(33) Take No Risks

How could it have come to this? What god had Nephthys angered? What karmic balance had she upset? How could she have missed this?

“I…well, I guess gold is gold…” the inn proprietress mused, turning a gold coin over in her meaty fingers.

Tara rubbed her temples from the side, shaking her head slightly as the proprietress bit the coin.

“Hmm, soft, small marks from biting, and the plating isn’t cracked. Probably a decent amount of pure gold,” she said, pocketing the coin.

“I’ll do ya a solid and take it. The gold is almost certainly worth more than the room and meal. That said, get these exchanged as soon as you can. I can’t use ‘em to buy anything, so even if gold is gold, it’s just useless metal to me till I can find a way to sell it for somethin’ useful,” she said, handing Nephthys a key.

“Thank you very much,” Nephthys replied, relieved that her blunder had resolved so cleanly.

That the currency might have changed from the game had not even occurred to her. She possessed unbelievable wealth in coins from the game, but they were all vards, the currency of the nascent Sardvend Kingdom. This was the setting of Prelude’s vanilla questline, but as she had seen firsthand, that kingdom was already very different from two hundred years ago.

Tara, who had kept silent as they climbed the stairs, finally spoke as they reached the second-floor landing.

“So, what are you, exactly? You live in the center of the most inhospitable land, probably in the entire world, you use magic manually better than even the Words do, and you walk around with pockets full of gold coins that no one recognizes. What’s the deal? What’s your story?” she asked, arms crossed.

Nephthys turned around and looked her in the eyes.

“You first,” she said with a small smile.

She turned around, suppressing a chuckle at Tara’s huff. The hall they proceeded down was well-maintained but rugged. The uneven floor planks were barely noticeable beneath a rug of woven vines or reeds or something.

Nephthys thought it resembled wicker, but it was much softer. She supposed the material would be cheaper than a wool rug, more durable, and would probably help protect the wood beneath from the myriad boots passing through.

The walls were bare, though a nice shade of blue had been painted over whatever the material was. Nephthys had never paid much attention to interior decoration or construction beyond making her tiny apartment livable. Were these plaster walls? Did plaster even exist here?

Was this world even equivalent to the medieval period of her world? Prelude was vaguely reminiscent of that time, but the addition of magic threw the comparison into disarray. Could a society really be considered medieval if it had magic artifacts comparable to modern mobile phones and the like?

Nephthys shook the idle thoughts away as they proceeded down the hall.

Opening the door to their shared room, Nephthys nodded with satisfaction. It was comfortably ordinary. As proud as she was of what she had created in Nemesis, she had not built any of it with the intention of living there. The ostentation had begun to grate at her, though perhaps she would acclimate eventually.

Two small beds sat close together, separated only by a wooden nightstand between them. The mattresses appeared to be stuffed with straw, and the sheets were wool, though there was a linen sheet beneath, an indicator that the proprietress had estimated Nephthys’s coin to be valuable. Nephthys imagined that most rooms had only wool coverings.

To the side of the beds, which were wedged against the far wall, was a shuttered window with a small table and chair beneath it, probably meant to be used as a desk. In the corner opposite the beds, a chest on the ground, and pegs jutted out of the wall above it, likely intended as clothing hanging and storage.

Nephthys’s nose wrinkled as she spied a large pot beneath one of the beds. She did not need to guess what that would be used for. Suddenly, the ostentation in Nemesis was looking less bothersome.

Glancing over, she saw that Tara appeared satisfied with the accommodations, yet Nephthys had read enough about medieval inns and bed sharing that she was not satisfied quite yet.

“What?” Tara asked, seeing Nephthys beckoning.

“Come,” she replied simply.

Tara approached until, just a couple of feet away—

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Wah—” Tara exclaimed, her cry muffled by Nephthys’s robe.

“Don’t look until I say so,” Nephthys said, pressing Tara’s head into her shoulder.

Blue flames ignited, covering every surface in the room. There was no smoke, nor was there a smell of char. The flames simply appeared and, after a few seconds, vanished, leaving no trace of their passing. No marks remained, despite most of the room being made from wood.

“Wha-what was that about?!” Tara gasped, inhaling deeply as she pulled away.

“The room should be free from lice and fleas and whatever else…though, there is little I can do for the rest of the inn,” Nephthys replied, her brow furrowed as she stared at the gap beneath the door.