“C’mon, wake up already, archslacker.” Beryl groaned, simply rotating in her comforter. The instigator was standing right in front of the entrance to her room and was positively glowing with energy, which was not what Beryl wanted to see at 7 o'clock in the morning. She pointedly ignored her as much as humanly possible and pointed her face in the direction of the wall. There was the clicking of a tongue, followed swiftly by a chill running down Beryl’s spine. She moved to resist, but as soon as she reacted, she was violently gripped by an invisible force and chucked haphazardly outside, comforter and all.
She managed to sort out her brain not a millisecond too soon, putting a soft-ish barrier between herself and the ground. There was laughing behind her, and she groaned again, managing the most intimidating glare she could muster towards the hyena (at least, the most intimidating she could be while wearing a luxurious nightgown and bearing a bedhead). “Lazuli, you just committed inhumane acts against your fellow mage. I’m going to report you to the IADA and get you locked away for war crimes unless you let me return to my sacred place.” The taller woman held her hand up to her face in mock astonishment. “Oh, woe is me! What sort of justice will I be subject to for mobilizing the most valuable asset in the entire military?” She giggled once more and extended her hand towards the prone mage. “Get up, genius! The world needs you to do more than lie on the ground, after all!” Beryl sighed, slapping her friend’s hand to the side as she moved to get up– “Wait, Lazuli?” The past turned into nothing but haze as reality beckoned her return.
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Beryl stirred from her actual resting place, waking up under the ground for the second night in a row. Despite her initial concerns about her inability to sleep, she managed to obtain a relatively refreshing night of sleep. Strangely, it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as one would expect. The ground might be coarse on the surface, but the dirt beneath that layer was considerably softer than anticipated, and the darkness was comfortable to open one’s eyes to. Being surrounded by walls of malleable yet firm material, it’s…
Beryl ejected herself out of the ground before she could complete that line of thought, sticking the landing this time. There’s absolutely no way she would replace her luxury mattress with a literal hole in the ground. It was morning now, and the Lumen Giraffe was nowhere to be seen. She dozed off right after the giraffe walked away, which took about an hour, if she had to estimate. Thus, she continued her aimless trek to find civilization.
It took half the day, but her luck finally turned up. She jogged up to the point of interest to confirm it, and sure enough, there was a dirt path among the countless trees! Despite how she usually detested human interaction, she had to admit that the lack of human presence wasn’t for her. Actually, it was probably just the fact that she was excited to return to her own home. Hopefully she’d be able to take a long vacation after her most recent mission. She was a little miffed that the association didn’t send anyone to retrieve her after her assignment, but that was a complaint to file for later.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
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Just as the sun was setting and Beryl was coming to terms with the fact that she was going to sleep in a hole again, she finally happened upon what appeared to be a small inn. The wooden building was two stories tall and had a weathered yet homely appearance to it, with the windows emanating a soft, inviting light. Beryl swiftly walked up to the front entrance, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
When she walked in, several sights typical of an inn entered her vision: wooden tables holding delicious smelling dinners, chairs seating patrons with drinks in hand, a bar with a short & stocky fellow manning it, and a plain counter that a clerk was standing behind. Beryl shrugged off the glances the patrons gave her upon entry and made a beeline for the wooden counter.
The young clerk gave her a practiced smile as she approached.
“Good evening, maam. How can we help you tonight?”
“Ah, I’d like a room for the night, please.”
“No problem, that’ll be 500 rubles.”
As she fished through her pockets for her money bag with one hand, she scritched at her face with the other. She thought to herself, “I guess I really did miss human interaction, after the whole fight and forest and everything, it has been a bit, huh? I guess after a while even those who detest conversation can enjoy it every once in a while.” She took out her coin pouch and fished out a 500 ruble coin, pressing it on the counter. To her surprise, instead of a simple transaction, she was met with a look of confusion from the clerk.
“Uhh, is there a problem?”
“Sorry, this establishment only accepts bills, can you use those instead?”
“Ah… I don’t have any on me, is there a reason you can’t accept these?”
“Well…”
Internally, Beryl was cursing her luck. Of course she’d encounter some weird establishment that only accepted… bills? She was relatively sure she’d landed somewhere in the Ghillerman Empire, but even then she hadn’t heard of a country that didn’t accept Imperial currency. While Beryl was having this internal dialogue, another employee appeared from the door behind the counter.
“What’s the matter, Milly? If there’s some troublemaker afoot, I’ll tell em to scram, well and good.”
“It’s nothing so major! It’s just… this customer was trying to pay in coin, and, y’know…”
“Coin? Let me take a look.”
Beryl froze up slightly when the elderly coworker picked up and inspected the 500 ruble piece. What’s going on here? What’s the issue with trying to pay in an internationally sanctioned currency? Why can’t she just go home–
Suddenly, the old hag cackled. “Well, isn’t this an interesting piece!”
“What do you mean, ‘interesting’? It’s the imperial standard, isn’t it?”
“Well, lassie, maybe if you've been living under a rock for a hundred or so years, it would be. But this here is an invalidated currency. I’m impressed you still managed to hold onto something as frivolous as this since they did that major recall, hah!”
Time skipped a beat as everything went still in Beryl’s head.
“Come again?”
“Oh, actually, this one’s even an antique among antiques, it’s over 200 years old!”
Beryl fainted on the spot.