The rest of that harrowing day was a desperate, stumbling trek. Kaelan pushed himself relentlessly, fueled by a primal fear of pursuit and the gnawing emptiness in his belly. The Whisperwood was a disorienting labyrinth of ancient trees, tangled undergrowth, and eerie silences broken by sudden, unnerving sounds. He drank sparingly from a muddy stream he stumbled upon, the water tasting of earth and paranoia, but it was wet. He ate nothing. Every shadow seemed to hold a goblin, every rustle of leaves a potential predator. His newly acquired club became an extension of his arm, clutched so tightly his knuckles were white.
By the time the twin moons, Castor and Pollux as he'd heard someone in Lumina call them, began their ascent, casting long, dancing shadows through the trees, Kaelan was on the verge of collapse. His legs felt like lead, his injured arm throbbed with a dull, persistent fire, and his head swam with exhaustion. Just as he was about to give in, to find a marginally defensible spot and succumb to his weariness, he saw it.
Through a thinning in the trees, a faint, flickering orange light. Hope, fragile but potent, surged through him. He pushed forward, stumbling over roots, branches whipping at his face, until he emerged onto a rough, barely-there track. And there, nestled in a small, natural clearing, was a cluster of no more than a dozen small, rustic buildings. A village. Or perhaps, more accurately, a hamlet. Smoke curled lazily from a few chimneys, and the source of the light was a single, larger building with a crudely painted sign depicting a foaming tankard: "The Sleeping Satyr Inn."
Relief, so profound it was almost painful, washed over Kaelan. He staggered towards it, the sounds of muted conversation and the clinking of crockery growing louder. He pushed open the heavy, ill-fitting wooden door and stepped inside.
The inn was small, smoky, and dimly lit by a few flickering tallow candles and a crackling hearth. A handful of patrons – rough-looking men in leather and furs, a couple of women in simple, homespun dresses – were scattered around mismatched wooden tables. The air smelled of stale ale, woodsmoke, roasting meat, and unwashed bodies. It was a far cry from the perfumed halls of Lumina, but to Kaelan, it felt like paradise.
As he stood there, blinking in the dim light, a sudden, startling realization struck him. He could understand everything. The conversations around him, though accented and filled with unfamiliar colloquialisms, were perfectly intelligible. The crude lettering on the inn sign, the scrawled menu on a slate board behind the bar – he could read it all effortlessly. Since his arrival in Aethel, language had never been a barrier. Not in the Cathedral, not with the goblins (though their speech was guttural snarls, the intent was clear), and not now. The System, he thought, a jolt of surprise running through him. It must be a passive effect of the summoning, or the System itself. A translation function, hardwired into us. It was another piece of this bizarre, terrifying new reality slotting into place, one less thing to actively worry about, yet unsettling in its implications of how deeply they were being integrated.
A stout, aproned woman with a no-nonsense expression and flour dusting her grey-streaked hair looked up from wiping down the bar. "Well, don't just stand there blockin' the doorway, lad. In or out. And if you're in, you buyin'?"
Kaelan flinched. He needed food, water, a place to sleep, desperately. But then came the prickle of paranoia. He clutched the small, mismatched collection of coins in his pocket: 18 dull copper bits and 4 slightly more lustrous silver pieces, the meager loot from the slain goblins. He had no idea of their true worth. Asking how the currency worked, like some clueless child, would be a dead giveaway. They'd know he wasn't from around here. And in a world where "Otherworlders" were summoned as prophesied heroes, an F-Rank runaway slave asking basic questions might attract the wrong kind of attention. His escape was too fresh, his fear too raw.
"Just… looking for a drink and maybe some food," he mumbled, trying to keep his voice even, his eyes darting around, observing. He needed to see how these people paid, what things cost.
He shuffled towards a shadowed corner table, sinking onto a wobbly stool, his club resting against his leg. His gaze flicked between the patrons and the bar. He saw a grizzled man with a scarred face and a heavy fur cloak toss two copper coins onto the bar for a refill of his ale. Kaelan mentally noted: Mug of ale, 2 Copper. The menu board listed "Rabbit Stew – 15 Copper," "Hard Bread & Cheese – 8 Copper," "Satyr's Special Brew – 5 Copper."
Then, a younger man, perhaps a traveling peddler by his laden pack, approached the bar. "A room for the night, mistress," he said, his voice weary. "And a plate of that stew, if it's fresh."
"Stew's always fresh enough for the likes o' you," the innkeeper retorted, though without real malice. "That'll be one silver and fifteen copper for the lot. Pay now."
The peddler counted out the coins. Kaelan watched intently. One silver coin for the room. Stew is 15 copper. So, one silver was clearly worth much more than copper. He remembered the coin conversion rates he'd briefly glimpsed on a tattered notice board in the Cathedral's servant quarters, something about a hundred copper to a silver.
His mind, despite the exhaustion, began to calculate. He had 4 silver and 18 copper.
4 Silver Coins = 4 * 100 Copper = 400 Copper.
Total: 400 CP + 18 CP = 418 Copper.
A room cost 1 Silver (100 CP). A common meal like the stew was 15 CP.
So, one night's lodging and one decent meal would cost him 115 CP.
418 CP / 115 CP per day ≈ 3 and a half days.
He could afford to stay here for three days, with a little left over if he was careful. Maybe stretch it to four if he ate frugally, perhaps just bread and cheese some meals. It wasn't a week, not comfortably, but it was a desperately needed respite. The relief was immense.
Feeling a bit more confident, Kaelan approached the bar. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said, his voice still a little hoarse. "Could I get a mug of water, a plate of that rabbit stew, and… a room for the night?"
The innkeeper gave him a once-over, her eyes lingering on his torn and bloodied clothes, the crude club, and the exhaustion etched on his young face. "Water's free if you're buyin' food and a room. That'll be one silver and fifteen copper, same as him." She gestured with her thumb towards the peddler.
Kaelan carefully counted out one silver coin and fifteen copper pieces, his hand trembling slightly. The innkeeper grunted, swept the coins into a wooden drawer, and then slammed a key attached to a rough wooden tag onto the counter. "Room three, upstairs, end of the hall. Don't make a mess, and no funny business." She then ladled a generous portion of thick, savory-smelling stew into a wooden bowl and drew a mug of water from a barrel.
The stew was heavenly. Chunks of tender rabbit, root vegetables, and a thick, herb-infused broth that warmed him from the inside out. He ate slowly, savoring every mouthful, acutely aware of the other patrons.
In one corner, the grizzled trapper he'd seen earlier was nursing his ale, his eyes constantly scanning the room. He had a string of dried pelts slung over his chair and smelled faintly of pine needles and woodsmoke. Kaelan overheard him muttering to another local about "strange tracks up near the old Barrow Cairns" and "more goblin sign than usual this season."
At another table, a plump, jovial man with a booming laugh was trying to sell cheap, glittering trinkets to a pair of unimpressed farmers, loudly proclaiming the "protective enchantments" on his "genuine dragon-scale amulets" (which looked suspiciously like painted fish scales to Kaelan).
A quiet, stern-faced woman sat alone near the hearth, meticulously sharpening a wicked-looking dagger, her gaze missing nothing. She wore practical leather armor, and Kaelan guessed she was a local hunter or perhaps a village guard, if such a small place even had one.
No one paid Kaelan much mind, beyond a cursory glance. He was just another weary traveler passing through. The anonymity was a comfort.
After finishing his meal and draining the water, Kaelan took his key and headed upstairs. Room three was small, bare, and cold, containing only a narrow straw mattress on a rickety wooden frame and a small, unglazed window overlooking the dark forest. But it had a door that locked, and for Kaelan, it felt like a king's chamber.
He barred the door, wedged his club beside the mattress, and collapsed. Sleep claimed him almost instantly, but it was a restless, dream-filled slumber. He saw flashes of the blinding light of the summoning, the disdainful faces of the priests, Warden Grimsby's cruel sneer, the terrifying speed of his Fleeting Steps, the glint of goblin eyes in the darkness, the sickening crunch of his club connecting with flesh and bone. He awoke several times in a cold sweat, his heart pounding, before finally succumbing to a deeper, more profound exhaustion as dawn approached.
The next morning, Kaelan felt marginally more human. The aches were still there, but the desperation had receded slightly, replaced by a grim resolve. After a meager breakfast of hard bread (2 CP, carefully paid) and water, he decided to explore the village, which he learned from the innkeeper was called "Oakhaven."
It truly was tiny. A dozen or so thatched-roof cottages, a smithy where a burly man was noisily hammering glowing metal, a small, dilapidated shrine to some local nature deity, and what looked like a combined general store and rudimentary trading post. This last building, a slightly larger structure than the cottages, had a sign proclaiming "Oakhaven Provisions & Exchange."
Inside, the air smelled of dried herbs, leather, and dust. Shelves were sparsely stocked with basic necessities: roughspun clothes, coils of rope, iron cooking pots, sacks of grain, and, to Kaelan's interest, a locked glass case containing a few items of slightly better quality. He saw a pair of sturdy-looking leather boots (tagged at a steep 8 Silver Coins), a few basic tools, and, tucked away in a corner, three murky-looking vials labeled "Lesser Healing Draught – 7 Silver Coins Each." Seven silver! That was 700 copper, more than he currently possessed. Low quality they might be, but healing potions were clearly a luxury.
As he was leaving the Provisions & Exchange, he noticed a weathered wooden board nailed to the wall of a sturdier, stone-foundationed building next to it – the closest thing Oakhaven had to a town hall or administrative center. Pinned to the board were several pieces of parchment, scrawled with various notices. Most were mundane village announcements, but a few caught his eye.
"Wolf pack sighted near Miller Benson's farm. Reward for extermination: 5 Silver Coins. See Elder Rowan.""Lost Locket: Sentimental value. Silver, engraved with a songbird. Reward: 1 Silver Coin. Inquire with Mistress Pebblefoot at the inn.""Delivery: Package to Greywood Crossing (1 day travel). Payment: 2 Silver Coins. Must be trustworthy. Apply within.""Wanted: 10 Moonpetal Flowers. For medicinal purposes. 50 Copper Coins. Deliver to Healer Agnes."
A task board. A way to earn coin, perhaps even gain some experience. It was a familiar concept from the games he used to play, now a potential lifeline in this new, dangerous reality. His gaze lingered on the "Moonpetal Flowers" task. Fifty copper. It wasn't much, but it seemed less immediately life-threatening than wolf extermination. And he desperately needed to build up his meager funds.
A path forward. A small, tentative one, but a path nonetheless. With his goblin-looted club in hand, Kaelan felt a flicker of something akin to determination. He wasn't just running anymore. Now, he had to start fighting back, in whatever small way he could, against the crushing weight of this world.