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Coming up to the entrance of the building, Maria caught the glimpses of a few citizens around the front, all of them quietly muttering to themselves. Still taking into consideration the strange way she was dressed, it wouldn't be too surprising if she was the topic of their words and remarks, or at least it wouldn't have, because in this case most of them were talking not about Maria, but instead the girl leading Maria into the inn.
???: "Oh no…she found another traveler to talk to death."
???: "I wonder what new awful recipe she is gonna force-feed this poor patron now…"
???: "Does this girl drag in any person she sees on the streets? Not exactly what I would call good customer service if you ask me."
All that Maria heard was negative, could this innkeeper be bad news? If so then perhaps she shouldn't have taken her up on the offer and should have just ran, but at this point the lady had already started to open up the door to drag Maria into the building, it was too late. Before fully entering the building, the mother turned her head back and looked down at Ruid, signaling for him to come closer to her face.
Mother: "Ruid, why don't you go up to those fine men loitering in front of the shop and…see if they want some water, got it?"
Upon the mother ending the sentence with a wink, Druid's eyes lightened up and walked away from her and Maria, letting both the adults continue into the building. Whatever that interaction was supposed to be, it seemed like nothing good, in fact it seemed like some sort of horrible business practice. What the kid planned to do with the men in front of the inn was impossible to assume, obviously it couldn't be too bad or the lady's inn wouldn't have any customers, or maybe this was just an uncommon thing? After this interaction the friendly girl swiftly grabbed the handles of the swinging doors and swung them open, the back of the doors slamming against the interior walls as the violent sound echoed throughout the building.
Mother: "And here we are! Welcome to the providence inn, unlike other inns and bars around here this one is a bit newer since I only recently built it about 10 years ago, well…me and my husband. We own the inn so please make yourself feel at home."
Maria looked around in amazement, for a supposedly run down part of the whole town, the building's interior looked very well kept and clean, especially for a bar, she had been to many bars on earth and not even half of them looked as well off as this one. Clean tables, polished candle holders and fully stocked shelves sat everywhere inside.
Maria: "W-wow…you own this place? It looks very nice ma,am…and thanks again…for offering to let me stay here for a bit, it must be a pain to take in somebody like me."
Mother: "Oh no stranger, it's no problem at all, you're not a pain or anything like that, in fact I think the way you're dressed is exactly why I wanted to invite you in! Also there is no need to be so formal, my name is Ursa. Now that I think about it…I don't think I've gotten your name yet, what do I call you?"
Maria was still plenty weary of this place and had conflicting ideas as to whether it was a good idea to start giving random people her name, but at the same time it would be very rude not give it now since she now knows the ladies real name…Ursa, even if she created a fake name to give to ursa, it would still feel cheap.
Maria: "Ah…well, m-my name is…Maria, my name is Maria."
Ursa: "Maria huh? Well I think that's a wonderful name, definitely doesn't sound like it came from Platonia, but before anything else, let me bring you to the bar and we can get you something to eat and drink, sound good?"
With that being said, Ursa grabs Maria's hand again and brings her over to the bar and pulls out a stool, allowing the confused girl to sit, with her doing the same soon after. With the day seemingly bright and early when maria woke up an hour ago, the bar was mostly empty so the 2 had plenty of room to talk. Ursa cranes her head forward and puts her hand around her mouth, readying herself to raise her voice.
Ursa: "Hey Lucas dear! Would you mind being a dear and bringing out some meat! Oh and any sort of fruit and drink you have back there, make it good, we have a visitor! This meal is on me!"
With that being said, a tall long haired man steps into view from the kitchen and raises a thumbs up to ursa.
Lucas: "Sure thing boss lady! Two plates of meat and fruit coming up, should the drinks be the good kind or the casual kind?"
Ursa: "C'mon Lucas, it's the morning you know…get a good bottle for me and a tankard of milk for our guest."
[This lady just said it's the morning yet is still gonna ask for alcohol? She talks all nice but maybe she's secretly a party animal…even I never drank this early in the morning. At the very least, I guess this lady has a good attitude with her workers, in fact they seem more like lively friends than boss and employee with how friendly she seemed with him.]
After waiting a few minutes, Lucas finally comes back into view with 2 round plates of food in his hands along with the drinks. After he puts them down on the bar table, Maria examines the food closely to see that the meat and fruit are both weird looking. The meat itself looked sort of similar except for the odd blue liquid at the bottom, the fruit on the other hand looked totally alien. They looked like orange grapes but were much larger than normal grapes, and after splitting the berry in half revealed a large green seed like pit in the middle.
Ursa: "Hope you like the food, the meat is from wild madari and those yellow things are called opus berries, we had them bought here just a few days ago so should still be fresh."
Maria: "Y-yeah the meal looks great, thanks so much for it, and once again thanks for inviting me..."
Ursa: "No problem at all Maria, but there is a catch to the free meal. Your clothes, the way you talk and the way you're looking around the place all confused and whatnot, it's pretty clear that you're a traveler from far away, or at least just not from here. So tell me, what's your story?
Everybody has one and wherever you're from seems pretty unique and strange. Do you perhaps come from the northern lands?"
As time went by it became pretty clear from the child-like glint in Ursa's eyes that she didn't mean any hostility but was simply intrigued by Maria. Yet despite Maria's now more calmed state, there was a major problem. How was she supposed to explain herself to Ursa? If she simply told her that she came from a different world and was somehow teleported to this fantasyland from her living room, Ursa would more than likely think that she was insane, out of her mind no doubt. Is teleportation even a thing in this world? Do living rooms exist here? There were still a million things that needed to be asked just to get a simple grasp of this new place.
[It's clear that I can't just tell her the truth…I would be put into this world's version of a psych ward if that happened. Alright…I got a good meal in front of me, ursa is nice and is letting me stay here for who knows how long, and I don't want to spend my first night in this world sleeping outside, I need to tell her that I'm lost but don't make it sounds too weird, maybe if I just keep talking to her then i can get all the information I need, she seems to want to talk a lot anyways so it will work out for both me and her, yeah…seems like the best route to take.]
After that thought, Maria takes a sip from her tankard of milk and slowly turns her head to Ursa, a nervous look growing across her face.
Maria: "Oh uh…w-well to be honest it's been a while since I have been home but I come from a place called…Michigan, I guess you could say it's the name of my town. It's way up north, and it's very cold which is why I am wearing these clothes. They keep me pretty warm there since it snows a lot. I am not too sure how I ended up here but I must have gotten drunk and fell off a…cart somewhere, and that's where your son found me by the river."
Ursa: "Oh my! So you must be the fun let loose kind of adventurer. I have never heard of this town called Michigan. Hm…odd, It sounds like a weird name for the region, but I'm sure it must be lovely if you came from there. So what do you do on most of your adventures? Are you a trader? Or maybe even a warrior, warrior mage? If you are, we have a good few magic shops around where you could buy tomes and books. I only mention it since you don't exactly have the build for a fighter so I assume you're a magic user, sorry if i'm wrong."
Maria: "Oh no, I-I'm not a fighter or magic user, I'm just a simple traveler. I like to travel and see the world and I guess that's how I ended up here, though since yesterday was so…unhinged I forgot where I am, could you tell me where this is?"
Ursa: "I sure can! You're in the small town of status, it's just a simple trading hub but one of the oldest in the region, a lot of interesting history here but it would be way too much for me to fit in one morning. Since you must be pretty confused being here so suddenly if you have any questions about the area you're more than welcome to ask me anything, I may not look it, but I'm pretty knowledgeable about things in Valerica, at least when I need to be."
Maria's tactic of pretending to know what she is talking about seems to be working. Within the first few questions she now knows that this world does indeed have magic, as well as the name of the town she is in, it isn't much but it does get her closer to finding out just where she is in this world. She has mentioned the name Valerica before but is that the name of the world? Or is it just the name of the country she is currently in? Asking what the name of the world is would be a dead giveaway, not even being drunk would work as an excuse for not knowing the name of the planet they are on. But at the end of the day, Ursa is now willing to answer any question Maria has, and she is going to take this opportunity to ask as much as she can.
Maria: "W-well i guess i do have a couple questions…first off, is Valerica the name of the country we are in right now?"
Ursa: "Yep, this is Valerica. It's a pretty nice part of the world, in fact it's the biggest empire on orbus. The laws and rules of the empire may be a bit strict at times but when it really comes down to it, it's the safest place to be around here, definitely a lot safer here than it is in the more northern or southern kingdoms, no offense to your homeland obviously!"
Maria: "Oh n-no offense taken. So uh…is there any sort of police or military force that I could talk to? Just to be sure that if I get into a situation that there will be somebody around to help me?"
Ursa: "Well I'm not too sure what police are, but don't worry about military force, our town has a decent number of guards that the governor keeps here to protect us, we are pretty lucky to have the leader we have, a lot of other regions in Valerica have it much worse than us. It's nothing comparable to having a knight of the 11 shields guarding us but our boys are more than enough to drive off bandits and the occasional monsters who bother us, so you're plenty safe as long as you're within town limits, though with the current civil war going on and the awful rott situation to our east, it may change in time."
Governors of the land, civil wars, bandits and monsters and whatever the hell "rott" is, it's clear that this world is very active with things to discover and trouble to be brewed.
Maria: "Sounds pretty safe here then…I guess. So I have one more important question. When I…passed out, or before I passed out from my drinking, I saw a…weird shadow person across from me, just staring at me. After that I fell asleep and woke up here, have you seen anybody maybe dressed in all black or just anybody that looked weird around here?"
Maria held her breath as she awaited for Ursa's answer, without even thinking about it, she might have just asked a weird question. Was it weird? Should she have been more fancy with her words? Maria for a few years hasn't really been able to talk to people so maybe she had just gotten ahead of herself and asked something not so normal, but whether it was weird or not, it was a pretty important piece of info.
Ursa: "Oh well…a lot of people come in and out of the bar, some just wearing normal clothing, some are soldiers looking for an after shift drink and others weird cloaks if they want their identity to stay hidden, I don't tend to get into boring looking people's business so I can't really be sure. If you want my help looking around for somebody that fits that description then let me know and I'll be willing to help."
Maria: "Oh…well, no need for the help searching for it then, it's all good…sorry if that was a weird question."
Maria dropped her head down and turned away from Ursa, clearly embarrassed due to her making the situation weird.
Ursa: "It's no problem at all Maria. If you think somebody did something to get you drunk or messed with you, you should let me know. To be honest if I were you I would let one of the guards know, it could be some sort of person up to no good in the town, you know?"
Maria: "Yeah…I'm aware, thanks for your concern but it's nothing like that, I guess I'm just looking for the person for answers, I don't think they did anything, just needed to ask them something. Anyways, thanks so much for answering my questions. Like I said I'm not from around here so I'm still a bit confused, it must be annoying to welcome me with free food and a place to stay inside and not get anything useful from it."
It became obvious that even though Ursa was able to give so much info to Maria, there wasn't much that she was able to give back in return, and the little that Maria did give her was nothing but half truths, it felt like she cheated her out of a good story.
Ursa: "Trust me Maria, I get a lot of boring low life's in here all the time and barely ever get to meet people from outside the empire anymore, so meeting somebody from the northern lands is more than enough for all I told you, you seem like quite the interesting girl and maybe tomorrow you can tell me more stories you might have! To be completely honest with you I wasn't always an innkeeper, in fact I've only been an innkeeper for as long as I have been a mother. I used to be quite the adventurer myself for about 12 something years before I came here and met my husband. We settled down and after we had Ruid my adventuring days were over. Even though I don't regret starting this family one bit, I do still miss my days of venturing out into the lands and exploring…so I guess I like to get my fix from pestering other adventurers about their stories, so I guess I should be the one apologizing."
Now that Maria really thought about it, it all makes sense. Throughout this entire morning the woman did appear to be hiding a bit of a more lively side to her, bursting into the inn with that cheerful expression on her face, that definitely collided with her more mature attitude from earlier when Ursa found her. An adventurer that misses the good old days of when they were able to go out and do fun quests, it's a story as old as time when it comes to the games and comics that maria used to enjoy. Knowing this, it gave Maria a huge feeling of relief.
Maria: "I feel better learning a lot about you, you seem like a very nice person, welcoming me here and all, you're definitely a lot nicer than the people I used to talk to where I come from. You have done so much for me without knowing much at all about me so thanks, and I'm glad I could give you a bit of excitement from what you learned from me too…"
Ursa: "Say no more, as long as you are gonna be here in status, I'll help you with anything you might need, at least anything within my power. Oh…and earlier, you mentioned that the person you saw was wearing some sort of black clothing or maybe had black on? Well…there does seem to be a person sitting in that chair back there that's-"
Before Ursa could finish her sentence, a table from across the building began to shake around violently until it was completely flipped over, legs and a few splinters fly off the piece of furniture as the 7 to 8 people surrounding the table began to grow uneasy, yelling and arguing could easily be heard from across the room and maria was sure that if she was outside, she would still be able to hear the commotion from dozens of blocks away. Even so, she was not too sure what the argument was about. Among all 8 of the patrons yelling, it was complete incomprehensible nonsense from this distance.
Ursa: "Hey you all back there! If you start breaking tables you're gonna pay for them! Stop this childish yelling and fighting!" she yells, clearly not taking kindly to her Inn becoming a possible fighting arena in a matter of seconds.
As Ursa jumped from her stool and started to walk towards the commotion, Maria, slow to get out of her stool, stood up and slowly walked behind her. As much as she didn't want to get involved with anybody else's drama, it would be a lie to say she wasn't interested in what was happening, after all if the patrons were getting this heated up about something this early in the morning it must be pretty serious. As she tried to keep up with Ursa she noticed that the person sitting in the corner that Ursa pointed out a few seconds ago, now forgotten by Ursa entirely, was now staring at Maria. The cloaked figure's head turned towards her as she walked past him, his barely visible eyes and head slowly moving as she moved, never losing track of her face. Whatever was happening in that moment or what he was looking so seriously at, the person seemed completely encapsulated with Maria…scarily so.
Never evading.
Never flinching.
Never diverting.
Never blinking.
Ever observing...
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