“Should we do a party?” Lily looked up questioningly not at Arthur, who was fully engulfed in a too-tight Mizu hug, but at Milo, who was patiently waiting for his turn to bruise Arthur’s shoulders by squeezing them even more.


    “Party,” Milo said, and nodded. “I can do food. I’m not good at the other parts, though. Are we thinking just back at the hotel?”


    “I guess we could,” Lily said, Still hanging off Arthur’s leg like a round, feathered lamprey. “Although there’s only just enough room in that lobby. If everyone comes, I mean. Arthur, you’ve met at least some people here, right?”


    “Oh, a few. The noodle shop lady, A few local teamasters.” Arthur shook loose from Mizu as her hug finally waned a tiny bit. Milo slammed in from the side for his turn. “And the council, I guess? We could invite them.”


    “Oh, yes, do,” Mizu said. “They are so much fun. Mom used to let me ride on Pomm, when I was little.”


    “Oh, wow. I should have thought of that.” Lily looked wistful. “Is it like a Karbo thing?”


    “No. Much more gentle. Like riding on a very safe cloud.”


    “Let’s get back on track.” Milo was hugging so hard that Arthur’s feet weren’t actually touching the ground, at this point. “Is there enough room at the hotel if all of them come?”


    “No, I don’t believe so,” Philbin said, “If you don’t mind me chiming in.”


    “Philbin!” Milo yelled. “Get in on this hug, if you want. We can get them done faster if we group up.”


    “Oh, sure.” Philbin jumped inside the loop of Milo’s hug as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and then just kept on keeping on. “As I was saying, the hotel you are staying in is one I’ve been to, and I think it might actually hold everyone you know, but it would be uncomfortable. What are we celebrating, again?”


    “Arthur has refused a solemn, important task because it would make him miserable, and everyone agrees that’s probably the right choice,” Lily explained as she puffed up, this time seemingly proud of Arthur instead of herself. “That’s the short version, I think.”


    “Oh, well, then. Quite the occasion.” Philbin thought for a moment. “There’s actually always one big room that’s almost always available, although it’s not necessarily supposed to be used for that. And you might need someone to vouch for you. Someone… established.”


    “Established?” Arthur said. “I own a town. Well, part of it. But everyone knows me there.”


    “He means high level, Arthur,” Mizu said. “Which is suspicious. Because all of us are high level but Lily, so he means high level and… something else?”


    “Yes.” Philbin settled his chin on Arthur’s shoulder and spun him around so he could face Mizu. “You’ve got it. Someone famous, basically. High level. Famous enough that it could be used as an excuse for things.”


    “Oh. Well, no shortage of those,” Lily said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “And you are pretty sure this will get us a room?”


    “Oh, no question. Provided you can provide some world-shaking talent that has, in fact, already shaken the world,” Philbin said.


    “Oddly, that’s no problem. If anything, it’s just going to be hard to choose,” Arthur said.


    —


    They ended up going with all of them. It was easy to forget, but pretty much everyone over the age of twenty-five that Arthur knew was a big deal. There were, as Lily said, plenty of people to choose from.


    There was Ella, whose restaurant Arthur had never actually gone to, but had been absolutely packed every time he had ever seen it open. In the capital, she was busy doing consultations, development partnerships to perfect new recipes, and just visiting other world-famous cooks to check in on what they were working on. When she was free from that, she was holding expositions on various techniques and question-and-answer sessions filled with younger classes who desperately wanted her help. She was in demand.


    Itela was experiencing a more structured week, but as the former head cleric of a major demon city, she had a full calendar of visits and meetings as well. She was here and there doing healing on hard cases that suited her specialities, consulting with other world-class healer-priest-cleric types, and generally advancing the highest level of what people who harnessed the power of both the system and the perhaps-really-existing gods did.


    Karbo was Karbo. Arthur couldn’t imagine anyone actually beating him in a fight, although he suspected the big infernal might have a hard time actually catching Pomm. He was the kind of guy who cities had pre-existing plans for, just so they could survive one of his visits. He was also the kind of guy they called anyway because sometimes something just really needed to be punched hard.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Even Minos and Eito were famous in their own ways. They weren’t household names, mainly because neither of them tended to make a lot of noise when they weren’t actively on the job. Still, they were known as the people you called for certain problems that nobody else could solve.


    It would have been a hard decision, if they actually had to make it. Rather than puzzle over who to bring, the group of young people caught the older group like a rip tide and dragged them out into the ocean of fun they intended to have. The only person they couldn’t find was Eito, who had been conspicuously absent since a few nights ago. With as much who’s-who firepower as they were packing, it hardly mattered. Arthur scribbled down a note for Eito and left it at the hotel in case he stopped by, and they moved on.


    Philbin led them the full round trip from the exterior of the council building to the hotel to pick everyone up, then back in roughly the same direction. After a half hour or so of bantering and traveling, Arthur was shocked out of the general conversation by the location they finally arrived at.


    “Wait, why? Philbin, explain this.” Arthur looked up at the highly enchanted, glowing-with-raw-majicka rock of the building. “Oh, never mind. I get it. We can pick up the council.”


    “Afraid not,” Philbin said. “You can’t pick up people to travel to a place they already are.”


    “Oh, hell. I get it. There’s one room in this place they don’t like to use for meetings. And it’s the actual meeting room,” Arthur said. “The actual council room of the entire demon world?”


    “That’s right.” Philbin beamed. “And it’s free. You just have to convince the council it’s going to be a good party.”


    “Ah,” Arthur said. The backwards-feeling shock of a very casual ruling council was seeping through his veins again. He wasn’t going to come up with anything better than that. He turned to the most weirdness immune person he knew with a pleading look. “Lily?”


    “I got it. Don’t worry.” The owl girl patted his arm affectionately. “Philbin, we didn’t need any of these people for this.”


    “No?” Philbin asked. “It’s not like they know you that well.”


    “Doesn’t matter,” Milo said. “It’s Lily.”


    “Pomm!” Lily yelled at the building, cupping her hands around her mouth to send her voice the extra distance. “Pooooooommmmm! Come here, please!”


    Nobody expected it to work, including Arthur. It wasn’t the sort of thing that really could work, even on the Demon World. Lily’s voice would have to get through feet of majicka-reinforced stone, down some hallways, through a thick wooden door to a very large maintenance closet, and then somehow successfully summon one of the more important people in this particular corner of the universe. It wasn’t a realistic goal.


    All those reasonable expectations stopped absolutely nothing from happening. There was a gentle whoosh like the wind was trying to hide from something as a full-sized bear materialized next to Lily, looking down on her with affection.


    “Yes?” Pomm asked.


    “We want to use the big official room for a big party. You guys are invited. Could you move the chairs out of the way?”


    Pomm thought about this for a minute, as placid as a cow chewing its cud.


    “Yeah. Sure.”


    And then he was gone, his massive bear presence replaced by the sound of rapidly shuffling chairs coming out the open door. Everyone stood and considered what just happened, then shrugged. They had a room.


    “And I’ll go start working on food.” Milo nodded at Philbin. “Good work. You do tour guide stuff, normally?”


    “Outside of the expo, yes. Just send a letter beforehand if you need me.” Philbin pulled himself up into a prouder posture. “I’m pretty good at it.”


    —


    The party was on, and like all Demon World parties, it was pretty good. There was food, there was milling around, there were footraces between Pomm and Karbo. The big red guy, to everyone’s amazement, actually lost those.


    “Could we do a strength-based challenge, or something?” Milo asked.


    Jaiko clapped her hand down hard on the table and shook her head.


    “Not a chance. Even in here. They might not be able to break the walls, but there’s plenty of furniture that wouldn’t survive. Imagine me trying to explain to the building maintenance folks why they’re piecing back thousand-year-old chairs from splinters.”


    “Couldn’t you just… flex your council status, or something?” Arthur asked. “Not that you should, but couldn’t you?”


    “I don’t think you know what a high level building supervisor is like, Teamaster.” Jaiko winced. “Those people are scary. Like protective parent scary. No, nobody is going to bash the place up. Karbo, just accept that you are slightly slower than Pomm. And say something nice, Pomm.”


    “Karbo is terrifying,” Pomm said. “You can’t run from a big enough explosion.”


    “Oh, geez.” Karbo patted Pomm hard on the back. “You know about my explosions.”


    “Of course. Hard to miss them.”


    As Arthur marveled at the fact that Karbo actually had a real, honest-to-god peer, people kept filing in. The crier made it, eventually, having gotten one of the several notes Arthur and the group had left with a specialized courier at Philbin’s suggestion. While she seemed a bit surprised to be included, she melted right into the party and was soon having a good time with everyone else.


    The teamakers came next, bringing a significant amount of cargo with them. Lup was loaded up with a pack containing several dozen different blends of tea in cleverly packed pouches, while Ceti had gone all out on the cookware side, carting in a collection of kettles, teapots, cups and heating elements that rivaled what Arthur normally had set out at his home shop.


    And best of all, she had brought boba pearls, and the stuff Arthur would need to make more of his own.


    “This is great. We can keep tea going all night, like this.”


    “We can,” Ceti said. “I’ll help when you make your tea, you can help when I make mine. Same with Lup. Collaboration is an interesting thing. You can never tell what it’s going to turn up.”


    Arthur and the tea-makers got to work, turning out a variety of beverage wonders that rivaled or surpassed anything they could do individually. Small amounts of wine joined the mix a few hours in, and everyone was in a pretty damn good mood from one source of entertainment or another by the time the last guests finally came in.


    “Huh, Jumie.” Eito turned to his lion-demon companion. “Did you tell anyone?”


    “No. I definitely didn’t expect this,” Jumie said.


    “Arthur, come here,” Eito called. Arthur shambled over and Eito caught him by the arm as soon as he was in range. “How did you know, Earthling? We didn’t tell anyone.”


    “Know?” Arthur was legitimately confused here. Most of the time, nobody accused him of knowing anything. “Know what?”


    “That I’m getting married. We’re getting married.” Eito looked over at Jumie with a level of affection that could have melted an iceberg. “Tonight.”