CHAPTER 8

“Ok, so our intrepid hero finally makes it to town.”

“And he managed not to kill anyone or piss anyone off enough to kill him. Progress or setback?”

“I would say progress. It’s interesting to see the townspeople react to him and his…innocence.”

“I would have said ignorance.”

“Let’s say we split the difference and say his naivete.”

“‘Naivete?’ Jesus, pretentious much?”

“Just because you can’t spell it doesn’t make its use pretentious.”

“Either way, it’s not what I was expecting.”

“How so?”

“Dude, you saw his interviews. He’s about as antisocial as they come. I was fully expecting him to go all stabby-stabby on Kyle when he bowed up to him, but he backed down.”

“Do you think we were premature in our assessment of his integration?”

“I was premature with your mom last night.”

“You want to reconsider what you just said? Doesn’t exactly speak to your prowess in bed, now does it?”

“Fuck off.”

“Is that what ‘my mom’ said to you after you two-pumped her last night?”

I’ve always heard about the sense of smell being the most truly powerful sense. You spend a lifetime jacked into the internet, you find out some weird shit. It plays a huge part in taste, and the fact that it’s directly connected to the limbic system means that it is also directly linked with memories and emotions. So I can only assume it is that fact making my hackles rise up on the first waft of air coming from inside the inn.

The smell of cheap beer and unwashed bodies hits me like a bitter, nostalgia-flavored slap across the face. Not that my drunk of an old man ever hit me. Hell, sometimes I wish he would have. At least it would have showed some kind of emotion other than apathy and self-pity. No, it was his breath that bugged me more than anything; a swampy mix of shitty light beer, cigarettes, and shame. It was the smell of failure. When I was really young, I always knew it was time to go drag him off to bed when I heard the national anthem played as the channel signed off. We never had cable, so that was something I heard almost up to the time I was through with elementary school.

It was always the same thing; slurred words of apology for falling asleep, asking if I’d had dinner yet, and a sweaty arm draped over my shoulder as we trudged down the short hallway to his room. Once I hit high school I stopped helping him get under the covers, and once I got to college I stopped helping him altogether. I figured he never helped, so why should I? I would come out of my room in the morning to find him incoherent, wearing the dirty clothes from the day before, passed out in his recliner with an army of “dead soldiers” scattered around on the floor.

In fact, the last time I saw him he was sitting there in that fucking chair, watery, bleary eyes watching reruns of an old tv show, the obnoxious canned laughter mocking my life just as surely as the kids at school.

After that, I got out and never looked back. His handy-man jobs around town, trimming trees, painting houses, and being a part-time contract electrician, had paid enough for the basics for us as well as the required alcohol for him, until I got a job doing retail at a gaming store. For years as a kid all I ate was tortillas and soup, cheap asian pasta, and peanut butter sandwiches. So when I finally got out on my own, that was all I knew. Which is why I look like an opened can of raw biscuit dough that’s been sitting on the counter for too long, I think bitterly.

And so it is with that cheery thought that I once again step from sunlight to shadow as I enter the common room of the inn, not knowing what to expect. Will there be the sudden silence of a stranger intruding on their turf? Whispers? A record scratching as the music grinds to a halt?

But there is none of that.

The common room is both deep and wide, seeming to take up nearly the entire bottom floor of the building, save for the kitchen area behind the bar. Several support beams sporting unlit lantern brackets reach from floor to ceiling in strategic places, and a cold fireplace sits in the far left wall. Fresh logs and a blackened hearth, however, suggest frequent use. There’s even a small stage to the left of the fireplace, not much more than a raised platform several inches above the swept wooden floor. Rough wooden stools occupy the length of the equally rough bar along the right side of the room, and a door that surely leads to the kitchen is half-concealed by a shelf of large mugs. A man, close to my own height with perfect coifed hair and a chiseled face, stands behind the bar, stereotypically wiping down mugs and replacing them on the shelf.

A set of stairs centered in the back wall lead up to a small landing that curves out of sight, heading to the second floor. The tables and chairs are crude yet functional, dark-stained and worn from years of use. Non-existent years, non-existent use, I remind myself. I shake my head as I put that thought aside, knowing I’ll drive myself nuts if I keep it up.

Behind me the windows let in sufficient light to see by, but candles still light up each table and the weary faces around them. Farmers gather around many of the tables, mundane conversations blending in with the general babbling of the other twenty or so people in the inn. Judging by the road dust on their cloaks and clothes, there also appears to be several travelers like me mixed in. There’s even a young man and woman with a small boy and girl sitting quietly by the front window, whispering among themselves as they eat.

A few heads turn my way as I walk in, but the quiet buzz of conversation barely dips before returning to its previous level. I even get several generic nods and surprisingly, a smile from a cute little red-headed waitress, but that’s it.

The guards words come back to me, reminding me that this town sees its fair share of traffic passing through. I am nothing more than another traveler to them, I realize. Good. That’s all I’ll ever be, far as I’m concerned. Although, if I’m being honest with myself, I’m a little perturbed that they don’t seem to realize that I’m different. I am the Master, after all. They wouldn’t even exist without me.

I shake that thought away from my mind as I take another step inside. What did you expect, I chastise myself, to be rushed by the citizens, clamoring for an audience with you like some sort of visiting lord? You haven’t done anything for them to care who you are. Oddly enough, there is another twinge of frustration, almost anger, at that.

But this is my head, my game. They *will* know me before long.

My eyes instinctively go to the back corner table, every pen-and-paper gamer’s go-to home base, and I chuckle to myself as I see it occupied by several tired farmers. Of course it is.

I choose another table between the fireplace and the bar, a small two-top with a burned-out candle right next to the stairs headed up. No sooner do I sit down, my back against the wall, than the red-head comes bouncing over. She leans over me to light the candle at my table, but I reach out to stop her. “No, that’s ok,” I blurt. “I don’t need it.”

My eyes still aren’t completely adjusted to the shadows, and her face is a bit back-lit from the waning evening light trickling in through the windows, but I might have to rethink her looks. Initially, while stepping from light to shadow, I labeled her as “cute.” Now that she’s standing right next to me, leaning almost too-close over the table with a thin punk to light the candle, she moves a couple of notches up to “very pretty.”

She stands up and what can only be described as playfully puts her hands on her hips. The waist-high punk’s soft red glow casts a mildly impressive shadow across her face from her...upper torso region. “You don’t need it now, but the sun sets pretty quick around here and you might want to be able to identify what it is Sam puts on your plate for supper.”

The voice that emanates from the dim shadows betrays a smile. It’s a genuine, happy sound, bubbling like the stream from the forest. It has the same faint, Irish lilt as the merchant across the street, and I find myself smiling more at her voice than whatever it is she is saying.

I also find myself about to vomit.

I’ve never been good around women in general, but this one is causing a legitimate panic in me. I have literally gotten up and fled the room when an attractive woman has entered. And now, here I am, mere inches away from one as she gets perilously close to me to light a candle.

She smells so good, like what I imagine a field of wildflowers would smell like. She leans back over me once again to light the candle, and I can’t move to stop her. My entire body has locked up in fact, and I feel a cold hand gripping my stomach, a sure sign of an adrenaline dump from my fight or flight reaction. I must have shown some sort of reaction, because she pauses, then withdraws after the blackened wick sparks to life. “Are you ok?” she asks. She playfully backhands me across the shoulder and says, “It’s ok, deary, I don’t bite.”

I stutter and stammer something unintelligible, genuinely unsure of what I’m even trying to say, and she laughs lightly.

Even through my bumbling adrenaline rush I feel my shame and humiliation resurface. She’s laughing at me, I realize. I gruffly blurt out, “I just want a drink.”

“I can get you an ale,” she says, then adds in a conspiratorial whisper, “but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Huh?” I ask, unsure of what I just heard her say. How does she know what I like?

Quick as a whip, she snatches her skirt’s edge and plops down in the chair across from me. She interlaces her fingers together before propping her chin on the back of her knuckles and smiling at me. “I said I can get you an ale,” she says again, “but it’s shite.” She purposefully over-enunciates the last few words in a whisper again, pronouncing the final word like “bright”. Her nose crinkles up as she says it, and my heart seizes.

Now that her face is on the same level as mine (well, quite a bit below mine, seeing as I am probably a foot taller than her), I am forced once more to reevaluate her looks. She now falls squarely into the “holy shit she’s hot” box, with potential for “Three Mile Island meltdown” on the horizon. Fuck the “uncanny valley”, I think to myself, this shit is flat-out real.

Her wavy red hair, bordering on curly, reaches just past her shoulders, and a smattering of freckles dapples her nose and cheeks. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows, revealing the same, lightly sun-kissed arms. Her hands aren’t soft, pampered hands, but strong and tan. Hands equally suited to serving food or tossing out rowdy customers should the need arise. The dancing flame from the candle softens her in a way that makes her appear almost otherworldly, an image in a dream that you don’t want to wake up from.

I know I am staring at her, but I can’t stop, and I’m pretty sure my mouth is hanging open, but my entire body has gone numb and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

She looks at me a while longer, an odd expression on her face before, incredibly, she winks at me. “I like you,” she says, suddenly smacking her hands flat against the small table in front of us. Her light green eyes throw sparks from the candle light as she finishes, “I know just what you need.” She pushes off the tabletop with her hands and hops up without another word, bouncing off towards the kitchen. Right as she rounds the bar, she looks over her shoulder and shoots me another quick smile, then vanishes through the door leading to the kitchen.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

My confusion mounts as I glance around the tavern and I realize that I’m on the receiving end of a mish-mash of expressions. There are maybe two dozen people now, and more than half of them are looking at me. Some of the older men are grinning and shaking their heads, more than one of the young men are glaring at me, and there’s even an older lady, face rimmed with a halo of white hair, that winks at me.

I begin to fume. They saw my reaction to Red and they’re laughing. I subconsciously reach up to adjust my glasses and run my hands over my face and into my hair only to receive a rather shocking reminder.

I’m not wearing glasses.

And the face that my hands are rubbing is not the pudgy, pock-marked face I was cursed with for so long; it’s firm and strong with manly stubble. My hair isn’t some greasy mop, it’s cut into a badass faux-hawk. A fuggin’ WARHAWK! I remind myself violently.

I pull my hands away from my face and look at them. Strong, dangerous hands, equally capable of finessing a lock with a delicate set of picks and brutally stabbing a pigrat to death in mortal combat. Ok, I might have to work on that last bit, but either way it holds true, as there are still faint bloodstains on my hands and dark half-moons under my fingernails. I am not a pathetic loser any more! I remind myself. I am the mighty Padfoot! Once again I probably need to consider my descriptors, but who cares. I look like a Greek god, and I need to start acting like it.

Right after I wash my hands.

I push away from the table and walk over to the bar. “Where’s your restroom?” I ask the tall man polishing the mugs.

He looks up at me with a quizzical look, then replies, “Rooms are 3 cops per night, 4 if you have an animal at the stables, 5 if you want a meal.” His bored voice is gravelly, but not unkind. He goes back to polishing the mugs.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Wait, what?

He must have seen my confusion, because he says, “You wanted a room to rest for the night, it’s 3 cops a night, 4 if you have a horse at the stable, 5 if you want a meal.”

I can’t tell if he’s being honest or having fun with me, then I realize what he means. “No, I mean, where can I take a leak, wash my hands, clean up a bit?”

A glimmer of understanding comes over his features, and he jerks his head to the rear of the bar, where I see a small hallway I missed earlier leading to a door. “Washtub’s out back, outhouse is too.”

I step away from the bar towards the exit, and he goes back to his program of polishing the already clean mugs.

The door swings open, revealing a beautiful view of the split mountain peak to the north. The sun has begun to set in earnest to my left, and the shadows have taken over the small alcove that backs up to the wall of the third tier above. The rocky foothills jut up from above the treeline, a gorgeous pale green forest of what appears to be aspen or birch, I never could remember which is which. I know one of them peels their pale bark, but I don’t really care. They’re still stunning, and I find myself looking forward to autumn, when the leaves begin to change. I remember seeing pictures of entire aspen forests on the mountains of Colorado, and it looked like the entire slope was on fire. Dotted here and there are other, darker-trunked trees, but I have no idea what they are. Either way, I find myself being pulled back to the trees in a way I don’t fully understand.

I have grown up my entire life in either a suburb or a city, with brief forays out into flat farmland, but those mountains, and those trees specifically, are calling to me. I remember playing various fantasy-based games where the woods were a common terrain, and you could find some cool places there, hidden amidst the shadows and fallen trunks. I’ve always heard that you are drawn to places that remind you of your youth, but I’m going to call bullshit on that. I’ve never spent a hot second in a real forest in my life, and yet here I am, struggling to hold myself back from running under the boughs of those trees, never coming back. I mean, I don’t even LIKE being around these people, I justify to myself, why do I want to be here?

An image of that hot red-head, illuminated by candlelight, flashes through my mind, and I shake my head. Like my old man always said, “Women have it, and it’s undefeated.” Dan Jenkins said it even better, if a bit more colorful: “If women didn’t have a pussy, there’d be a bounty on ‘em.” Crass and disgusting, but frustratingly true. Even for me, a guy that hadn’t even...

I spot the huge water tub next to the door, as well as a ladle, so I use it to splash its contents out and give my hands a good scrubbing. The water is surprisingly cold, but then I realize being this close to the building probably doesn’t get much sun. Not much opportunity to warm it above 60 degrees or so, I’d imagine, up here in the mountains.

I can still see the blood underneath my fingernails from the three rats I’ve killed, and my stomach lurches a bit. I don’t even want to THINK about the shit I could catch from that if I don’t wash it off, I tell myself with a grunt. There’s a small bar of rough soap on a shelf near the wash basin, and I lather up with the cakey stuff. It stings a bit, but that just means it's strong and it’ll do the job. I nearly dunk both soapy hands back into the bucket before changing my mind. Instead I ladle another splash over my hands outside the bucket to rinse them off with another good rubbing without contaminating the tub with blood and soap, then replace it on the edge of the barrel where I found it. After a moment, I chuckle softly and dip my now clean hands into the bucket. With a quick motion, I splash both hands onto my face, feeling a thrill of the cool water as it rushes across my nearly bald head and down the back of my neck. I even squawk a bit in surprise as a single dribble of it finds its way down the neck of my leathers, running the full length of my back. I laugh out loud this time, and dip my hands back in for another double handful, this time taking the water into my mouth and feeling the cold trace all the way down my throat to my stomach.

I look around for a towel to dry my hands on before scoffing aloud. “What, you want a dude here to pass you a mint and a selection of cologne, too?” I chide myself. “You’re in the fuggin’ dark ages, man, sack up and act like it.” I shake my hands vigorously to clear the excess water, then I pat them dry on the thighs of my leather pants. It leaves a dark mark in the shape of my handprint on each leg, and in the fading sunlight, just for a disturbing second, it almost looks like blood smeared against my armor.

I roll my eyes at my melodramatic self before pulling open the door and walking back into the inn’s hallway.

When I come back, I see the waitress has indeed dropped something off at my little table. A huge mug of something dark and frothy sits in front of my vacated chair. I glance up to find her coming out of the kitchen carrying a large plate of what looks like some kind of roasted meat, veggies, and a potato on a wooden plate. As soon as I see it, my body reacts almost violently. My mouth begins to water and my stomach growls loud enough for the farmers sitting two tables down to glance my way. I ignore them and plop down at my own place, picking up the mug and taking a tentative sniff of its contents.

I’m not a big drinker for obvious reasons, but I’ve had my share of brews. I even knew a guy in college that tried to homebrew a few things in the dorm, but only one of them came out even close to palatable. Several of them actually sent us to the quack shack, the only semi-affectionate name we gave to our on-campus clinic. From light beers to old Irish stouts, I’ve probably sampled just about everything you can brew but I never got a desire for it. The guys from my dorm used to make fun of me for always wanting to try it, but never liking any of it. Well, for that and a dozen other things.

Call it psychosomatic or just hating the taste, I just never got over the fact that this stuff single-handedly destroyed my childhood. In a twisted way, I think I kept trying it to see just what the hell my old man saw in it, what made him choose it over me. It took me quite a few years to realize that it wasn’t the booze he wanted so much as the escape from reality and responsibility. He wanted to forget his shitty life. While he never had the guts to say it to my face, I know he viewed me as a constant reminder that he was a complete failure at life. Couldn’t husband, couldn’t father, couldn’t family.

He couldn’t handle reality, so he just created his own at the bottom of the bottle, I think to myself. In a way he wasn’t directly choosing the booze itself over me, he was after the numbing effect.

It’s a subtle difference, but I think it was what truly set me against him in the end. He wasn’t a drunk because he couldn’t control the desire for alcohol, he was a drunk because he couldn’t handle reality. He was a weak, pathetic man that ran from his life, from me, and that’s why I will hate him until the day I die.

Only now I CAN’T die, I hear a little voice say. So, I think with more than a little disgust, I guess I’ll just hate him until the day *he* dies. Anything more than that and it’s wasted emotion.

My face, flushed from the onset of emotions, sets in a grimace, and I whisper to myself bitterly, “Here’s to you, dad.” My voice adopts an even darker tone as I finish, “Fuck you, asshole.”

I tip the mug backwards, perhaps a little too aggressively, and a second later I find myself spraying the contents of the mug across the table where I sit. It seems that in my haste to hate-toast my father, a considerable amount of the stuff has entered my nasal cavity. The powerful drink causes me to cough spasmodically. Well, half burp, half cough, half drown. At least I didn’t vomit, I think to myself.

As I continue to cough, almost doubled-over on the table, I feel a cloth pressed into my hand. I turn away from what surely has to be the hot red-head, because of course it’s her, and place the towel over my mouth and nose.

“And that’s the good stuff,” she quips between my explosions of coughing.

“No, no,” I manage between gasps of air, “it’s delicious.” I wave my other hand at her, either in placation or surrender, I’m not sure which. “Tasty...so smooth...like water,” I get out intermittently through the hacking sounds.

I hear her laughter, and for once, I for once I’m not bothered by it. And if I’m being honest with myself, my assessment of the drink really isn’t a lie, either. The taste of the...whatever it is, is actually quite acceptable. My nose burns, my throat burns, and my eyes feel like they’re about to pop out of my skull from the exertions of coughing so hard, but the taste that lingers on my tongue is actually quite pleasant. It’s obviously a darker beer, but the thickness isn’t cloying, and it’s not overpowering at all. It is a bit like honey poured over a loaf of wheat bread, just not as chewy.

After the worst passes, I turn back around to the rest of the tavern. If I hadn’t called attention to myself through any of my other antics this evening, I certainly have now. In fact, I could probably get less attention by blowing an attack sequence through a ram’s horn or some shit, because I have twenty or more sets of eyes upon me as I recover. Some are smiling, some rolling their eyes, and quite a few of them are out-right laughing. Screw you guys.

I blow my nose loudly in the towel, and I hear her voice again. “I’ll just get you a new napkin, deary.”

I look up at her out of the corner of my eye as I wipe my face off, both from the beer and the mucus, and say, “Yeah, that sounds good.” I add, “I’ll just...hold on to this one.”

“Well I sure as shite ain’t touching it,” she laughs again.

A humiliated snort escapes me, and I shake my head as she walks off. I look down at the table in front of me and see the plate of food she was carrying over. Well, at least I spewed all over the table *before* she brought my dinner, I concede to myself. Little victories.

The food is screaming my name now, the aromas causing me to salivate almost to the point of Pavlov’s dog. My fork begins to move on its own as I begin to devour everything but the wooden plate the food is on. I can’t tell if it’s the most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten, or it’s just that I haven’t eaten in so long.

Which, of course is when my brain comes along and ruins everything.

Do I think I’m actually eating this? a sadistic voice sounds in my head. Does it taste good because I want it to, or is the program specifically designed to make this meal taste good? If it was burned, could I tell? If I will it hard enough, would chewing on a grubworm make it taste like a sour gummy, or would I get the real thing? And if I did, how would I know, since I’ve never eaten a grubworm? Suddenly an image of a blonde in a red dress walking past Neo enters my mind, and a conversation about chicken.

“That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken for example. Maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything!”

Mouse had it right, that inner voice snarls viciously at me , she’s not real. She’s only being nice to you because this is taking place in your mind and you’re influencing the outcome. Hell, she’s probably been written in the game to be a potential love interest.

As these revelations wash over me, my hand clenches my fork so hard my knuckles whiten. The food seems to turn to paste in my mouth. Nothing about the taste has changed, but it seems exactly what it is: artificial. Just like everything else in this made-up fantasy. My jaw clenches and my breathing becomes ragged. I swallow the lump of nothing in my mouth, then look up as the door opens. “Evening, everybody!”

Great, I think sarcastically, just when my night was starting to look up.

In walks that condescending prick that patted me on the chest as I exited the merchant’s shop, Norman. And to make matters worse, everyone in the bar cheers as he steps in the doorway and walks to the end of the bar. They even shout out his name in greeting.

Something itches in the back of my mind about that, but I let it drop.

The large bartender smiles at the man and asks, “Can I get you anything?”

The man responds with, “I certainly hope so, otherwise why the hell did I just walk through the door?” Everyone within earshot chuckles at that, and I can tell this is a regular occurrence.

Norman sits down at the bar and half turns on his stool as he yells out, “I’ll have my usual, and they will all have another of whatever they’re having!”

Everyone cheers again, and conversation resumes as it was before.

Of course they all love him, I think sourly. Everybody knows his name, he probably drinks in here every night. My head drops down in resignation, and I not-so-gently thump the hand clutching my fork on the table a few times.

Then the straw that breaks the camel’s back descends ever-so-gently with the resounding thud of the kitchen door. My little red-head pops out and rounds the corner of the bar to envelope the man in a great big hug. Time seems to slow down as she leans in and lightly kisses him on the cheek, and he pats the barstool next to him. She plops down to rests her head against his shoulder, and everything crashes in on me.

Suddenly I’m back in high school, surrounded by a thousand assholes, and Brenda Garza, the only person in the school that I would have walked through fire for, who loves to play video games, the only person in my science class that willingly accepts being my lab partner, the only female I have ever known that smiles at me and means it, walks in wearing Gary Tuttleton’s fucking letter jacket. She brushes a loose strand of hair over her ear, almost embarrassed, and brings her hand up to her little gaggle of moron girlfriends to show them his senior ring, five sizes too big, on her dainty ring finger. It’s so big, in fact, that she has a little strip of red ribbon wrapped around the bottom of the ring to ensure that it won’t fall off. They all squeal like stuck pigs in appreciation, and she actually giggles, blushing furiously.

My gorge rises in my throat, and I actually have a legitimate gag reflex as I see how happy she is. Tuttleton is the asshole that holds me down while Dozer sits on my forehead and farts. Tuttleton is the asshole that she claims to hate because, “he’s just a big dumb jock-off.” She even made that name up for all those assholes that torture me when the teachers aren’t looking. Or while the coaches look on and laugh.

And now I get to watch my red-head snuggle up to this rich prick.

I take another swig of beer to wash the taste of my life from my mouth and block out the rest of the world as I finish my meal. I’m not quite half-way finished when my mind begins to twist in on itself, and a smile slithers across my face.

The waitress gets up from her perch next to Douchebag and comes by after a few minutes to check on me. I smile up at her as winningly as I know how, which admittedly isn’t very much, but apparently it works. She smiles back, but I can see past the illusion now, how fake and practiced that smile is. Her eyes sparkle in the candle light once more, but now I see what I am to her. Just a mark, just a customer, just another traveler that she can squeeze for an extra “cop” or two.

I almost feel like Dorothy, and I’m getting my first glimpse behind the curtain of this town. She’s nothing more than another program, an NPC to flesh out the world I now live in. Sure she’s beautiful and sexy, but like Jessica Rabbit, it’s just because she’s just drawn that way.

“What can I get ya, sweetheart?” she asks me hopefully.

Feeling much more confident now than I ever have in my life, I lean in a bit closer to wink and say, “Your name, first of all.” Where the hell did THAT come from?

She actually blushes. “Leena,” she says with a laugh. She looks down for a second, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she does so, then looks back up to make eye contact with me again. She even bites her lip a little.

Wow, I admit, she was designed well.

I almost cave right then. It’s mind-boggling how real she looks right now in the soft light, but then a roar of laughter from the bar catches my attention, and I see that bastard is right in the center of it, surrounded by other sycophantic drunks, hanging on his every word. And coin, I add bitterly.

“Well, Leena,” I begin, smiling and adding emphasis on her name to show her I was paying attention, “I have had a very long day, and I believe I am ready for a room.”

She nods happily and says, “Of course, sir, I’ll get the key and walk you up.”

I screw up my courage and place a hand gently on her arm as she turns to go. She doesn’t shy away, doesn’t flinch. In fact, she turns back expectantly and smiles again. “I was told by the barkeep that the rooms are 3 cops per night?”

She nods her head quickly and smiles.

I reach for my waist to get the coins as I say, “Great, the merchant across the street recommended this place to stay when I told him I was passing through.” 

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flashing icon appear in my notification stack on the right.  With a surreptitious flick of my eyes I hope she doesn’t notice, I glance over and see the depiction of a flashing hand icon .

To my surprise, she throws back her head and laughs. “Oh did he now,” she teases. “Well, I wouldn’t trust anything that old coot tells you. He’s barking mad, he is.” As she says this, however, her hand reaches down and touches my wrist as it nears my belt pouch. “Still, I suppose if he recommended us so highly, we should probably live up to those lofty expectations. He’s right though, we are the best inn around for a hundred miles.” She winks at me again and says quietly, “We’re also the only inn around for a hundred miles, so….” Her voice trails off and she gives a little shrug. She turns to look over her shoulder at the barkeep and says loudly, “Samuel, I need the keys to one of the upper rooms.”

“Sure thing, Leena,” comes the response, and he opens a cabinet behind him to retrieve something.

He tosses a key to her and she deftly catches it, pressing it into my hand before reaching past me to grab the closest lantern hanging from its hook on the wall. “Come on,” she says, grabbing my hand and jerking her head to indicate the stairs behind her. “I’ll show you up.”