Chương 2: A Fate Worse Than Jail

The woman's name was Talia. She insisted on the honorific Lady Talia, which I found to be a chore. She reminded me of the Karens who insisted on speaking to the owner after they learned I was the manager. Still, she was the one holding a sword, so I wasn't about to make a big deal out of it. To my relief, the trek into Seaport was relatively short. A battered dirt road led into a small but comfortable town nestled in a tiny bay. Gulls cried out overhead, soaring on thermals.

Heavy, salty sea spray drifted up from the shore into the hills behind us. The smell of fish lingered just about everywhere, and I could hear people yelling what I assumed to be market-related stuff ahead. I say assumed, because their accents were thicker than Lady Talia's. Making out the details was a struggle.

"You'll see that I run a pretty tight town. Everyone here is employed, and everyone behaves themselves. It's a happy place, and we prefer to keep trouble out of it. There's almost no crime." I raised a brow.

"Almost?"

"Yes, almost. To be clear, none of the residents here commit crimes."

"Or if they do, they just don't get caught," I pointed out. She glowered at me. It looked as though she was going to say something snarky or authoritative. Instead, she just elaborated, humoring my question.

"We're a port town, in case that wasn't obvious. As much as we'd like to keep the peace here, we don't always get a say in who arrives by boat."

"Rowdy sailors, then?"

"You could say that. You could also say that the Black Ship Raiders make it a habit of stopping through here every so often." She eyed me suspiciously, letting her gaze travel from my head to my feet, which were covered in muddy Birkenstocks. They gave me enough arch support for long bartending shifts, but they must've looked out of style here.

"If we ever found that a Black Ship Raider was trying to case the joint while wearing an odd disguise, you could be sure there would be some very intense repercussions." I raised my hands defensively.

"I don't know what a Black Ship Raider is, and I'm beginning to think that if I'm wearing some kind of disguise, it's a pretty bad one."

"Yes, exceptionally bad," she agreed. We passed a man wearing linen trousers and a simple tunic. Sturdy leather boots completed his minimalist ensemble. Down the street, two girls walked slowly, engrossed in conversation. Both wore simple frocks and bonnets. Yep. I stuck out worse than an orc in a gnomish bar. Which made me think of something. Whether I was dreaming or not, this place definitely had a medieval quality to it. Swords, simple clothing, people getting around on foot and by horse.

Everything here screamed fantasy to me. The mention of pirates only made things even more fantastical. All this brought me to the idea of fantasy races. I might've been imagining things, but I was almost certain I saw the pointed tips of ears peeking out from under caps and through long hair. Might as well take a wild guess.

"Did we just pass elves?"

"Of course."

"And you said there are pirates. Are there orcs here?" Lady Talia flinched, surprised. She glared at me accusingly.

"That's very racist," she snapped.

"Not all orcs are pirates, you know."

"Shit, I'm sorry. I just thought—""But if you did see any orcs, let me know. The Black Ship Raiders aren't doing anything to help that stereotype. They're up to the gills in orcish sailors." Okay, so that was a lot to take in. I was getting a better idea of what kind of world I was in. For all I knew, there could be all sorts of fantasy races. Maybe Lady Talia was some kind of exotic race herself. After all, she had an undefinable, otherworldly quality to her skin. It was smooth and almost shining with iridescence.

Pupils that looked like vertical slits punctuated her glittering green eyes. In my TTRPG, humans were considered the default race. Supposedly, they were the most common. Yet that assumption came from a world populated entirely by humankind. This place might be different. I had to know.

"Am I the only human in town?" She looked at me as though I were an idiot. That brief look was all it took to make me feel the part, too.

"Don't be ridiculous. Hundreds of people live here in Seaport." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Of course," I mumbled.

"At least a dozen of them are human. In fact, one of my very best friends is a human," she added. I couldn't help but notice the defensive tone in her voice. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. It smacked of, I'm not racist—one of my best friends is black. Probably better to let that one lie.

"I thought you were human," I admitted. A look of surprise tinged with disgust quickly passed over her expression before she wrangled it back to neutral.

"I most certainly am not."

"What are you?" I asked.

"I am dragonkin." Her shoulders squared up, and her back straightened even more than it already was. She said it with such pride that I knew better than to press further. I wanted to ask more, but I could tell things were already getting a little weird. Given her reaction to the mention of orcs, I realized there might be some sensitive subjects I didn't want to touch. Any topic of conversation could be a landmine here. And then her bit about humans? Well, that was just a little embarrassing.

Finally, there was that fierce dignity when she said dragonkin. If this world was anything like Earth, then I needed to learn more about this world before simply striking up a conversation about ancestry and genetics. Especially not with someone who carried a sword.

"So, you're taking me to an inn?"

"Yep. Sorry, but you're going to the bad one."

"Wait, what do you mean?" I was afraid that by the bad one, she actually meant a jail cell.

"Why can't I stay in the good one?" We rounded a corner, and a full view of the port opened up in front of us. Tall, blue waves capped with white broke in the distance. Salt-stained, weather-beaten buildings dotted the landscape leading to the docks. Several large boats bobbed in the water, tied up to one large dock nestled against the right corner of the bay. I took a deep breath involuntarily, letting the smell of the sea fill my lungs. The place was incredibly charming.

It reminded me of the small coastal towns we used to visit on vacation when I was growing up.

"The Good Inn is always full, and it costs a few more coin, too. Not that you couldn't afford it, judging by your outfit..." She trailed off. I arched a brow, silently asking her to continue that thought.

"Well, if you had the coin, you probably would have spent it on better clothing. No offense, of course."

"Of course."

"You do have coin, though, don't you?" I jingled my pocket. My keys rattled against a few quarters and nickels. Sometimes people left their loose change as tips, and I let it hang out in my pants for too long. I had paper cash too, plus a few cards, but she hadn't asked about that. Not that any of it would matter in here. Yet the jingle was good enough for Lady Talia. She nodded and pressed on.

"The Breakwater will have a room for you. Maybe you can work something out with the innkeeper. You can buy a tunic or a bowl of stew. Maybe hitch a cart out of town." She added the last part offhandedly, though she'd clearly been planning this whole time to suggest I not stick around her city much longer.

"Don't worry. I'll be on my way as soon as I can," I assured her. I assumed that a good sleep would wake me up in the right place. All I needed was to lie down, close my eyes, and get some rest. I couldn't wait to put this whole dream behind me. Although the mud that glued my pants to my legs and squelched between my toes felt increasingly real with every step. A guy could hope, though. For all I knew, this was just one long, unexpected salvia trip.

Or maybe I was caught in some weird coma hallucination that wouldn't stop until I noticed the unnatural visual perspective of a lamp. I shuddered at the thought. Some of those Reddit stories spooked me.

"And here we are." The constable halted a few paces away from a tumbledown shack close to the docks. Paint chipped and peeled off the old wood, much of which was warped from age and weather. A thin layer of salt caked everything, giving it a whitish appearance that got downright crusty in a few corners. A sign above the little building read "Breakwater Inn." I might've been better off with the jail, I thought. I shrugged and stepped forward, mounting the steps to the front door.

They sagged underfoot, letting out creaky groans beneath my weight. Just one more reminder that I had a few pounds left to hit my goal weight. Just what I needed. Even the wood here was trolling me. I looked back at Lady Talia, who ushered me on before following a step behind. The difference in our physical abilities was stark. She moved with lithe grace. Despite wearing metal armor and carrying heavy weaponry, the wood barely made a sound under her footsteps. I sighed to myself and opened the door.

Inside the inn, a sad fire sputtered in a hearth to my right. It coughed out more smoke than heat, filling most of the space with a sooty black cloud. Through the haze, I could make out a front desk area with a handful of messy papers scattered all over. To the left, a small bar occupied the rest of the space. A couple of tables filled the room next to it, and a few stools pushed up against the bar itself. Most of the bottles on the shelf behind the bar were empty, and some were broken.

Mostly, though, they were missing. The gaps reminded me of a meth addict's smile, with all the good teeth long gone.

"Hello? Wynderriel!" Lady Talia waited several seconds, looking increasingly annoyed.

"Wynnie, are you here? We got a guest for you" A second later, the sound of banging pots and pans echoed from a nearby room. Soft, feminine cursing followed. Almost cursing, actually. There was a, "Fiddlesticks!" Seconds later, an, "Oh, sugarplums." Then a, "Drat." After a minute of more banging and "cursing," a harried-looking young woman burst out of the door. Light brown hair tangled around her face, barely kept in check by the messiest messy bun I'd ever seen.

She adjusted her glasses and straightened her pale maroon dress. Scrunching up her face, she squinted to see through the smoke. I tried not to stare. She cut a buxom figure, nearly bursting out of her tight dress. My social media algorithms were tuned to thirst traps with her build. Curvy. Voluptuous. Thicc. Apparently, my algorithms followed me here. I put her at no more than early twenties, with a cherubic face and dark eyes full of soul. She could make a killing off of doomscrolling gooners.

I half expected to see a link to her OnlyFans in a comment section under her exquisite bust. For a second, I could barely catch my breath, and it wasn't just from the smoke in the room.

"Oh, jeepers. Lady Talia? You brought a guest?"

"Sure did." The constable motioned to me.

"What happened? Did the jail overflow or something?" The young woman's eyes widened as she looked me over, then she let out a nervous laugh.

"Sorry, that was rude. Nice, um, britches. Welcome to the Breakwater Inn." A dying ember flew out from the hearth with a pop. It burned a black mark on the floor before going dark. From back in the kitchen, the telltale crash of a fallen pot made the three of us wince. Maybe the town down the road would've been the smarter choice. Yet the innkeeper's disbelief at having a customer had me too off-balance to leave now. She looked like she needed the company as much as the coin.

Could I really deny her both so soon after we'd met?