Honestly, the transition from noble accommodations back to basic inns was a rather painful shift.
Gone were the silk sheets and soft down mattresses.
Returned to them were cheap, scratchy sheets and feather mattresses that occasionally poked people with a stray quill.
Had it not been for the one hundred thousand gold given to them, twenty thousand for each party member, Liora was fairly sure it would have been unbearable.
Instead, she had grand plans.
Gone would be the ratty attire she had traveled in for days on end.
A warm welcome would be extended to the new clothes she would buy with her newfound money.
She was practically giddy at the idea.
Then someone knocked on the door.
"Thalia, Liora," Aiden called from the other side, "Victor said we need to meet him downstairs once you're dressed."
It felt like someone had thrown a rock through the glass pane of Liora's dreams.
She grumbled incessantly to herself as Thalia silently got dressed beside her.
Thalia was a bit of an oddball, but much to Liora's delight, she seemed to be trying to learn normalcy as of late.
"What do you think we'll run into down there?" Liora asked, turning to see how Thalia would respond.
Thalia simply shrugged.
Liora sighed, walked over, and tapped her shoulder in the way she had gone over with her before.
Thalia turned to her.
"Was that another awkward response?" Thalia asked. "I really don't know, so I gestured as such."
Liora nodded, hearing her explanation, then crossed her arms and leaned onto her right leg.
"True, but just shrugging makes people think you're brushing them off. Generally, for situations like this, a response could be something like, I don't know, but I hope we still get to do X."
She finished pulling on her pants and grabbed her things, spinning one piece in that practiced way she did just in case she ever got to do it in front of a young adventurer and have them idolize her.
"The message conveys basically the same thing whether I gesture or say it aloud," Thalia said. "So what is the difference?"
"The difference is that you're offering something about yourself," Liora explained as they made their way down the stairs. "Conversations are always a give and take of information. People find those who don't give anything kind of off-putting."
She glanced back at Thalia.
"So you need to give something. Even something as small as what you want to do today, without being asked directly, gives insight into your thought process and allows the conversation to build from there."
Waiting for them below were Aiden, Selene, Jax, and the fox girl.
They sat on one side of the table.
Well, mostly.
The fox girl was still very unsure of how to sit in a chair, so she was only partially seated and mostly standing.
Across from them, Victor pointed at a quest page and said, "Trrrrrrust me, quests that rrrreferrrrence movies arrrrrre the ones that generrrrrrally have the best hidden loot."
Liora and Thalia walked over to the others.
Liora noticed Thalia give the fox girl the stink eye for a moment before reading the quest.
Missing Rat Employee Investigation (E)
The eccentric owner of Gruffsnout's Gnaws & Noshes, a rat-run restaurant in Lushfort, has grown increasingly paranoid after one of his rat employees, named Scramble, has not shown up in two days.
He believes the missing worker may have sold secret recipes to a rival cat-themed restaurant.
Locate Scramble and determine if any culinary betrayal has occurred.
Reward:
800 Gold + 1 Secret Recipe
Failure:
500 Gold deducted for false lead compensation and stress relief cheese.
Liora glanced around at the others.
A general consensus shot through the group.
What is a movie?
How does a rat restaurant with a paranoid chef reference that?
Are we positive this was not posted by a bored kid?
The fox girl stared at the poster for a moment.
She tapped a paw against a few of the words from time to time while Jax spoke them aloud and explained what they meant in Natural.
She perked up at the word rat and asked in broken Common, "Place where eat rat made?"
"A-Actually," Selene said carefully, "the rat is the chef, and he makes food for people. The rats are not for eating."
The fox girl stared for a moment.
Then Jax whispered in her ear.
She got a sad look on her face and stepped back.
"Okay," Liora said, "but in all seriousness, this looks like it was posted by a kid as a prank. Are we positive this is an actual quest?"
Victor nodded as if all of those were good points.
Then he placed his paw down, reached into a small bag, grabbed a second quest, and slid it across the table.
"I am not only assigning you all this quest," Victor said, "I am splitting you into teams of thrrrrree."
He tapped the first page.
"Jax, Selene, and the new fox girrrrrrrrrl will be in charrrrrrrrrge of handling the rrrrrrrattastrrrrrrrophy."
Then he tapped the second page.
"Aiden, Liorrrrrra, and Thalia will be doing this quest instead."
Radiant Menace Elimination (D)
A dangerous Luminous Cobalt Dungeness Crab has been spotted off the Sapphire Coast, reportedly disrupting shipping lanes and searing local wildlife with bursts of radiant energy.
Captain Orlin Thatch of the Tidepier Guild has issued an official kill contract, claiming the beast is fully active and must be exterminated before it recovers further.
Locate and kill the Luminous Cobalt Dungeness Crab.
Proof of kill, such as a carapace shard or radiant gland, must be provided.
Reward:
2,800 Gold + 1 Radiant Gland
Failure:
1,600 Gold penalty for damages caused by a failed hunt, and hazard pay to other contracted adventurers.
As they stared at the second quest, Liora slowly looked up.
"Uh, that's a D-rank quest," she said. "As in, the kind of quest taken on by late obsidian-rank adventurers to steel-rank adventurers."
She pointed between herself and the others.
"We are still not even out of porcelain rank. What do you expect us to do here? Tag along? Help another party handle this? Watch you fight and take notes?"
"No," Victor said. "You, Aiden, and Thalia will be fighting this crab. I will be watching."
"But without our frontliners, we will only have Aiden to rely on for not getting killed," Thalia said. Then she glanced at him. "No offense, Aiden."
Liora tapped Thalia's leg under the table to let her know she was missing something.
"No, I agree with you," Aiden said. "Sure, I've gotten at least a little better at using a spear, but I am nowhere near being able to take on a D-rank monster."
He stared down at the quest.
"Hell, I think even if all of us were there, we would at best wound it before getting massacred."
Victor raised an eyebrow and gave a calm smile.
"What if I told you it would be at the strength of an E-rank monster for three hours sometime in the next two days?"
Everyone perked up and stared at him.
Victor chuckled.
"The crab is going to molt. Its normally impregnable defenses will be reduced enough for you to hurt it. And with all the energy it will expend molting, it will be wide open for an attack."
"Okay," Liora said, "but that still leaves us fighting, what, a high E-rank monster? With half our team? And no core frontliners?"
She was becoming increasingly worried about just how good a teacher this cat actually was.
Victor smiled.
This time, it was a bit more sinister.
"Rrrrrrelax. Only thrrrrrrough grrrrrreat adverrrrrrsity can one grrrrrrow strrrrrrrongest."
He gave them a smug look.
"Plus, I alrrrrrrrready signed you up forrrrrrr the quests. So unless you want to pay the twelve-hundred-gold fee forrrrrr failing the quest, I suggest you get moving."
The table was still for one long moment.
Then Aiden, Thalia, and Liora scrambled up the stairs.
Could they pay the fine for failing?
Sure.
But even now that they had a lot of gold on hand, twelve hundred was still twelve hundred.
So they went running upstairs to grab their gear, yelling in unison.
"You stupid HAIRBALL!"