Chapter 4

“What’s going on?”

Ellen stood in the doorway, her arms aching and palms stinging from the day’s work. The tavern was bustling with activity, despite the early hour. Lauren, the innkeeper’s wife, was adding some potatoes to the stewpot above the fireplace. Tobias, the innkeeper himself, was pushing a table aside to make room for another—apparently there were others in storage to fill the common room more tightly.

“Bea! Go get washed up and changed, it’s a big night!” Ellen Two called out. ‘Bea’ was the name that they’d both settled on Ellen using in town, with Ellen Two going by ‘Trisha’ for now. She wasn’t due to start working for another two hours yet.

The inn had been sympathetic when the two ‘sisters’ had trudged in with poorly-made sandals and only a single full pack between them. When Ellen had passed through the village before, she hadn’t stayed at the inn, opting instead to press on and set up her camp to save her dwindling funds. As a result, they’d only seen a redheaded girl hiking through town, and not known her name.

That was a fortunate coincidence now that two Ellens were about.

Ellen wasn’t one to enjoy lying, but she was not quite so naive as to think it was never needed. In this case, she and her other self had agreed on a jumbled story about encountering the goblin but being taken by surprise. They’d fought it off only after it had damaged a lot of their things, and had to run away so could not recover what they’d dropped.

Neither Ellen was willing to beg for charity, but the innkeeper had agreed to let the two of them work nights, when they got their most traffic. The village was small and mostly shipped lumber, but it had a decent amount of foot traffic through it, so the combination inn and tavern was by far the largest and most well-built structure aside from the lumber mill. Almost every night at least one traveler stayed the evening.

In the five days since Ellen and Ellen Two had begun working there, they’d gotten enough to pay for their room and board plus some minor additions, like actual sandals made from scraps the cobbler sold cheaply. They were paid in a portion of the profits and any tips they managed to earn from travelers, so they’d quickly devised a routine of playing up their identical nature. Identical twins were novel enough that they’d eked out a few extra coins that way.

“Am I going to be stuck in bed most of the day tomorrow?” Ellen asked, groaning softly. The ‘day job’ that the pair had settled upon had needed to be pretty unskilled. Even at Level 5, they weren’t anywhere near an actual career. In a lumber-based town, the best pay they could find for their negligible skillset had been stripping leaves and branches from logs.

It was tiring work, and abrasive on the hands even with gloves. They had to alternate which one went to the mill each day, while the other rested and sometimes watched the tailor or cobbler, or practiced with a makeshift spear. Both had managed to climb back up to Level 6 by now, and Ellen had ‘lost’ the draw. She was now a Level 6 Laborer while Ellen Two took Fighter. The strategy of swapping out tasks so both could get the first time bonus had worked well.

Ellen Two just smiled back sheepishly as she wiped down the table. “Probably. Apparently there’s an entire caravan coming through, and they’re only about an hour away. But hey, maybe we can get equipped faster this way! Think of the tips!”

She had a point. Ellen didn’t want to be stuck in this place for weeks gearing up to kill one goblin. The longer they waited, the more chance some other newbie group would see the posting and decide it was worth their time. Adventurers rarely signed up any more, but it still happened. Wait too long, and this chance to get a license would be gone. Who knew when another job suitable for an amateur would be posted?

For a brief moment, Ellen wondered if they should have just kept traveling until they got to a city with a larger Guild. Surely a big city would have a lot of ways for a new aspiring adventurer to join up? Ones that didn’t involve going into a dark cave and fighting for her life?

She sighed. Kind of late to think about that now.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Just as she had been warned, the evening found Ellen frantic and very busy.

The common room was full of far more people than the inn had rooms, but Ellen had been reassured that the caravan was large enough that it had wagons to sleep in. The inn was merely taking in a number of the guards and helpers to give them a more comfortable night’s sleep, leaving those in the wagons with more room than usual. She’d never realized that a successful merchant had so much to worry about… and she wasn’t sure she’d ever want to deal with all the numbers.

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“Here you go, sirs!”

Ellen said that in a cheery voice as she slid the tankards onto the table… and Ellen Two said the same thing, making it a nice chorus for the table as they distributed the ale. Six men were clustered around this one, and the one speaking—a brown-haired man with a curly beard—laughed in delight at the little display of doubled flavor.

“Thank you muchly, ladies!” He called out, joined by a chorus of appreciative calls and a few jeers. These men were flirtatious, but much better about it than the traveler a few days ago. They made a few crude calls, but thankfully kept their hands to themselves, so neither she nor her other self had needed to call for Tobias.

It was while she was delivering their bowls of stew that one of the men asked the question.

“You two aren’t locals, I’ve never seen you before. What are a pair of twins doing out here in the back hills?”

Ellen glanced at the man who spoke. He was older than most of the others, with a vivid scar down his cheek and weathered skin. She guessed his age at around forty, which was old for a merchant guard. Most moved on to more sedate careers by that age, or even changed Class. The man was looking her over curiously… and not like many of the others had been. He ignored the slightly low cut of her shirt and bodice—meant to bring in more tips—and paid far more attention to her arms and legs.