The brown snout peeking out of the gateway to the stables, despite Adam's best wishes, wasn't Los's head, awaiting his master.
No, it was just a brown horse, which somehow got out of the stables and nearly got out to wander the streets.
Seeing the escapee, Adam sped up his pace towards the inn's main entrance, lifting his cat pocket up a bit to reduce turbulences for Parcas.
Soon, he had crossed the doorway and entered the vast room filled with tables - nearly empty at the moment, with maybe two or three people apart from the innkeeper and his daughter staying inside.
Walking up to the counter, Adam waved his hand at the man on the opposite side of the table.
"Hi, there is a horse peeking out of the entrance to the inner courtyard, is that intentional?" He asked.
"A horse? Like, on the street?" The innkeeper made sure he heard right.
"Yes, a brown one - for a moment I even thought it was my Los," Adam added.
The man left what he was doing behind and walked hurriedly around the counter.
"Thank you for the information! I will check the situation out..." The innkeeper thanked our young mage as he was leaving the tavern's main chamber, towards the courtyard on the side of the building that connected to the stables and guest rooms.
As her father disappeared outside, the girl walked up to Adam from the other side of the room.
"You finally returned. Had something happened?" She asked leaning on the counter, facing the man in a cool fur-padded coat.
"Huh?" Adam didn't hear what she said, he was too focused on reading the menu - or at least looked like that.
"You disappeared yesterday night, or rather, this very morning. What happened?" The girl repeated her question.
Adam straightened up his back and scratched the side of his head nervously.
"Well, I am not really sure - the last thing I remember is me arm wrestling with Algier, that cheating little shit..." The young mage grimaced, "Then, I woke up in some barn among the pigs. With no idea how to return here." Adam concluded, omitting a few facts.
"So, how did you return?" The innkeeper's daughter asked - if Max were here, he would have started to find her similar to his icy friend.
"I asked the guards for directions, after wasting some time at the barber's... Oh! Do you have anything to soothe a headache? I can't really think straight right now..." The scratching hand stopped its activities, circling halfway around its owner's head and applying pressure there.
"(!)Daring of you to ask those guys, they rarely act nice towards normal citizens - especially travellers. As for the headache remedy - how about orange juice? After that you should probably go to bed, your companions haven't even woken up yet." The girl smiled happily while pouring Adam the fresh-squizzed juice out of a glass container she took out from behind the counter.
"Thanks, I will follow your advice - although I was sure they would be waiting for me in anticipation... Or at least noticed my absence," Adam confessed sadly, caressing the head of a little furry boy resting in his pocket.
"Though life, maybe sometime else. If you travel as much as you said yesterday, there will be plenty of chances in the future." The girl comforted him after stepping closer and looking him in the eyes.
"Yeah,- maybe. Nice juice." Adam praised his drink, it was fresh and tasty.
"Thanks, I squeezed those oranges the whole morning, despite doing it practically every day, the stickiness still bothers me nearly as much as cleaning dishes after a brawl..." The girl's expression slumped, remembering those traumatic memories. Getting rid of the chaotic mixture of all sorts of things mashed together on plates along with the dirt and wetness from the floor haunted her in her darkest nightmares.
Adam looked at his interlocutor in curiosity, thinking about what the girl had just said.
"Is it really that horrible?" He asked.
The innkeeper's daughter slowly raised her head and looked into the young mage's eyes. A sly smile slowly formed on her face.
"Not really,- nothing can be compared to that mess." She confessed.
They chatted for a while, but after hearing the girl's advice, Adam couldn't take a warm bed out of his mind - as such, he soon excused himself and headed for the side entrance which led directly to the courtyard.
There, he made a quick stop in the stables to see how Los was doing.
The brown horse seemed happy, for once being able to rest all day, instead of the normal few to few-teen hours of nearly non-stop walking.
After giving Los an apple and some head pats, the cat-human company headed towards the room assigned to him and one of his colleagues, where the innkeeper's daughter pointed him.
The living quarters were located in a row-like building, partitioned to accommodate multiple rooms for the guests.
Adam knocked on the door and entered the wooden building after a few moments of waiting for a response.
Inside, there were two beds, one occupied and one tidy and untouched. Between them was a small fireplace, unused for the time being, and in the bed's legs were cabinets for some of the traveller's belongings.
On the left bed, a man in scarce clothing layed partially covered by a thick blanket. Spread on his bed, the man was deep in sleep, with his mouth wide open and arms either resting against the wall or hanging from the bed, he looked quite ridiculous.
But that was one of those few things, that no one should tell a warrior, especially in public - so Adam quickly made an effort to forget the scene, as it would only tempt him, but such an image was hard to erase.
Deciding to focus on something else, Adam slid into his bed after taking off his outer clothing and lifting Parcas out of his coat's pocket.
And went to sleep.
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A few hours later, the unconscious body under a tremendous furry strain was suddenly poked from the side.
First to look at the disturber was the distinguished gentleman, adorned in a grey tuxedo, sitting on top of his owner's chest. Parcas looked at Gravis, who sitting on his bed, poked Adam with the sheath of his sword.
"Miau?" Parcas meowed questioningly, staring into Gravis' eyes intently with his own, lustrous eyes.
"Meow indeed, little furry friend - mind if I wake up your master?" Gravis acknowledged the cat's authority and proceeded to go through the chain of command before taking any further action.
"Meowwwww..." The grey tuxedo responded intelligently, soon licking his paws.
"Hmmm, you are hungry, right? We can do something about it - in fact, I am hellbent on taking Adam to eat something, surely you will get your share." Gravis continued his persuasion, slowly nearing his hand to Parcas' head.
The cat didn't let him pat him, no one apart from Adam could do that. But after expressing his unwillingness to touch, the cat sat up and raised his paw high above Adam's head.
After the unnecessarily long charge, the paw swung down in a mighty smack - slapping Adam's head hard enough to hear in the whole room.
"Ow, quite brutal, aren't you, little boy?" Gravis said, just before a loud gasp reverberated throughout the chamber, Adam woke with a sensation of a cool cat beans smacking his cheek mightily.
"Ow, Parcas! Can you not?!" He looked the cat straight in the eyes - it wasn't the first time the beast physically abused the owner, and may not be the last.
"He probably can, the right question is; does he want to?" Only now did Adam look in Gravis' direction, noticing the scantly dressed warrior sitting at the edge of his bed.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"Sitting. What about you?" The warrior responded, playing with his sheath by hitting his head with it.
"Waking up, I guess - that's your fault, isn't it?" The young mage responded.
Gravis looked into his eyes, dead serious.
"No, it was your cat, didn't you feel his paw?" The warrior said while twitching his breast muscles menacingly.
Adam blinked, turned his head away and took Parcas down from his chest, then sat up.
"So, are we going to eat something?" He had the same thoughts as the furry beast and shirtless warrior. "Though, you need to put something more on yourself if you want to go out - the innkeeper's daughter would scratch her eyes out, and we don't want that." Despite barely waking up, Adam was already wearing most of his attire due to not taking it off before heading to sleep - unlike his roommate.
"Ok."
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Parcas sat on top of the table and enjoyed the fruits of his hard work - a few slices of meat that Gravis gave him without Adam's consent. Fortunately for him, his owner didn't have the heart to take away what was already given to him.
The table on which the cat sat was nearly full from the company of warriors who sat there, along with their locally sourced mage - but not from here.
Fenfallal talked with Gravis and other warriors about the journey ahead - what to buy while in Northern Overseer to replenish their supplies, the road they should take and others as such - boring stuff.
On the other end, Adam and Stellmo discussed the most important and interesting things possible - rumours about the members of the envoy's crew.
"So, Marwin has a daughter? He doesn't seem like a father type." Adam asked in a hushed voice - though the effort to hide their conversation was pointless, Advanced warriors could easily hear a cas walking up to them, not to mention a guy talking a few metres away.
"Yeah, she is real sweet - though kinda detached from reality if you ask me... Like a princess from a fairytale, Marvin spoils her too much." Stellmo explained, glancing at the warrior on the other side of the table.
"So..., does she have a pony? I heard it's like a dream of most girls." Adam asked in curiosity usual for him.
"No, no pony. But she has a warhorse. A big one... His name is 'Perfectly Elusive Trotter Emerging from Righteousness'. Peter for short." The second in command explained. Surely such information would prove to be useful in the near future.
"Wow, creative - nearly as much as 'Parcas', care to guess what the name means?" Adam praised the faraway girl while petting the back of his kitty, who ate his meat scraps at the moment.
"...." Stellmo fell silent for a moment, searching his head for any ideas. "I think it is a mix of two or more words in some old languages. But I can't seem to figure out what it means..."
"Yeah - it took me hours of going through the books in The Tower to find good ones," Adam confessed.
"Do tell, what does it mean?" The warrior couldn't hold his curiosity.
"No, let's change the topic - why isn't Algier here?" Adam expertly changed the subject.
Stellmo looked at him as if wondering why someone would be having any doubts about it.
"No one woke him up - and no one will." He said simply.
"Oh, right." Only then did Adam remember a simple fact - no one wanted to have their eyes burned by the sight of what they might find inside.
Some time passed in an awkward silence, during which Parcas finished his nack and positioned himself on Adam's knees - soon falling asleep.
"Do we leave for the road tomorrow?" Adam finally broke the silence, directing his question to the whole group.
"Yes, that is, if we can." Responded Fenfallal from across the table. "We might have to sneak you out, Adam."