Yes, the best inn in town

“We should be there soon,” Zayeh said as Lira navigated their carriage through a city that was unknown to them.

“Hopefully,” Lira agreed as they came closer to the city’s centre, where the houses were larger and better built, although quite a few of them were undergoing renovations that were bound to make them more ostentatious in an effort to display their owners’ new wealth, and there was less people moving about, which was good for Lira and Zayeh as it ensured that they could move at a slightly greater speed, but it also made them feel quite disappointed at not having quite so many pairs of bulging eyes aimed at them, with Zayeh in particular feeling bereft at no longer being the recipient of such a vast amount of lustful stares.

The inn that the two of them were looking for was The Northern Arms, an old establishment that had always catered to those well-off merchants and successful adventurers who had found themselves in Zatakia, one of which had recommended it to Lira and Zayeh, and had even provided them with a vague set of directions for getting there. It was their first choice for spending the night, and if it was as superior to its alternatives as the rumours had made it out to be, then they were prepared to go to some lengths to acquire a room there.

“That’s got to be it,” Zayeh decided as she glanced towards a fairly massive three-story building, with the two bottom ones being stone and the third one having been built with thick, sturdy planks of wood.

“Yes, the sign would suggest that that’s the case,” Lira smirked impishly at her dusky friend, teasing her for not having spotted the large sign hanging over the building’s front entrance with the words “The Northern Arms” painted onto it in fine, twisting letters.

To Zayeh and Lira it wasn’t just that a place like the Northern Arms would mean better food to eat and better beds and clean linens to sleep on, but the better class of people that stayed there would mean both that they would earn more money from their performances and run less of a risk of being pawed at or worse by horny, drunken louts. They had had such unpleasant experiences in the past, and although neither of them had ever been **** as a result, it was still preferable to do as much as possible to avoid risking ending up in that situation again. Both of them still remembered the event a few months ago when Lira had found herself cornered by an unusually large and aggressive bastard, with the only thing that had allowed her to escape that encounter unscathed being Zayeh sneaking up from behind and hitting him over the head. Since they weren’t bloodthirsty enough to kill the would-be ****, they’d done the next best thing by stripping him of all of his possessions and leaving him to wake up later in an alley, as naked as the day he was born.

Moving the wagon down the side-street running alongside the inn’s southern wall, Lira smiled at the sight of the gate leading to its combined backyard and stable being left opened, and guided their horse onto the flagstone-clad grounds while Zayeh noticed that they were being approached on one side by a young, wiry man moving towards them from the stable and an armed, older and much more beefy man stepping out through the inn’s back door and hurrying down the small flight of stone slabs leading up to it from the grounds.

“Sorry misses,” the young man, obviously a stable boy and not likely to be more than eighteen or nineteen, and who was also more than a little nervous in the face of two such shamelessly clad beauties, began to stammer out, “but we’re full.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you say he’s kind of cute?” Zayeh asked Lira while keeping her gaze fixed on the young man, jumping at the chance of getting to use her charms on someone a lot more appealing than that guard back at the gate.

“Yes, quite,” Lira replied after throwing a quick glance at the boy, whose thick brown hair and open, friendly face did make him quite attractive in her eyes, being content to play the part of the cool and aloof foil to Zayeh’s much more open and flirtatious behaviour.

“Tell me,” Lira forgot about the stable boy for now and instead turned her focus towards the burly guard, who’s powerful frame and manly facial features made him attractive in a whole different way than that of the stable boy, “could you bring me the proprietor of this place?”

“Every room’s booked, miss,” the guard sounded a lot more civil that his appearance might have suggested, which did make Lira suspect that the Northern Arms were of as high standards as rumour would have it.

“Yes, well,” Lira was quite deliberate in how she stretched her right leg out in front of her to allow the guard to take in how every one of its discreet muscles were flexed before leaping down to land a few yards away from him, taking a certain amount of satisfaction from how he seemed to be on the verge of becoming hypnotized by the gentle swaying of her bust in the wake of her sudden movement, “tell him we have a business proposal.”

Lira then waited as the guard nodded his head and lingered on for a moment or two, obviously being unwilling to take his eyes off her, before finally turning round and heading back inside to find his boss and bring him to her.

“So tell me,” Lira could hear Zayeh ask the stable boy on the other side of the wagon, “a handsome young thing such as yourself must have a sweetheart.”