Showing the Imperials to their rooms seemed easy enough. It was a large suite setup; actually, there were several different suite areas. The one Serenity started with was the largest, with a TV area with a couch just past the entryway, followed by a more open room with a bunch of couches. Off to one side, there was a dining area and just beyond that was the kitchen. In the other directions, there was a bathroom, two bedrooms, and a hallway that led to the other four bedrooms and a second bathroom.
Serenity expected to have to explain the electronics, but they didn’t even get that far. Instead, the first question came as they walked past the dining room, shortly before Serenity started to describe the rest of the layout.
“Why is there a sink here?” One of the guards pointed over the raised bar area and into the kitchen. It was a small kitchen, but it still had a four-burner stove with an oven, a microwave, a full-sized fridge, and a dishwasher. It just didn’t have room for much of anything else beyond the dishes and pots and pans. The only real counter space was the bar area; everything else was occupied.
Both Lord Cymryn and World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart had completely blank faces as Serenity turned to the guard who asked the question. This was the one that hadn’t put his foot in his mouth yet and Serenity suspected the Lord and the Shaman thought that had just changed.
As far as Serenity was concerned, it was probably a cultural difference of some sort. It was entirely likely that others had the same question. “Well, this is the kitchen area.”
“Kitchen area?” The guard moved around the bar and took a good look at the fittings. “This doesn’t look like an oven.”
Serenity took a good look around the kitchen. Everything was labeled normally, but that meant that most things weren’t labeled and the things that were, like the microwave, were labeled in English. Some things, like burner locations, were in pictures but even the things with symbols really required you to know what they meant. Even if they were able to read English, which Serenity wasn’t sure he could count on, they probably wouldn’t be able to use a modern kitchen.
Of course, that assumed they were able to use a kitchen at all. A lot of people didn’t cook for themselves; especially in cities, it was easier and usually cheaper to take things to a central oven to be heated or even just buy premade food. It wasn’t all that much more expensive unless you wanted something special. If you did want something special, like high Tier food, you were better off buying it from someone with an appropriate Path anyway. Out on the open road, it often made sense to cook - but you’d be using a campfire then, unless you were with a large enough group to make hauling an oven worthwhile.
“Uh. Yeah, I didn’t think about that. I’ll have to go over how everything works, but we can do that later, when you want to cook.” Serenity was pretty sure the kitchen wasn’t the only area where they’d run into difficulties. It wasn’t that the offworlders didn’t have the ability to heat and cool food; instead, the problem was mostly how things were marked. Modern appliances required a familiarity that they didn’t have. Serenity expected that most Americans would have similar difficulties the first time they tried to use offworld tools. Serenity knew how, but he had the advantage of having used them before.
“That sounds reasonable,” Lord Cymryn interjected. “I suppose we’ll talk about the other artifacts in here later, too.”
Serenity looked up to see Lord Cymryn wave in the direction of the television. Serenity was just as happy to put off explaining that for a bit. “Yeah. That’s … I’m sure you’ll find it useful, but it’s not necessary. I can explain it before I leave. Anyway, we have two bedrooms over here and a bathroom; the others are down the hall. Blaze wasn’t certain how many people you’d have, so we have six bedrooms and two bathrooms. Oh, on the bathrooms - hot is on the left and cold is on the right. They’re levers and so is the waste disposal; it’s all water-driven here.”
The Imperials looked at the bathrooms one at a time. Cymryn didn’t say anything, but World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart paused in the doorway. “I see the heating is handled elsewhere; there doesn’t seem to be a mana input here.”
Serenity nodded. “Yeah, that’s standard. I’m not sure how Aki’s handling the heating here; she’s probably using magic.”
Senkovar nodded. “That’s pretty common, but I have to ask; why are you using such large tiles?”
Serenity looked at the tiles that covered the bathroom. They were roughly a foot long on each side, but they seemed pretty normal to Serenity. “Some places have big tiles, some have small tiles. I’m not sure it matters?”
There were no other real surprises as Serenity showed them the rest of the suite; while it clearly wasn’t the style they were used to, the functionality was close enough that Lord Cymryn and the World Shaman clearly weren’t shocked by most of what they saw. The two guards were obviously less well traveled; they kept muttering about the windows, of all things. Serenity wasn’t certain why the windows were a big deal.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
When Serenity showed them how to use the TV, Lord Cymryn seemed charmed by the notion, but he seemed to think that it was all live. The World Shaman, on the other hand, had seen “captured memory” enchantments in the past and he seemed impressed only with how many options there were, rather than by the concept. Serenity wasn’t certain that he actually understood that he was seeing a streaming service, rather than shows stored in the television itself, but other than that he seemed to grasp it quickly.
The television made one other thing clear quickly. The guards were definitely using a translation aid that only managed spoken language while both Lord Cymryn and the World Shaman were using better enchantments that could handle the written word as well. They were definitely using different versions, as well, since Cymryn seemed to have trouble with anything that wasn’t a whole word while Senkovar easily figured out spelling (even if he was roundly defeated by English phonetics).
On second thought, that could be the languages they were translating into. Serenity didn’t know what the World Shaman’s native language was, but if he remembered correctly, Imperial used a non-phonetic written form. It was entirely likely that Cymryn was having trouble with spelling words out to search for them because Imperial didn’t have spelling.
Even if Senkovar could understand the concept of spelling, he didn’t have a clear grasp on what words to search for. When he did manage to come up with a search term, he seemed to misspell it at least one time in three. Serenity was trying to figure out how else he could explain it when Aki took the problem out of his hands. “If you’re looking for something, tell me and I’ll handle the search.”
Serenity looked up, surprised. “I didn’t expect you to say anything.”
“Your cousin already spoke to me, so there’s no reason to stay quiet,” Aki admitted. “He seems nice enough. He’s polite and respectful, even if he did mistake me for Gaia.”
“Cousin?” Serenity didn’t have any cousins. Both of his parents were only children. If there were any extended relations, he hadn’t met them. He’d always felt a little strange when people talked about having lots of relatives, because he didn’t. It was one of the things he liked about Rissa’s family; she had relatives, but not that many. He wasn’t overwhelmed but he also had a chance to see what a more “normal” family was like.
Not that Rissa’s family was at all normal. Admittedly, he hadn’t really realized that until he came back in time; he’d known Rissa had a minor level of foresight, but that was all. He’d been very wrong about just how minor it was, too.
“Cousin, uncle, something like that. I don’t know exactly what your relationship is.” Aki sounded impatient. “You’re definitely related; I could tell that even without the name. You look related. If even I can tell that, it’s obvious.”
The name? Did she mean Et’Tart?
He’d forgotten to tell Aki that was supposed to be a secret, hadn’t he? He’d just assumed she knew, since she overheard almost everything that was said in her domain. Serenity couldn’t remember if he’d talked about the plan with Blaze inside Aki’s dungeon or not. He thought he had, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe the relevant bits happened on A’Atla? That was certainly where they’d first talked about the Et’Tart lineage.
Serenity didn’t think Aki would have chosen to reveal the information if she knew it was supposed to be a secret, so this was really his fault. Well, his and Blaze’s, but mostly his. It hadn’t occurred to Serenity that Aki would talk in front of strangers, since she usually didn’t, but it should have. She spoke up sometimes in the Adventurer’s Guild. People seemed to think she was someone speaking over a really good PA system, and she seemed to be getting more comfortable with it.
Before Serenity could pull his scattered thoughts together after the surprise, the World Shaman threw in a surprise of his own. Serenity hadn’t yet processed the fact that he’d already spoken to Aki.
“That’s the Location Spirit for this area, isn’t it?” World Shaman Senkovar sounded slightly breathless. “I haven’t heard a Spirit speak out loud in decades. How … this is your doing, isn’t it?”
Serenity shook his head. “It’s Aki’s choice. She’s her own person. If anyone other than her had something to do with it, it’s Raz. He’s the one that saved her and brought her here where she could be comfortable.”
“I definitely want to meet this Raz, then,” the World Shaman stated. “I do not think you understand just how rare a talkative Spirit of any sort is, and a Location Spirit … you said her name is Aki? I should apologize, Aki; I should not call you simply a Location Spirit.”
There was a short pause, then Aki laughed. “I told you he was polite. Call me if you need me; I need to go shoo some teenagers away from the kobolds. Again.”
Serenity shook his head. He knew what Aki was complaining about; word had apparently gotten out that the Kobolds’ Lair portion of the dungeon under the Adventurer’s Guild building was set up as a trapfinding training course more than anything else. A group of teenagers from the local middle school seemed to have taken that as a challenge and kept trying to use the area as a combination obstacle course and playground. No one wanted Tier Zero children getting hurt in the dungeon, so Aki kept having to shoo them outside. She’d muttered about making the traps course harder to get to, but that would cause its own difficulties.
Lord Cymryn looked back and forth between Serenity and the World Shaman. “So you’re both going to ignore her saying that you’re related?”
“Yes,” the World Shaman answered. “Clan matters should be discussed in private.”
Serenity was definitely not pleased that he’d been promoted to being a Clan matter.