Padding across the farmer’s market like an elderly woman in her new slippers, Akemi came upon her target—a man, tall and slender, standing in the dirt with an arrangement of hoods and masks on a tarp in front of him. They came in a variety of colors, from midnight black to burnt orange. Holding her charismatic cowboy hat firmly to her head, she cleared her throat.
“What can a down on her luck hero get for seven gold?” she said, batting her eyelashes.
She felt immediately nauseated by herself. She was very keenly looking forward to the point in time where she wouldn’t need to pull out these pity me theatrics anymore.
The man looked down on her, his beak-like nose and thin lips curving down into a frown.
“I do not do charity.”
“Wonderful. Between you and the cobbler, that makes two philanthropists,” she grumbled. “Any chance you have a weird obsession with eggplants?”
His eyes widened.
“Did you say eggplants?”
Persuasion Check (Easy)
Passed!
Finally.
—
With her hair and face wrapped in a dark silk covering, she made her way to the front of the inn. As she moved to step inside, a man in golden robes barreled out of the door and past her, stumbling across the porch until his sweaty hands found the railing. He dry-heaved, his head lurching forward.
“Gods, just disgusting—go get your friend, you useless sacks of flour!” Agatha called out from inside. “If he makes a mess of my front porch, I’m booting the whole lot of you!”
Several more lopsided heroes came wobbling through the doorway, and Akemi slipped past them and inside. She was immediately greeted by raucous laughter and fists slamming on tables. Young heroes playing dice and cards, beating each other senseless over bad rolls and cheating accusations. The inn smelled like a detonated bomb of whisky and vodka; it looked like a crowded chicken coop.
Saying nothing, Akemi headed for the stairwell. It was in the far back, past the tables and the bar. There were three bartenders and two waitresses working the tavern, all of them women. Both they and Agatha were too preoccupied to notice Akemi stalking through the inn and up the stairwell, too consumed by drink orders and constantly reappearing stains in the floorboards. Agatha's mop was being worn down to a nub.
Akemi quickly reached the top of the stairs, entering a narrow hallway. The corridor smelled almost as much like booze as downstairs, only there was a slight draft—wind flowing in from windows that hadn’t been closed properly. Homely portraits of women clung tightly to the walls, each with a caption underneath. Akemi peered at them, curious.
Miriam Kur, Roadhouse Owner, 800 - 892. Alexandra Kur, Roadhouse Owner, 892- 952. Festicy Kur, Roadhouse Owner, 952 - 1002. And so on and so forth. All women had the same heavy features and signature apron, all the way up to today. Agatha Kur, Roadhouse Owner, 1500 - ?
“This inn is that old?” she murmured. She took a mental note of the date. Right now had to be sometime in the 1500s, judging by Agatha’s age. It was weird to think about. It seemed almost as if she’d traveled through time. But she knew it wasn’t quite like that—she’d landed some place much weirder than the earthly Middle Ages.
“This place is a Ship of Theseus,” said a voice behind her.
Akemi whipped around, startled. She hadn’t heard a single footstep, nor seen anyone further down the hallway. She looked down, and realized why. She was being talked to by a little green creature, with long, pointed ears, and a small lute attached to his back. He wore fuzzy white socks, and when he hopped foot to foot, the sound was inaudible on the floorboards.
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Bwog | Level 7 Bard
“A Ship of Theseus?” she repeated, still trying to wrap her head around what—or rather, who—she was looking at. “What do you mean?”
“Have you not heard the saying? About the ship whose parts are replaced one by one… The question is: is it the same ship in the aftermath, or a different one entirely?”
Bwog’s voice was high and chipper, and when he grinned, he exposed only fangs. His teeth were like an array of sharp toothpicks.
He’s almost cute, Akemi thought. In a creepy sort of way.
“This inn is the same,” he said, and reached for the lute on his back. “The Kurs have kept this place in pristine condition over the years. Replaced every knob when it tore loose, every board in the floor when it molded. Left to its own devices, the inn would have wilted. But the Kurs have kept it afloat, piece by piece. A Ship of Theseus.”
He began to strum his lute, and Akemi covered her ears. The instrument was painfully, shriekingly out of tune. Undeterred, Bwog began to sing. His voice was a similar flavor of godawful, pitchy and screechy like nails on chalkboard.
“Oh, the Roadhouse, where tankards brim full, and the dogs of desire run wild—”
“Be quiet,” Akemi whispered harshly, slapping one hand over his mouth, and the other over his lute. His eyebrows shot up. “You’ll attract attention.”
“But I want attention,” he mumbled against her palm. “That’s how I make my money, scary lady.”
“If that’s your goal, then this is a bad place to do it,” she said, gritting her teeth. “You’ll make a lot more money singing downstairs. You know, where the people are.”
And they might just be drunk enough to tolerate it.
His eyes widened. The dice rolled in the corner of her vision again.
Persuasion Check (Easy)
Passed!
“Good thinking, you,” he said, jumping up and down excitedly. “Eek, my first ever live audience!”
He shuffled away, but then as he was about to descend the stairs, he turned back to look at her.
“In exchange for your kind advice, I'll offer you a piece of my own. If you’re an accountant like the little blinking screen suggests, then I saw this big notice on the quest board looking for types just like yourself. Seems there’s a guildhall over in Grimguard. It's not a great town to spend long amounts of time in—especially if you like keeping the gold you enter with—but work is work. Huzzah!”
With that, he hopped down the stairs, his lute jiggling on his back. Akemi stared after him, jaw slack. What a little weirdo. She was tempted to go downstairs and watch his trainwreck of a first performance, but she resisted. In case the heroes came clamoring back upstairs to escape the noise, she’d have to be swift with her burglarizing.
From there, she began going room to room, searching for the cobbler’s lizard erotica. Most of the heroes had been too drunk or too naive to lock their doors, letting her graze in and out effortlessly. She found a few interesting things in their belongings—a modest amount of gold, some trap disarming equipment, crossbows and crossbow bolts, swords and gauntlets.
Warning: Inventory full! If you pick up anything else, you will become Encumbered.
Ugh. Inventory management was always my least favorite game mechanic.
She had noticed pretty much immediately that items in Kodra, once picked up, could be dragged into her inventory by simply using her mental mouse-cursor. That caused the item to evaporate and reappear inside of her UI. She had done it with Phepheroni’s butcher’s knife.
But what she had failed to notice was the inventory limit—a weight count of 43.5 pounds, or about 20kg. When she clicked the Information button next to the limit, it informed her that she could only carry up to 35% of her body weight, plus modifiers to Strength.
Well that’s a huge bummer. There’s no way I’m getting jacked just so I can carry around a few extra pairs of socks.
Taking the gold and a few shiny knicknacks, she reached the last door in the hallway. It was fastened tight. She pressed her ear to it, trying to pick up on any noise, but didn’t hear any signs of life—no shallow breathing or footsteps.
Now if I just had a lockpick.
Lacking any tools of finesse, she slammed her shoulder against the door. It didn’t budge. Cursing, she tried twisting the knob off, but it only strained her wrist.
“Alright, fine,” she mumbled. “[Knife Fingers].”
Prodding one of the razor thin blades into the lock, she twisted her finger. She had done the same thing as a kid with a paperclip. Her parents' room could be unlocked with enough patience and a dexterous hand—and the same went for this one. The lock clicked softly, and the door yawned forward, the draft inside the room flushing air out into the hallway.
The vacant room was the largest suite Akemi had seen so far, with a canopy queen bed, several sets of wooden drawers, and a lush carpet with the embroidered face of a grizzly bear. The room’s singular window was left wide open wide, exposing a view of the marketplace just outside. Akemi saw the cowboy traders from before arguing back and forth. They had cornered one of the other traders—the one selling masks and hoods—and were holding him by the collar, lifting him off the ground. His nose and cheeks were both bloody.
Alarmed, Akemi leaned out the window. She could only hear distant, clipped echoes of what they were saying, but it was enough to get a gist for what was going on.
“—someone stole off with Mickey’s eggplant supply—”
“—you think they killed him?—”
“—go check his cargo by the stables—”
Akemi’s fingers gripped the window sill. Alarm bells rang out in her mind.
They’re going to find the body.