by Pirateaba
All Erin noticed was the odd look Ryoka gave her before she pushed back the door. Inside, Erin gasped at the sudden change in temperatures.
“It’s so warm!”
It was indeed like walking into a completely different environment. Despite that, there was nothing like a fire in the large room with one large staircase set against one wall. Ryoka glanced at the doorframe.
“Heating runes or something like that. Looks expensive.”
She let Erin further in. Neither Ryoka nor Erin had ever set foot in such a building, and so both stared around in surprise, if not awe.
This building which was not a Mage’s Guild was expensive, to say the least. Smooth floorboards of rich wood glowed as hovering mage lights gave steady, clear illumination to the room. A second floor overlooked the lobby-like ground floor, where several receptionists were busy tending to their queues of people. There wasn’t too much of a line; but those who were waiting looked like they were all rich, or employed by rich people. The only exception to that rule were the two adventurers waiting in a line of their own.
It was that one that Ryoka took Erin to. Erin stared in fascination at the sheets of paper the people at the counter were writing on. Once a stack had been collected, they were sent upstairs.
“Oh. I get it. They’re writing it all down so it can be sent off!”
“Looks like they make backlogs and the mages come in later. Might be a little bit before our message gets through.”
The adventurer in front of Erin and Ryoka finished his business, and then the man at the desk gestured and Ryoka and Erin walked forwards.
“Are you an adventurer? This line’s for adventurers or runners only.”
The man spoke briskly, barely looking up from his paper. Then he noticed Ryoka’s bare feet and scowled briefly.
“I’m a City Runner. Here’s my seal.”
Ryoka reached into her travel pouch and pulled out a glittering seal that was made of some blue metal and silver. Erin was entranced by the way the colors blended together and sparkled, but the man barely looked at it. Heed nodded and passed it back.
“Do you have a message to send, or are you here to pick up? The mage on duty hasn’t collected any incoming messages for your guild.”
“Message to send.”
The man grabbed a fresh piece of paper and dipped his quill in the ink pot.
“Name?”
“She’ll be sending the first message.”
Ryoka gestured to Erin. Erin smiled.
“Hi—”
“Name?”
The abrupt response made Erin feel like she was at an airport or something.
“Erin Solstice.”
“Destination?”
“Um. Liscor?”
The man scribbled down on the piece of paper, quill blurring so fast that Erin could barely follow. He wrote faster than most people could type, and his writing—far from being ink splattered and cursively-illegible—was almost agonizingly straight and easy to read.
“And who are the recipients of your message? Please list more than one person if at all possible.”
“Okay. Selys Shivertail or Krshia Silverfang. Selys is a Drake and Krshia’s a Gnoll. Oh, and Klbkch! You can add him too. He’s an Antinium.”
The receptionist’s quill paused when Erin mentioned that. Erin sensed Ryoka was covering her face in her hand as everyone in earshot looked at her. She blushed.
“Well, he is.”
The man at the desk recovered quickly.
“Very well. And the contents of your message? Be aware of the prices for longer messages.”
He pointed to a board over his head. Erin gulped as she noticed how expensive messages got.
“Okay. Um—this isn’t part of the message. This is just me thinking. Uh, write this. ‘Hi guys, this is Erin. I’m well—’”
Wearing a pained expression, Ryoka interrupted Erin.
“Cancel that. Write this instead. ‘This is Ryoka. I am with Erin in the city of Celum. We are both well, and we will attempt to return soon.’”
The man efficiently scribbled down their message and then crossed out the parts Erin had said. He offered the sheet of paper to the two young women.
“Does that appear to be correct? Yes? Then the price will be…”
Erin’s face fell, but Ryoka just dug at a pouch and dropped several gold coins onto the counter. The man collected them, and then for some reason used a magnifying glass to stare at each of the coins in turn.
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s checking to make sure they’re authentic.”
“Oh.”
That done, Ryoka received a few silver coins in return.
“A mage will send your message via spell sometime today. If there is a response, we will hold the reply for one week before disposing of it. Thank you.”
That was that. Erin turned to go, but Ryoka hesitated.
“…Wait. I’ll send one more message now.”
The man looked up.
“Very well. Your name?”
“Ryoka Griffin. The message is also to Liscor, but the only recipient is Krshia Silverfang.”
Erin watched the man writing on a fresh piece of paper and looked around the room. This was a lot of work compared to using a phone, but she could also see how useful it was. No wonder a lot of merchant-types looked like they were sending messages to other people. You could get good tips about the markets in other cities. Or evil monsters trying to swallow people whole.
“And the contents of your message?”
Erin looked back as Ryoka took a deep breath. The other girl seemed to think for a moment before she nodded and spoke.
“Send this: ‘Krshia Silverfang, this is Ryoka. I have what you want. Tell the others to wait for my return.’”
The man looked up.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Erin noticed something then, as the man showed Ryoka the piece of paper. He’d looked sort of bored when she spoke to him, but when Ryoka had delivered her cryptic message he’d become more interested. Come to that, so had the woman standing at the counter next to them…as well as the other man behind the counter. They looked the other way when Erin stared, though.
Ryoka paid for the second message and then she and Erin walked towards the entrance of the building. Erin told Ryoka what she’d seen in a hushed voice. Ryoka only shrugged.
“Don’t bother keeping your voice down, Erin. I’d bet there are spells that can record our every word in here. And you can bet that more than one person’s going to read that message or pass it along before it gets to anyone in Liscor.”
“Really? How do you know?”
Ryoka smiled crookedly.
“Because knowledge is power, or money. [Message] spells don’t seem to be that well-encrypted magically in the first place, but having secretaries handle the mail means that all kinds of secrets are probably sold off or kept. Most people might not know that, but you can bet all those [Receptionists] read all the messages before they go out.”
She hadn’t bothered to lower her voice. A rich, fat man waddling towards an exit looked at Ryoka with a horrified glance, and Erin winced as the people at the counters glared daggers at Ryoka’s back.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s Human nature. But I didn’t say anything they can use; just so long as our friends know we’re safe, it’s fine.”
They were outside the building now. The rich guy had done a u-turn and was moving at speed back to the desk to confront one of the flustered secretaries. Just in case though, Erin lowered er voice.
“What was that message to Krshia, though? What do you have? A delivery?”
Ryoka didn’t look around, but she jabbed Erin with an elbow. Gently.
“That’s private. Let’s not talk about it; I’m sure that spells can be extended past a building, and there’s always Skills as well.”
That made Erin worried for two entire streets, until Ryoka paused to
reassure her.
“Don’t worry; Runners are used to transporting all kinds of secret stuff. I doubt anyone would pry too far into my business, but I’m just being cautious.”
“You really think about different stuff than I do, Ryoka. I just try not to let a monster eat my face off and make good food.”
“We all have our skills. Don’t worry about any of it. Right now, our next goal should be finding you transport back to Liscor.”
Erin made a face at Ryoka as they walked along through the snow. Ryoka still looked completely fine wearing practically nothing, even though it was starting to snow. She was making Erin feel cold.
“I don’t know how we’re going to do that, Ryoka. I left my sledge outside of the city, but there’s no one to pull it. Unless you—?”
“No. I suppose we could buy a horse for you and I could run with you, but that’s risky.”
“Risky? Why?”
Ryoka looked exasperated.
“The roads aren’t safe, Erin. The main ones might be, but there’s always the chance of a monster or bandit attack. I can outrun most monsters and I’ve got some items that will help me, but even on a horse you’d be a target.”
Scowling, Ryoka kicked through a pile of snow, ignoring the looks the other pedestrians gave her.
“It’ll be hard getting you back quickly and safely. A caravan’s normally how people travel, but those are slow. We could hire adventurers to guard you, but that would cost a lot of money.”
“Adventurers? Isn’t that overkill? Look, Ryoka, I don’t know about riding, but why don’t the two of us just go back together? You’ve got those martial arts moves and I have some skills. If we get some stuff from Octavia we can probably handle most monsters, right?”
The other girl considered Erin’s suggestion.
“I did get more of the potions and bags from her. I suppose you might have a point but…damn it, I don’t know if there’s any dangerous monsters or bandits nearby. The Runner’s Guild would know, I guess.”
“Oh, did you need to go check in with them? If you want I can wait—”
Ryoka shook her head.
“I can check in later. I want to get you back to Liscor before I take on any requests. But I can ask for information. Okay. Let’s say we go by ourselves. We still need provisions, more of Octavia’s potions and bags, a damn horse—I wonder if we can rent one—”
Erin’s stomach growled.
“Can we talk about all that stuff over dinner? I haven’t eaten in ages.”
Neither had Ryoka, as it turned out. And once Erin reminded her, it turned out that both girls were famished.
“We’d never get to another city before dark, I guess.”
Erin nodded in agreement. She was tired; all of what Ryoka was saying sounded like a lot of work she didn’t want to do right now.
“I have to go bother—see Octavia tomorrow, anyways. I want to do more experiments before I go. And it’s late. Why don’t we stay at an inn?”
“An [Innkeeper] staying at an inn?”
The notion seemed to amuse Ryoka. She led Erin down another street, and both girls looked out for inns.
“This’ll be great. You know, I was really scared when I woke up, but now I’m thinking this could be more like a holiday.”
“You always look too much on the bright side of things.”
Ryoka grumbled as she pushed the door open to an inn. Erin followed her inside and felt the heat of a roaring fire wash over her at the same time the babble of several voices and the clink of metal meeting pottery hit her ears. She smelled roasted and burnt meat and found herself in an inn.
It was weird. Despite her profession, Erin had been in a grand total of two inns in this world before this, and one of them was hers. And this, clearly, was not her inn.
For one thing, it was a lot more run-down than Erin’s brand new sparkling inn with glass windows. This inn had only shutters, no glass, and it also had stains and tracked in dirt that Erin noted the instant she walked in. There was a bit more mess and a bit less polish, but the inn made up for that with its clientele.
In that it had some rather than none. The room wasn’t exactly heaving, but there were about fourteen people inside, not counting the staff. Two young women circled the room, delivering food and drink to the tables as weary-looking men and women ate. At the far end of the room, a group of five noisy adventurers were laughing and drinking loudly.
Yes, it was an inn that failed to impress, but it gave Erin the sense that it would be a decent place to eat and sleep. It might not have been home for her, but it was clearly looked after by someone who cared, and that alone made it worthy of respect.
Ryoka gave the inn and the entire room one look before she turned to go.
“Come on, Erin.”
“What? But why?”
Before Ryoka could respond, the [Innkeeper], an older women in her mid-thirties, rushed out of what looked like the kitchen. Spotting two potential customers she hurried forwards with a big smile on her face. Her apron was slightly smutched, but she looked friendly—if harried. She slowed as she recognized Ryoka, and then beamed.
“If it isn’t a City Runner! Miss Griffin, isn’t it? Do come in, please!”
Ryoka wore a pained expression as the woman approached. Erin smiled and received a wider smile in return.
“Welcome to the Frenzied Hare! Do take a seat. My name is Agnes; and I do know you, Miss Ryoka Griffin. You stayed at my inn just as you were starting out as a City Runner. Do you remember?”
It was something that Erin had noticed. Whenever Ryoka didn’t want to say something or talk with someone, her face would become very closed off and she’d change her posture to be more withdrawn. She was doing that now, even though the woman was acting really nice.
“I’m sorry. I don’t recall. Please excuse us; we were just looking in.”
“Oh. I see. But if you’d like to stay, we have food hot and ready.”
“That sounds good to me!”
Erin smiled at the woman. Agnes smiled back.
“Oh, and who are you?”
“My name’s Erin. Please to meet—”
“One second, please, Miss Agnes.”
Ryoka dragged Erin away before she could introduce herself. Erin glared; Ryoka was being rude, but Ryoka herself looked annoyed.
“We’re not staying here, Erin. We can afford a much better inn.”
“What? But she’s nice. And this place doesn’t look so bad—”
“I’ve seen good inns, and this isn’t one of them. The food smells burnt, there’s an obnoxious group over there, and the inn’s not crowded despite it being dinnertime. There are better places to be if we’ve got money. Let’s find one.”
She had a point, but Erin was reluctant to concede. Ryoka walked back to Agnes, whose smile had slipped slightly. She had a resigned look in her eyes before Ryoka even spoke.
“I’m sorry Miss Agnes, but we really have to be going.”
“I understand. But if you ever want to stop by…”
The older woman looked crestfallen and slightly hurt. That made up Erin’s mind.
“Nah, let’s stay.”
She interrupted Ryoka. The other girl turned and glared silently at her, but Erin ignored the look. She smiled at Agnes, who gave her a more genuine smile of surprise in return.
“I’d love to have whatever you’ve got. And we’d like to stay the night, wouldn’t we, Ryoka?”
The other girl looked exasperated, but gave up.
“I suppose we will. A table for two, Miss Agnes. Away from those two, please.”
She nodded at the adventurers who were spilling a lot of their drink on the floor in proper quaffing style. Agnes beamed and led the two girls to a table at the other side of the room, talking excitedly with Erin.
“Oh thank you. You know, it’s been hard since my poor husband fell ill. He’s been abed these last two weeks with a terrible fever, and I’m trying to keep the place running, but I just don’t
have his levels, I really don’t. I was a [Tailor] by trade before I became an [Innkeeper] with him…”
“Really? That’s so odd. You know I’m an [Innkeeper] myself, Agnes.”
“Someone as young as you? Bless my heart, that’s quite an achievement! No wonder you’re friends with Miss Griffin, Miss Erin was it?”
“Please, call me Erin. Yeah, I have this inn near Liscor, but I’m uh, travelling abroad for a bit…”
By the time Erin had sat down with Ryoka and they’d ordered some beef with potatoes, the meal of the day, she’d become entirely invested in Agnes’ struggle. She’d even met the two barmaids, Maran and Safry, and they’d both been cheerful and welcoming, if tired. Agnes had chatted happily with Erin before going back into the kitchen to cook, a scene so familiar to Erin that she felt a strong bond with the woman.
Ryoka sat with her arms folded, a scowl on her face. She had refused to take part in any of the conversations. Now she was waiting for their food, clearly annoyed that Erin had chosen this inn to stay in.
“Aw, come on Ryoka. Agnes is nice! Don’t you think so?”
“She’s fine.”
That was her problem. Ryoka got grumpy if she didn’t get her way. Erin was determined to remain upbeat, though.
“Agnes said she knew you when you just got here, Ryoka. You really don’t remember her?”
Ryoka shrugged, looking uncomfortable.
“She’s an [Innkeeper], Erin. No offense, but I sleep in a lot of inns in my job.”
“You remember me, though.”
“You kind of stand out, Erin. This place…”
Ryoka let her voice trail off. She shrugged, looking darkly resigned.
“Let’s just eat. We can talk over dinner.”
“Ooh! I think I see the food.”
Erin turned in her seat and smiled as Safry came out of the kitchen, balancing two plates and two drinks – boiled water and milk in her hands. Ryoka sighed.
“Don’t get your hopes up. Food around here isn’t always as good as your inn.”
“You’re so pessimistic, Ryoka! Come on, how bad could it be?”
“Tell me you didn’t just say that.”