Local Flavor.

They made their way to the only inn this dilapidated town ever had and were not disappointed. They say no expectation, no grief. It was the duo circumstances exactly.

'Typical witcher world inn. Dirty, smells like horse crap and I bet beer here is sour to the point of becoming acid. Great find indeed, with local flavor.'

Immediately the whole hall became silent. Two swords, cat eyes and stuff. Some of the more welcoming people spit at their path. Don't know what is the use of it, maybe they expected at least one of them to slip?

Alan choose farther corner and sat down, observing people inside. He looked how Coen went to buy some beer and with hearing higher than any normal human picked up of their dialog.

"Owner, I want beer." - said Coen with even voice.

"Sold out." - answered trough his teeth a pot bellied middle aged man, looking at the witcher with some triumph.

"Owner, repeat!" - screamed some drunkard from the table.

Well, the man behind the bar with no guilt or shame poured a pint of beer and shoved it to the waitress, who already was staring in Alan's direction with a gaze full of animal desire. Coen traced her hips swaying with a bored look and again directed his attention to the owner.

"Sold out, huh?"

"Whacha need, freak? Ya came, asked beer, do ya think I sell beer for freaks? If a pig come whining to me, ya think I'll giva it a beef steak for meal, huh? I giva it the food it deserves. I doncha have beer for freaks! Want some, go beg for piss!" - owner cursed and Alan really wanted to give him couple of spells into the gut.

'Should have learned some pranking spells, like the one making person laugh uncontrollably or spitting out sludges. Or the one cutting hair and making skin change color. Shame I didn't, it would have been very useful here. Need to use some time to come up with them I guess.'

'Oh, but I do know transfiguration, no?'

Alan smiled and walked up to the bar. He thought hard what to do and decided not to change a part of owner body into one of a pig. He is in Witcher universe now and that can as well give that swine a direct ticket to scaffold to be executed via burning in sacred flame. It has to be something barely traceable.

"Are you giving me beer or not?" - Coen asked with the same face, but his hand placed a steel sword on the table.

"Whacha doing, freak?" - owner took a step back with his eyes suddenly becoming fearful.

"Loosing patience." - evenly notified the owner Coen while looking like a hawk at him.

At that moment no one except for one person noticed a particular sound. Coen immediately looked at Alan with suspicion.

"You just snapped you fingers, right?" - after some time together one thing the witcher learned to be aware of in presence of Alan is when he is snapping his fingers. It means soon something gonna happen.

And magnitude of that can be completely different, from the belts being cut to something really fearsome. Like what Alan said, that once upon a time there existed a 'mushroom beard' who with a snap of a finger solved half universe of problems. How powerful was that move?

So Coen expected some shit go down the drain every time Alan snapped his fingers. It went to the point of creating a supernatural precognition of snapping fingers.

Nothing happened for couple of seconds, but after that enraged screams filled the inn.

"Whacha gave me you crook?! Wha that urine?" - came enraged roar and after that all people stood up with a clear objective.

"Ya drunkard, no complaining, don't like it, get lost." - Alan watched how everything unfolded and could only marvel and customer service here. Let alone people's stupidity. In their drunk stupor they didn't even realized that even half way done pints had the problem.

"Wha, ya sonuwa dog and a horse! Ya wanna stick to it, eh, ya fuckface cockshit twat?"

"Wow." - Alan nearly clapped hearing such awesome twist of the native language. That's some high end stuff alright! He clearly was looking at all that with interested face, not expecting such explosion of temper.

Man, that huge lumberjack knows how to swear.

"What a man of culture." - said Coen a compliment to the man with tongue without bones while evading flying mug and finally pouring himself a pint of beer with his own hands. He was clearly entertained to see a start of a fight and drank beer with sutisfied grin, plastered all over his face.

Meanwhile a local friendly spar was gradually transforming into full out brawl with overturned tables and boiling emotions.

"Don't you fear to drink urine?" - Alan smirked.

"Unless you do your finger snap thingy again I don't fear even a manticore appearing to bite my ass!" - declared the bearded witcher with glee. It was rare for him to relax so much.

"Want a manticore here?" - bluffed Alan with serious expression while raising a hand and watching how elongated Coen face became, almost like a washboard.

"No, no! I will really go bald with you!" - he nervously laughed.

"You are bald, Coen." - stated Alan with bored look.

"I can go bald on the beard too! With a freak of nature like you nothing is impossible." - Coen gulped down the mug and leaned for seconds. - "Want some?"

"I'm fourteen."

"Ah, when I was fourteen Nera and Jessy were my choices... old times..." - he smiled and gave a kick at one of the drunkards trying to sneak attack him with a stool. - "So, want some?"

"I don't drink, ancient fossil." - sighed Alan and get back at him again.

"You are such a downer." - Coen laughed and went ahead to smash couple of faces he remembered to spit on the floor.

After an hour a grumpy owner finally took their money to stay overnight, while holding a lump of liver at his panda eye, so duo retreated to their respective rooms.

While at it, Alan wanted to go around his spells and find what are the most effective to use in lethal and non-lethal combat. First that came to mind is actually Protego. Seeing effectiveness of Quen design Alan wanted to create something similar. He needed it to be a temporary enchantment that can block any damage.

So he changed the form of Protego spell and made it flexible, all the while starting to listen to Coens night exercise.

"That ancient fossil. He will create a scene if I put him into silent dome there. His medallion is annoying, can detect any spells and magic, even as tuned to nature as Isu one should be." - Alan sighed and entered deeper in meditation.

He changed properties of the spell and made analogy of Quen, that he named Isu-Quen. It was stronger and protected him longer. But there is a downside. Somehow the formula seems to be very good at negating magic damage, but flimsy like a paper in front of regular physical attacks.

'To fix it I need some real time for research. It is a fundamental flaw. Maybe it is better to learn Quen first and then integrate it? That's a blunder, I suddenly found that I don't have magic to protect myself from non-magical attacks, aside from some stone wall. Hm...'

Meanwhile the magnitude of battle on the other side of a wall ascended to another level, as the woman screamed on top of her lungs.

'Does she really like it so much?' - thought Alan with curiosity, but opted to not look into what is going on. He might remember that scene forever.

'Whatever. I will meditate even deeper, but that shit really annoys me. Need to get back at the ancient fossil for that somehow.'

With that calming thought Alan finally abstracts from surroundings and continued to work with Isu-Quen.