Entering the town, the trio looked around at the buildings. The style seems to be ,maybe Elizabethan or Jacobean era. The people were a mix of humans. There seems to be animal people and what looks like game style dwarfs or gnomes.
“ so this is a thing, then. There really are beast men and dwarfs here.” Ella said nearly breaking her neck spinning her head back and forth.
Lex walked up to a young human male. “ excuse me……”
“yes.”
“ is there somewhere to eat and sleep.?”
“there are two taverns, three inns and a few hostels. And there are two hotels if you have the coin.”
“ thank you. Is there any where to find work?”
“ hmm. There are a few. There’s the stone quarry, trash collection, messenger service. They pay per letter or parcel delivered. Or we have the mercenary guild. They hire soldiers, guards , mercenaries, monster hunters and dungeon divers.”
“ where do we find the mercenary guild?”
“follow the road up to the crossroad turn north and it’s the first stone building.”
Lex thanked the man and walked up the road towards the guild hall.
Outside the guild hall, Lex noticed a couple of guards standing by carriages. The trio walked up to the guards.
“Excuse me. Is it ok to leave my wagon here?” Lex pointed to his trolly.”I don’t think I can take it inside with me.
“It’ll be 1 Gif a turn.”
“update……. a Gif is the denomination, 1 Gif is a copper coin. A turn is an hour. Named after the hourglass being turned every hour.I will try to ascertain the rest of the money shortly .”
Lex handed the guard the square copper piece and he turned an hourglass. The trio entered the guild.
There were three sets of counters and notice boards. Soldier and guards .on the left . mercenary on the right. Monster hunter and dungeon divers straight ahead.
“ monster hunter and dungeon divers sounds like adventurer. Should we go full RPG.?”
“ I’m thinking it would be our best option. This or postman, but I don’t think that pays enough to keep us all in food and equipment.”
Approaching a balding middle age man with his glasses set on the end of his nose. The trio stood in front of the counter and waited.
“ can I help you?”
“ yeh, we was wandering what you could tell us about joining and how we get work.”
“do you have experience in hunting monsters or delving into dungeons?”
“we’ve kill goblins, some kind of apes and a huge bear badger thing.”
“good. Do you have any weapons and armour?”
“ weapons and a kind of armour.”
He handed out 3 forms and some kind of pen. “can you fill in these forms and bring them back and we will scan your levels.”
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The three walked to a round table and started reading the forms. The words morphed into English. Or maybe the words were translated. Filling in name , age , sex and race. Each filled in their stats and level. Then returned the forms. The clerk then scanned each with a torch like implement that checked the system. Printing a card after each scan.
“ your scans have produced you a card that will allow you to get work in the dungeons, monster hunting and mercenary work. You will be starting at rank d. the ranks are e,d,c,b,a,s. as you have experience and have raised levels you will be starting at d rank. Keep these cards safe. They are your id, you also need them in order to get jobs and also to buy certain tools and weapons. Do you have any questions?”
“just one for now. Where is the closest inn. We are quite hungry and tired.”
“ ah, yes. Just opposite there is an inn. It has a sign with a yellow bird on it. Its 15 Gif a night with dinner and breakfast included. Drinks are separate.”
“ one more question, and I’m sorry if I come across slow.” Lex took out the coins from his pocket.” can you tell me how much these coins are worth.”
The clerk raised an eyebrow.” hmm. You have 20 copper, those are ten Gif, you have 7 silver, a silver is 10 copper. A round silver is 5 silver. A gold is 10 round silver a round gold is 10 gold and white gold is 100 round gold. There is black gold but unless you are a high noble or royalty don’t worry about that one.”
“ thank you so much. We will come in tomorrow to look for work. Goodbye.”
The clerk nodded his head and waved them off.
Leaving the wagon with the guard , they headed over to the inn. A beast woman stood behind the counter.
“welcome to the harrow inn.”
“ hi, I would like to rooms please.”
“ that’s 15 Gif per room per night.”
“ how long for a silver?”
Stroking her bear shaped ear.” I can do two rooms for 3 cycles, food included , pay separate for drinks. Of course water is free.”
“deal. Oh I have a small cart. Do you have a shed or yard I can keep it in?”
“ I have a covered court yard out back. How big is it.”
“ about the size of a table.”
“ that’s fine. Just take it around the back and it will be secure.”
“ thank you.” he handed her a silver coin and received 2 keys and left to get the cart.
The girls went to their room while waiting for Lex to come back with the bags.
Lex thanked the guard and took his wagon to the back of the inn, taking only what was needed with him . leaving the camping and cooking equipment in the cart. Struggling with 3 packs and 2 shoulder bags up the narrow stairway, he made his way to his room. Knocking on the girls room on his way past.
“ come sort your stuff out.”
Taking out his key , he unlocked his door and wobbled to the bed and sat down , taking a couple of deep breaths.
Shortly there was a knock on the door, and the girls walked in.
“we need to sort out our things. I’ve left the camping stuff outside. We can keep our clothes in our rooms so we need to sort what we need to take with us to a dungeon. Definitely need water and some food, I have bandages and antiseptic,. we have our weapons. El, you’re gonna have to bring the crossbow and bolts just in case. And anything else we need.
We have some items to sell, so if we can find a buyer we can make some space and money.”
Emptying the bags the girls put their clothes in a shoulder bag, the other one full of items cut from monsters and items taken from the goblins . Lex put in the compass as he had a built in gps . and 2 fire starters just to see if he could sell them. Re packing the backpacks with what was needed, and put them by the door ready to go . Lex hung his clothes in the cupboard to hang out any creases.
“ Do you want to go hang your things up? You go sort your stuff out and came back when you’re ready to eat.”
While the girls went back to their room , Lex went to the bathroom and washed himself down. Returning to his room , he lay on his bed and closed his eyes for a quick rest. The bed creaked under his weight.
An hour later the girls came back and woke him up and they went down for dinner.
The food was plain but plentiful. Meat stew with some kind of dumplings. It was quite spicy but not overly so. There was brown crusty bread and a side order of a white vegetable. Kind of like a spicy cabbage, celery hybrid. It almost tasted like Korean kimchi. Although Lex had only ever had shop bought so he didn’t know what real kimchi tasted like.
Paying a round copper Lex ordered a jug of fruit wine and 3 glasses.
The wine wasn’t too bad. It was sweet and fruity with fruit peel floating in it.
“ rather like a sangria” Lex said, wishing he had ice cubes .
“ the foods good here. And it’s in with the price too. That’s so good”
After dinner the three of them went for an evening walk around town so Lex could plot the town with his mapping.
It was relatively quiet, a few people walking round. all but a few specialist shops , inns and taverns were closed for the night. And of course the guild was open also.
Returning to the inn the girls decided to have an early night. So Lex sat alone by the fire drinking a type of black tea. Luckily the inn had a syrup that tasted like honey so Lex was happy.
In their room the girls took advantage of their first real night alone in private. Both nervous but excited in a new relationship.