Chapter 10

 

My dreams were filled with deep fried chickens and roasted beef. Bread and butter to vanilla flavored chocolate cakes. I drank milk to my heart’s desire, then moved on to yoghurt. And when all that was done, I was presented with a buffet of fruits. Apples, bananas, mangoes, oranges and even avocados. But before I could dig in, a loud knocking disturbed me.

‘Give me a minute, I want to taste each of these,’ I told whoever was knocking.

But they were persisted. I turned to tell them off and fell down.

It took me a while to collect myself from the wooden floor and sit down on the bed. The reality of where I was kicking in. It was already daytime. That surprised me. With no meal for more than twelve hours, I should have had little sleep. The hunger pangs should have woken me occasionally. I realized that I might have been more tired than I had thought.

I listened for the knocking, but I couldn’t hear it anymore. Only footsteps of several people walking along the corridor. Just to be sure, I slowly got up and unlocked the door. I didn’t even remember coming back after my trip to the toilet. Lavatory, I needed to remember that it was lavatory in the Realm of Mesily.

The corridor was dimly lit, near dark even, unlike the room I had been. Looking around, I noticed no one in the corridor. Maybe they had gone down the stairs after knocking on my door. I went back in to prepare myself for the day. But then I noticed the overhead light. And looking at the walls, there was no window. I cursed myself. I knew it in my gut that it was still night. Maybe an hour or so before sunrise, but still night time. What hours did the taverns in this Realm keep? I thought to myself as I began tidying up the bed. Which only involved straightening out the bedding. I hadn’t even used the blanket for anything more than a pillow.

I first counted the coins I had left on me. 6 golds, 35 silvers and 9 coppers. Not bad, but I needed a way to make more. I locked the door on my way out, with my trusty staff on my right hand and the key on my left.

I didn’t find the previous night’s tender behind the counter. But it was a relative alright. The black hair, the chest, they even had the same money hungry eyes. She was younger though, way younger. And hadn’t gained the extra fat yet. Either a late sister, or an early daughter. I was willing to bet on her being a daughter though.

“You woke me?” I asked, as I placed the key on the counter. I also congratulated myself for managing more than two words to someone in this Realm.

“No. I didn’t,” she replied. I tried figuring out what she had being doing before I came but came up blank. Maybe she had just been sitting there waiting for people to clear out.

“I heard knocking,” I told her. I was sure of that much. There was no way my brain conjured up a knocking just to stop me from eating all those fruits. It didn’t make any sense, I had already eaten the cake, bread, meat and drank the dairy products. I just wished I could remember their tastes.

At my statement, she turned her stare to a table in the dining drinking area of the tavern. “You must have heard them waking each other up. I didn’t hear anything down here. You are light sleeper, aren’t you?”

By the last question, she had already turned to stare at me again. Was I expected to pay again? I hoped not. I might not know the financial workings of this Realm, but if they asked any more than I already gave them, they would be stealing me blind.

“No.” And I wasn’t.

I turned to stare at the only occupied table in the tavern. Two men and a woman, at least I assumed they were. One of the men and the woman appeared clothed in what I would consider leather armor. The other one was dressed in chain mail. My annoyance shifted to salivation when I saw the size of plates in front of them. My stomach grumbled in response. I quickly turned back to the tender,

“How much is breakfast?” Four words! I was on a roll. Though I wasn’t sure if the ‘is’ had meant it through. I must sound like a foreigner.

“6 copps,” she said without hesitation. Why couldn’t they mix up the prices? Have her tell me something lower?

She quickly disappeared at a side door by the counter after I nodded. And I turned to stare at the reasons for my early wake up.

I couldn’t tell how tall they were while they were sat, but I imagined them being taller and bigger than I was. With their armor, I imagined that was how adventurers would look. The leather armor the two wore was similar in appearance. Brown in color for the breastplate and shoulder protectors, the rest differed with the woman leaning more towards light brown while the man went black. Before I could begin to study their weapons, my breakfast arrived.

It was a huge bread, and a side dish of soup that might or might not have had meat in it. The wooden spoon I got revealed chunks of something that could be meat. I decided not to inquire too much about it. I wolfed through half the bread without taking a breather at all. When I finally looked up, the tender was looking at me curiously. I was sure I had maintained my manners. Did she think I couldn’t pay? I decided to pay her then, just stop the staring. I could have moved to a table, but that would bring me closer to the three adventurers and I didn’t want that. I was still angry with them for waking me earlier than I had intended.

When I placed the six coppers on the counter, the morning tender stared at me even more weirder. Maybe sitting closer to the adventurers wasn’t such a bad idea. She quickly recovered, took the coins and stored them on her person. I just didn’t see exactly where she placed them. She must have had a [Sleight of Hand] Skill, I concluded.

“What is the time?” The anyway I had wanted to add to the question never made it out.

“Around an hour to sunrise,” she answered. “Somewhere you need to be?”

“No.” I answered simply. If I was having trouble forming long sentences, the longer I kept trying to do that, the less proficient I came off. It was best I stuck with what came naturally.

“Where to get card?” That was just awful. Too awful. In fact, what the Mesily was wrong with me?

‘Clare, why am I speaking such awful Common Tongue?’

‘Your [Language Proficiency] is too low.’

I had figured as much. It was looking less and less fun as I learnt how the Realm of Mesily actually worked. When I finally returned my focus to the morning tender, she was just finishing a statement. I had completely heard none of it.

“Come again?” I decided not to pretend like I had heard anything. That would only injure me.

“I said that you can get it at the Council Office. That is, if you mean the Citizen Card,” she repeated. Or summarized, it was hard to tell without knowledge of what she had said before.

“One needed at gate,” I said.

“Yeah, that is the one.”

“Where is, Council Office?” I asked carefully. I decided to choose my words so as to reduce all that uttering of barely legible sentences.

“When you get into the town, the building you see directly at the end of the main street. That’s it,” she replied.

I nodded in understanding as I went back to munching on my bread and soup. I was near done by then. Only left with a bread two to three mouthfuls if I pushed myself. Five if I tried to maintain a modicum of decency.

“Can I ask you something?” I nodded without pausing in my feast. It might not be the bread and meat that I had dreamt about, but it was still something. “Where are you from?”

“I don’t remember,” I answered without hesitation. Which actually made me hesitate. I tried to think of anything I could say, but there wasn’t anything else. Trying to explain away my memory loss would only lead me to speak a lot of broken sentences. I wasn’t keen on that.

“Do you have elf blood,” she asked shyly, the first time in the whole time we had been talking.

I just stared at her, slowly chewing the last of my bread and swallowed. When I felt the telltale signs of choking, I quickly brought the soup bowl to my mouth and downed everything in it.

“Right. You don’t remember,” she said in a deflated town, before perking up again. “I feel like you do.”

“Why?” I asked after I felt sure that the choking hazard had been averted.

“It’s just… I want to say it’s your eyes, or the shape of your face, but it isn’t. It’s everything about you. Other than your brown skin, you could be mistaken for an elf.”

“What about ears?” I asked her as I flopped them with my fingers. “Or hair.”

I assumed elves had long silky hair and pointed ears, something I was sure I didn’t have.

“Yeah. And those,” she amended, but that look in eyes never went away.

Maybe it wasn’t money she was after. Maybe it was something else entirely. That thought had me anxious all over again. With how weak and vulnerable I felt, any interest, good or bad, felt threatening to me. It was time to begin grinding levels. If I took care of my pouch and its contents, I could safely stretch it to a little more than a month. That should be enough time to set myself up, or move on to another town.

The arrival of the adventurers prevented the conversation from going any further. And I was glad for it. I quietly slithered out of the counter and got out of the tavern. It wasn’t exactly light outside, but the light of dawn had already began illuminating the streets.

I wouldn’t be returning to that tavern unless it was absolutely necessary.

…

It took me more than two hours of blundering through the streets before I found myself in the main street again. And even then, I had had help. I had followed, stalked really, a couple that I had overheard talking about heading out to their farm. And there was only one place I knew of that had farms. Outside the walls.

The Council Office was the only building that I had seen made of stone. I wished I had tried to learn about old antic buildings. Those huge white walls and pillars, engraved with majestic figures, some in the middle of battle, others victorious, and others still in defeat. But most having obscene sexual poses. I had no issues with those, only the hypocrisy of it. Why have those statures in the open for all to see, and still go and declare porn not for under 18.

Anyway, the building was already open with a few people walking in but not out. Office workers perhaps? It took me over ten minutes of courage building to gather enough of it to walk in. There was an open area with benches and tables immediately on either sides of the door. Directly ahead, was what appeared to be a receptionist’s desk. I slowly made my way there.

There were two people behind the large white semicircular structure. A man and a woman. Both human, tan skin with black-brown hair. Of the clothes I could see through the glass above the structure’s desk platform, they were the mundane ones worn by everyone else in the area, albeit cleaner and well groomed. The man had half-moon glasses on, and was already dealing with another client. I approached the woman.

“Good morning, how may I help?” The fake smile, I assumed it was, all receptionists were supposed to have them. That and the jovial tone she used, threw me for a loop. It felt like I was in a movie from old earth. It took me a few seconds to collect myself.

“I want Card,” I said carefully. I berated myself for not forcing an article in there. But after a few seconds, I added, “A Citizen Card.”

“How long do you plan to stay?” she asked as she began rummaging through one of her boxes. I had expected her to be more professional than that.

“Months?” Even I felt the question mark. But to be honest, I didn’t know how long I would end up staying. The town didn’t look like a place one would stay long term. Especially not if they wanted to make something for themselves. “Year.”

That had sounded more confident.

“That will be 1 gold.”

“For how long?” I felt the urge to inquire.

“A year,” she replied, staring at me expectantly.

I quickly got her message. Money first. I went through the process of getting the necessary coin out of the pouch. I decided to find a better way of carrying the coins. Maybe they had banks I could deposit in. She picked up the coin and did the same [Sleight of Hand] Skill that the morning tender had done. Maybe that was the way to keep cash hidden.

She finally picked up a wooden piece, similar in size to the one I had seen the taller guy hand over at the gate the previous day. She held it in her hands for a few seconds before placing it on top of the cubicle.

“Imbue some of your Mana in it,” she said after several seconds stretched with me just staring at the piece of wood.

The Card was smaller than I had thought. Around the length of my longest finger, and the width of three of my fingers. Holding it in my hand felt like holding any regular piece of wood, but I knew it to be more than that.

‘Clare, how do I do that imbuing of Mana?’

‘Like you did with the [Fire Bolt], concentrate your Mana and direct a small potion into the Card. Remember, even the tiniest bit will be enough.’

‘That feels like something the receptionist should have told me,’ I told Clare.

‘She assumes you already know that.’

‘You know that, or are you also making an assumption?’

I got nothing from Clare.

I went into imbuing Mana into the Citizen Card. First was getting hold of the Mana. I want to say it was easier now that I had already done it, but that would be a lie. It was as hard as it had been the first time. But when I got hold of it, I didn’t try to hold on to it. I took what I had managed to capture and quickly shoved it into the Card before it could slip from my grasp.

I pushed the Card back to her and waited with baited breath. I didn’t want to have to try that again. She placed it on a small rectangular plate on her desk. After a few seconds, the edges of the rectangular plate glowed green. She picked it up and placed it back on the ledge.

“There. Your Citizen Card. Remember to come renew it after a year is done,” she said to me, still maintaining her jovial tone.

“Everything done?” I asked.

“Yes.” She said.

After hearing that, I quickly turned about and left the Council Office.

I decided to explore the town as I searched for work.