Susannah Blitzar leaned back on her heels and sighed, stretching out her back. It popped horribly. She was not made for bending over tables to clean them, but here she was, bending over tables to clean them.

Being a business proprietor should make her above such things. Literally.

Susannah shuffled behind the counter, and dropped her elbows onto it. She stared into the middle distance.

The café, her café, Soul Coffee Café, was closed for the day. The day being a strange time between two and eight pm. Most of the inhabitants of the swamp were nocturnal. It was for the adventurers that she stayed open until two.

She grimaced. The adventurers.

When Susannah first got here, three years ago, there were only the witches and bogbeasts and ogres and suchlike. They had dreadful table manners, true raised by wolves' attitudes, but they respected her gumption, setting up a place for delicacies in an out of the way, nasty town.

Respect was a nice thing. It made a heady feeling, mixing with the pride of her lifelong dream; a café of her very own. Granted, in a swamp, but it was hers!

So it was that she did not mind the swamp denizens' bad manners, and they soon learned not to track mud. In turn, she learned who would use her silverware, who would not, and who would bend it in the process of usage.

For a time, things were good. But then the dungeon appeared, and adventurers took an interest in Swamptown. The damp, smelly bog was so dreadful that it was the only town in leagues, and it took the name Swamptown as a result of being the only contender. It was closest to the dungeon by default, so this was where the adventurers came.

She wished they didn't.

Susannah had the only refined establishment in Swamptown. She was the only resident who was first an outsider, and still was, in some respects. She talked with an Archaon Kingdom accent, and smiled with the familiar customer service look, so the adventurers collectively decided that for local information it was best to talk to her.

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Being that they delved during the day, it was by night that they met in her café, treating it like a central hub. Their rambunctious personalities scared off her regular customers.

This, Susannah admitted to herself, she did not mind.

Variety was nice, and she liked meeting new people. Swamptown was lacking in that respect. The adventurers were a good change. Until they stopped treating her like a central hub, and more like any old tavern.

Dirty dishes, broken mugs, suspicious, and sticky stains on her tables. Those were tolerable, if she was making money. The influx of business from the adventurers was not making her money.

Susannah was a capitalist! She did not barter her prices. Just because some upstart adventurer wanted coffee after they left the dungeon, and had only yucky monster bits to trade, did not mean she had to accept. No, no, no! Susannah took coins as currency, please and thank you. No matter how much of a price a leaf of magical whatever or a draconic seeing eye of however far away was worth, even be it more than a cup of her coffee was priced, did not mean she was going to take it.

It was not just the currency adventurers seemed to believe she would take.

They insulted her baking. And they thought she would put up with it.

They asked why she didn't offer beer. She ran a café. Why don't you have a proper, strong breakfast? Eggs and biscuits and gravy? She ran a café, coffee and pastry based. Why don't you have a quest board outside? Café. Where are the sleeping spaces? Go outside and camp, bucko, this ain't an inn.

It was ridiculous! She thought she had enough, and then one of them complained about what she did offer. Her cakes, her muffins, her scones, her fresh bread, nothing was off limits. And where one adventurer dared to go…

She missed the respect the original denizens had for her. The swamp people had better manners. They were kinder, in their own way.

It was awful. It was all so awful. Susannah wasn't a quitter, but she was lonely, sad, tired, and her pride was butthurt.

Susannah thought that it was time for a change. It was her first café. She could make another.

She packed away her things into an expanded space, said goodbye to the regulars she liked, and moved to the city.

If she knew half of what was coming, she would have stayed in Swamptown. If she knew all of it, perhaps she would have left sooner.