Coppercamp is a town next to the Yasin river with well made buildings of birch, a big square and a medium population that isn’t too shy to speak their mind. The hero’s learned that the hard way when they walked the paved path in the middle of town and were harassed with the voices of people talking behind their backs and in front of their face.

“What is she doing here?”

“They have no shame coming inside the town?”

“Probably more Damians, it keeps getting worse.”

Ruby can’t help but shy away from the voices, she hides her face as much as possible which causes her to run into Gregory.

“Don’t mind them, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” Gregory tries to comfort the obviously stressed Ruby, but it only makes her think of what he doesn’t know, the reason she does have to be ashamed.

“I can’t believe you’re showing your face here again, demon girl.”

A man blocks the path of the group, on purpose. He is dressed in armor and uniform, metal shin guards and wrist guards, no doubt chain or gambison underneath the yellow shirt with a symbol of two spears, leather boots and most prominently a large spear in his hands. His dirty blonde thick handlebar mustache and bushy eyebrows make a frown and his brown angry eyes are pointed at Fren who walks forward to him. Two other similar guards with short brown hair walk in with their spears and stand behind him as if to provide backup support.

“Who are you? One of Damian’s lackeys? We’re not afraid of you. You shouldn’t have shown your face in town.”

“No need for hostility, we’re just travelling, we were actually attacked by Damians and this girl, Ruby, helped us-” Fren tries to explain the situation calmly but is cut off by the handlebar man.

“You think I’m stupid? Or maybe you’re stupid. We know the demon girl is with the Damians, now come quietly or come in pieces, you’re going to jail!” The handlebar guard vulgarly yells at Fren, not being conservative on the spray too.

“We’re traveling with a priest, don’t tell me you think we're bandits.” Klem the carriageless carriage driver butts in. “I was injured and she saved me, so we’re treating her to a drink. You got a problem with that?” Klem points to the hole in his sleeve where an arrow was lodged before. He’s much more unabashed than he showed earlier.

The handlebar guard eyes Gregory for a moment and turns back to Fren and Klem. “You guys got in conflict with the Damians and the demon girl helped you? You expect me to believe that?” He asks and keeps eyeing them. He does not recall them in any report, the guy with the sword looks like an adventurer and they have a priest with them? No way the Damians are bold enough to anger the church, are they?

“We’re actually planning on dealing with them ourselves.” Fren tells him.

“You’re being funny, boy.” He replies without removing the frown off his face “You’re crazy…” He thinks for a bit, maybe he’s a paladin on a mission? But who ever heard of a paladin in leather armor? “You better watch yourselves, and get her out of here, she’s only trouble.” He turns around and points to the other two to leave.

“Do you know the way to the nearest inn?” Fren adds lightheartedly just before the guards are about to leave. Maybe he’s teasing them, but one of the guards points in a direction briefly before continuing to walk off.

“Let’s go.” Fren leads them to the road “So, you were with the Damians?” He asks Ruby who now hides her face even harder. “You can tell us about it at the inn.” Fren might think that, but a few minutes later, when they finally arrive at a building that has a sign that says ‘Linden Inn’ they find it pretty much abandoned. The sign says open but when they enter and see a small lobby with a desk but no one inside they think they must have misread the sign. It’s a small room and it has stairs that lead into a larger room and there are stairs that lead either up or down, but not a single person inside, until a voice comes from the stairs.

“It can’t be the bell, keep cleaning.” a female voice gets stronger accompanied with the sound of footsteps and a male voice too. Soon enough a middleaged woman in a plain dress walks down the stairs “Oh my! There are customers! Did you come to stay in?” she walks over to the desk quickly and a man follows her down the stairs.

“I told you, shaila, it was the bell.”

“Umm, we need to stay a few nights, yes.”

“That’s wonderful, how many are you? Are you from out of town?” Shaila answers.

“We’re four I think… two rooms?” Fren looks back at the group.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“You’re the one paying… I think two should be enough.” Gregory has a point.

“Two rooms, with breakfast that's going to be twelve pebbles per night.”

“TWELVE?! That’s a lot, how’s that possible?” Klem is right, that price is marked up plenty, a chalk board behind the woman has some erased writing of 1 pebble for two days per room.

“It’s just what we can afford, times are rough nowadays.” says the man at the stairs. “The breakfast is very good, and we just cleaned the rooms.”

“Do you have a discount for priests?” Gregory comes forth and asks, Shaila is a bit confused, but quickly decides “Well… if there’s only once priest of the four of you…” she counts them and then she find the fourth member. “Not her!” she screams. “No, we can’t have her!”

“She’s part of our party, and our friend.” Fren says but Shaila doesn't care.

“No, no, we can’t have her. Not even for twelve per night.”

Ruby turns to the door, she knows when she’s unwanted, it was ridiculous to even try and come here in the first place. She walks out.

“Ruby, where are you going?” Fren asks her.

“I’ll go, it was wrong of me to come here.”

“No, We’ll work something out, we’re not leaving you. Besides, we need to sit down and strategize before dealing with the Damians.”

“What? What’s strategize? Nevermind, forget it. I’ll just go sleep somewhere else.”

“We need to make a plan, and we can’t do it without you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you were with them, you know where they hide and how to get there. We need you.” Fren answers and instead of answering him Ruby finds herself frozen, she can’t accept that she was a Damian as easily as he can.

“I don’t… we can’t stay here.” she finally lets out.

“Well, where were you planning to stay?”

She thinks quietly, she feels conflicted about telling him, she never returned there herself in so long. It's so quick that she met them, she had a meal with them and walked and even spoke a little with them, but she doesn’t feel comfortable enough yet. She can’t let them know what’s on her mind.

“Alright, you two think we can’t hear you, huh? It’s alright. I talked to them and if it’s only Klem then it’ll be three pebbles for a night with breakfast in the morning.” Gregory goes out to inform them of the negotiations that went on inside.

“What about us?” Fren asks.

“We can go to where Ruby has in mind. If that doesn’t work we can go to the nearby church but with me as the only priest and… well you saw how these guys treated her, it might be worse if we go to the church.”

Ruby’s mind is a mess, she didn’t agree, but she can’t tell them no. She can’t find a solution.

“That could work, is there enough place for the three of us there?” Fren asks ruby, forcing her to decide “You weren't planning on sleeping in the woods again, right?”

“No, it’s a place, and it has enough space, but I don’t- I don’t know if even I can stay there.”

“We could look at other inns but there aren’t many more, and they probably won’t be nicer, or cheaper.” Gregory makes a point.

“I’ll go give Klem some money, he should be able to stay here tonight for a while.”

After that, the three walk after Ruby, she remembers many of the buildings, although some things have changed. Most things changed for the worse, some shops closed, some buildings closed, the children's playground is even more rundown than when she was a child. She finally makes it to the house, an abandoned one, the wood looks weak and tired and the front looks uncared for. She was afraid it was claimed by someone by now but it’s just an abandoned house now. They open the door and find a small family of boars inside who are frightened out from the hole they came from. There aren’t any other animals, not much mold either, just a lot of dust and worn down walls. It used to be a place where people lived, it even has three beds, although the sheets are not as comfortable as they used to be.

“Are we breaking in? What is this place?” Gregory asks “As a priest, I cannot allow ourselves to steal.”

“It’s not stealing, it’s- I guess it’s mine.” Ruby protectively replies.

“I guess? Are we charade thieves?”

“It’s not stealing! I’m not a thief” The brazen comes out of her, odd seeing that now after the timid act around town.

“Then is this the trivia inn? And you don’t pay as long as you guess you don’t need to?”

“Alright, you two, let’s settle down.” Fren tries to make them sit down, the chairs inside look bad so he clears the dust on the floor and sits there.”

“He thinks I’m a thief, Fren, I’m not!”

“He doesn’t think you’re a thief, he’s just joking. You’ll learn he’s like that.” Fren calms her down.

“Wait, Fren, I have another joke about it.”

“Leave it for later. Now, let’s think about what we do.”

“Can’t we sleep first?” Ruby suggests. It’s been a long day and an exhausting one. Not only that but being here makes her want to do nothing else. She kind of regrets coming here but it’s too late for that.

“I guess we can. It might be a good Idea.” Fren accepts the offer.

“So just sleep? We still have some time before sunset. What do you want to do?” Gregory is energetic, he didn’t have a lot of time to make jokes so he wants to spend some time relaxing and laughing.

“Clean the beds.”

“At least listen to my last joke. Hey, stop walking, it’s funny. Ruby you’ll listen, right?”