The Innkeeper

A floating orb appeared and scanned Lex and said, “follow me”.

The orb led Lex inside the house and into a room full of what seemed like clothes made of black chain mail. The orb scanned the clothes until it found one appropriate for Lex’s size and said, “put these on. Cover your entire body and ensure that there is no skin exposed.”

Confused and curious, Lex put on the chain mail clothes and gear, even an unusual head piece that not only covered his face but also had goggles and breathing gear.

Once Lex was geared up, Lex led him deeper into the house until he entered a particularly hot room. That’s when he saw another person, possibly the fat- no uh, large- no uh, healthiest human Lex had ever seen. With a waist that had to be just ten feet across, the figure showed none of the lack of dexterity one would expect.

Taking a step closer, Lex noticed the person had their hands in a tub of… it looked like lava. Lex’s eyes widened in shock, but before he could make sense of what was happening, the woman – Lex assumed it was a woman due to the feminine voice – spoke.

“Hurry up and come here. Put your hands in the tub and start scraping the rod clean. Don’t worry, your gear will protect you from getting burned.”

Lex walked up hesitantly, not really excited about putting his hands in lava, but the woman wasn’t having it. Moving faster than Lex could comprehend, she grabbed his hand and plunged it deep into the lava.

“Grab the rod and start rubbing it! It’s releasing a lot of impurities and we can’t let any of them settle on the rod.”

What happened next was probably one of the most horrific experiences of Lex’s life. Not because of the lava or the danger or anything, but because of the weaponsmith’s choice of words. Lex did not know if she was doing it on purpose, or he was just dirty minded, but… it seemed like she was only speaking in innuendos.

The ‘rod’ that she had been asking him to ‘stroke’ and ‘rub’ was the body of a spear. He did not understand the logic of it, just as he could not understand what material it was made from, but by dipping the spear in the lava and exerting great pressure on it, impurities within the metal were pushed out. However, unless manually removed from the spear, the impurities would quickly encase the spear like an outer coat. All Lex had to do was scrap the impurities from it.

But that was not all. After he was done with the spear, in the words of the weaponsmith, he had to work on swords that ‘needed to go deep’, meaning bury them in sandpits made of some unusual metal, work on certain guns that needed to be ‘jerked until they were done’ meaning the components were too tight and he had to push them into place, and so much more.

Whether Lex would ever learn anything about weapons was a mystery because he spent the rest of his days at this job trying not to get scarred. The weaponsmith, for all her quirkiness, never seemed to stop working. She would be working when he left at night, and would still be working when he returned the next day. In her words, if she ever stopped giving it her all, a lot of people would be left unsatisfied.

He did not once see what she looked like, because she was always in her chain mail gear, nor did he get her name because she only talked about her weapons and what Lex needed to do. He worked on numerous weapons that he didn’t even understand. They consisted of some kind of technology Lex had never seen or experienced, and after he was done washing it in lava, walking it through an electric field, literally smashing it relentlessly with a hammer, or polishing it with oil, he still could not make sense of it. At least he got paid well, since few others were willing to do this job. He earned 100 crystals a day. That was what the currency of this realm was called. He never actually saw the crystals as they were deposited in his student account, but he could access the money whenever he wanted.

Finally, after 8 days of such torture, the new month started, and Lex’s work hours were reduced just a few hours each week so he could properly focus on his classes.

He had combat classes 3 times a week, while for the rest of the subjects, he had each of them every day.

At this point, as he walked into his first class early in the morning, Lex was feeling extremely restless. Not only was it because of how hectic his job was, but he had already been in this realm for around 2 weeks, give or take. He had not even begun to understand how he could gather enough energy for his system, and according to the speed at which things were progressing, it would be months before he’d be able to do it. Maybe even years.

Lex had been trying hard not to stress about things he could not control, and focus only on the task at hand, yet sometimes it was impossible. Not to mention, the unnecessarily long commute from his dorm to where his classes would be held gave him plenty of free time to fret.

So, by the time Lex finally sat down, he was completely out of it. He kept worrying about the Inn, about his life, about…

“Why is it you again?” an aggressive but familiar tone woke Lex up from his thoughts. He looked up to see that he was sitting beside a cute looking girl. Had he seen her somewhere before? She looked so familiar.