Chương 6: The Secret to a Good Cocktail

"Have you ever heard the term curb appeal?"

"No. What's a curb?" Shoot. Duh. I'd have to pay close attention to my idioms. Anything having to do with cars, locomotion, electronics, and so on would make zero sense. Curb appeal would likely be one of many things I said that went right over her head.

"It's a term from my world that basically means a building should look inviting from the outside."

"You don't think my inn looks welcoming?"

"I think it looks like it's one strong breeze from falling over. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure we can fix most of it up easily."

"What do you have in mind?" I started counting off on my fingers.

"Fix the creak and wobble on the front steps, repaint the exterior, tighten and lubricate the door hinges, replace the sign..."

"Jeepers." Her eyes grew wide as I listed things without hesitation.

"You've already been thinking about this, haven't you?" I shrugged.

"That's just the outside. Once somebody decides to come in, we need to make it welcoming enough for them to stay." Her expression fell and her shoulders drooped. She looked around hopelessly where we stood next to the welcome desk. Dim lights barely cast shadows in the dark room, and soot had blackened the area around the hearth. Her desk was messier than ever, and the halfhearted, haphazard decorating wasn't doing her any favors either. And then there was the bar.

"A little clean and tidy would go a long way," I started.

"Don't worry, though, I can help with that. And maybe some better lighting. I can get down with mood lighting, but this is something else entirely."

"Depression lighting?" I snapped my fingers.

"That's exactly it. Maybe if we opened those windows. And about the bar..." She brightened, looking hopeful.

"You like it?"

"No." My words were perhaps too sharp and immediate. I grimaced as her face fell again, somehow further than before. It always sucked to be the bearer of bad news, but as a seasoned professional, I'd never allow my own workspace to fall into such a sorry state. Pride in the job, and all that. Nevertheless, this was one of the main changes we needed to make. In fact, I was pretty certain it would turn everything around if we got it right. Reset, I thought. I tried again.

"The good news is that the place has good bones. Those shelves behind the bar area could hold a lot of bottles. That sort of thing can impress guests and make them eager to try everything you've got."

"I feel like you're about to tell me there's bad news."

"I'm not even from this world, and I can tell that everything up there is pure swill."

"Hey! That's not nice."

"Neither is your liquor selection. That rotgut has a better chance of making guests go blind than convincing them to order a second round." She crossed her arms and harrumphed cutely. It almost sounded as though she was muttering something under her breath, but I couldn't catch any of it, so I paid it no mind. What was most important to me was that she didn't argue any further. In fact, I could almost see wheels turning in her head, considering my suggestions.

Her eyes scanned the mostly empty shelves, which were irregularly populated by a few sad bottles that likely wouldn't impress even the most desperate and inebriated sailors. She sighed.

"There's just one problem."

"What's that?"

"I don't exactly have enough money lying around to fill up all those shelves with bottles. The wine we drank last night was just about the last of my personal stores." I shook my head. How had I just gotten reborn into this world with nothing more than a useless phone and another world's currency in my pocket, but I seemed to have just as much buying power as she did?

"You've made it this far. Surely you have some source of income. How do you make money?"

"Here, follow me," she said, motioning for me to head out the door. She led me into the street, then to a small intersection. A road led down to the harbor, where a few boats bobbed, moored to the docks.

"See down there? That pier over there is where the larger trade ships dock. When they come in, the town fills with sailors looking for a bit of time on land." She pointed to the edge of the bay, where indeed there were some places where larger ships could pull in. Along the dock, a few small stands were hastily constructed from wood. Vendors had set up stalls with all manner of goods that I couldn't quite recognize at this distance.

"When the sailors come in, many get a room for the night. Often, they're just hoping to find someone to share a bed with, but it's not really that kind of town."

"Could it be? Would there be money in it?" I asked. She shook her head vehemently.

"Even if any of us were okay with that sort of thing, you can be sure that Lady Talia would shut it down in an instant." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I nodded. It was a curiosity, not a consideration. Something important to know about the nature of the town I got reborn into. I thought of myself as a pretty sex-positive guy, but something about anonymous working-class prostitution gave me the ick.

Not that I judged sex workers or the folks who kept them in business. It just wasn't for me. The idea of turning Wynnie's Breakwater Inn into a brothel might have worked, but… Did we want to work it? Not really, no.

"Do boats come in often?" She suppressed a cute giggle.

"It's a port town, Drew."

"Yeah, but."

"They come in often enough."

"So when the boats come in, that's when you get customers?"

"If I'm lucky. And if the ship is big enough. Usually, they fill up The Good Inn first. If they're at capacity, but folks still want to drink and carouse away from their boat… maybe find a place to stay for the night? That's when I make my money." Judging by the unused feel of my room, that couldn't have been often. And judging by the threadbare sheets, flaking paint outside, and half-empty bottles of cloudy liquids on the wall, the money couldn't be much.

"How many guests are we talking, anyway?"

"A few."

"Per night? Per week?"

"On average, I get maybe a few guests per month." That was worse than I'd hoped, yet somehow not as bad as I'd feared. Any income was better than zero. At least this way I knew she wasn't living solely off the charity of the town. It also meant that, despite the dilapidated shape of the place, it could still bring people in. We could work with that. All I needed to know was what the potential for growth looked like.

"And how much do you make per guest?"

"A few copper. If I stretch it, I can usually make it last until the next boat comes in."

"I don't suppose you have any idea when the next boat arrives?" She shrugged.

"There's a schedule somewhere, but it doesn't have all the arrivals and departures. Just the regular trading ones."

"Do you get a lot of unscheduled stops?"

"Plenty. Usually, there are smaller fishing or merchant vessels. Sometimes we'll get a bigger one making an unplanned but opportunistic stop."

"Oh, like to shelter from a storm?" She nodded.

"Or to hide out from the Black Ship Raiders." I kept hearing about these Raiders. Sooner or later, I was going to have to ask a bit more about them. So long as I was stuck in town here, it sounded like they would pop up eventually. When they did, I wanted to be prepared. Whatever that meant. A tall, gangly man leading a sprightly young girl walked past. The young girl gaped at my clothing, tugging at her father's tunic and pointing at me.

"Now, now, Isabelle. It's not kind to stare."

"But look at those clothes!" He stroked his chin.

"Yes, well, perhaps a little staring is fine here. He is quite odd, isn't he?" My fashion sense back on Earth might be described as a little dated. I still wore outfits that marked me as a Millennial—and one that was still taking fashion cues from the late 2000s. Yet even if I was more than a good decade behind my times, I had to be nearly a thousand years in the future compared to these guys. Give them a few hundred years to catch up, I thought. When they mastered the zipper, they'd go nuts for a good hoodie.

I revisited the variables in my head. There was a steady parade of incoming ships. Vendors hawked wares on the docks. And we had a couple gallons' worth of questionable swill. More importantly, we had almost nothing left to lose, apparently.

"Okay, Wynnie. I have a plan."

She didn't like the plan. I wasn't surprised, of course. She'd been doing it her way for nearly three years. Her way was comfortable to her. It had gotten her this far. The problem was, "this far" was not very far at all. If they had bankruptcy in this world, she was inches from it. She'd probably make more from selling the place for bottom dollar than she would in five years of running it further into the ground. At least my plan would allow us to go out with a bang. That is, if she would take the risk.

"Do you seriously think that mixing all of my liquor together into one big vat is going to somehow increase its selling price?"

"That liquor has almost no value on its own. I'm not even from this world, and I know that much," I countered.

"And you think we'll sell more of it if we water it down?!"

"Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound great," I admitted.

"And you want to adulterate it with sugar and citrus until it doesn't even taste like alcohol?"

"Bingo," I said, winking and firing off finger guns. Then, because she probably wouldn't get the reference, and a more thematic finger bow and arrow would just be stupid, I added, "That's exactly what I want to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the first step in turning everything around."

"I think you're insane." This was obviously a touchy subject. Even if she hated the place, she didn't want to see it go down in flames. She might have called it a curse and a burden when she was drinking, but it was the last thing she had that tied her to her deceased family. And here I was, basically suggesting we dance on their graves. I was about to throw what little reputation she had left into the stormy sea.

Which reminded me, we'd have to put a dark and stormy on the menu when we started turning things around. We stood side by side, both facing the conundrum. Or at least, that's what I was calling it in my head. She kept referring to it as the bar. Nevermind that The Conundrum would be an amazing name for a bar. We had what we had, and it sucked. It could be better, though, and I intended to make it happen. Yet throughout our entire discussion, the tension in the air grew ever more palpable.

It felt like she was daring me to do something.

"I still think this is a bad idea."

"Got any better ones?"

"We could do nothing," she offered.

"What if this fails?"

"Then we're in the same position as we are now, just with a few less bottles of poison." She sighed.

"Fine. Just don't make me drink any of your watered-down, sour drinks." I chuckled. Little did she know that was going to be the best part. Our first reward for taking the conundrum seriously. I'd only just started some basic cleanup, sweeping up the shards of broken bottles still peppering the backbar, and already the chilly interior air felt choked with dust. Dust or stains covered nearly every surface, and some of the bottles were practically glued to the shelves with sticky, dried liqueur.

Fortunately, she let me prop the door open. Apparently, all the windows were permanently painted shut, so there was no hope of getting some fresh air through them. That would have to be a fix for another day, however. A working bar took precedence. I couldn't make money with an open window. But with the door open, we could at least air out the months-old scent of smoke. And with the shutters open, hazy coastal light washed out the drab colors of the interior.

It made me realize why she'd let them remain closed this whole time, relying instead on the dim light of hurricane lamps. In the open sunlight, the place looked in even worse repair than before. That didn't matter. At least now we knew what we were working with. There was no hiding the work ahead of us.

"Wynnie, I promise you. This drink is going to get us enough coin to buy a few more good bottles and enough paint to cover the exterior," I said, putting my hand over my heart. She eyed me suspiciously.

"And then what?"

"Then? Maybe we'll get another bottle or two of swill and try to make a quick buck again."

"Buck?"

"Dammit. I mean gold?" Her eyes bulged.

"A gold is a lot of money here."

"Fine. We can do a crash course in currency later. For now, just think of it this way. I can turn a few bottles of rotgut into enough money to buy a few bottles of good stuff, plus one or two things to improve the place."

"And you're going to do it by adding sugar, citrus, and water?" A devilish grin crept across my face. I made eye contact, ensuring that my words landed. She needed to see why she was the key to making all of this work.

"Not just water. It won't work if it's just water. We need ice." She looked surprised.

"Nobody needs ice. Maybe in times of war, ice mages can hold their own in battle, but this is no time of war."

"Trust me. Your inn is going to flourish, and your ice magic is going to be the key to it." She let out a deep breath and fidgeted with her brown frock. A mixture of emotions flashed across her countenance. Excitement, disbelief, apprehension. I just had to make sure I wasn't getting ahead of myself.

"Just one thing. How does your ice magic work, anyway?"