The sun was starting its descent, but the same could not be said of the temperatures. The air felt like a boiling pool that Elsa had to wade through as she stumbled through the city streets.
She'd traveled north to escape the dang heat, yet here it was in Meritas, just as bad. To make matters worse, the dang Adentrians were a bunch of prissy prudes. Both men and women were expected to keep their bodies mostly covered. Dresses past the knees. Abdomens entirely hidden. How the hell did they do it in this heat?
The first day she arrived in Meritas, she stepped off the ship in the clothes she'd boarded with. Within minutes, she had nearly every person on the docks staring at her.
At first, she didn't realize what the deal was. She knew she had an effect on people. But being attractive didn't get you thisamount of attention.
It took her a couple of blocks of walking before she realized the problem. Her clothes were very different from everyone else's—in its amount, specifically.
The first thing she did was to go to a clothing store, where the etiquettes were explained to her by the old woman who owned the place. This lady wasn't surprised by her outfit. She had received many visitors from Belliganna with the same problem it seemed.
"Your, ah, pants would be considered undergarments to most Adentrians," the old woman said. "And your blouse… if you, ah, can call it a blouse, is too high on the bottom and too low on the top. Some cleavage is acceptable in Meritas, but you'll need to keep your hems past the stomach."
Elsa didn't mind dressing according to local fashions. She was a foreigner and not here to judge the customs. Plus, the weather had been bearable when she arrived. But as the weeks passed, that quickly changed. The temperatures took a swing upward, and she quickly dropped her previous philosophy of being respectful to local cultures.
This was just entirely unpractical. She was suffering because of those dang local cultures. And now, as she stumbled through the streets of a residential neighborhood, looking for shelter from the heat, she saw that everyone else was suffering too. Crowds of people sweating like ice on fire.
She felt practically burnt just by gazing at a city guard as he passed her in full plate armor. How did the man stand it?
She didn't really know where she was going. The first inn she'd stayed at had kicked her out because she kept entering the wrong rooms while being mad drunk in the middle of the night. Most rooms were occupied by couples at that inn, and the occupants were not pleased to find her trying to crawl into their beds in the dead of night. Especially the wives. There was more than one misunderstanding there.
But was it really her fault? The dang rooms in inns looked all the same, and unlike classier hotels, they didn't have room numbers on the doors. 'Third one down the hall' was her room.
Alright, it probably was her fault. She got a little bad at counting after a few bottles of brandy. She kept entering the "second" and "forth" room down the hall.
So she quickly found a second inn, and there, she was given the room 'directly across from the stairs'—hard to get that wrong.
Unfortunately, that inn eventually kicked her out as well for a much more typical reason: she didn't pay her bill for the third night straight.
Elsa knew the day she'd run out of funds would come. She just hadn't planned for it. She figured best to deal with it later. And now later had arrived, but she still had no plan.
She'd need to get a job obviously, but what kind of job would she want? She'd never had a job in her life. She hadn't needed one in her old life when she… well, there was no point in thinking about the past. In any case, a more realistic question was what kind of job would have her?
Whatever. That was a problem to figure out later. She still had a handful of copper burnishes, and she desperately needed to get out of the heat and find something to drink, or else certain death was on the horizon, or at the very least, certain exhibitionism.
She took the next turn and wandered onto a cobblestone road. The area was nice except for the blazing heat radiating from the stones on the ground. She could feel them cooking her just by walking across them.
But luckily the street was filled with restaurants and taverns, unlike the previous neighborhood she'd wandered through. She could hideout in one of these until nighttime and figure out her next steps once her brain had cooled.
She stopped in front of a tavern with tall white walls and golden trim. Bright reflective stones lined the walkway to the front door. The place looked excellently maintained as if the owners had spent hundreds of gold brilliances to polish every detail of the exterior to perfection.
From outside, she could hear the hushed tones of conversation. Not exactly the sound of a tavern, but Elsa figured it was still early, so she stepped forward and pushed open the smooth oak door.
Inside, she found several men sitting at marble tables, dressed in finery. There was a bar, though she had to look around to find it. It was also made of white marble, but it was short and looked more like a serving station than a real bar.
The men all turned to look at her as she entered, and she wondered if this was a private gentleman's club and not a tavern.
A man in a full butler's uniform came up to her. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, trying to decide if he'd welcome her in. But in the end, he chose to ignore her ragged and sweaty appearance and asked, "May I find you a table, Miss?"
"I'll take a seat at the bar," she said.
The man nodded and led her over, which was entirely unnecessary. Just as she sat down one of the men dressed in thick velvet came up to her.
The room was much cooler than outside, but Elsa still felt hot just looking at the man's attire.
"I haven't seen you around here," the man said with a smooth, smug tone. "I'm Theodore Hallidon, a gemstone merchant. Perhaps you've heard of me."
Elsa said nothing and waved at the bartender.
"Please, allow me to buy you a drink," Theodore said.
Elsa could barely afford tomorrow night's food, but she could tell that this was not the type of man to accept offers from.
So she said, "That's alright. I'll buy my own drink."
"It's no trouble. She'll have a Spoolifa," Theodore said to the barman. "On my tab."
"A what?" Elsa said.
"A Spoolifa. You'll like it," the man said, grinning, and he slowly ran his eyes over her body, letting Elsa watch him as he did it.
That was the other thing about the Adentrians. As prudish as they were, they acted like they'd never seen a feminine figure before. Cover yourself up because if you don't, we'll lose our minds and transform into raging perverts.
The drink arrived in a tall glass filled with pink bubbling liquid. Elsa stared at it hesitantly, then took a sip and immediately spat it out. "Feh! What is this solvent?!"
"It's a lady's drink. Have more. You'll enjoy it."
"No thanks, tastes like boiled sugar," Elsa said, setting down the drink and getting up to leave.
"Now wait a minute," Theodore said. "I just bought you a drink. You've done nothing to repay me."
"How typical of you," Elsa said. "This is exactly why I didn't want a drink from you."
Theodore smiled widely. "But the drink was made and taken out of my tab. Unfair that I get nothing in return."
"So cry about it," Elsa said and turned to leave.
"Hey, I wasn't done talking to you."
Elsa ignored him right up to the point he put his hand on her arm, dragging her around to face him.
Elsa was shocked that the man would touch her. She looked around, but none of the other men seemed disturbed by the action. Was this the norm around here?
"Come on now," the man said, pulling her closer. "I'll take you to a nice dinner, then we could have some fun tog-"
The man's sentence was cut off by the fist that Elsa sent into his nose.
He spun through the air, landing with a hard thump on the floor. He was knocked out cold.
"There's your payment for the drink," Elsa said. "You'll enjoy it. When you wake up."
The whole room went quiet, several of the men looked very disturbed now with wide eyes and gaping mouths, but none of them had anything to say as Elsa glared at them.
Then she stalked out of the tavern.
As she exited, she took note of the sign at the door. The place was called "The Grand Taphouse."
She spat out the remnants of the Spoolifa on the stone steps. "What a farce."
Then she headed further down the cobblestone road, the heat enveloping her again.
None of the other restaurants and taverns looked appealing to her. They just didn't have the right feel. She was starting to think that she was in the wrong area of town, but then she spotted an old cottage with stone and brick walls and dark wood pillars and beams.
This place was definitely different from the other establishments on the street. It was larger than the others, with a second story, but also shabbier. Not exactly poorly maintained, just older, with dents and nicks in the wood and stone, a place that had stood the test of time.
But the plaque above the front door looked new. The words read 'The Tipsy Pelican Tavern.' A bird with a mug of ale and a satisfied smile was carved into the plaque below the name.
Elsa chuckled. It reminded her of her friend Dalton, who would often quip, 'What are you? A dang pelican?' as he watched her put down mugfuls of beer. But then she grew a little sad at the thought and pushed it away, moving to enter the tavern.
As she stepped closer, she did not hear anyone inside the tavern. The Grand Taphouse had quiet murmurs of conversation, but this place was entirely silent. A true tavern had sounds of laughter and drunken debates, and maybe even a fight or two if you were to consult Elsa's opinion about it.
But the sun was setting, and the Tipsy Pelican Tavern was silent outside its walls. Was the place even open?
It was still hotter than hell outside, and she'd not seen anything else interesting, so she decided to give it a shot and entered.
The place was empty. There was a long bar at the far wall and several tables and chairs set about. The place looked much smaller on the inside, and she realized there was probably more space in the back.
She headed toward a doorway blocked by curtains. Was the main area through there?
"Hello?" She said.
As she stepped closer to the curtains, she could hear voices, a young man and a young woman's.
"Master left Charm to prepare all by herself again," said the female voice. The voice had a unique accent that Elsa couldn't quite place.
"I was at the market buying honeydew melons!" The male voice replied.
"Master left at noon and now it's nearly five. It does not take five hours to shop at the market."
"I uh got lost on the way… then again on the way back."
"Charm understands. Master got lost at a brothel, didn't he?"
"A what?! Of course not! How could you think that?"
"Charm is not unaware of how Master peers at the young ladies on the streets."
"What!? You notic—Er I mean, you must be mistaken. I've merely taken an interest in fashion lately. "
Elsa wasn't sure how she was going to interrupt this conversation, but she was in desperate need of a cold drink. So she said, "Ahem… is anyone there?"
"Good gods, it's a customer!" The male voice said as if shocked.