Chapter 8 Part 2

After the scrumptious meal, Engilram headed up to his now ready room to put away his belongings inside the bedside table. His religious text, a spare priest's robe, underwear and socks too. On the top of the table, he places a photo of Hilda and the kids. Engilram lies down on the bed and takes a nap.

"gah!" Engilram woke up early the morning after. The sun hasn't even had a chance to rise type of early. "Ugh, I was hoping to have more time to explore the capital a bit, but I guess I got to find where the cathedral is today. I should get an audience with the High priest by then." He said.

Engilram sits up in the bed, yawns and stretches. He seems to have had a good night's sleep. "this bed is way nicer than the one I have back at the church, maybe its time for an upgrade?"

Engilram gazes out the window that was cracked open. "I don't remember opening a window," he looks around. Trying to see if anything had changed. "there," he whispered. Engilram noticed that his bag was open. He would never usually do this, so he realised as odd. The bag moved.

Engilram slowly gets up and walks towards his bag, "I hope a rat hasn't eaten my pastries from last night," as the top of the bag came into full view. He notices all his stuff outside the bag. "did I get robbed?"

(narrator) your coin purse is literally on the floor, you dope! Use your eyes! Oh wait, yeah, that's right. Humans can't see in the dark very well. Why is it so inconvenient to be a human? Like, seriously?

Slowly and cautiously, Engilram tried to make out what was in his bag. He reaches into the bag and touches something fluffy and soft. A soft 'grrr' rumbled from the creature. Engilram flinches back and lights the oil lamp on the bedside table to better see what made that noise.

As the light illuminate's the room, the head of the animal pokes out of the bag. "oh, thank god it's just a cat." Engilram was relieved that it was just an ordinary feline, the cat is a calico breed. Taking a deep breath, Engilram sits back down on the bed and sighed, "did you have fun taking out all my things?"

The cat replied by doing a long-standing stretch and jumping out of the bag. Heading towards Engilram's legs, the cat presses against him, purring the entire time. Engilram pats the bed, signalling pets.

The feline takes Engilram up on his offer and jumps on the bed, nuzzling into his hand. Engilram and the cat just sat there, enjoying the company of one another for a few hours. Scratching, petting, belly rubs. It felt quite special to Engilram. His entire life, he's never had this much bliss from interacting with an animal.

"oh crap, I never asked the innkeeper where the bathroom is, did I? what am I going to do?" Engilram said inquisitively.

Engilram made the choice to sneak out of his room in the middle of the night to... attempt to find the bathroom. And the clueless idiot didn't bring the lamp he just lit, so he's fumbling in the pitch-black dark, making lots of noise just to find the bathroom.

(narrator) he's gonna get caught. I guarantee it.

As expected, Zoey poked her head round the corner as she heard the commotion he was making. In a hushed tone she says, "ok thank god, it's only the priest. What is he trying to do?" Engilram hasn't noticed Zoey's presence in the slightest, so she hatched a plan so scare the shit out of him. Gradually, slowly tiptoeing towards him, Zoey gets into his ear and whispers, "you good?"

Nothing other than a squeak came out of Engilram in terms of noise as to not wake the other inn customers. However, his physical reaction was the exact opposite. Squirming, tweaking, sweating all the usual reactions to a scare but amplified.

"why the hell would you do that?" Engilram said in a hushed yell.

With an evil-looking smile and an unusual tone, Zoey says, "cuz its funney"

"that wasn't amusing to me, I'm old. You're supposed to go easy on me." Engilram bites.

"oh, please. I know what you did in that wolf fight. Your friends told me everything. I've known them a lot longer than you. What are you doing out here, anyway? And in the dark, no less." Zoey replied.

"ok, I get it. I'm stupid, but I never asked you where the bathroom is so..." Engilram said.

Snickering and desperately trying not to howl, Zoey says, "you realise that there is a toilet and shower in your room, right?"

"you're lying. Please tell me you're joking. Either that or I'm finally going blind after all these years." Engilram asked.

"Nope. There is a door on the end of the left wall as you walk in." Zoey explains. "anyway, seeing as we are both awake. Come join me downstairs so we can chat while I prepare to open. After you take a shit or whatever. Just don't break my toilet, spent good money on that ceramic." She continued, jokingly.

"you have ceramic!" Engilram yelled. Instantly after, he gets close to Zoey and whispers the same thing. "I thought ceramic was only invented a few years ago. How did you manage to buy such an expensive commodity? Isn't that like a 10 silver pieces per kilogram?" He questioned.

Zoey tells a story to answer his question. "well, it turns out a blacksmith in town managed to get the aluminium to make some, and ended up inventing the ceramic toilet. He calls it a poop sucker, but I still prefer toilet. It has a wooden seat. oh, and it's painted white for aesthetics. He came to me, asked to place one here, and he reserved eight more for the rooms if I liked it. Turns out I did. I no longer need to clean nine holes, instead a single container that converged in my basement. Cost me a pretty penny, but worth the investment. But it got me more customers, so I don't care."

Engilram's curiosity got the better of him, and he no longer needed to go. Instead, he follows Zoey to the kitchen and asks questions. "awesome. So, it sucks your business away? How?"

"this conversation got weird really quick. I'll stop this by closing any future questions about it. Yes, it sucks away your business by using gravity and water. The bowl where you poop is partially filled with water and when you push a lever, water comes rushing in from something the smith called a tank. When the water fills the bowl enough, gravity pushes everything down, flowing everything through the pipes. The tank water then refills. I don't think that's right, but I feel like that's close." Zoey answers. She looks at Engilram. "yup, I expected that. You look like me when I heard it."

Engilram looks dizzy, smoke coming out of his ears. "did I break you with that Engilram?" Zoey asks.

"it makes no sense to me, its like magic but.. not magic at the same time. OH! I haven't felt like this since someone explained EFS scrolls to me!" Engilram said.

"now that's a juicy piece of information. So, who's your friend? The one rich and powerful enough to have an EFS?" Zoey asked.

"I never said he had one." Engilram said.

"so, they are male. Tell me more." Zoey said smugly.

"you really just outed me that easily." Engilram takes a deep breath. "his name is Heddwyn, he-."

Zoey interrupted Engilram, "Engilram! Please say this person is Heddwyn Longstaff!"

"y-yeah why? How do you know him?" Engilram replied.

"how would you not know that hunky Nekojin? He retired a few years back, which... is a bit disappointing, but he played a huge role in keeping bandits and mercenaries from staging a mutiny." Zoey said.

"I didn't know he was so well known; explains how much money he has. He's a hero." Engilram said.

Staring off into space Zoey says, "a hot ass hero indeed," snapping out of her trance she clears her throat and asks. "so how do you know him?"

"he saved the orphans we had at our church." Engilram answered.

"had?" Zoey asked.

"oh, they didn't die. Heddwyn just adopted them. He said that he wanted his own cubs so." Engilram explained.

"that's cute as fuck." Zoey said.

"and that's racist." Engilram stated.

"I'm sorry?" Zoey said.

"oh, uh. How do I explain this? What we find cute as a human, turns out to be offensive to Nekojin. They don't like to be treated like their animal counterparts." Engilram explained.

"I didn't know." Zoey said.

"neither did I, Heddwyn told me. Just don't say that stuff in front of Nekojin. It's most likely that they will resent you for it," Engilram said.

"ok, I'll do that." Zoey said, finishing her preparations to open.