I wake up to faint violin. Too structured to be Silver practicing, so she’s already up playing for people.

The room’s small, but enough. Clearly intended for short stays. The bed, a table with a bowl that refill with warm water if it’s empty for more than ten seconds, a chest for those who don’t have enough inventory space for everything they carry, and that’s it. The sound insulation’s not great.

Sam’s already at the counter when I step into the dining room and the minotaur offers me a cup of steaming coffee. “Free of charge. One thing I figure all travelers need in the morning.”

“Not food?” A long swallow and I fell more awake.

“Sure, but that I’m not handing out.”

“Sausages and eggs. Toasts and jam.” Silver is on the small stage. The tune is lively, but not in a get-up-and-go kind of way. Just enough to enhance the coffee’s effect.

“Any preferences?”

It takes me a second to remember my order. “Scrambled eggs. Whole wheat for the toast, and whatever jam you think is good.” Helen isn’t there. Neither is Brandon. I can’t ask about her, since she had her own room. “Where did Brandon go to?”

“He didn’t say.”

I bring up the team chat as sit.

Dennis: Brandon, what are you up to?

Silver finishes her piece to light applauses and puts away her violin.

Brandon: Checking with people I know here about Fort Knox. It’s only been thirty years since the system showed up. Someone has to remember it.

Dennis: Keep us up to date.

I am tempted to remind him to call for help if he needs it, but he’s a grown man, and I’ve already told him a few times since having to rescue him.

Silver returns from the counter with two plates; hers and mine.

“Simpler than having Sam bring it to you,” she says, sitting. “Unless you were hoping to see him up close?”

“You know, teasing me like that is a Brandon thing to do.”

She smiles. “I just thought that since you’ve grown comfortable with thinking of other people sexually, I, too, could indulge.”

I return the smile. “Then you can reassure yourself. I much prefer seeing you up close and serving me.”

Her eyes go wide, her face turns red, and she looks at her plate.

“Do you know where Helen is?” Hopefully, this will bring things back to normal.

“I think she’s still sleeping.” She eats a bit, then straightens. “She said something about blowing anyone who bothered her all the way back to Toronto last night.”

“So, it’s just the two of us for a while.”

She turns red again, and it is quite appealing. Is that why Brandon kept teasing me? Only, I didn’t mean it like that.

“You want to walk around town? I have Jerky to unload, see if there’s someplace that sells recipes. I need to make something other than jerky. We can see if anyone has violin stuff you can use.”

She chuckles and regains her composure. “Violin stuff?”

“Like stuff for your bow, you had to get some in Indianapolis.”

“It’s call hair, like the stuff on your head. And yes, I should get some spares since there’s no telling when we’ll be in a city once we leave. As well as strings.”

“Cool, Sam probably knows the good places to shop at.”

*

I manage to unload three of my six slots filled with Jerky, but two of them were simply given to a group who helps people. I got fifty dollars for the other stack.

There aren’t a lot of recipes for preparing meat while in the wild that aren’t just drying it to make jerky, or cooking it for near immediate consumption. There’s Pemmican, which is pretty much just a different way to make jerky, although the additions of fruits would make it taste better, as well as create variety. The downside is that it’s more involved. I have to render fat, powder the meat, dry the berries, find them, and foraging isn’t a skill I even thought to get at this point.

This is why I kept points in reserve. We track down a skill node and I got a level in foraging. The recipe was just given to me, so I’ll see about trying it while we travel.

Silver got two bow hair replacements and a set of eight strings. Her case has space to store them, so that’s practical. We chatted about nothing specific while we shopped.

Helen: Where is everyone?

Dennis: Me and Silver are getting some shopping in.

Dennis: Brandon?

I bring up the team window. He’s lost a bit of health and maybe half his stamina.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Dennis: Brandon, do you need help?

Brandon: I’m fine. Just had to deal with some idiots who thought they could rob me.

Again, I’m tempted to remind him he isn’t alone.

Dennis: we’re heading back to the inn. Had any luck, Brandon?

Brandon: Some. I’m tracking someone who was alive before the system. From what I’ve been told, he was a local, so if anyone knows about it, it’ll be him.

Dennis: Do you want help with that?

Brandon: I’m fine. I’ll be back in not too long.

I can’t tell if it’s Brandon’s usual overconfidence, but I decide to trust him.

When we reach the inn, it’s a little past lunchtime, and it’s busy. Sam hires Silver to provide entertainment, and includes lunch and dinner for the four of us as part of that.

“I’m surprise you’re charging Brandon for food.” I sit at the bar. “Considering you two are…”

He laughs. “If I gave away free food to every guy I had sex with, those would be the only clients I’d have, and I’d go out of business. If I ever settle down with someone, he’ll get free food.”

Lunch is simple, tomato soup and cheese sandwich with a glass of juice. “If you aren’t too busy, I was wondering if you know anything about how Louisville got all the Elves living here.”

He chuckles. “Just about everyone around here who didn’t pick a species when the system showed up got turned into an elf is the way I heard it.”

“I thought the species were assigned randomly.”

He shrugs. “Unless you’ve queried the system about it and gotten it to answer, all I know is what I’ve heard. My folks moved here from Lexington because they were the only minotaurs there, and there were only a handful of non-humans. Dad said it wasn’t pleasant during those early years. So when they heard about all the elves here, he and mom booked it.”

“Where are they now?”

“Their place is on the other side of the city. Dad does hard labor, because, you know, minotaurs are good for nothing else.”

I’m about to protest, but he smiles.

“Actually, he loves it. Throw five hundred kilos over his shoulders and tell him to take it across the city and you’ve made his day. Mom’s a seamstress. Never got why she wanted to be a minotaur, but according to dad, she’s the one who insisted.”

“You like it?”

He looks at me, surprised, then his expression turns sly and he leans in. “Look at me. I’m pure muscle. Started life with strength of twenty, endurance at seventeen, and stamina as fifteen. You don’t get a better combo than that.” He lowers his voice. “And us bull are big, if you know what I mean.”

“Of course, it’s sexual.” As casual as I try to sound, my face heats up, and he laughs. “I’m starting to think I’m the only one who isn’t hyper sexual out here.”

“You aren’t,” Helen says. “You just have had the bad luck of knowing Brandon and the kind of guys he attracts.”

“Come on, Helen.” I nod to Sam, who isn’t looking pleased at her comments. “Be nice. We are in his establishment.”

“Look, I’m not saying you’re a bad person, but my brother only likes one kind of guys.”

Sam leans forward, and unlike when he did it with me, there’s menace in his eyes. “Considering you’re his sister, that he be adopted or not, you don’t seem to know Brandy very well.”

She rolls her eyes. “You have no idea the messes he—”

“I’m going to stop you right there.” The tone is harsh enough she stops. “I don’t care what you think of him. But I’m not going to let someone badmouth one of my customers under my roof. You want to do that? Door’s that away. Get it out of your system and then come back. I’ll have lunch ready for you. It’s part of Silver’s payment for entertaining people for a couple of hours.”

“Helen,” I warn when she opens her mouth. “Don’t.”

She isn’t happy.

Helen: this isn’t over.

She storms out.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. I know better than to say all elves are like that, but way too many of them are too full of themselves. I checked with my Elven friends, and there is no species drive to that, so it’s just that they seem to gather and create the impression they’re all like that. It’s like us and being stubborn. Not all minotaurs are, but with willpower being influenced by endurance, and we all start with that above human average. When we set our mind to something, we don’t change it easily.”

He goes to handle other customer and I’m through most of the soup when he passes by again.

“How did you meet Brandon?”

He hands a mug to a woman and comes back. “Same way I met you. He came into my inn with a group of people. Two explorers and three…I don’t remember their classes. But more on the lean side. I figure they were passing through on their way to a ruin, since that’s what explorers do, but they ended up staying for almost a week. Brandy made it clear he was interested in sex with me, and I never say no to that.”

“He is kind of blunt about it.”

“I like that about him. He doesn’t lie or play games when it comes to sex. The rest?” he chuckles. “I wouldn’t believe half the things he’s told you. And the rest is probably exaggerated too.”

“But you like him.”

“Of course I do. He’s fun, and even if they’re almost certainly made up, the stories about the places he’d been to are entertaining. I just know better than to depend on him for anything important. He’s all about fun.”

“But you told Helen she doesn’t know him as well as she thinks, and that’s pretty much what she thinks of him, if in a less flattering light.”

He rests against the back counter. “No. She thinks he’s a bad seed. I kind of get why. Brandy did some pretty stupid stuff before and after he left home that didn’t endear him to her. The fact his parents give him the benefit of the doubt doesn’t help things. But just because he doesn’t take stuff seriously, would rather lie about what happened than admit he screwed up, doesn’t mean there isn’t someone who can be decent under there.”

“He told you all that?”

“Not that he’s decent, I think he’d throw himself off a cliff before admitting that, but yeah, he told my about how her parents took him in, the trouble he got in trying to live up to her expectations, then deciding he no longer cared what she thought and did his own things. Which weren’t any smarter. I don’t care how high his intelligent attribute is. Brandy isn’t the smartest guy out there.”

It’s comforting to know there’s someone else who sees Brandon’s got a decent core hidden under all that roughness.

“Did he tell you what we’re doing?”

“Something about chasing a ruin in the area no one’s ever found before.” His expression makes it clear he doesn’t believe that.

“We are. It’s my expedition, technically,” I say as he opens his mouth. “Brandon’s helping.”

He closes it. “I was sure he’d made that up. I mean, we’d know if there was a ruin in the area, wouldn’t we?”

“I don’t know. From the research we did, no explorers believe it’s real except one.”

“Other than you. So why do you believe it’s real?”

“In part because that other guy is willing to have me killed over it. No one would go that far over something they weren’t certain was real.” I take Aaron’s journal out of my inventory. “And because of this. I sort of inherited this with my class, and Xander is certain the truth about the ruin is in it. Aaron, its previous owner, went to great length to hide it, so I’m inclined to think he’s right.”

“You haven’t read it to be sure?”

“Aaron locked most of it behind a quest. If I was smart about it, I’d get the quest done and then worry about Xander and the ruin, but having a price on my head is really pissing me off, and the only way I can’t think to make him pay is to take the ruin away from him by finding it and revealing it to everyone.”

“Then I hope you manage it.”

“Thanks.” I finish my lunch and listen to Silver play for a bit. As she finishes a piece, I bring up the team window to check on Brandon and his health is below a quarter.

Damn it. I was really hoping he wouldn’t do that again.

“Sam, do you know someone I can hire who’s good at finding idiots who get themselves into more trouble than they can handle and refuse to ask for help?”