After each of us pays a copper for entry, we enter Diamond Lake proper. Evening is approaching so even though we would all like to do a few things now that we’re in the city, we instead head to an inn called “The Pigs Beard”, which according to Joaqim is not particularly reputable but neither is it disreputable, and which he says is relatively inexpensive, serves decent food and drinks, and should not have a major problem with fleas.
He seems to know the route well as he confidently leads us through the tight winding roads. Once again, I’m reminded that this is a city, and not a village or town. It took the better part of 15 minutes to make it to the selected tavern, which is less than clearly identified courtesy of a signpost with a painted boars head sporting an exaggerated bushy, black beard. I simultaneously want to applaud them for going with a fairly common trope while also wanting to slap them for such poor brand differentiation. You know, sometimes having spent time on earth can really just kill the moment. Although having already paid a copper to enter the city, knowing I’m about to part with some more of my hard-earned coin in exchange for an experience wherein the touted highlight is having “not too many fleas”, my mental space may be exaggerating the degree of discomfiture which that particular claim creates.
After speaking with the innkeeper I learn that I had my expectations in the wrong ballpark for what a meal and a nights rest would be. I was thinking that it would run me a few coppers. Nope. 4 silver. 4. Silver. Not copper. And 4 of them. That’s nearly half a gold for a single night! I try not to clench my jaw too tightly when I find out the price. So what if I’ve got a few gold, paying rates like this I’m going to be back in the poor house in short order, and I haven’t even started doing any crafting!
The innkeeper is a burly pig faced man, black hair largely turned grey, and unsurprisingly sporting a beard that could fairly be described as halfway to being a member of ZZ top, though despite the physical aspects his bearing and attitude are courteous and professional. Contrary to most stories covering the subject, despite being an innkeeper he doesn’t seem particularly inclined to have long discussions wherein he reveals deep secrets; rather he appears to be a bored professional who is interested in little more than collecting his pay and making it through another day. He doesn’t seem to be concerned with my race. In fact, aside from some curious glances, no one seems to have behaved any more aggressively towards me than they did for the other members of my temporary team. Not to say everyone is friendly, not at all, just that the suspicion and hostility I see cast my way does not appear to be significantly higher than it is for anyone else. If I weren’t experiencing it I wouldn’t have believed for a moment that such a thing could be possible.
The norm for when Lizardfolk and Humans meet is an immediate battle to the death, no quarter granted nor expected. Humans and Lizardfolk are natural enemies, sort of like Lizardfolk and Elves, or Lizardfolk and Dwarves, or Lizardfolk and Halfmen, or… You know what? I think I might have an idea as to where the fault for the poor relations between Lizardfolk and other sentient species might lay. If you have been married 5 times, it really should get one to wonder if the problem is not with all your exes, maybe you really are doing something wrong. Food for thought, that.
Well, perhaps preventing the extinction of my species will be easier than I had originally been expecting… Although getting Lizardfolk to stop being ridiculously violent and aggressive is still pretty near to impossible. I’m not sure if it’s hard coded into their DNA: it might be, after all testosterone is linked very directly and clearly with aggressive tendencies. Perhaps the key to Lizardfolk aggression is excessive testosterone or a similar concern that leads to the same end effect. Perhaps as well it is merely cultural conditioning. If the latter, then social reprogramming would work wonders. I dislike the methods one must employ to make social reprogramming effective, but countries like China prove the effectiveness of brain washing through careful control over informational access. It wouldn't be my plan A, especially since I suspect that there are a combination of factors which include a physiological component to the Lizardfolk tendency to attack first and worry about whether it was the right decision never, but it's a thought that I should try and keep in a back pocket if I fail to come up with a better path forward.
To be clear, in my opinion brain washing by carefully regulating what a person can see or hear by carefully spinning the information that does reach them to reflect the narrative you want to be prevalent, by enforcing restrictions on what conversations can be had, and so on, is some pretty evil shit. Even if it's for a good cause, I find the means to be repugnant. But frankly every country on my Earth did exactly that to one degree or another. It’s just a natural consequence of having a small number of people in control over what information sees the light of day: Those in power ensure that the discussions of the day cover the topics that lead things the direction they want to go. Countries like China were just better at it than the EU or the US because their government realized the value of being the person determining what was true earlier than countries like the US, which ended up allowing conglomerates to usurp the position before they could figure out how to get around the laws designed to prevent it. Once again, I’m thinking about things from an earth vantage point. I’m not sure what kind of communication capabilities are widely implemented here via magic, but certainly it can’t be as common as a television. Manipulation through control of information would likely be much harder to implement here anyhow, or at least at any sort of scale, so it moves from being a tier C plan to a tier D.
Morning comes. Joaqim is the first to leave, his plan is to wander around the city, keeping an eye out for potential recruits. That doesn’t seem like a very effective way to put together a team, but there is no “Adventurers Guild” or anything remotely similar to that here. If you want to get people to follow you, you must locate and recruit them yourself. Jim is next to leave, his plan is to try and locate a job; his ideal would be as an apprentice to the Archmagi, but he plans to be open minded. Since his focus as a mage is combat, most of the places he is likely to find employment would be related to the city, such as within the guard. Even though his career options are rather limited, he is a powerful mage, so in my view he’s likely to get traction faster than Joaqim will.
Stolen story; please report.
Which leaves me all by myself until dinner, when we plan to meet back up. Well I might be a lot of bad things, but lazy isn’t one of them. Staying outside to appreciate the scent of the city holds no appeal so I'd rather avoid random wandering, and I'd rather end up indoors. What does that leave? Well, first thing first, I try to find a library and spend some time learning about any crafting skills they have. I might be too early for youtube and google, but surely the humans must maintain an extensive library with a population this size… Right? I dearly hope so.
Finding the library is not the monumental task I’d feared it would be. It is small, though frankly I should have expected as much since to the best of my knowledge there are no printing presses here. Beyond that, I learn that the majority of books I might actually want to access are typically locked behind guilds and associations. Want to learn how to lay bricks? Join the masons. Want to learn about the great mysteries of the Arcane? Join a mages association. HA! Jokes on you I already picked up stone working and the Arcane, and now my understanding and ability will improve with my level!
Aside from those, there really are other skills I would be interested in available, such as weapon smithing and armor smithing, but it’s mostly theory and concept with precious little in terms of practical information. I guess even among humans, the average black smith here isn't particularly predisposed towards trying to create competition for themselves.
Ha! Jokes on you, I already know some of the basics of how to blacksmith, so I just need to wrap my mind around what I would do differently to make a longsword instead of a poker! Don’t get me wrong they are very different things, but the practical experiences such as smelting, annealing, and grinding are present, so with a bit of practice I should be able to get the system to recognize them as skill choices without needing an apprenticeship. Indeed although the library is small, it is packed full of the books that I would have wanted in the first place. Pottery? Great!
Actually, rather than not finding books that I think will help me, and despite the library being humble in the first place, the problem ends up being that there are more potentially useful books than I can hope to read in a timely fashion. At that point I see the librarian approaching me, with a balding middle-aged man in tow. Well, ok, perhaps there will be another problem as well.
“Pardon me ma’am, but this is not the market. I don’t wish to have an animal ruining our books, these are very expensive and if any harm came to them they would be nigh impossible to replace. I kindly request that you please return to your owner or otherwise vacate the premises.” Says the middle-aged man.
Ah. There it is; of course my first encounter with an overt racist is with a pompous faux intellectual convinced of his own superiority. Alright then, let’s do this.
“Have no fear, good sir, I’m an avid devotee of text-based compositions and I simply wouldn’t dream of allowing any harm to come to them.” I begin. “Whether belles-lettres, lore, or literary work, every word written is a condemnation of the ravages of time, a message for posterity, and a window into not just the time of publication, but into the very mind and psyche of those who have devoted the time and effort to apply quill to parchment. The treatment of literary works of all forms should accordingly reflect paramount respect in all matters, for the continuation and proliferation of knowledge is not one iota shy of the bedrock of civilization!” I finish grandly, trying not to laugh at the changes in their expression through my rather perfunctory speech.
The middle-aged man and the librarian both freeze in shock, the middle aged man's face flushing first white, then red, while the librarian looks like they are about to have a mental breakdown. Honestly I don’t feel like using a multisyllabic word or two should be sufficient to elicit this level of shock, especially since I hadn’t dropped any particularly uncommon verbiage, but if that short exchange is sufficient to get them off my back I certainly won’t complain. It does serve as another reminder that I need to be careful not to wax overly poetic here, though, as the average person's vocabulary is…
Oh wait, belles-lettres is French. Although there is extensive crossover between the common language of this region and my native language, there are also quite a few differences, and never mind a language that even on earth is accounted as a native language by less than 1% of the world's population. Given that it's a niche language even on Earth, I strongly doubt they could possibly recognize the term. Well, at least now I understand why their reaction exceeded my expectations. They're too proud and arrogant to admit that they're having trouble understanding me. The joy of dealing with the sort of Academics who fancy themselves nobility and who never leave their desk. They are always so confident in their own assumptions and understanding of reality, yet their tiny worlds are so easily shaken.
“Very well then, I apologize. Keaton, mind the… Gentleman. Ensure that he follows proper protocol.” Sputters the middle-aged man, before hurriedly heading to a back room. Wow. I got an apology? That's rare. He really is rattled, there's no way he would've apologized if he'd maintained his composure.
Although… I wonder why the bald man thought I was a woman? Or for that matter why he changed his mind and decided I was a man? Whatever. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect for a human to be able to correctly gender a lizardfolk without an explicit demonstration, and I have no desire to react with inflated ego when it comes to minor matters like that; there's every reason to expect the same sorts of confusion with great frequency… But seriously, if you’re that uncertain about the matter wouldn’t it be easier to just ask for the preferred form of address and avoid the embarrassment of making the incorrect determination?
Whatever, I’ve got reading to do. With the way the system here works, I would like to get everything I can out of this library. You are only be able to officially learn skills when you level up, but many of the skills the system grants you are supposed to be related to the things that you've been exposed to and reached certain mile markers in, and if you want to have a lot of skills at your disposal you need to capitalize on that, because it's possible to learn no skills at all from one level to the next. My current running plan is to actively cultivate a large pool of potential skill selections, so I can make the most out of each level gained.