"A viper's poison is more insidious than a club. A sly tongue, more damaging than a sword." – an eloquent philosopher

A wall of stone is the first thing to greet Alex's eyes, followed by the water-filled moat and the sturdy iron doors.

'If I remember right, Irkshire did border the western duchy and was the Albent kingdom's first line of defense.'

Alex looks at the clean walls and the orderly traffic through the gate.

'It seems to be doing well, though I am not sure if that bodes well for my father or not.'

If his father had been in control, Alex could presume that the forces of Irkshire would-be participant in evicting the western duchy's troops from their territory.

'This atmosphere doesn't fit at all, though I guess Irkshire didn't participate in holding off the forces or relaying back their position. It doesn't seem like they held as much loyalty to the territory as I had been told way back when.'

Alex starts walking towards the gate.

'Not much to do about it now, but go inside and gather information, I guess.'

Alex's stomach rumbles.

'And get some food.'

Alex starts to push his way through different pedestrians in order to get into the line for entry.

'It's surprisingly crowded. I wouldn't think it would be this way when the path through Gilberd's pass was completely empty.'

Alex manages to make his way to the back of the line, and a couple of stomach grumbles and hours later, he's getting close to the front.

'I wonder why they're even doing checks like this, I don't remember reading about it in our domestic policy… is it something that the governor set up, or is it something more widespread?'

Alex taps the shoulder of the man in front of him and makes to speak before remembering Rodna's reaction. The man turns around and smiles genially, "Well hello there traveler, is there anything you need."

Alex thinks for a couple moments, and takes out a wood slate and starts writing. The man, seeing this, looks confused for a moment before asking, "Are you mute?"

Alex nods as a response and continues writing to finish his question.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't believe I'll be able to read that…"

Alex looks at him for a moment and then points at the guards doing the check and then shrugs.

The man stares blankly for a moment before he gives Alex a look of realization.

"The guard check, huh? To be honest, I'm used to them by now. Every time we exit, we have to go through another one of these to get back in. I'm not really sure why, but it might have something to do with that."

Alex, preparing to try to get the man to explain further, misses that they had already progressed to the front of the line.

"Next," Says a female guard in an annoyed tone.

The man whom Alex had been conversing waves goodbye, with a smile once more, and gives his bag to the guards for them to ruffle through. After a minute or so, they finish, poorly stuffing everything back in in the attempt to fit it.

The man then takes the bag and enters the town.

'I wonder why they're called towns instead of cities. We have the word city in our language, but we never use it…'

Alex walks up and hands the gatekeepers his hole-filled backpack, they stare at him a few moments after receiving it. The pity they felt is clear to Alex from their gazes.

'I wonder how much longer this is going to take.'

A few minutes later, the search is finished, then a few more excruciating minutes after that, the bag is packed, and Alex goes on his way.

Alex looks at the stone and mortar buildings that dominate his view and thinks to himself.

'Now that I'm here, I need to find some information, but where…'

Alex keeps strolling, being bumped into a few times by kids, a few more times than he would think reasonable. They all looked disappointed and sad afterwards though, so Alex doesn't think it's purposeful.

Alex strolls for a couple more minutes looking for somewhere to hunker down (though that is definitely going to be hindered by his lack of funds) when all of a sudden, he comes across the man he met earlier.

"When I saw you walkin there, I couldn't help but say hi."

The man approaches Alex, and forcefully shakes his hand.

"I'm glad you got through the check with your stuff intact, we've had trouble in the past along those lines…"

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The man gets a distant look before turning his gaze to an unfocused Alex. The man looks at the ground, and shadows dance across his face, "To be honest this meeting isn't by chance, I noticed that ya don't seem to have much money, that with your gear and all, and with the communication problems ya got as well I thought you might need some help. I followed you here to see if you didn't have any accommodations, but since you don't seem to be going in a given direction, you probably don't, no?"

This sets alarm-bells in Alex's head off.

'He followed me for that, either he's extremely socially awkward and a dunce, or he's someone I need to worry about.'

Alex subtly shifts into a fighting stance.

"Well, to be honest, that's not all."

Alex looks at the man in the eyes, tensing slightly at the words.

The man starts shuffling his feet.

"I have a sister who runs an inn, and she has been looking for someone to do the cleanin and chores and to help with paperwork. You seem to know writin, and so I thought you'd be a good fit. She's also deaf, so when I saw that you were mute, I thought ya would get along."

Alex keeps his guard.

The man puts his hand to his head and slicks back his sweat-soaked hair.

"Well, what I'm tryin to say, is that my sister will give you a place to say and maybe a small salary if you do some odd jobs for her, what do you say."

Alex would usually never accept an offer from such a suspicious person, especially if it meant being around them even longer. That being said, his experience with Rodna provided evidence to the contrary of the engrained perceptions made by his tutors and father, so he decided to humor the man a bit.

'It's not like I have any other place to go, maybe I can gather some information there while I'm at it, but first…'

Alex points to himself and shrugs.

The man takes a few seconds staring blankly at him, and a few repeats, for him to get the gist.

"Well, to be honest, she asked me a few weeks ago, and when I saw you, I decided to get done with it. If she doesn't like you, she can fire you, and she isn't in any real danger with the bouncers there, so it's not really a problem."

Alex looks questioningly at him.

'bouncers… is it a bar?'

"Well, anyway, are you in?"

Alex ponders for a few moments…

'It shouldn't be a problem to follow him for a bit.'

He then shrugs his shoulders and did a thumbs up, but horizontal and wavering up and down.

"So… undecided, huh? Well, I guess first you would want to see what your job entails. Well, if you're interested, follow me."

The man starts walking off into the alley, and against the advice of a small part of his brain, Alex follows him.

…

"Well, here it is, our tavern d'Gustus, she's a beauty, ain't she?" says the man gustily.

Alex looks at the state of disrepair, the sign hanging only on one nail, the graffiti all over the door poorly painted over with brown paint, and the nail in the coffin, the boarded and broken windows. Alex seeing this turns to leave, only to have the man put a hand on his forearm, almost causing Alex to launch into a tirade of attacks, and says, "Just give a look inside first, the outside isn't really telling of the place's quality."

The man then enters, and Alex reluctantly follows behind.

'Why am I doing this?' Alex thinks before entering a brightly lit and packed room filled with people.

"The storefront keeps getting broken by our competitors, so we just leave it nowadays, not much point in fixing it."

'So that explains why…'

After being vivaciously greeted by the patrons, Alex is led to the back room where the man says his sister is.

'Oh, what's this guy's name again…'

Before they get any farther, Alex points to the man and mimes name with his lips.

"Oh, the names Braddy, it's nice to know ya, and I hope that you work at the bar soon!" the man, Braddy, gives another genial smile.

They walk into a backroom that's filled with the smells of the open kitchen adjoining it, along with piles of paperwork which Alex could only assume are for the bar's management.

Then a small woman with blond hair in a bob-cut approaches him and sticks out her hand. The most interesting thing Alex notices about her is how her ears are glowing.

"It's Creacy, nice to meet you. What's your name?"

Alex shakes her hand back and draws the letters for his name.

"Alex, huh? Well, if you don't mind, could you stay the night and we'll work out your employment in the mornin'? It has been a bit busy, and I don't really have the time now. Even if you don't end up working for me, though, the night is free. Just think of it as charity, either way, go along now." The woman, Creacy, then sits down at a desk that is at the other end of the room and starts writing on a document.

She uses her hand to shoo us, and we leave.

'She sure speaks well for someone that is supposedly deaf, perhaps it's something that happened after her childhood? It would have to be for her to have those inflections in her voice…'

Alex shakes his head.

'It doesn't really matter, and to be honest, isn't my business.'

Alex looks up at Braddy, who had been patiently waiting for him.

"I'll show you to your room, your welcome to tour the bar a bit before you sleep, but it closes at 1 AM sharp, so be ready."

Braddy smiles again.

'He smiles an awful lot, to be honest, it makes him look shifty…'

Alex follows him to his new room, at least for the night, and sees that it is relatively small. It had nothing on his time in the Albent manor but compared to his sleeping conditions recently though it might of well have been heaven.

Alex lays on the bed and thinks some more.

'For now, let's see how useful the information I gather from this bar is. After that, I can decide what I'm going to do from there. Whether staying for a bit at this bar or going somewhere else, I want to know before I leave Irkshire. Alex sits up and goes back downstairs to the bar, taking the key that Braddy had left on the counter for him.

After a good two hours of listening into rambunctious rabble-rousing, and a few failed attempts at asking questions, and a new day, Alex had learned a bit.

The first thing was that the beast had not rampaged, which was a good thing for the people. The second was that Irkshire had switched allegiance, along with Balsdom, to the western duchy, which was part of the reason that the new bag and identity(only to the extent of comparing to the posters of wanted criminals) check were emplaced in the two cities. The other, in Irkshire, especially, were the numerous insurgent groups popping up, hoping to return to the Albent kingdom, which warmed Alex's heart a bit. A different reason entirely, and part of the reason plans for them were already in place, are the numerous criminal and syndicate groups popping up in Irkshire after the move of leadership in an attempt to gain more power. Alex shivered at the nefarious deeds he heard about them, murder, robbery, and even organ theft(though Alex was not really sure why here, the surgery's that require are very difficult to perform and therefore the demand for organs is low). What was even more worrying were the rumored ties between the rebels and the crime organization, though it could just be western duchy propaganda to keep in power. Alex heard most of this from a drunk who called himself the guard captain but was reprobated by the other bargoers and was labeled as the local drunk, so the information is very much in question.

Due to the nature of the taking of Irkshire and Balsdom, it could be practically guaranteed that the Albent kingdom still stood. If it had fallen either, the magic beast would have reacted, or the duchy would have claimed the throne and lands not only the two towns. What wasn't answered, though, is who is currently on the throne.

Alex thinks for a few moments before looking at the glowing clock.

'This place must really like glowing things, the food and drinks are glowing, the clock is glowing, the owner's ears are glowing…'

Alex shakes his head and goes back upstairs and to sleep.

'I'll think over the rest of what I need to do tomorrow…'