Food and shave

I rested until half way through the next day. Only waking up until well after noon to a smell of roasted meat and something herbal. Walking out into the main lobby I found a small fire with a slab of meat being cooked behind it. The chunk of meat was easily 10 pounds of solid muscle. The outside already carrying a nice char. The barkeep cut off a slice of the meat and passed it over to a man sitting at the bar. He wore simple leather clothes, but had actual armor. Metal plating that lined his right side, crossing his back and chest, though his left side was left exposed. Plating cascaded down his arm to a gauntlet that lay on the counter in front of him. It was the first time I’d seen armor of any kind on anyone but the guards or goon squad. Though different from anything I’d ever seen, it was also rather impressive.

Sitting down at the bar myself I waited for the barkeep to come over. The man about half way down the 20 foot bar, it just took a moment. “Something to help me wake up. Whatever you recommend.” After a moment he nodded and pulled out a large bottle of black liquid. It looked absolutely disgusting, but I immediately recognized the smell. The stench that filled houses dedicated to the damn stuff. A thousand drinks, and all of them drenched in milk. “Coffee?”

“Coffee? I’m afraid I don’t know that one. This is bumna, comes from the south through tradesmen. We can’t grow the beans here, but we can still make it ourselves. The guild master managed to negotiate a deal with traders so we get a sack of it maybe twice a month. Bit bitter, but it’ll wake you up.” His explanation made sense, where the hell would they even grow coffee around here? But the smell… the color… the damn bitter ass taste that bites your tongue… it may have a different name, but it’s coffee. Black coffee with no sugar, cream, or drain to dump it down. Other than my throat. Forcing my way through it I drank down the mug offered. Already feeling some of the after effects, but so long as the caffeine did its job, I’d be happy. With a small eyebrow raise he poured me a second mug without asking. Putting it back before standing in the middle between us.

Coffee? Drank. Stomach? Growling. My next request was for a healthy slice of the meat behind him. Roasted eber, he said. A wild caught animal that tears up farms and roots alike. As the barkeep spoke the man down the counter joined in. “Nasty beasts, they are. Only just killed that one by tricking it to charge off a rock face. Snapped my sword, my spear, and gutted my hala. Trust me kid, if you come across one of those nasty fucks, turn away. Quickly. Don’t let it see you. Don’t let it smell you. They don’t often eat meat, but they’ll do it all the same.”

“The teeth aren’t what you have to worry about, it’s the tusks. Once heard of a man who had his hala impaled to a tree, all the way through in a single charge. Throw in a nasty temper and their basically battering rams with spikes and barbs for hair. Think I got one from butchering this thing this morning” As I ate my meat the keep left us for a moment. Walking behind one of the side doors to the worker’s space. In all truth, their description was a little more than unsettling. Whatever the hell an eber was, I wanted to steer clear of them. Still eating, the door opened once more as the barkeep came back out with a long quill. Like a damn porcupine but a foot and a half long with a visibly barbed end. He passed it over to me as I ran my fingers over it. Following the entire length of the quill was a jagged ridge that curved back towards the base. Just like the barb… to… “They use those as a defense when their just pups. Stops em from being eaten, but as they grow up and get bigger and bigger the quills do too. Later it’s just another weapon. You land on one of those… you’ll likely end up either scarred up, worse.”

My first thought as to what the actual fuck I was holding was some kind of unholy porcupine. I’d seen the komodos, foxes, bears, fucking kraken, but this… I doubted that porcupines suddenly grew tusks and became violent. Especially meat eaters. Didn’t they eat plants and bugs? They didn’t exactly hunt down deer or have tusks that gore them. “Do either of you know the human word for them?”

“Human? I guess, I think it’s something like pora. I’m surprised you don’t know about them already. Rumor is you’re a bit of a wildling yourself, right?” I’ll admit, I almost choked as he called me out for the glaring mistake.

“Oh, yeah. Just got to the village a few weeks ago and now I’m here. My… clan doesn’t travel much and we avoided stuff like this all the time. Mostly eating fish from the lakes and rivers. I’m sure the others know more than me, but I kept to some books we’d traded. Helped me learn the languages. Makes life a lot easier when you can communicate.” After a bit of an awkward moment each man nodded and carried on with the talk of beasts. “How big are these things anyway?”

“Average? Maybe about the size of this bar here. But that’s just the males. Now… it’s the females you have to worry about. They get even bigger and have an even meaner temper. You have to watch out. Males will give up if you get somewhere small and hide, or you get somewhere high like a cliff. But the lady eber… they’ll starve you out and eat what falls.”

“Alright… so avoid eber at all costs. Sounds like a plan to me. Any more sage advice for the novice?” I drank the second mug of coffee that he poured. Not gagging at it anymore at least.

“Just one for today, I would avoid going near the Lord’s hall. There’s a task that one of his servants posted. It’s… not out of the ordinary. Simply a delivery. Ignore it. Don’t look at it. Don’t read it. Don’t take it. You want advice? Never take a delivery from the Lord’s house.”

“Can’t look, can’t read, can’t think. What can I know about it?”

“Only that every other time someone takes the job, they don’t come back. One will, one won’t, one will, one won’t… Job gets marked as done and paid for no matter if they return or not.”

“Why hasn’t the guild master just refused the jobs? He can do that, right? Refuse?”

“Not from the Lord. The master is strong as far as political candidates go. He’s made friends in high places, but he’s still just a guild master. Not a lord, not a noble. To refuse a job from a noble, let alone a lord, is cause for investigation. Almost always found as treason. So while he can’t **** anyone to take it… he can’t refuse it either.”

“Alright… no eber, no mail job. Sounds like a plan.”