wouldn’t have thought to see you today, nevermind on two legs. You put away enough mead to make a full-grown troll tipsy but it seems you have recovered quite well after Sigmir got you some water.” she greeted me, after her laughter subsided.

“To be honest, I didn’t realise what I was drinking, only that it tasted good. Luckily, I managed to heal my hangover or you would be right that I wouldn’t be upright by now. Could we impose upon you for some breakfast?” I answered, eliciting more laughter.

“Sure, wait a moment. You healed yourself, you say? Not bad, hangover is one of the few things I can’t heal, some claim it’s the Gods’ punishment for over-indulging.” Drega told us, as she walked back into her kitchen while Sigmir and I sat down with the others.

“So, did you have even more fun after dinner?” Adra asked, widely grinning.

“More than you would believe.” Sigmir answered, smiling, while I was busy blushing bright red. Apparently, I had made my remarks not in the privacy of our rooms, with only Ylva and Lenore as witnesses but in the common room, with however many people listening in. Just as I wondered if I would be able to come up with some sort of mind-wipe spell, Drega brought food for Sigmir and me, some meat-cuts, some cheese, butter and even a bowl of honey, alongside more of her awesome bread and mugs filled with milk.

“There you go, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed your story yesterday. Not many, even amongst adventurers, manage to meet such legendary characters as the Grandmother.” Drega told us, before turning to go back to her counter.

“Thanks. Would you mind talking to me about magic, after we are finished with breakfast? I’d love to know more about the difference between what you and other clerics can do, compared to my own powers.” I asked, causing her to turn back to answer.

“We can talk, sure. But I will not tell you more than the educated people consider common knowledge. I won’t, or rather, I can’t, tell you the secrets of my Mistress.” she explained. I nodded in thanks and started to tug into my food, driven to sate my hunger for food before quenching my thirst for knowledge.