Eric could smell the sausage from the tavern as he woke groggily, stretching and twisting out of the uncomfortable bed. He welcomed the somewhat familiar smell of a breakfast that he’d expect his dad to make. The tinge of remembrance struck him, a dull pain entering his soul. Eric took a deep breath to calm himself. 

At least breakfast smells the same, Eric thought. He was grateful for any semblance of familiarity in the crazy world he was pulled into. 

Clanker stirred near him, seeming to come out of a trance. 

“The pretty bird ready to leave the roost, yet?” Clanker asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Eric said. “Not like it’s that late in the day. The inn’s tavern is still serving breakfast.”

“Just a silly colloquial,” Clanker said. “I suppose there’s no hurry, since if I were rushing to eat Bracharest sausage, I’d be more wary.”

Eric looked at the skeleton as he stood and brushed off his tunic. Clanker stared at Eric, waiting for him to rise and to do the same.

“Is there something weird about their sausage?” 

“Well,” Clanker said. “Monster attacks get frequent here, and there’s not a terribly large amount of ranching done around here. So not always enough livestock to keep up with the protein demands of the city, especially with hunters meandering here and there.”

“What are you saying?” Eric said, a pit forming in his stomach, slowly pulling away any idea of familiarity he had held onto.

“Monsters taste good,” Clanker said. “Well, the right ones, do.” He then walked to the door nonchalantly. 

Eric stared at Clanker, then sighed. 

There goes my appetite, Eric thought. 

“Monster meat can have a variety of flavors and textures,” Rose said. “Often gamey, there are some cuts of larger monsters that can be termed a delicacy on Auron. However, the meat of choice to supplement a business such as this inn would be wolf-based monsters called crag hounds, a resemblance to what you would recognize as a mix of a mythical goblin and a large wolf. Their muscle and nutrient-dense bodies have great–”

“I think I get it,” Eric said, trying not to get sick.

Eric swung his legs out of bed and stood in just his underwear, a tight set of boxer briefs that provided good support. 

I’m gonna miss these briefs, Eric thought. 

“There are other varieties of undergarments on Auron that would serve as good replacements,” Rose said. “Taking into the assumption that you will eventually need more clothing. However, your inventory ability may perhaps develop capabilities in the future to reproduce, within reason, items placed within it.”

Eric perked up at that. 

“Like, copy-paste?” 

“Details of these abilities are lacking,” Rose said. “When the ability develops, I will be able to provide further data.”

Eric nodded, then dressed, putting on his t-shirt and jeans, and throwing his brown tunic over it. 

“Are there others that would have my inventory ability?” Eric said. 

“That is currently unknown,” Rose said. 

“Gotcha,” Eric said. “Clanker, ever heard of some kind of inventory ability before? Like, being able to have an invisible bag that just exists and allows me to stash all kinds of stuff?”

Clanker placed a finger on his bony chin.

“Not that I have heard,” he said. “Though, as we’ve painfully established, I am woefully outdated on, well, pretty much everything now.”

Eric nodded, then opened the door to their small room, letting Clanker take the lead. The upper floor of the inn was somewhat cramped, with the hallway of doors to rooms being only a little wider than a large man’s shoulders. To get by another patron, each person would have to shimmy chest-to-chest passed each other. Clanker had no problem passing a few other men who looked like hunters, but Eric kept chest-bumping them, making him feel wholly inadequate. 

“They are some beefy dudes,” Eric said, rubbing his chest as they made their way down the steps into the tavern proper. 

Sophia sat at a small square table near a window that looked out onto a surprisingly pretty view of the paved road. Carts moved by, some pulled by the hairless horses that Eric was trying to get used to, but others were pulled by large, hornless oxen creatures that had a serious amount of muscle under a thin coat of fur. Beyond the road, the king’s castle towered over Bracharest, some other buildings and homes around it only coming up to the lower third of the tall stone structure. 

Eric sat in a heap, hunger seeping in from the previous day’s encounters. Clanker sat in the other open chair next to Eric and across from Sophia.

“Please don’t tell me the sausage is dog meat,” Eric said. 

“Fine,” Sophia said. “It’s venison.” 

Eric thought for a moment, then eyed a plate that a barmaid set in front of him. 

“Like deer or something?” Eric asked. 

Sophia nodded, picking a bit of meat off a bone that sat on her empty plate. 

The plate of food had two thick and long sausages on it, a bit of gravy drowning a scoop of what looked like mashed potatoes that hadn’t quite been mashed fully with chunks of potato and red skins as well. A small loaf of bread, a pleasant golden brown, sat on the edge of the plate touching the brown gravy. 

Eric sniffed the breakfast and grabbed a fork the barmaid brought a moment later. 

Eric dug into the breakfast, and though the sausage wasn’t a very good texture, being a tad chewy, he was grateful it was at least not dog. Or whatever a crag hound was. The spices in the sausage were a nice addition and were a much better approximation to a solid breakfast sausage than what he had imagined. 

A man approached their table, towering over it like a mountain. 

Eric looked up at him, recognizing his scarred face. He had on a white robe that was torn at the front like a makeshift cape. It draped over a leather set of armor with metal shoulder plates and a thick piece of metal over the chest, but not like a full chest plate. It seemed to have been embedded into the leather. The armor almost seemed like it was a poor man’s attempt at an intricate full suit of armor that Eric would have expected to see on a knight back home. He carried a short war hammer on his belt that had a flat head on one side and a pointed blade on the other. A thick-bladed sword adorned his other side, sheathed in leather with a beautifully polished pearl pommel and handle protruding out of the leather. 

“Hey, Bearick,” Sophia said. The man only slightly nodded, not looking at her. 

That’s because he was staring at Eric, a look of reverence on his face. His chin-length hair covered the right side of his face a bit and over his short beard, but the deference this man was giving Eric ebbed off of him like a soft light despite any slight covering.  

Eric noticed the look, then sighed through a bite of mashed potatoes and gravy. In a slow motion, Bearick knelt down next to the table and rested his arm on it, intently staring at Eric. 

“I wish to serve you, Hero,” Bearick said. 

Eric set his fork down and looked around the tavern room awkwardly. 

“Look,” Eric said. “I appreciate you trying to help us out on the caravan by trying to attack the gargoyle, but please don’t get the wrong idea.”

“I saw prophecy being fulfilled,” Bearick said. “I cannot ignore the truth my eyes beheld. Let me serve you, help you continue to fulfill what you came here to do.”

Eric looked to Sophia, who just shrugged. Eric turned to look at Clanker, but the skeleton was smiling, giving him two thumbs up.

“I am not the Hero of Splinters,” Eric said. “Let’s just get that straight. Or at least I’m not trying to be.”

Bearick looked at Eric, a deep, ponderous expression settling on his face. 

“You do not know of your own purpose or the prophecies that you are destined to fulfill?” 

“I was pulled into your world against my will,” Eric said. “And I’m just trying to get home, to find and eventually marry the love of my life.”

“An otherworlder?” Bearick said. “I see further signs of your true identity in this.”

Eric sighed, frustration billowing inside of him.

Is this what I’m going to have to deal with every day? Eric thought.

“Bearick, I–”

“‘Though he comes to the world born a man, he comes a man of another world, bestowed with power, not of knowledge,’” Bearick said, seeming to quote something. 

“Oh,” Sophia said. “Forgot about that one.” 

Eric looked at her, eyebrows raising. 

“You are devout, Bearick,” Sophia said. “That was an obscure one if I remember right. The letters of the first prophet are not so easy to find or to understand.”

Eric groaned at her comment. 

“You might not know what or who you are to us,” Bearick said. “But I see what you have come to do. So, if you will have me, I ask that you allow me to accompany you on your journey.”

Eric thought for a moment about the possibility of having some staunch, religious person tailing him wherever he went. 

I guess I do need more in my party, Eric thought. 

“I have one condition for you, Bearick,” Eric said. 

“So long as I can accompany you,” Bearick said. “I am fulfilled enough.”

“Please try to just treat me like the out-of-depth idiot I am,” Eric said. “I don’t want followers or believers. I just want friends here.”

Bearick seemed to be taken aback a bit, but then smiled at Eric, a healthy level of joviality coming out of him.

He stood, then held out his beefy hand to Eric. 

“Then let me have the pleasure of introducing myself,” Bearick said. Eric took his hand and shook it. “I am Bearick Graffleson, honored paladin of the High Ideals, and hunter of monsters.”

“Well, I’m Eric Schaffer, writer of stories. Glad to meet you.”

Bearick sat down in the only other chair left at their table, sending a shockwave through Eric’s remaining gravy on his plate. Bearick had seemed to open up more like a gruff tree’s flowers finally blooming. Bearick waved down a barmaid to bring him a plate as well. 

“So,” Eric said. “How do I also become a hunter?”