It was on the second day after they left Leif’s crossing that they stumbled upon a road. The entire time they were walking they were trudging through the underbrush and the deadfall from the tree’s of the forest. Due to their lackadaisical speed it took them entirely way too long to get there. Between Meira not being full strength, and their general disinterest in getting anywhere in any amount of time it was pleasant. The friends talked about small nothings, Bjorn learned more about the Eld, and the way society had been structured. Alaric and Meira both learned more than they cared to about earth. Some of Bjorn’s stories sounded too farfetched to be true. Regardless of their opinion on his obvious lies, they still listened anyway.
The road they stumbled upon was more or less just a dirt path that had been beaten into the ground around them and the trees, and foliage were cut back 5 feet on either side of the small dirt path. It came in from the west, and then shot off heading north. Based on what Aiko and the villagers said, if they followed this road for two days they would near Vanta. Heading off towards Vanta they continued with their lazy pace and made it there in 4 days. As they grew near Vanta the woods around them started to thin, and they started to pass different travelers more and more frequently. At first it was just a single boy of about 15, then it was a wagon, then it was an entire pack train of 12 horses. As the people traveling about grew denser Alaric started running interference and keeping them back from the group. It was near the end of their trip when Alaric cuffed a boy on the side of his head and scolded him for trying to pickpocket Bjorn. As they traveled along the road it changed from at first just a dirt path in the middle of the forest, to now, a full 20 foot across road with hand picked stone that had been set into the ground. The stone was either cut, or had been worn down over time because the road was smooth, level ground.
On the last day around midday they were walking along the road, when a small hill could be seen before them. As they were walking up the hill they could already see the smoke plums from the fires that were ever burning in the larger city. By the time they made it to the hill the forest around them had cleared the land they were walking through was mostly flat, cultivated, farm land. They had left the forest early on the last day of their trip. Cresting the hill they had a view down to a large city, from where they stood they could see the city easily took up over 10 square miles. Up until now the largest settlement Bjorn had seen was the gnoll encampment. In that camp there were easily over 800 or 900 gnolls that were living there. Before them the city could easily have over 20 or even 30 thousand residents. Around the perimeter of the city was a large stone wall. In the middle of the city another larger stone wall split the city into two different rings. Against the outer stone wall there were many different temporary living structures.
The road they were on slowly sloped downward following the curve of the hill they were standing on, following it all the day down to a large open gate on the south wall. The road was busy with people coming and going from Vanta. The people moving on the road were from all walks of life. There were men and women with slumped shoulders who had been beat down over the years of hard labor work. Others were clad in light to heavy armor carrying weapons. Wagons of varying makes moved down the road, some looked like merchant wagons, others were laden with farm goods. Some rode horses, all from small ponies to large wide warhorses. There was even a carriage being pulled by two horses down the road. And ever present there were men and women clad in a uniform, there was one group of 20 marching up the road, and 10 more were standing guard at the gate to the city doing basic screening as travelers and workers passed them. The crowd of people slowly filtered towards the right side of the road heading into the city.
Joining the crowd they slowly made their way through the crowd heading for the main gate. It took a better part of half an hour to get up to the gate heading into Vanta. When they got to the gate one of the guards walked up to them. When he got there he looked the trio up and down and said a single word. “Papers.”
Looking back and forth to each other it was Alaric who spoke up. “Papers? What papers?”
“You need papers to walk about the city so heavily armed.” He said as he looked the group up and down.
This time Bjorn spoke up. “Where do we get these permits?” Bjorn got the mental image of a medieval DMV and shuddered.
“I’ll have to send one of our guards with you and he will take you to the proper place to get that taken care of. Hey Manny!” called the guard over his shoulder. “Get your sorry butt over here!”
A young man who looked like he hadn’t even started shaving came running up to the guard, his armor was entirely way too big for him, his chainmail hauberk came down to his knees, his belt tail was comically long, and he constantly had to lift his helmet up so that he could see out from under its visor. “Yes, sergeant?” he said with a salute.
The sergeant gave a half assed salute back. “I need you to take these people to the office of arms regulations. They don’t have the papers necessary for them to carry their arms in town.”
“Yes sir. Alright can you follow me please? Right this way.” Manny made a gesture that indicated they should follow him through the gate.
“After you take them there don’t dally, I need you back here you hear? If I catch you slacking off again I’ll send you out with a border patrol squad.”
The young man completely ignored his sergeant. He deftly wormed his way through the throng of people all while making sure his charge didn’t get lost. They followed him down a large street and then down a smaller less packed street. Lastly Manny turned a corner and before them was a large impressive stone building with intricate scrollwork cut into the stone. Apparently this world had over the top impressive government buildings as well. Walking up to a massive double door Manny placed his hand on one of the doors. From his stature and the size of the door there was no way that he would be able to move the entire door. Just one of the doors was over 15 feet tall and 7 feet wide. Manny then gave a little half hearted push, and Bjorn’s first assessment was right. Neither of the large double doors swung open, instead what had seemed like flawless wood broke apart. A section of wood the size of a human swung backwards, and Manny stepped through. The section remained open as Manny beckoned them through. Stepping through the new entrance Bjorn took a look back at the door he had just walked through, and on the back side of the door he just walked through there were a bunch of hinges set into the wood all of varying sizes. There were 5 sets of hinges in total. The other door had no such thing as hinges.
The interior of the building had a wide open floor plan, with many exits from this main foyer, all of various sizes. The smallest one was no taller than a foot, with the largest being the same size as the front double doors. Once inside and the door shut behind them the general din that had assaulted them since entering the city was gone, and a relative quiet settled over the room. The room was quiet enough that they could hear the sound of a quill scratching on a piece of paper.
In a low voice, Manny said. “We are going up those stairs, and then it’s the first door on our left.” Walking across this quiet room the sound of their boots striking stone reverberated throughout the entire room. It was surprisingly jarring. The group made it up the stairs and then navigated their way to the door that Manny had pointed out. Through the door there was a small waiting area, with multiple desks separating the room into two halves. On their half there was a series of empty benches lining the walls. On the officials half there were shelves filled with books, scrolls, and loose papers. There was a single door leading out of the room, no doubt leading to even more shelves filled with more useless paraphernalia. The desks were currently empty.
“Alright this is where I leave you, these fine ladies will take care of you I’m sure.” Before turning around and leaving at a pace that was not quite a run, but still faster than a walk.
“Is it just me, or did you guys see fear in his eyes?” Asked Meira watching the door slowly swing closed behind the guard.
“Most definitely fear.” Agreed Alaric.
They sat there twiddling their thumbs for over an hour before an old decrepit looking woman came walking through the door with the assistance of a walker in front of her. At the pace she was moving she would be easily outrun by a slug.
Alaric leaned over to Bjorn and said under his breath. “Did they give us a bag of bones? I think I could knock her over with just my breath.”
Not able to restrain herself, Meira also leaned over, “Alaric, with your bad breath you could knock anyone over with just your breath.”
After an excruciating amount of time the lady made it to one of the seats behind one of the decks and turned towards the trio said in a surprisingly loud voice. “Next!”
It was Meira who got to her feet first, but she wasn’t quite expecting Bjorn to actually be the first one to make it to the desk. He sat down in the seat right in front of the old lady, before Bjorn was able to even get a word out the old lady cut him off.
“What can this bag of bones do for you?” She said this as she made eye contact with Alaric. They held that eye contact for a few seconds before Alaric averted his gaze.
Trying not to look at the small ball of unwavering bureaucracy, Bjorn spoke up. “We need to get permits to carry weapons in the city. The guard at the gate had one of his subordinates escort us here before leaving us here with you.”
“Permits you say? I think we can serve you. The lady slowly turned around and scooted her chair up to a bookshelf and grabbed a stack of papers from one of the lower shelves and pushed off the shelf gliding back over to the desk she sat down at. Quickly and efficiently the lady sorted out three small stacks of papers. Looking back at the group, “It will cost you 1 silver coin per month, for a year that will cost you 16 silver.” She paused speaking for a second, indicating to the coin pouches that each of them had tied to their waists. “I need you to sign here and here.” She pushed a small ink well with a quill at them. “If you lose your papers you have to come back here and talk to me to buy another one.”
Sitting there expectantly she stopped speaking, taking the cue Bjorn pulled up his coin pouch and started pulling out 16 silver pieces, the other two were right behind him. After placing them on the table the old lady smiled and gestured at the inkwell, picking up the quill Bjorn dipped it before quickly signing his name in the two places indicated by the lady. Meira signed her name next, and lastly Alaric. Once it was done the lady took the stack of papers back and took the top sheet of each pile and reaching under the desk brought up a pinch of fine blue powder, and then sprinkled the powder on the page. The powder sparkled briefly before sinking into the page. After that was done with the page she handed all three of them to Bjorn.
“There you go, remember if you lose them you have to come back here to get another. Oh yeah one final thing, if any of the city officials, yes that includes guards, you must present the papers, otherwise you face either jail time or hefty fines.”
“Wait, that’s it? Just like that, we give you money and we get our permits?”
The lady got a confused look on her face. “Yeah that’s pretty much it. What were you expecting?”
“I was expecting to have to be shoved around through seven different departments only to eventually get sent back here, and I was expecting to have to wait for multiple hours at each department.”
“I’m sorry about the wait, I was at lunch, how long were you waiting for?”
“Over an hour, but that is besides the point, this entire situation was faster and easier than I expected it to be.”
The old lady put a smile on her face. “I don’t know how it works where you're from, but we pride ourselves for not wasting your and our time both. So yeah, you are good to go.”
“Huh.” was all Bjorn could say to her last commit as he just stood there dumbfounded. Meira grabbed Bjorn by his shoulders and started to steer him towards the door. Making their way back to the large open area, and then down the stairs.
“How does the government work back on earth Bjorn?” asked Meira
“They seem very dedicated to wasting everyone's time and wasting everyone’s money on top of it.” Bjorn then started to tell them all about the DMV, and the Registrar's office, as they made their way to the door. On the backside of the double doors where they came through there were multiple handles at different heights. Grabbing the one a little above waist height and pulling the human sized door swung inwards letting them out into the afternoon sun.
Clapping his hands together Alaric spoke up. “Well now that we got that taken care of, what do you want to do?”
“I have a bit of free cash, I would like to find either the mage section in town or a magic shop.” Meira said.
“Seconded.”
“Alright, I want to go to the metal working section of town, how about we meet up at the Crowing Rooster later?” Before they left Leif’s crossing Aiko suggested the Crowing Rooster to Alaric as a place to stay when they made it to Vanta.
Nodding in agreement Meira replied. “That sounds good to me, let’s try to make it there by suns down.”
After walking back to the main thoroughfare they made their way to a crossroad. Grasping each other by the forearm in farewell Alaric went one way and Meira and Bjorn took off the other way. They started heading towards the center of the city, Meira figured that any sort of mage shop would be closer to the center of the city. After all people who can do magic are typically a rarity, from his understanding, with enough time and in some cases money anyone could gain access to magic. It was almost unheard of people being able to learn more than 4 schools of magic. So Bjorn already having access to three different types of magic was surprising.
“You know.” Meira said. “Most people in the Eld spend their entire lives wishing to learn magic, and struggle to obtain the ability to cast spells. Within a year of coming to the Eld you now have access to 3 schools of magic. You are weird, and in this case an extreme outlier.”
Meira’s comment made Bjorn curious, and so he asked about how long people normally live in the Eld, of course assuming that they made it to old age and that is what leads to their death. As it turned out most humans lived to the end of the same life expectancy as those back on earth. It wasn’t unheard of for humans to live past 100 years. Elves had longer life expectancy, they would live to normally around 150 years. Dwarves lived to around 120 years. The longer life expectancy had some tradeoffs, elves and dwarves had a harder time at procreation than humans did. It normally took longer for them to fully mature, but the first 16 years of their lives they all matured at roughly the same speed. Which led Bjorn to his next question.
“Meira, how long is a year here?”
“What do you mean? How long is a year? It is the length of a year.” Meira retorted with a sly smile on her face, it wasn’t a full smile, her mouth turned up slightly at the corners.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Sighing at her mocking tone, and her barely veiled sarcasm. “You know what I mean, how many days are there in a year? Back on earth we have 12 months in a year, and there are 365 days in a year most of the time.”
The sly smile started to stray into a mocking one. “Most of the time? You don’t know how many days there are in a year back on earth. I didn’t realize that you were so oblivious.” Bjorn just gave her a flat stare. “Fine, there are 512 days in a year, and 16 months in a year. So that means there are 32 days each month.”
Doing some quick mental math Bjorn realized that the average life expectancy on The Eld for humans would be the equivalent as someone making it to 140 years old back on earth. Meira would live until she would be over 210 years old if she was back on earth. Bjorn was quiet for a bit as they were walking through the streets, occasionally stopping someone to ask for directions.
“Your world is oddly in line with the number 2.”
“What do you mean?” asked Meira.
“Well for starters there are two suns, there are 8 moons, at least as far as I've seen. 32 hours in a day, 512 days in a year, 16 months in a year and 32 days per month. So many things in the eld are based around twos. I find it weird.”
It took a while for Meira to reply. “You’re right, I hadn’t noticed that, it is kind of weird how many things end up dealing with twos. But that is not something I think is worth dwelling on, it’s just the way the world is, why should we question what is obviously a part of the natural order?”
“I disagree with that, we shouldn’t just blindly accept the things around us, I think it’s important to understand why things happen, and for what reason.” Pulling out a copper coin Bjorn held it out and dropped it. “Why is it when you let go of things they fall? I know the answer and it is gravity, there is a force in this world always pulling objects towards the center of our planet. There is a certain blissfulness that comes from understanding the world around you.”
“Call the pull whatever you want to, the world around us is the way it is, I can’t change that as much as you can. Why should we care for the reason nature acts in a certain way? It doesn’t matter, does that knowledge help you eat? Does it help you survive? Does it help you win a fight? I know that when you drop something it will fall, just like I know that when I push against something it moves. For me the reason behind it doesn’t matter. All I care about is that the world continues to function the same way it did yesterday, and a year ago. When the rules of nature change then it will end badly for me.”
“I guess that is a fair point, but aren’t you curious?”
Stopping in the middle of the street, Bjorn kept walking a pace or two before he noticed that Meira had stopped. Turning around he looked Meira in the eyes. “Honestly? No, I am not curious at all. Besides, I think we are here.” Meira made a gesture with her head pointed behind Bjorn to an open stone archway.
On either side of the stone archway there were two different stone gargoyles standing guard. Through the archway there was a stone path snaking through a well manicured lawn with large standing tree’s Bjorn had never seen before. The large courtyard had several paths banching off leading to different buildings. In the center of the courtyard a single white tree stood in a fountain, deep royal purple fruits hanging down off of the branches.
As they walked towards the stone archway the two gargoyles came alive, the sound of stone grinding on stone sounded through the street as they moved in the way of the path. “Halt, only members of the mage guild are allowed to enter.” Both of the gargoyles had stone poleaxes in their hands that they pointed towards Meira and Bjorn. Which stopped them in their tracks.
“How do we get admittance to the mages guild? We both can cast spells.”
One of the gargoyles pointed towards a small building to the side of the stone archway.
“Oh okay thank you.” As they were walking towards the building a small rumble could be heard behind them. Turning around they saw both the gargoyles had shifted back into position on either side of the entrance and stopped moving again. Walking into the small building it was a single room building, running down the center of the room there was a counter with a single old green skinned orc standing behind the counter. His absolutely massive fangs almost stabbed into his eyes when his mouth was closed.
“Oh your new faces, welcome and come in, shut the door.” The interior of the room was a pleasant cool in comparison to the heat out in the street. Stepping inside they closed the door. “What can I do for you guys?”
It was Meira who spoke. “Good day, is this the mage guild?” The orc nodded in assent. “We are both mages, and was wondering if we could join the mage guild. So what are you expected to do to join?”
A smile fell across the orc’s face, with the size of his fangs the smile looked more like a snarl then it did a smile. “Congratulations, that is quite an accomplishment in and of itself. All you have to do is prove your magic abilities. You have to be able to cast a spell that has a skill level of at least 40 to join. If you have the skill level but don’t know a spell that is level 40, I have a spell book of each type of basic magic. Each will cost you 75 gold to purchase to attempt to learn the spell. If you like, can I provide you with a list of spells that I have for sale?”
Bjorn felt his stomach drop at the value required to purchase a spell necessary to gain admittance to the mage guild. Let alone the skill level requirement to cast the spell. He looked over to Meira and raised a single eyebrow. She in turn gave a small shake of her head. Her message was clear, “I can’t cast any of the spells.”
“Unfortunately.” Meira started, “We can neither afford, nor can we cast a level 40 spell. Would it be possible to purchase something from the magic guild? We don’t need full admittance, we just want access to the grounds so we can buy some spells and gear.”
“Again, unfortunately I can not allow you to enter the guild grounds unless you can cast a level 40 spell in any of the basic elements. So by extension, I can’t let you enter to buy spells and gear. What I can do though is offer you the chance to come back here when you are able to cast a level 40 spell and sell you the spell necessary to join the mage guild.” The orc said with a repugnant smile on his face. “Now is there anything else I can help you with?” The firm but polite dismissal was hard to miss.
“No, thank you for your time.” Bjorn said as he and Meira turned and made their way to the door. Once the door has shut behind them Bjorn just blurted out. “Well that was a waste of our time.”
With an accepting look on her face Meira replied. “Yes, yes it was. But that is the way of the world, knowledge is something widely guarded, and it always seems to be less guarded to the wealthy.” With a sigh she turned back the way they had come and called back. “I think we should see if we can find any magic stores on our own.”
Following her they spent the better part of two hours and several copper coins in an attempt to gain knowledge of a place to buy magical gear and spells. No one either seemed willing to share that information or had no idea if there was a magical store, but they all seemed more than eager to take their coins.
As the suns were starting to near the horizon they agreed that a warm meal and a mug of beer would be very much appreciated at the moment. So they made their way towards the crowing rooster. It was full on night by the time they found their way to the inn. Pushing open the door they were greeted by a warm common room painted in bright reds and pinks. A rather powerful and intoxicating or repugnant smell, depending on who you asked, dominated the room. Inside the common room of the inn there were tables filled with men and women of all different races. The wait staff were all men, very attractive men. The outfits that they wore were of questionable modesty at best.
Making their way inside they spotted a table off to the side of the common room, making their way over and they dropped into the seats. After a few minutes one of the Elf men made his way over to their table. He was tall, lean, and well defined, having a soft face he had a half smile on it as he started to speak. “What can I get for you?” The amount of eye contact the elf made with Bjorn with that smile made him uncomfortable.
Meira saved Bjorn, “We have been traveling on the road for a few days, made our way over here from Leif’s crossing. So a hot meal and a few rooms would be nice.”
Looking at Meira for the first time since the elf made his way to the table he addressed her. “Food I can do, if you want to organize lodging you’ll have to find Pearal behind the bar, he owns the place.” Pausing for a few seconds he gave Bjorn a very obvious look up and down. “I’m assuming you’d like something to help wash down your food?” Meira nodded. “Alright, I’ll get that for you right away.” As he turned and walked away from the table, to say he sashayed would be entirely accurate.
“I guess I’ll go organize some lodging for us.” Bjorn stood and made his way through the crowded room towards the bar. Many of the bar staff gave Bjorn a little too much attention for his liking. Once at the bar he waited a few minutes for Pearal to make his way back behind the bar. The bar had a raised section underneath for patrons to rest their feet on while leaning on the bar. Which is exactly what Bjorn was doing when a hand slapped his ass with substantial force before the hand stayed there and lingered.
With indignation Bjorn turned towards the owner of the hand ready to defend his honor when a voice accompanied the hand. “Now that is a fine ass, It’s been a while since I’ve seen a man in here who has the look of a traveler.”
Fully turning towards the speaker Bjorn was surprised to see a woman standing there with short horns sticking out of her head with a spade headed tail peeking out from behind her shoulder. Her skin had a faint red tinge to it. Her hair was shoulder length, and dark. Throughout the day he saw a few others of this species, but never for long enough to use his identify on them. The woman was shorter than Bjorn by at least a head, she had a lithe athletic frame, but from the way her clothes fit her she looked ready to spring into action at any moment. Bjorn used WAILA on the woman.
Name: Tayla May
Race: Tiefling
Age: 34
Level: 21
Tieflings are the unholy mix between humanoids and demons. Tieflings have gained a bit of the demons heritage, because of that at the age of 15 they automatically gain access to the spell: create fire. They also gain 1 point in intelligence and 3 free points per level.
Her pretty, narrow, angular face had a very lecherous look on her face as she stared at Bjorn as if he were a piece of meat, and she was a starving kid. “Come now, why do you look surprised? How much for you to take me to bed tonight?”
Bjorn just stood there in shock, in both of his lives he had never met such a forward girl, and on top of that he had never had such an attractive girl offer to pay him to have sex with her. Luckily for him he didn’t have to stand there long before Pearal came walking around the corner out of the back room. Seeing Tayla’s hand on Bjorn’s butt he looked at her and said. “Tayla, I’m sorry, but he isn’t apart of the wait staff, if you want a tumble with him you’ll have to use your charms this time.”
As soon at the words were out of his mouth Tayla drew her hand back quickly, and quickly came out with a lame excuse for her behavior and turned around and left. Before she fully turned around Bjorn was pretty sure he saw a darker shade of red color he cheeks before she made a hasty retreat.
Pearal chuckled. “That one is a lusty one, here almost every night… Anyways, what can I do for you?” he said as he turned towards Bjorn.
Watching Tayla’s form retreat back into the crowd and to a table in the corner appreciatively as he watched her hips sway. Regretfully he pulled his eyes away from Tayla before turning back to Pearal. “I would like to rent two rooms, one for my elf friend over there, and one for myself and a dwarf who will be joining us eventually.”
Pearal looked back and forth between Bjorn and Meira before saying cautiously. “Would your second room need a second bed? Or will some of your party be sharing beds?”
It was Bjorn’s turn to blush as he thought of sharing a bed with Meira. “We will need three beds, in two rooms. I think my elf friend doesn’t want to have to stay in the same room as two men again.”
Nodding in understanding Pearal continued. “I can understand, if you want we can get you three rooms that way all of you have your own space, having a little bit of personal time is good for the soul.”
“Yeah it would be, but I don’t even know what you charge, and I have a suspicion that I wouldn’t be able to afford three rooms, two will be good enough for us.”
Pearal gave a good full belly laugh, “If that isn’t true enough, that’s fine, how long do you plan on staying? It will cost you 10 coppers per night per room.”
Bjorn took out a silver coin from his purse before setting it onto the bar top. “Very well. If you go back to your table I'll send Apaar back to your table with your food and keys. Try to enjoy yourself tonight.”
Making his way back to the table Bjorn quickly filled Meira in on what happened which got a chuckle out of her. Soon after their server dropped off two hefty portions of a stew that was on the pot, along with fresh warm bread, and two large tankards of a strong ale. After their meal and around an hour of small talk the door opened letting Alaric into the room. After a quick sweep of his eyes he landed on the table with Bjorn and Meira. Working his way over to the table he got waylaid by one of the serving men, a dwarf. From where they stood the server was complimenting Alaric’s beard while trying to finger the end of it. By the loud expletives coming from Alaric’s mouth he wasn’t about whatever the server was trying to sell.
Finally freeing his beard from the server's grasp Alaric made a bee line for their table, shoving a chair out of his way while on the way. “I don’t know what it is about this place but it makes me uneasy.”
Bjorn quickly agreed. “I don’t know what your problems are, but I actually quite like this place, and its aesthetic.” Commented Meira. Soon Alaric had his dinner and his drink and his outrage was starting to simmer into a low anger. Their evening was all around mostly pleasant, by the time it was about time to start their way upstairs, all three of the friends were pleasantly tipsy.
Getting up and making their way upstairs, the tiefling from earlier stopped Bjorn as he was at the back of the pack. She had occupied a table by the stairs heading to the second level. “If you don’t mind I would like a word with you before you head to bed.”
Alaric and Meira stopped at seeing Bjorn getting waylaid. “It’s alright guys, I’ll be up in a bit.” Meira turned and started up the stairs, Alaric got a grin before winking at Bjorn and giving him a thumbs up before following suit. Taking one of the empty seats near Tayla, they sat in silence for a few minutes, Bjorn watching the tiefling intently, and Tayla trying not to make eye contact with Bjorn.
“What do you want?” Abruptly asked Bjorn, in an not entirely kind tone.
The steel in Bjorn’s voice made Tayla flinch, “Look, I am sorry for grabbing your ass earlier, I thought you were one of the wait staff, you have a soft face, and your figure is very pleasant. You aren’t too large, you aren’t too pretty, you have the look of a man who does anything that he needs to to survive, the look of a man who makes me weak in the knees. I also didn’t know you had a woman, and for that I am sorry, I didn’t mean to step on any toes.”
The way she said that last bit made Bjorn think she was insinuating that Meira was Bjorn’s woman. “Her? No, god no, I wish, but no, I’m not that lucky.” This made Tayla look up at Bjorn quizzically. “I’ll tell you what though, I will forgive you for your transgression if you make me two concessions. First, you have to answer a question that has been bugging me all night. What is this place?”
Tayla’s face broke out into a massive grin. “You don’t know? You are staying here and you don’t know?” Then she broke into full on laughter, the kind of pure unfiltered laughter that ends with someone struggling to breath, and snorting. “Oh boy, did someone play quite a joke on you then. You are much more innocent than you look if you haven’t quite worked it out yet. This is a whore house.”
This got Bjorn confused. “What do you mean whore house? Where are the women at?”
That question brought a whole new round of laughter which left her face a deep shade of red from a lack of oxygen. “You do realize that there are other kinds of whore houses right? The crowing rooster is an all male whore house. That is why most of the people here are gay men, and obviously women who tend to have more lust than the average. I approached you because it isn’t unheard of Pearal getting some of his servers to dress in certain ways to attract a wider range of men and women to his establishment. He used to have one of his men dress like an explorer, the man lost an eye on the road and it helped sell the appeal. He left over a month ago, and I thought Pearal brought in a new server to fill that role.”
The more Tayla spoke, the more concerned Bjorn got, soon he was as pale as a ghost. It all finally clicked for him, all the attention he was getting, the off feeling he was getting from the place. All of the stares, glances, and the winks. It made a shiver run down his back briefly. It took Bjorn a few minutes to realize that Tayla had stopped speaking and was watching him intently.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
“I’ll be fine.” Was his response. “Do you mind if I have a little of that?” He pointed to the glass in front of Tayla. She shoved the glass towards Bjorn, picking it up he took two long swings of a disgustingly sweet drink. Setting it down he composed himself. “Alright, that, I was not expecting.”
“Obviously.”
“Anyways moving onwards. My second request comes in two parts. First, have you spent much time in Vanta?” She nodded. “Do you know where I could find magical gear and spells outside of the mages guild? I am a magic caster, and would like to try and buy some more spells, but unfortunately not having a skill level of 40 in a school of magic, or being extremely rich. I am not able to get access to the guild. Meira and myself spent the better part of today trying to find someplace that would sell spell books but we had no luck.”
“I’ll tell you what, what's your name by the way?”
“Bjorn.”
“I’ll tell you what, Bjorn, I’ll do you one better. Why don’t you meet me here tomorrow morning and I’ll take you and your lady to a place where we can get you some spell books. They might not have what you are looking for, but they are the best in town that I know of to get your spell books outside of the mages guild.”
“That would be awesome, we might have to have the dwarf tag along as well.”
“Not a problem.”
“That works for me, in that case I forgive you for your transgression.” Standing he made his way around the table placing one hand on its surface and leaning down towards Tayla, placing his mouth right by her ear he said. “It was quite flattering.” Before making his way for the stairs as well.
“If you want, my offer is still on the table!” exclaimed Tayla to Bjorn’s retreating back. She didn’t see it but this time it was Bjorn’s turn to blush.