Ch14 — Housing?

“Are you here for housing? Or steading?”

“Housing,” Toren managed, trying not to grit his teeth. After sucking in some air, he added, “But I’d like to learn more about steading.”

“...okay, come with me, and I’ll explain the options available.”

The girl didn’t want to meet his eyes, keeping her head down and only making furtive glances to make sure he was following to meet her at the end of the counter. Was she intimidated by him?

Toren mentally grimaced when he realized that his continuous stoking of [Burning Blood]‘s passive effect was causing his breath to steam out, forming vapor as if on a cold winter day. He couldn’t look more threatening and dangerous short of growling at the poor girl, but he didn’t want to let go the anger that was keeping his injury manageable and would hopefully set the bone if he could stand or sit still long enough.

After stepping down from the raised platform, the girl nervously led him toward the same door Lorbare had been led through. Once through the door, she stiffly nodded at a bored guard sitting on a stool.

Seeing the girl’s clear tension, the guard sat up straighter and put the playing cards in his hand on the tiny table beside him.

The look from the guard was enough to push Toren into speaking to head off things with the clerk girl before a misunderstanding could happen. “I promise, I’m not going to make trouble for you, miss…?”

The girl looked back, eyes going to his hands before reaching his face. “Kesta.”

Toren relaxed his facial muscles and eased the tense muscles not needed to hold the break in place before giving the girl what he hoped was a disarming smile.

Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill [Pain Tolerance]. Synergy detected with your Profession. Add [Pain Tolerance] as a Profession skill?

Thank the gods, yes!

The pain he was feeling immediately became fractionally more bearable, and the growing nausea began easing.

[Pain Tolerance] was the lesser of the pain-mitigation skills that Toren knew of. In theory, he would have preferred the bronze-rarity ‘resistance’ version, but both were arguably more desirable than the gold-rarity [Pain Nullification], since he would still know when his body became injured.

There was even an argument for starting with the lesser version, so that it would evolve naturally as he progressed his Profession.

Kesta was looking at him strangely. “Are you sure you are okay?”

The guard’s muscles were tensed for action.

“Nothing that a bit of rest shouldn’t fix,” Toren quipped with a strained smile.

The girl’s frown deepened and her brow furrowed, but she resumed leading him down the hall past the guard, pausing at a nearby closed door that had a name card in a glass bin attached to the door. Her shoulders slumped slightly, and she continued deeper into the hallway looking back and forth at the doors until she found one to put a name card in and brought Toren into the room.

Kesta Waresmith, Clerk, he noted.

Toren’s question about not using the map in the outer hall was answered upon entering the room. Maps were already laying unrolled and weighted on a table at the center of the small room, and the rolled up vellum and paper in the labeled wall-cubbies were likely more maps if he had to guess. [Mapmakers], [Map Scribes], and [Cartographers] were highly specialized professions with limited opportunities for advancement, so seeing so many maps and copies of maps was surprising. Or, maybe it wasn’t? Where else would people with such Professions gather but the frontiers?

He and Kesta weren’t alone in the room. A scruffy guard in well-worn leathers sat with his feet propped up on a second chair that had been stolen from the table and repurposed as a footrest. “Gudwin took your room again, huh Kesta? If you don’t bring it up with Rarick, he’s going to keep doing it.”

Kesta froze in place, looking terribly uncomfortable. “There’s no need to bother [Official] Rarick, but thank you for your concern, Otho.”

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“Your dance with the zoots.” The guard shrugged and returned to reading a tattered soft-bound book.

Toren wanted to groan. Not only did that Gudwin guy sound like a dick, but Kesta didn’t seem to have much influence with the other officials and staff, if he had to guess. Getting screwed over because someone was targeting the person assigned to assist him was a real possibility he’d rather avoid if he could. Sure, he felt bad for the girl, but being a masochist about it was just stupid.

He might have to hold off on agreeing to anything more than a temporary place to sleep for the night until he could get a different clerk to assist him. At least she should be easy to get information out of. He’d have to prioritize that.

While he was adjusting his expectations, Kesta pulled several scrolls from the cubbies and placed them on the table.

“How many people are you seeking housing for?” the girl asked, trying to dispel the uncomfortable mood hanging in the air by returning to business.

“Just me,” Toren answered.

Kesta nodded. “That will make things simpler, since the paperwork to claim subsidies for families won’t apply. Let’s start with the inns.

“We are here.” She touched a location on one of the maps already open on the table.

Even not knowing much about reading maps, the teleport platform, the square where the captain had addressed them, and the berm guarding against the tides were easy to find near where she was touching.

She slid her finger along a road marked between the box-like shapes representing the buildings, stopping at one of the larger boxes. “This is The Wallowing Warbler.”

Her finger continued tracing along the spaces between buildings, pointing out two more boxes and how to find them. “This over here is A Traveler’s Comfort. And this location is Gerret’s Room and Tavern.”

The first one was easy, as it was along the main road leading to a market square and the main gate. The second was by what he assumed was one of the blackrock ridges that cupped the settlement. The third was on the same side but near the harbor.

“These are the settlement’s three inns. They are expensive and have temporary lodging, but since the royal decree was issued, they have been filled to capacity with laborers, hunters, and wealthy thrill-seekers looking for achievements. If you don’t mind spending your silver and don’t want to commit to something longer term, sometimes a room might open up if you hang around their common rooms long enough. All three will require you to order food or drink while you wait though, and A Traveler’s Comfort has further requirements for suitable attire and cleanliness.”

“How expensive?” He had some coin and a short term commitment such as a few nights at an inn would be better until he learned whether he could earn enough credits to cover his debt or at least until he leveled enough to camp in the jungle, but his mind went to the wives and children who had already hurried off to make arrangements. If all the available rooms had already been claimed, it might be days before the families moved to other housing.

“The cheapest rooms are at least a silver rod per night.”

Toren grimaced and grumbled, “Some brothels charge less for a night…”

Not that he had any experience with such. Yana had made sure she was all he’d ever needed, and he would have never fed her insecurities with that kind of self-serving behavior. But Avril and Owen, and the other boys weren’t above frequenting the working girls and talking about it. Some of the girls were fellow orphans they had grown up with trying to earn enough silver to buy tools and training or to reel in a well-off husband.

Kesta nodded, not missing a beat. “For lone travelers such as yourself, particularly [Hunters] and [Rangers] who only briefly visit town, that can be a viable option. The two largest brothels are Viella’s Vivacious Vixens and Jungle Delights, which also features the expert culinary creations of renowned [Exotic Chef] Ulleus the Golden Palate.”

Even after reciting those ridiculous names, the girl pointed out the two locations with the same earnestness as she had the inns. Toren disguised his amused snort as a grunt of acknowledgement, which turned into a grimace as the effort nudged the bone.

Interestingly, both brothels were on the opposite side of the main road from the more reputable establishments—the side of the settlement that was much less developed and had sections marked with dotted lines instead of solid lines.

“But as with the inns, you won’t be guaranteed a stay. There are a lot more men than women in the settlement, and even the brothel workers who are debt-slaves have enough patrons to be choosy.”

If not for the excruciating throbbing of his broken bone, Toren would have had to hold back chuckles or maybe snickers at the cautioning look that the girl was attempting to give him—as if trying to save him from likely rejection.

“Kesta here is an expert on brothels,” the lounging guard delivered in a flat tone, not even looking up from his book.

“Wha-, I-” the girl sputtered and color drained from her still-childish face before the tips of her ears started to redden and she huffed, “Knowing what the settlement offers is part of the job!”

Toren completely agreed with the guard, who was acting as if he hadn’t said anything and struggling to hold back a smirk. Though not that much older than Kesta, Toren doubted the well-dressed teen with her fine clothes, carefully-cared-for hair, naive manner, and lack of awareness for her own situation had even walked past any of the brothels, much less been inside. She was probably the sheltered daughter of a minor merchant or moderately successful craftsman. That she had been able to present the topic with a serious face was impressive in a way… and damn amusing.

That said, the girl was doing her best to try to find him a place to stay even after having felt intimidated by him, and he really didn’t want to pile on when she was already a target for harassment. The least he could do was to help her out by changing the subject, and there was something he would need an answer on before he could decide if either option was even worth pursuing short term.

“I am appreciative of your assistance, Miss Kesta,” he tried, taking a breath to again relax the pain tensed muscles of his jaw and chest so he wouldn’t sound threatening. “Before we continue further, there’s something I need to know: do credits exchange for chits or rods?”

Latching onto the opportunity to regain her dignity, the embarrassed girl quickly answered, “1 credit exchanges for 1 chit.”

“Ugh. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.” Toren didn’t hold back his groan this time. A rod a day for housing was equivalent to doubling the credits needed to earn just to pay the tenday requirement for his enlistment and then some!