After Miriam saw old man Venn’s dead body in the storehouse she locked herself up in her room. Her sister, Erina came and helped Larius with work. Her being the older sister, she came in a short notice to help as fast as she heard what had happened. “Hey, little Mr. Venn, you can’t peel them this much or there will be no carrot left.”
“Yes, ma’am.” says Larius obeying. He's sitting on a three chair in front of an iron bucket with a small knife and a carrot in his hands. Just beside him, but higher up is Miriam’s sister stirring a soup. Erina is beautiful like her little sister but older and taller. Larius would guess that she’s in her late twenties. Wearing the clothes of the inn workers, grey and white dress, the skirt bieng grey and upper part white and a black apron. She’s not showing any sign of sorrow for the dead old man but her eyes are red from crying. Inside, Larius’s burning with anger and shame for being ordered around by someone. If he could he would have argued and not listened but with the situation he’s in he can’t do that. It’s all for the money he tells himself to cheer up. When he looks down at the carrot he does agree that it’s a little thin but he asks himself, ‘why should carrots even be peeled? I’ve never peeled a carrot before and it was still good.’
“And when you’re done, peel the potatoes, the turnip and radishes.” she says commanding. Larius is gritting his teeth in irritation. He doesn’t understand why he has to do all this but she just stands there while stirring a soup when his fingers and hands are hurting. The cuts on his fingers haven’t even healed yet. It would be more fair if she peeled them with him or at least showed him how to do it properly. The knife slips in his hand and he’s got yet another cut, but on the side of his hand this time. He lifts his hand and licks it, for a second it stings intensely. He looks at Erina. She moves the big pot to the side and starts cooking some eggs. The smell of fried eggs makes Larius hungry. After slacking he goes back to cutting the carrots.
From time to time a big man called Irib comes back and forth to the kitchen. He’s quite reticent. For some reason everyone who works here only tell their first names. He mostly stands behind the barconter wearing the same kind of clothes as Larius. He’s intimidating and doesn't show expressions. When Larius finally finishes, lays the different root crops in different buckets on the kitchen bench. Erina says, “Thank you. If you want to, you can rest for a bit, just ask Irib for a roomkey.”
Larius becomes very surprised from her words which he hadn’t expected, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“It must be hard to lose a grandparent.” Erina says in a voice full of empathy and care. She shows him a sad smile.
Surprised by the sudden empathy he walks out from the kitchen dumbfounded. Behind the bar he meets Irib. Only a few people are sitting around by some tables eating. Irib seems to glare at him but he just tries to ignore it. He asks, “Excuse me, Mr. Irib, I was allowed to go rest in a free room.”
“Here,” answers the big muscly man and gives Larius a key to a room. Without further talking Larius walks up the loud stairs. It would be almost impossible to walk in these stairs without making any sound. Up on the second floor, the walls are the same, made of the same kind of wood. Walking a bit down a small hallway, to the right is the third room. When Larius opens the door he gets a weird feeling. He takes one step inside and feels his left arm and leg ache, almost going numb. The room only has one bed and a small desk in front of a window. Larius goes up to the window and looks at the wooden planks around the window. They are a slightly darker colour than the wooden walls. The sensation from the plank makes his body ache, especially the same parts that were affected after the soul summoning. He reaches out his hand to touch it with his index finger.
“You shouldn’t touch that,” someone says just as he’s about to. Larius turns around fast to see an extremely handsome man standing in the doorway. The young man’s wearing beautiful clothing and looks like he doesn’t fit in. The way he’s dressed is the way only a rich person from the east or a mage would. Or both. The surprise makes Larius speechless. The atmosphere around the young man is calm and cool, almost cold.
“The wood is magic repellent. If you touch it, then you’ll get hurt,” the handsome young man continues. His voice is deep and smooth, it would make even the most impossible woman fall hard.
Larius isn’t sure how to react and says outloud what he’s thinking, “How?”
“Ehm, I’m sorry, I was very rude but you seemed to know that the wood was different so I assumed that you’re a mage. I thought it was well known to all mages. ” the young man says sorry. He’d never want to be disrespectful to anyone.
Larius’s like a big question mark. He had never heard of this. He feels embarrassed and irritated at the stranger for having taught him, a seemingly rich mage too. With an angry tone he says, “Could you please leave? And why did you even walk into a stranger's room?”
“Oh, I’m so very sorry, but the door was open and I didn’t want you to get hurt.” says the handsome stranger and bows slightly. He’s surprised by the tone of the worker in front of him. The young man wearing the inn’s signature clothing looks like he’s about the same age as himself.
Larius feels himself getting even angrier by hearing the strangers kind words.
“Well, would you mind leaving me alone? My grandpa just died so I’m going to rest. Goodbye.” While talking Larius pushes the handsome man out and closes the door in his face before he gets a chance to react. The handsome man looked surprised by the way he was treated and seemed like he wanted to say something. Looking down at his hand he can feel the sensation from the soft cloth. Someday he would like to wear expensive clothes like that. On the floor’s a mat, it’s wrinkled from Larius pushing out the man, who’s apparently very strong.
Letting out a big sigh he turns around and starts staring at the darker wood. Trying to figure out how it could possibly work he feels that his legs are tired. He decides to sit down at the desk by the window. The chair is hard and uncomfortable but after resting on the desk with his arms and head he starts to feel himself float away.
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It’s dark outside. The sun has set long ago. Larius missed both the sunrise and sunset while sleeping. Clouds are covering the sky so neither the moon nor the stars can be seen. The young man sleeping on his desk wakes up from someone touching his shoulder, his first reflex is to protect himself from danger. He tries to summon energy into his hand while he turns around. After he's whispered weird words and tries to use the magic, it suddenly disappears into thin air. Standing in front of him is the young woman. Clearing his head he realizes where he is and he feels lucky the magic didn’t work. Letting out a relieved breath Miriam looks at him saying seriously but with a still kind voice, “You do realize what time it is right? Rushing hours have started and here you are, sleeping...”
“I’m so very sorry, I will quickly get to work.” Larius says in a tired voice. Miriam left her room a few hours ago, just around the time Larius went to rest. She's still red in the corner of her eyes from all the crying. After all that happened, she still went down to work, for the sake of old man Venn. Hearing and seeing how tired the boy is, Miriam decides to not scold him too much. She thinks that he’s just lost his grandparent and doesn't need to get scolded right now. Miriam doesn’t have the energy to do that either.
“I’ll go downstairs, you too come down and help us,” says the nice young Miriam. “And another thing, the soldiers will probably come here soon.”
He’s feeling even more lucky the magic didn’t work. After Miriam closes the door after herself, he stands up from the chair. He figures it either have something to do with the soul summoning or maybe the wood is working more forcibly than he believed. Feeling with his hands that his hair isn’t standing out left and right he goes down to the bar to start working. When walking down, he hears a lot of voices. When he sees the bar filled with people he starts to understand why they have such a big extra layer with alcohol. All of the tables are filled with people and so are the barchairs. Miriam’s big sister, Erina, is walking around serving guests. Irib is busy blending alcohol in the bar. Walking out from behind the bar counter is Miriam who immediately starts working. Some guests look at Miriam in a way that Larius thinks is really weird. Going to the bar he meets Irib and gives back the key, “Thanks and sorry for sleeping so late.”
Irib answers coldly, “Get to work.”
“Yes, sir.” says Larius and goes into the kitchen. Inside he sees that food is already being cooked. Hearing someone coming inside the kitchen he turns around and meets Erina.
“You’re finally awake?” Erina says jokingly. Then she starts ordering him while cooking something, “Fill five bowls with soup, then serve them. You’ll be a waiter. Take orders and serve food and drinks, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, still not used to taking orders. Thinking to himself that he’ll probably never like being ordered around. He fills five bowls with soup. Taking up the soup to serve it, he hurries out from the kitchen. When he walks out he thinks that it’s a bit too quiet. People are still talking but not as loud and cheerfully as before. Walking focused on not spilling the soup, he almost runs into a guest walking right in front of him. The man just continues to walk along with his friend, ignoring Larius. Pissed off at the man he looks up and sees that they're soldiers. Not wanting to make a scene he goes on to serve the soups that he tries hard to balance on his arms. He goes up to some tables closer to the bar and asks around if anyone has ordered soup. Some man holds up his arm then says ‘here’ and a woman does the same at a table close by. He leaves them their soups and asks if they want anything else. Then he goes around serving the rest of the soups at some other tables. Everyone is paying extra attention to the pair of soldiers. One is a little taller than the other, wearing armor and dark coloured clothes with the north’s emblem. The emblem is a wave in the middle of a circle around it. Both of the soldiers are wearing belts around their waist that hold their swords. One has a normal iron sword, the taller one has a black sword with brown leather wound around the handle.
When they don’t seem to do much people start to go back to talking, eating and drinking a bit louder. The two soldiers stand by the bar trying to talk with Irib. He just nods when the soldiers say some stuff and then he points to the backdoor. They go in the direction that Irib pointed to, to the back and around to the storehouse, probably going out to the dead body to find leads. His thoughts being interrupted by someone behind him asking for a couple of beers to their table. Putting on a nice smile he bows and goes up to the bar counter. He asks Irib to fill five cups with beer. Larius asks, already fully aware, “What are the soldiers doing here?”
Laconic, he answers, “Investigating.”
Larius had hoped for more detailed information but then Irib puts all of the beers on a tray and steered it towards him. He takes it as a cue for him to continue working. Picking the tray up he gives Irib an irritated smile. Irib only shows him an angry stoneface as an answer. He got it confirmed why the soldiers are here. Larius walks back towards the table of the people who asked for beers. After working for a bit, the soldiers come back inside and tell Irib about something. He nodds. Larius goes to a table closer and tries to hear what they’re saying. Miriam comes up to the soldiers and they tell her something, then she gets very upset and says, “You took him away?!”
The shorter one, “Yes, miss, we have to do that. We will question suspicious people tomorrow.”
The taller, “Just make sure no one leaves the inn tomorrow. It seems we have to do with a witch.”
The shorter one, “But now, please missy can we have your finest alcohol?”
The taller one, “I hope you’ll give us for free too, since we are working to help you.”
Miriam's expression changed from sad to angry when the soldier asked for free alcohol, but not wanting to disrespect them she just nods as answer. Her reaction of them moving old man Venn was very extreme. Larius can’t help but find it strange.
Hurriedly Larius gets back to work, not wanting to look suspicious. He serves and continues to work until late in the middle of the night.
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