Chapter Thirty-One

The inn itself was actually clean. That much was true. What I wasn’t prepared for were the crowds, it wasn’t the number of them, as there weren’t so many. At least not what I feared. Rather I saw that there was a different air to Steelven’s establishment than there was to almost anything I’d seen so far.

It looked the way I ‘felt’ the hour I decided I would become an adventurer, to see the world, explore, and so something different with my life than what I’d ever done before.

In the corner there was an elf with a fife who was bouncing up and down on his feet, clad in brightly colored garments with strips of matching fabric hanging from his arms as he played a lively song. Two paces in front of him was another elf, a woman, a dancer clad in a bright white and green dress, and when I say ‘white and green’ I mean it was exactly divided vertically into two halves. Her motions seemed to match the bounce of the strips of fabric that hung from the player’s fife, and everything about her screamed ‘I love this’ from the bright smile on her face to the flushed cheeks that framed it.

Her long elven ears twitched with glee and her wild unbound golden hair moved as if it were caught by a high wind on an open field. It was as if, to her, this was not just a performance. This was her adventure.

Have you ever seen someone doing exactly what they wanted to do with their life? The exuberance, the passion, it’s infectious, like the reverse of a disease.

And if that were so, then this place had that spirit in spades. The handful of humans, dwarves, and goblins who sat around the multitude of tables bounced in their seats and bobbed their heads to the tune, and the elven woman’s voice began to rise in song as confidently as every mug of beer was raised to waiting lips.

“A drink for me a drink for thee, and then what happens we will see!”

“A tumble in the hay or do you sleep for another day?”

“A maiden’s bosom a maiden’s pride, I’ll grab what I want, won’t be denied!”

“So buck up lad and don’t be sad, there’s lots of bouncin to be had!”

I won’t write all the lyrics to the bawdy song she sang of a lusty maid and the farmer boy, but it was impossible not to enjoy it. My tails wagged like mad behind me and I couldn’t help but bob my head along with the music.

“Will you all be staying with me down here or…?” I asked as we got in line to get our rooms, my eyes not really on my team, rather I had eyes for only the most celebratory thing I’d ever seen.

Steelven had one hell of a spirit to it, and I was eager to stick around down here and see some more of it.

Dwarguy licked his lips and kept his eye on the serving women who carried mugs of ale almost the size of his head. I didn’t have to be genre savvy to know that the dwarf really wanted to stay.

But he winced as if he’d been pinched from behind as ‘she’ spoke up. Yeah, Loysa, she quickly shook her head. “No, my Goddess specified that it was to be ‘you’. If we were supposed to be down here, she would have said so.”

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I frowned a little and looked at the good time being had, I wouldn’t have minded buying my team a few rounds in an atmosphere like this one. “Are you sure? I mean what harm can it do?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe nothing, maybe we ruin it and then we have to travel halfway around the world for a different spell caster.” She did crack a little smile at me though and put her hand on my shoulder, “You’ll be fine. We’re not here without reason, and you’ve gotten yourself this far. Just go with the flow and we’ll meet you in the morning.” She said with a reassuring squeeze.

That was kinder than I expected, given that I’d managed to upset a group of fae not even ten minutes ago, not to mention getting us, or at least me under the debt of Yorgim Schnee.

But then again, maybe it was the fact that I’d gotten Dwarguy and settled things with the fae that increased her confidence in me. Whatever the case, I wouldn’t say no to a little confidence.

“Thank you.” It was all I could really muster before I turned around to find myself face to face with an old gnomish man with yellowed, wrinkling skin and sparkling yellow eyes that reminded me of cuts of polished amber.

“‘Ow many?” He asked.

“Three for now.” I said and held out my slate. “I’m with the adventurer’s guild.” I added, and he gave a quick nod, the requested sum of payment went down before my eyes. After getting scammed by that carnival barker type elf at the mech arena, I wasn’t going to take my eyes off the requests for money ever again.

The transaction was quickly completed and he laid out three brass keys. “The doors’re a mite old, use them, eh?”

“Sure thing, old man.” I said and distributed the keys to my team, each key had a small number etched along the edge, at least this much was familiar relative to some of the hotels in my old world.

“Good night.” I said as Dwarguy and Loysa began to walk away.

“G’night lass, good luck to ye.” Dwarguy said with a wink, I wasn’t sure if he meant with finding who we were supposed to find, or if he was wishing me luck with the alcohol.

Either way, I felt more confident than I otherwise might have, on both fronts. “Thanks, I’ll see you soon.” I promised, and endured one more wry smirk from Loysa before I went to seat myself at an empty table.

Four beers in, and I don’t know how many songs, and still?

Nothing seemed to be happening. It was fun, sure, the music of this new world seemed to resonate with both my human and kitsune self, or maybe just the latter? I wasn’t really sure how much of me was the old me and how much was the imposition of the new.

But whatever the case, the ‘fun’ did not eliminate this sense in me that I should have found ‘something’ by now. ‘In the games I’d maybe encounter some cloaked shadowy figure of mystery who would challenge me to a drinking contest. Or if it were an anime I’d stumble over some pretty girl and then meet her family. Or maybe I’d perform a rescue of some sort of some pretty girl being harassed by drunks, only to learn that she’s a super powerful magus or something…’ My thoughts carried me through all the genre savviness at my disposal, but it wasn’t doing me any good.

Everybody around me seemed to be happy. No drama. No danger. No nothing that would reveal whom I was supposed to encounter. ‘You know, Goddess, it would really help if you would give me a clue about all this.’ I cast the thought toward Kuduru, and I had no idea if she could even hear me.

‘Do gods hear the words of those who aren’t their followers?’ I made a mental note to ask about that later.

In the meantime, all I could do was just ‘wait’ and keep drinking.

There were worse ways to spend a few hours, or a few creds.

Until finally, I noticed something ‘different’.