We finally arrived at Stonehold, since I didn't accept any request at Rivett due to my wanting to leave as soon as possible. Getting in was no problem when the party I was with was escorting a noble as well as me having an ID.
We said farewell for now as they were going to report to the Adventurer's Guild while I was starving for some home-cooked meal. During the trip, all I've eaten is meat, meat every day! Stonehold was a lot bigger than Rivett and had many more people, and the streets were filled with people at this time.
It was midday and the streets were busy. I was currently walking down what appears to be the main road, it's huge. almost like a highway from my other life, but all cobblestone. The middle was mostly empty, and I guess that was for carriages that came every now and then. On the side were all kinds of shops and stalls outside residential buildings, you could tell right away that this was the market zone of this town.
The town was big and had multiple layers of walls defending it. The first layer was, of course, the commoner zone, it was by far the biggest and also densest of all layers. The town was built on a small cliff, and the center of the entire town was elevated and everyone could see the royal palace from any other zone. I guess royals like looking down on their subjects.
Anyway, I haven't seen the noble area yet, but I heard from Amy, the mage girl from the party I met on the way here that it was incredible there. Everyone had huge houses and huge plots and lots of servants. I have to trust her on that, which sounds just like noble pride. To surround themselves with money and servants.
I thought it would smell worse, being in a medieval town, like where do all the garbage and sewage go? I'll have to look into it, the air here is amazing, though. Even though I lived in a small town with only 100k inhabitants in my other life, I guess there was still a lot of pollution, cause the air here smells incredibly clean somehow. I bet they use coal and wood to use fires and such here, but the pollution here is on an entirely different level.
I'm currently on my way to a medium sized restaurant because whatever they are cooking in there smells amazing! I think I've become a glutton coming to this world. The restaurant looked as big as a normal two-story building from my modern life, but a bit broader. The entrance had a big sign above the door that said [The Brimstone Petal]. Nice name, I like it!
I usually keep my money in my inventory, but when I know I'm gonna use some I put them in my pouch I have on my belt. Just to avoid anyone with better than normal eyes from seeing something, I may be a bit paranoid, but I just want to avoid any and all trouble if possible.
I entered the restaurant and the inside was beautiful, the outside just showed a common stone foundation and common oak wood walls. The inside was almost luxurious, if this is in the common area, I wonder what noble restaurants look like.
The inside had a western tavern kind of vibe, dark wooden floor, beautiful wallpaper that had the dark kind of theme on the lower to match the floor and got brighter as it went to the roof, and the roof was white with what looks like graffiti.
The tables and chairs looked common, though, But the tables matched the floor but had a stone slab on top of it to match the wall and roof. There was a bar directly to the right after coming in and had the same theme. What shook me though was that there were only 2 people dining, and around three workers.
Is it that time of the day when not many people are here perhaps? Because the food smells amazing, the looks of it are amazing it has to be known by at least most of the commoners as its location is on the main street.
One of the diners sat by himself by the bar, I could smell the alcohol on him and the other was sitting by one of the tables, eating. I don't know how it works here, but I'll take a seat and hopefully, they'll come with a menu of sorts.
I sat down at one of the corner tables, my back towards the corner and facing the entrance. Force of habit, can't be too cautious. Just shortly after sitting down one of the workers approached me. He was a young man, maybe around 13-15 years old, dark brown hair and brown eyes. a very common looking boy.
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"Hello, ma'am. Would you like to eat, drink or are you looking for any other services?" The boy asked me. Other services?
"Just dining today, may I see a menu?" I answered back with a smile. Note that [The Furnace] was in my inventory at the moment, it brings a lot of attention. Currently using a common flail that's sheathed on my hip, the shield leaning on the chair I'm sitting on.
"Of course Ma'am!" He said with a smile back as he handed me a menu. I quickly looked through it and found that they had mostly meat. But some kind of meat soup with bread caught my attention. bread and soup, yep, that's what I'll eat today.
"I'll take the soup, thanks. Oh and some extra bread please." I said and handed him the menu.
"Any drink to that, Ma'am?" He asked as he kept his smile up, probably afraid to offend any customer. That smile doesn't look very natural.
"No thank you, the soup will take care of most of that, I can't really drink anything now as I have work to do later, thanks, though." I said.
He bowed and then went back with my order. I took a notebook I had in my inventory (I pretended to take it from my pocket.) and took a look at it. During my travels, I had taken the time to experiment with the most in-game skills and spells I had.
I can use all my Crusader skills, using mana. I can make them more powerful or last longer or both, supplying it with more mana. They also no longer have any sort of cooldown. So as long as I have mana, I should have no trouble keeping my skills coming. I still don’t know how much mana I have though, never went out of mana during these experiments.
Like with [Consecration, Aegis Purgatory], I used that to protect the party when that ogre attacked. It made a protecting dome around the target that prevents enemies from entering and if I put it on enemies they are stunned as long as they're inside it. That could make it easy to surprise and attack someone.
I also trained my Holy magic and Wind magic to a moderate level, it's quite hard to master, so that's fun. Oh, here comes the food!
The boy came with a bowl of soup and a few pieces of bread, damn I'm hungry. I put away the notebook in my pocket(inventory) and thanked the boy before eating. It was nice to finally have something else than just plain grilled meat. Don't get me wrong, I love grilled meat but after weeks of only eating that it gets tedious.
It didn't take long for me to finish up but more people have started entering the building, families, adventurers, loners. I finished up and went to the bar to pay before I went to take my first request at the Adventurer's Guild. Maybe I should buy a carriage, I could fill up with herbs and such while traveling without revealing my inventory that way.
During my recent travels, I got quite a few medicinal herbs, and I heard from Arthur that they are usually the quest for low-level adventurers. So if I want to rank up quickly, I could just turn in them all if there is a quest for it.
But that's boring. I want to enjoy my time here. If I do things just to be done with it quickly, what's the point? I paid up and said my farewell after complimenting the chef, and it was actually very good. The bread was very soft, I thought it would be hard for some reason. I asked for directions and made my way towards the Adventurer's Guild. I hope there won't be any trouble.
I arrived outside the Adventurer's Guild, it was huge. It was located close to the border between the Noble and Common area because many Noble kids become adventurers as training. The building itself was like a mansion, three stories built with stone and some kind of reddish-brown wood.
I entered the building and there was a lot of noise, chatter and yelling. The inside was huge, but the first floor looked kinda cheap though, compared to the outside. There was a reception just in front of me when I came in and to the left were tables and chairs and a stairway to the second floor. To my right was a wall filled with papers pinned to it, I guess those are all requests.
I walked towards the reception, there was a small queue and I waited for my turn. I listened around for any rumors that could be useful.
The second floor is apparently for nobles and higher ranked adventurers, good to know.
There is a basement used for training and used to test the strength of people who want to rank up and the guild is unsure if they have the strength for it.
Nobles kids in this town are a pain in the ass, no surprise there. They usually try to hit on adventurer girls and try using their authority or money to sleep with them. Depending on the kid and whose kid he is it works. Some who say no disappears sometimes and everyone knows why and nobody can do anything about it. I hate those kinds of nobles.