We all sat at the dinner table, with me hanging from the ceiling. Bruises ran down my arm, from Leo flapping his wings while I hugged him. The Captain sat opposite to me, sprinkling small pebbles onto a steak of beef. Adrian was stuffing his face noisily with various scrap metal, while Alister watched in disgust, picking at a small bowl of soup. Leo munched an apple. I piled my plate with some iron bits.
"Oh, Rinire!" the Captain said, picking something off the underside of the table. "I almost forgot: Ibele sent over your inhalers!"
He put the small metal canister in my hand, but it pulled toward the ceiling and landed with a clang. There was a label on it: 'Curse Assistance Society, Rinire Elrund. Hydrogen Inhaler.'
I picked it up. I bit the top off, gas shooting into my mouth, and breathed in. Timing my breaths, I tried not to let any gas out: it can be highly flammable.  You may be wondering: why are we eating such strange things? Our curses. Curses are acquired after birth, and they need to be fed. If you don't feed your curse, then you can't use it. For example, Adrian ate 2.5 kg of metal this evening. He can now summon that much metal. But he has been eating metal for the past decade, so he can summon a couple of tonnes of metal.
"You're meant to do that outside," Alister said, poking a large bit of potato in his soup. "If even a spark had reached you, your lungs would have been blown to bits. In fact, I wish it had exploded ."
I ignored him, and shovelled meat and iron bits in my mouth. I finished my plate, but everyone else was still eating, so I got seconds.
A few minutes later, everyone was done eating. I was bored senseless, as Adrian started talking to Leo about the cattle economy (my least favourite conversation subject). Then we began to pack. Since we were headed to Medusa's, we needed to gather our things. She lived deep underground, in the Decrepit Sewers, which is a low-level dungeon on the outskirts of Ragni, populated mostly by rats and skeletons.
We stood at the edge of the sewer. The key collector stood before us, his wrinkles and rotten teeth showing as he grinned. The sewer smelt worse than him: your usual slop from the toilet, as well as the dead bodies of travelers.
"Keys?" the man asked. Captain Ranol had given us keys before we left. Everyone took one out. The key collector sneered, and swiped them out of our hands.
"You may pass. But don't blame it on me if you don't come back," he chuckled, as we walked past him. We stared into the depths of the sewer.