After we left the casino, Abel and Mel brought us deeper into Doomtown. In the inner reaches of the city, the lights weren't quite as red, bleached out by streetlamps glowing a blinding white. I noticed as we walked that the place seemed much more relaxed here. Not completely safe, but at the very least people seemed less likely to jump and kill us. I was so surprised by the shift in atmosphere I had to bring it up. "What's the deal with this place? It seems so much quieter and more restful than the rest of the town."

Abel chuckled. "This is Sunshine boulevard. It's...not exactly a neutral zone, but open conflict is discouraged. Be careful of eating anything you didn't see prepared in front of you, but you're not likely to get stabbed from behind. Even the outsiders probably won't start anything direct here. Of course, there are stealthier methods of killing and those are still more than possible, but there's far less benefit to that unless you build a rep for it over time. This is one of the few places where it's safe to sleep down here."

That was something I'd been wondering about. "So we're staying down here for the whole two weeks? Admittedly walking back up those damn tunnels every night sounds annoying. Do you guys have some old friend around here we can stay with or something?" I gestured behind me to where Sloane was leading the Beast Lord crew. "Because I'll be honest, I don't think we're going to fit in someone's spare room."

"Not at all." Said Mel. "We don't really know anyone who hangs out in places like Sunshine Boulevard. We DO know of a pretty reputable inn around here though. Even we need somewhere to sleep. We never spent enough time here to get to know the owners or anything, but the Blue Robin Tavern has rooms for rent and is pretty much the closest thing to guaranteed safety in Doomtown."

The dark stone buildings were the same design as the rest of the town as we walked, but the change in lighting made them seem much different. The red lighting had given the buildings a squat, devilish appearance, but in the much lighter (albeit still pink tinged) light from the mixed streetlights and overhead illumination of the city, the stone seemed sturdy and reliable, and all the buildings seemed just a bit taller, even if I knew they weren't.

What was more, as we walked down Sunshine Boulevard I could see bright green ivy climbing up the stone walls, artfully spread across the outside of the buildings in beautiful patterns that I was positive weren't natural. Callie smiled happily at the relaxing view and leaned against me, seemingly losing herself in the laid back atmosphere. Despite that I could feel just a bit of tension in her shoulder where it pressed against my side. She might seem relaxed but she was smarter than to let her guard down completely here.

After walking for about twenty minutes we stopped at a building that looked similar to but not exactly like the others. It was made of the same black stone, and had the same ivy, but it was much larger than any of the nearby structures. At two stories and twice as wide the Blue Robin Inn (there was a sign above the front door) stood out starkly from everything around it. The owners had clearly put a lot of time and effort into building it up.

Abel clicked his tongue. "Ugh. It's all boring and idyllic. I forgot how lame this place was. Aside from someone trying to slip me shadeviper venom in a glass of beer once I've never had any fun at this place. They even cook the food right in front of you so people don't have to worry as much."

Patting him on the shoulder, Mel said gently. "Yes, but most people like that sweetie. Besides, don't pretend you never enjoy any downtime, you ran that sausage cart for years, are you telling me you got regular assassination attempts on you during that whole time?"

"Well no." Complained Abel. "But that's not the same. This is Doomtown. It's like going to an amusement park and not getting on the rides. Attempted murder is part of the fun. I'm not here for a peaceful meal and a nice rest." He sighed. "Still, I guess the kids could use the break." He turned to us. "Plus this place is a great location to farm intel. People come from all over Doomtown to stay here, so it's got a good cross section of potential sources."

Callie perked up a bit at that, but I was pretty ambivalent. I was getting bored with constantly trying to squeeze information out of everyone. I knew it was important, but it just didn't really amuse me much. "Do they have anything interesting to do here?" I knew fighting was a no go, but there had to be SOME form of entertainment.

"Of course." Mel said reassuringly. "Don't listen to him. Even I'm not as battle crazy as he is. There are a bunch of things to do. They even have a special pool table that weights your stats a lot like our obstacle course. Beating more powerful Ascendants is always fun. You can bet on the outcomes but you don't have to."

That DID sound like fun actually. I had enjoyed playing pool sometimes as a mortal, though I hadn't been in ages. It made me think of Benny. His dad and grandfather both played when they were young and he was kind of raised to it. I went with him and his father a few times and I'd really enjoyed it. "Sounds like a blast. I'll give it a try when we get in there." I glanced at Callie. "Want to try a game?"

She shook her head. "Nah. I want to ask around about some of the local players more. You go ahead, we can meet up to go get something to eat after." I shrugged. That was fair. We spent a lot of time together but it wasn't like we were attached at the hip. I could find someone else to play a game with.

I turned to Abel. "You down for a game of pool? If you're going to sit around and sulk about not fighting anyway might as well enjoy yourself while you're at it."

"That doesn't sound too bad." He mused aloud. "I don't hate EVERYTHING about this place. The food and drink is solid. You can even get Moontear Brandy here. Granted, it's stupid expensive, but it's just about the best F-rank drink you can find on Callus. I haven't had any in ages." He shot Mel a pleading glance. "You think I could get the kid a glass of the good stuff? To celebrate how far he's gotten in training."

Mel's voice as she responded was icy. "No, Abel. You can not buy yourself and one of our students a snifter of brandy that costs eight E-ranked chits per glass. We'd have to clean out the whole pavilion. If it wasn't so expensive, why do you think the Robin would still have that bottle after all these years? You're the only person I've heard of crazy enough to buy a glass of it."

"It's not like I didn't share." Sulked Abel. "I let you have a sip didn't I?" Despite his tone, my brain was still frozen on the price. I'd bought a fucking CAR that could FLY for less than an F-ranked chit. In fact, I had very little understanding of what Ascendant money was actually worth. I mean, I knew each level of chit was worth ten times the lower levels, but I hadn't really seen much about what that entailed.

I should probably get a better grip on how the economy worked given my position of power in the Pavilion. Sure, I had other people for that, but it wasn't like I would always have people like Mel around. The prices for things as far as I'd seen were pretty arbitrary, but a lot of that could be explained by massive variance in quality of goods and materials. I'd have to look into what a standard unit of currency even was. My massive windfalls and quick jumps between ranks had kind of skewed my understanding of how money worked.

Despite his obvious unhappiness Abel didn't dwell on things. He strolled up to the Blue Robin's front door and rapped on it a few times. The door opened to show a squat, dark skinned man with broad shoulders and blonde hair, a permanent scowl etched on his features. "Why are there so many of ye?" He said, in a thick accent that reminded me quite a bit of Alden. "We don't have the rooms for ye each to get one."

His steel grey eyes bored into us harshly, as if we were offending him by even standing here when there were clearly too many of us. Mel put up both hands placatingly. "Not a problem. We only need..." She turned to look at us. "Four?" Sloane nodded, unbothered by sharing a room with some of her initiates. We obviously wouldn't stuff twelve people in a room together, but six was less of a problem. "Yeah, we'll take four rooms. Do you have enough openings?"

The scowling man narrowed his eyes like he thought she was trying to trick her way past, but slowly turned his gaze to the side, clearly reading something. "Aye." He said grudgingly. "We can accommodate ye for four rooms. We're close to capacity, but we have that many rooms. I'll remind ye that this is a neutral location and that troublemakers will be punished. We have an F-ranker standing watch, so no funny business. We have enough trouble with some of the outsiders here for that blasted tournament."

We all gave serious nods and the man stared hard at us for a minute before stepping back, opening the door. Once we were inside Abel leaned in to murmur to Mel. "Wow. This place is way less friendly than I remember. Last time we were here they had a pixie at the door. She was much more welcoming."

The small, broad shouldered man spun and smacked a palm into the wall. "No complaining! Or ye'll sleep on the street!" Abel shut up, but not without a quiet snicker that I was sure the man had heard. Still, my teacher wasn't wrong, this guy wasn't exactly a customer service elite.

Once we were inside we split up. Abel and I headed for the pool table, Callie and Mel for the bar, Sloane to figure out the distribution of rooms for her crew. I was happy to see that they had a nice selection of custom cues available to use, and all of them seemed incredibly sturdy and well made. Sure enough though, as soon as we picked them up, we felt ourselves become restricted, our bodies and minds slowing down to nearly mortal levels. I knew our Impact would remain untouched, it took more than some random table to suppress that stat, so we weren't in any danger, this would just make the game more fair.

There was a sign up sheet to one side of the table with some names I couldn't read on it, and we wrote ours down. We were signed up for a game of doubles since the place was so busy, single player games were scheduled for later in the night. We wouldn't get to play against each other but that was fine, this was mostly just for amusement and to kill time. When we arrived at the table though, I froze in place, a familiar pair of amber eyes meeting mine from across the surface. "Well." Said Wren, of the Spear Legion. "This is certainly a quicker meeting than I was expecting. Do you think this counts as a rematch?"