he wove through the crowd. Taverns were where the good stuff happened. He’d buy a drink, chat to other NPCs, and learn this game’s rest mechanic.
It occurred to him that he was incredibly hungry. As soon as he was done in the tavern, he would shut the game down and order food. He’d probably missed dinner already, he realized. His parents wouldn’t be happy with him.
With a sigh, he moved into the shadowed interior.
He paused in a corridor lined with sputtering lamps. The din of the tavern spilled into the small space, the walls papered with jobs on offer. He saw requests for rabbit slayers—Aww, yeah, I can get that sweet, sweet, Bunny Slayer Level 5—and someone to deal with the wolves on the plains—“Oh, hell no”—as well as requests for five bunches of a herb or ten rockworms.
He didn’t want to know about the last one.
Some were so mundane that he laughed out loud.
ONE YOUNG PERSONE TO SCYTHE MY YARDE
SALE ON FLOUR AT THE FLOUR MILLE
How had he not heard about this game before? Despite his initial response, he was having an awesome time. He strolled the corridor and read each of the posters in turn. At the end, pinned to the door frame of the tavern itself, was a piece of paper that looked as if it had been taken down and put up several times, the top of it ripped and full of nail holes. Unlike the others, it wasn’t written in an all-capital scrawl but instead, in a neat, practiced script.
WANTED: one adventurer to rescue a kidnapped maiden. Will be generously compensated. Speak to Mayor Hausen for details.
“Find Mayor Hausen,” Justin said to himself. “Got it.”
Inside the tavern, rough wooden tables were surrounded by men in the patched, worn clothes of day laborers. They drank from foaming mugs of ale and laughed with one another, and a few of them looked at Justin and gave him a nod.
It occurred to him that he wore stupid, Level One gear and a rusty sword and probably looked like a lunatic. Thankfully, NPCs didn’t care about things like that. He threaded through the maze of tables, ducked under one or two low-hanging lanterns, and strode past the huge hearth to the bar.
The woman there was dressed in the most traditional tavern-wench costume he had ever seen. A white shirt peeked out from behind a close-fitting vest and her brown skirt was embroidered with flowers and leaves. She curtsied.
“What can I get for you, sir?”
“One ale.” He leaned on the counter and smiled at her.
Sometimes, the game showed it was truly a game and the ale appeared on the bar in front of him without the tavern girl so much as moving from where she wiped a mug with a towel. After a few near misses, he managed to grasp the mug and lift it in her direction before he took a sip. The liquid didn’t tip when he “drank,” but it was lower when he set the mug down.
“That’ll be a copper,” the woman said to him.
An idea occurred to him.
“Only a copper?” Justin asked. He leaned forward to grin at her. “Surely I should pay for that smile too.”
FLIRT, LEVEL 1 popped up on the screen.
He took another sip. The woman had smiled and looked away, clearly embarrassed, and he was curious—not only to see how extensive this game was in its programming but also to see what he could come up with. It wasn’t like he’d ever be cheesy enough to do this in real life, after all. “They make a beauty like you handle the money?”
“Sir, I’m a betrothed woman.” She looked flustered.
“Ah, who is the lucky man?” Justin looked at the room. None of the NPCs gave him a death glare, so that was good.
“Yannick Hausen,” the woman said proudly. She raised her chin. “The mayor says Yannick can do better’n an innkeep’s daughter, but Mayor Hausen’s in here often enough. Or…he was.” She had a sad expression now. “Before Zaara, of course.”
“Of course,” he said. “And tell me about your Yannick.”
SILVER TONGUE, LEVEL 1 flashed across the screen, and the AI spoke over the woman’s monologue.
“Good work, Player Underscore 009. A silver tongue will get you farther than a heart of gold.”
“If you had a heart of gold, you’d be dead,” Justin said succinctly.
The girl paused in mid-monologue. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
He weighed the idea of telling her that he was speaking to a familiar but discarded that plan. It didn’t seem wise