The Screaming Banshee Inn looked like a nondescript two-story wooden building, with the reception hallway and dining room on the lower floor, lodging rooms at the top. Like all the buildings surrounding it, its wooden foundation also started about a metre off the ground for some reason. The door to the reception hallway stood open and I could see an empty reception desk next to a stairway. When I stepped into the hallway, I discovered the entry to the dining room lay on my left-hand side. From there, I could appreciate the positioning of the reception desk which enabled the inn manager, full visibility of all comings and goings on the lower floor. Finding no one within sight, I entered through the dining room towards an open door on the opposite side I assumed was the kitchen. Cooking smells wafting from that door soon confirmed my thinking.

In a narrow kitchen stood two people. Haruhime stood to the left-hand side near an open window and studiously chopped away at some vegetables on a wooden chopping board. She seemed deep in thought and didn’t notice my entry. I assumed she was chopping something like onions, judging by the tears streaming down her face. Either that, or I had stepped into some tender emotional culinary moment. A large-bellied man sporting a white shirt and dirty apron stirred a pot on my right. There was no doubt in my mind he was the chef, he certainly fulfilled all the requirements for a fantasy chef. His rough beard and scrappy looks made me wonder if he could throw a knife as easily as he could cook a stew. My unnoticed presence continued for a short while as I used the opportunity to watch both of them at work. As if sensing something different, Haruhime noticed me and immediately looked a bit flustered.

“Oh, Shane. I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”

She apologised while wiping the tears off her face with her apron. I just couldn’t help myself by pointing to my face as if I were pointing out food on her face, indicating the mucus still running from her nose. She looked even more flustered after that. The chef smiled at her discomfort, but I didn’t push my luck because I sensed he would take the next tease from me a little more personally.

“There’s no need to apologise, I’m catching you at an inconvenient time.”

She shook her head as she led me to the reception desk where I explained my situation to her.

“I would like to book some accommodation for a few days. I have twenty-two silvers with me, how many nights’ accommodation can it afford me, and how many meals?”

Providence warned me to curb my spending when holding excessive wealth. Obviously, I had extra money available to me, but I decided to leave it in case I an emergency popped up. Until then I would live within my means and within the wages Grenfell paid me. Besides, I still needed to buy clothes since those pants still scratched me in delicate places. Hopefully, I would find some underwear in the process.

“We charge two silvers for a room per night, including breakfast and dinner. Each meal costs fifty coppers and since you never had breakfast today, we’ll move it to tomorrow morning if you pay two silvers now. When you leave you can have that day’s breakfast for free.”

That made sense since I was likely to eat breakfast at the inn tomorrow morning, I might as well pay for it in advance. She looked at a booking slate.

“Since there aren’t many adventurers here now, most rooms are available. Where shall we put you, I wonder? How about the room above the reception hall? It can get a bit noisy when people use the main door, but you’ll be disturbed less in the evenings when the dining room gets a bit noisier.”

From Haruhime’s words I assumed a hundred coppers equalled one silver. I just stepped closer to understanding the currency value in that world, but perhaps I could use that opportunity to discover a little more. “Ah Haruhime, how many nights’ accommodation could I get from one small gold?”

She scrunched her nose in concentration as she used the fingers on her hands to work out how many nights’ accommodation I would get. It was fascinating to see her use arithmetic. By using her hands to calculate it told me she knew the basics, but I wondered why no one used abacuses? But I digress; Haruhime finally figured it out.

“You would get fifty nights’ accommodation. Are you going to pay with a small gold?”

“Not at this stage, but I might do in the future if I decide to stay for longer.”

I could see Haruhime's shoulders relax when she heard I wasn't paying with gold. For some reason paying with gold seemed to pose a problem for her, but I didn't want to pry. I just learned that hundred silvers equalled one small gold, leaving the question about the large gold which I decided to ask another time so that it wouldn't look like I was ignorant. I changed the subject.

“Do you have washing facilities or a bath?”

“I apologize, I should have explained the inn’s arrangements, especially since you’re new here. Unfortunately, we don’t have a bath at this inn, but we do have ablution facilities outside. There are two private washdown bays you can use. Every day we draw water from the local well and put it into a larger storage container outside at the back of the inn. Take some water from that using a bucket for the basin in the washing place. You can rent a bucket from us for five coppers. If you want warm water, let us know and we can boil some up for twenty coppers. Please let us know with enough warning if you want warm water.”

I sensed a lot of the money the inn made came from value added services. I mean, how many adventurers carried buckets around with them, or boiled their own water? And why couldn’t I shake the feeling that washing would become another adventure? She continued explaining the ‘in’s and out’s’ of staying there.

“This inn caters specifically for adventurers, although we do have other types of visitors on the odd occasion. Adventurers can get messy and bloody from the monster quests, so we prefer if cleaning and ablutions happen outside. Reception will tag any wet or dirty clothes and equipment that may need storage and they will leave them in a secure drying room only accessible to inn staff. We serve all meals in the dining hall, and not in the rooms. If you need drinking water, we have boiled water for your canteens. We don’t recommend that you drink un-boiled water here in Obon. As you may have noticed, water is not in abundance here and water in storage can get ugly after a few days.”

She made a nasty-face look. I missed the clear stream of the forests; they made me feel so alive and refreshed. Somehow, Obon’s pools of stagnant coloured water just didn’t do it for me. Wells were far and few between in Obon it seemed. When someone drew water from a well, let’s just say it didn’t taste very refreshing. I once appraised the water from a well and judging by the nasty looking contaminants, it sold me on boiling the water. Luckily, with my skills I had more luck filtering water using evaporation and transmutation as methods to remove impurities. However, evaporation, the better of the purification processes, proved to be too effective to be any value for drinking. In that case it turned out that purification meant the removal of everything, including beneficial minerals, which wasn’t good for a person either. Before the fantasy fan’s point to the creation of water out of the air using skills, that also wouldn’t work for the same reason. Distilled water removed minerals from the water, so water from skills similarly produced distilled water which tasted just as bad. I would have to be desperate to want to drink that stuff.

So, transmutation and boiling produced reasonably decent water for me, even better than Haruhime’s boiled coloured water. As I was thinking all of that, she continued with her induction.

“If you have visitors, they’re welcome to join you in the hall, but we allow no visitors in the rooms. During the night, I lock the doors. I can unlock the door for you if you are late in the evening, just ring the bell, but please don’t make a habit of it. We ask that all patrons consider the other guests when they ring the bell. If there are any disputes with other guests, kindly take this up with me and I’ll deal with the situation. Regarding rowdy patrons or their guests, we reserve the right to evict the troublemakers at our own discretion. Our word is final. We report patron’s unreasonable behaviour to their respective guilds, and we have an excellent success rate in this regard.”

She leaned closer to me as if whispering a secret. I could smell onions, but I wasn’t about to tell her that and ruin a good friendship.

“Not a clever idea to try me on that.”

I think she said that scripted induction session to all new patrons. I paid her the twenty-two silvers for eleven nights’ accommodation. I was hungry, I hadn’t eaten anything for the entire day and my stomach was growling. She must’ve heard my stomach because she offered me some food left over from breakfast at no cost. She said there was no problem giving it to me for free because they couldn’t preserve the food, it would soon go off anyway. There was no such thing as fridges in that world, any food they couldn’t preserve was either eaten or discarded.

She seated me at a table in the dining room and served a cold stew, or rather I should call it a broth since it had settled in the pot since breakfast. Later I discovered that breakfast was usually the leftovers of the previous night’s dinner. The broth didn’t taste too bad, it had some herbs and a little salt although it lacked spices but personally, I think it could have done with a bit of vinegar and pepper.

With my stomach full, the only thing left to do was to drag that bloody battle-axe up the stairs to my room. From the stairs I entered a short corridor where my room turned out to be small and frugal. An open, shuttered window allowed enough light and air into the room. The room held all the necessities, a raised bed, a small desk with accompanying chair, and a standalone clothes cupboard. I propped the battle-axe against the wall then sat on the bed. The bed base was solid, and the mattress made of soft scraps of material which seemed comfortable enough, but they didn’t supply a pillow. After a careful search, I certified my bed free of bloodsucking critters, something my father always said one should do when visiting a fantasy world inn. I couldn't believe that I was applying my father's lessons he drilled into me. I lay down on the bed while thinking about the irony. What would my father say if he saw me shacked up in a fantasy world inn, chatty with the lady innkeeper, and my battle-axe propped up against the wall?

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After a short rest I decided to take a tour of the town. Haruhime laughed when I said as much, saying there wasn’t much to see. We were still laughing at her joke when a short, rounded figure of a man stepped into the reception area through the outside door.

“Why are you bothering Haruhime, you insolent boy!”

He shouted. I was so surprised by his exclamation that I couldn't help looking around to see if he were speaking to somebody else. Suddenly the man issued a stream of vulgar expletives towards me, something about my mother meeting a goblin and further ill-mannered words.

“Sorry, are you speaking to me?”

There was a hushed silence and the look of horror from the man's face as if I had dared to ask him a question. In two quick steps the man reached me and shoved me onto the floor so hard I had no time to react. Before I could stand up, a burly man I hadn't noticed before stood next to the fat man. His action was clearly a threat to me because burly man was no doubt fat man's bodyguard, so I stayed sitting on the floor. Something about the that short fat man made me wary, more so than his muscled bodyguard. The unshaven man in his middle fifties with thinning hair came closer and stood over me like an imposing monolith. His sun-bleached coat with its stretched buttons looked like he had outgrown it a long time ago and was about to burst at the seams. His neatly pressed black pants stood in stark contrast with his dusty shoes making him look even more comical. For some reason, he stood there glaring at me.

“Why are you staring at me scruffy boy? Are you looking for trouble?”

At that moment, Haruhime casually walked into the tight space between me and the tensed man. A halo formed around her braided hair, highlighted by the light streaming through the door. She looked like an angel of mercy as she stood between the fat man and me.

“Morning Mr. Marset, does there seem to be a problem?”

I’m not normally one for jumping to conclusions about people, but I found myself already starting to dislike that Mr. Marset. I started to understand why no one in the woodcutters’ camp liked him.

“Ah, Haruhime, nice to see you budding beauty on such a lovely day.”

“Yes, a lovely day indeed. Can I help you with anything Mr. Marset?”

“Are you acquainted with this whelp?”

“Yes, he is a patron of ours and is still new to the area.”

“I suggest you quickly teach him some manners, or he may soon find himself in trouble.”

Did that man suffer from severe constipation or something that he was as bad tempered? Why was it me that needed some manners? Then it dawned on me the fat man was infatuated with Haruhime. He must've seen Haruhime laughing with me and became jealous, but why I couldn't understand. For whatever unjustifiable reason, it didn't stop that man from being a total idiot.

“I’ll inform him of the proper protocol when engaging with someone as important as yourself.”

Important my arse. I wanted to shove that protocol somewhere far worse.

“Hmph, don’t let me see you again…or else? Now I’m late.”

Mister my-underpants-is-too-tight left a threat hanging over my head while he and his bodyguard scurried away at high speed. I was still thinking of doing something unsavoury to that satirical idiot when Haruhime asked me,

“Are you okay?”

I nodded.

“You would be better off if you avoided Mr. Marset. Our mayor is not a nice man. Personally, and between us, I think he has serious problems.”

Funnily enough, I could agree with that.

“Is there some history between you and him?”

I ventured a personal question.

“Mr. Marset is a dangerous man. He only left you alone because he’s proposing to marry me and didn’t want to upset his chances.”

For once, I was at a loss for words and wasn’t sure what to say. One thing was for sure, she would be the loser in that relationship.

“In my humble opinion, I don’t think you should marry that man. He has some serious anger issues.”

She giggled at my suggestion.

“I wouldn’t stoop that low, besides, father would never allow it.”

Her father seemed to own some common sense. For some reason Haruhime apologised profusely for the mayor’s poor attitude, she felt responsible for my run in with the mayor. Although I tried to tell it wasn't her fault, she still insisted that she compensate me somehow. We seem to reach an impasse, then she suddenly got an idea. On the reception desk in the hallway set a small, fired clay jar holding some cookies. She took one of them and placed it in my top pocket of my shirt saying,

“This should bring you good luck. My grandmother always said these cookies had the power to change this town. They are very nice, so enjoy this one.”

What could I say? With such a nice heartfelt gift, it would be cruel for me to say anything otherwise.

With that episode over, I continued my exploration of the town albeit a bit wiser of which locals to avoid. With the Screaming Banshee behind me, the adventurer guild was only few minutes’ walk down the main street and heading west. Earlier Grenfell travelled to my right, so I later I would walk in that direction to find the dryad. Most shops in Obon used shuttered windows with no glass panes. Those that could afford glass, only utilised small panels of round frosted pieces, each piece about the size of my hand. There were shops selling hardware, bread, some stalls selling the local farmers produce and shops selling clothes. There was even one shop called Adventurer Supplies that seemed to be selling things like swords, shields, body armour and an assortment of the weird and wonderful items no doubt with varying degrees of usefulness.

I loved hardware fossicking. If a rehab centre for fossickers existed, I would be permanently interred in it. I couldn’t resist the temptation to see their wares and walked straight into the shop to have a better look. That being a fantasy shop only contributed my sad condition and the shop’s smell of leather, rope, and rusty iron further exacerbated my situation. Those smells corresponded well with the dusty brown tones of the dimly lit interior. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I noticed tightly packed shelves with small nameless bottles of coloured liquid, probably potion-like items. Nearby, stood tin boxes filled with fascinating trinkets and strangely shaped rocks or crystals with unknown functions, perhaps the staples of adventurers everywhere. Large metal traps the size of my torso hung on the walls while tetanus inducing hooks dangled from the roof. Other things with more mundane practical value like ropes, lay neatly coiled on the floor. Propped up against one wall and probably too heavy to mount, stood a massive broadsword still in its scabbard. Next to it lay a large double headed axe, but not as heavy as my monstrosity. It would take immense physical fortitude just to lift one of those weapons off the ground let alone swing it in anger at anything. However, anything hit by a powerful sweep of those weapons stood little chance of survival. A line of wooden shields lay displayed along a low shelf ranged from small nondescript head-sized ones to large rectangular shields. Some held blazing crests and others polished brass buttons. A few must have been second hand because they sported deep gashes which made me wonder if their owners survived the attack. I couldn’t help it; something about second-hand armoury lacking their original owners invited suspicion from me about their battle effectiveness. Was it the owner or the equipment that failed that they ended up on sale there? Luckily, my fascination with some fantasy bows mounted on another wall distracted my dark thoughts. They differed between the basic small wooden model to the large intricately inlaid ones made from some dark metal.

I noticed no other customers entered the shop after I entered. Perhaps I entered at a quieter time of day for sales. The shop’s atmosphere reminded me of an antiques second-hand goods dealer. I approached the counter, but the shop assistant still seemed busy somewhere else. On a wooden display shelf near the counter lay a jewellery piece that attracted my attention, a glittering vibrant green brooch with copper-coloured flashings. Looking closer at the brooch, I could see the designer imitated a broadleaf with immaculate detail. I wondered how it was possible for someone to physically put that much detail into a brooch, they would need a microscope and needles as tools. A feeling of nostalgia washed over me when I closed my eyes. I suddenly imagined the sound of wind blowing through the tops of the forest trees and forest birdsong that sounded like crystal wine glasses ringing together. I heard gentle streams and felt warm nights sprinkled with festive songs under evening lanterns hanging from the broadleaf oaks. Why did I long for things I never experienced before?

“Are you interested?”

Said a young female voice scaring the heck out of me. Her breath just barely touched my ear. Just where did she come from? She must have moved as quietly as a mouse. I wasn’t sure what shocked me first, her platinum blonde hair just touching on her shoulders, her petite figure in a smart fitting green dress, or her vivid green eyes that almost sparkled. A beautiful, twenty-two-year-old woman, with a fetish for green. I mean even her moccasin type shoes were green.

Just who was she?

“I couldn’t help but notice you were looking at the brooch? You should buy it.”

Were all fantasy salesladies that blunt?

“Why?”

Really, thinking about it, why out of everything in that shop would I want that brooch.

“Because you suit it.”

I wasn’t too sure what to make of that, usually jewellery suited the owner, not the other way around.

“Ah, yes. But I couldn’t afford it.”

I certainly had enough money to buy it, but with all the uncertainty in my life every copper coin was precious to me. There was no way I would buy a brooch purely on a whim, even if a beautiful lady recommended it. I needed to quickly back out because I couldn’t afford anything there and what would happen if they had some weird look-and-buy clause in that world?

“It only costs twenty-three silvers you know?”

Twenty-three silvers were enough for eleven nights’ accommodation. There was no way I was going to spend that on jewellery when I hardly knew what tomorrow might bring. I was an idiot for stepping into an obvious sales trap. As good a saleslady as she was, I really needed to find a way to back out of that situation quickly. It was time to play the I-can’t-afford-it card, the bane of any serious saleslady.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t afford it.”

“Mm…really?”

She seemed to pause for a moment wondering perhaps whether I was still a customer worth pursuing. She placed her face close to mine and looked directly into my eyes. She was so close that for the first time I noticed that her eyes were not the same colour of green. One was slightly greener than the other. It seemed that the green colour was due to a myriad of small artefacts in her iris. Then for the first time I saw her short elf-shaped ears partly hidden by her hair. I’m not sure why, but at the time I thought she wasn’t pure elf, not that I’d seen an actual elf to compare her with. Not that I didn’t mind her intruding into my comfort zone, but the saleslady really needed to learn something about personal space. Then she seemed to make up her mind about something.

“If you’re looking for a job go to the Dryad, but for now I’ll buy this for you.”

“What?”

I wasn’t sure how things happened in that town, but in my reality its normally the man that buys the woman a gift and probably after they’ve known each other for more than a few seconds? Even more freaky, was that she offered me a job at the same place I was already working.

“Is it normal for a saleslady to buy items for their customers?”

“Huh? What made you think I was a saleslady?”