The common room was as lively as Beatrice left it. It might have even gotten more crowded, despite Y'Shtara's best efforts to reduce the number of her, particularly lewd and misbehaving patrons. Well, Beatrice understood that in this city there were very few non-lewd citizens, but in the Wholesome Inn, they had to at least pretend to be able to keep it in their pants.
"We don't really have time to stop for a drink," Ember said to Beatrice when the succubus stopped after only a few steps away from the stairs. "And I didn't think of you as someone who'd need to bolster their courage before a fight—"
"It's not that," Beatrice said as she scanned the room for the owners of the inn.
Through the disorderly movements of a noisy, busy, drunken crowd, Beatrice was able to locate Y'Shlata, Y'Shtara's little sister, the small-framed, but big-breasted cat girl in a barmaid's outfit. The succubus moved swiftly through the crowd toward her target, which caused her to rub her big breasts several times against random drunken beastkin as she squeezed past them. None of them dared to comment or complain. Which Beatrice took as either them being too drunk to notice or having the feat of a certain cat girl put in them.
"Something to write with?" Y'Shlata repeated with a surprise, unsure if she heard the giant-tittied vagabond's request correctly "You mean you actually know how to write?"
"Of course!" Beatrice said as three thoughts flashed through her mind:
One, it had completely slipped her mind that illiteracy might be an issue in this city, in fact, she should have assumed as much until proved otherwise. And even if she left a written message, there was no reason to think that a commoner like Rafaelia would be able to read it. If anything, it was more impressive that Beatrice had come across at least two literate companions in Ember and Olivia, who did not deny their ability to write;
Two, Beatrice instantly realized that she had no reason to think that she could actually write in the language this world. Though she was able to communicate verbally and all her system information was written in plain English for her benefit, she was simply taking for granted that there would be no differences when it came to putting words on paper. For all she knew, the goddess Luluna simply gave her the means to understand the tongue of this world, figuring that a degenerate pervert would not even think of picking up a pen when there was so much sex to be had.
And Beatrice's third realization was that—despite her beauty—she indeed must have looked like the poorest of the poor in the ragged old cloak that she used to cover her body. And while that worked fine to conceal her "assets", it also made for poor first impressions, and it was about time to address this issue with a change of wardrobe.
"Very well, I should still have some ink and paper here," Y'Shtala said as bent behind her counter and searched through the lower shelves for the desired items. "Ah! Here you go!"
Y'Shtala passed over the counter a sheet of yellowish paper, a feather, and a stained bottle of black ink to Beatrice.
Here goes nothing! Beatrice thought as she sunk the quill into the ink and started writing with a feather quill for the first time in her life.
"I might be a little rusty," Beatrice said with embarrassment at her own handwriting when she saw how horribly smeared and uneven her letters ended up. Forget the quill, when was the last time Beatrice held a pen other than signing consent forms in a hospital with a trembling hand?
"Can you even understand this?" Beatrice asked Ember.
"A little," Ember chuckled.
Beatrice passed the sheet of paper back to Y'Shlata and asked, "Could you take bring this note to the room…"
"Three-seven," Ember reminded Beatrice.
"To the room three-seven, along with some food?" Beatrice finished her question. "Do you have anything… Good?"
"Oh, you're Y'Shtara's friend?" Y'Shlata asked Ember when she realized who had paid for that particular room, along with three others.
"'Friend' is a strong word, but I did pay for the best," Ember confirmed.
"We certainly have the best beer around!" Y'Shlata said with pride.
"No alcohol for the fox girl that's resting there!" Beatrice insisted, a little louder than might have been necessary, remembering a highly important detail at the very last second. "I'll take the note for a moment… Need to remind her of that too…"
Y'Shlata looked a little confused and a lot insulted that somebody would refuse her beverages.
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