A Quest For Allies. First Path of Sunlight

Chapter 3. Pub Quiz.

Broodly was annoyed

He was annoyed because he had to stay in this smelly dirty inn.

Broodly was not snobbish or precious normally.

He could usually rough it in the dirt of any deep cavern or the wilds as well as any ranger.

He had more than once taken some monster by surprise by hiding his own sent by camping in and secretly peeking out of that creature own dung pile and thought nothing of it.

So it was not the filth in and of itself that had annoyed him so much.

It was the trying to constantly keep his kit and himself scrupulously clean when he was not normally used to doing that.

All the excess hassle only brought home to him more clearly how much time people seem to waste trying to look nice all the time, at the expense of real work and tasks that had real value.

Like practising at shooting fast-moving stuff from a distance better!

But today he was going to have a minor role is some diplomatic nonsense at the local dark wood elven court.

This meant he had to be what was called “Presentable”.

Which meant frustratingly chasing every speck of dirt that kept randomly marring his ridiculously brightly coloured outfit.

Bits of dirt that he would not give two thoughts about normally when he was dressed in proper colour shaded and proper smelling forest hunting gear, now constantly seemed to haunt and taunt him.

Broody had to maintain all this while at the same time having to sleep in the common area with all the other tavern drinkers that could also not afford a private room.

(This pretty much, normally meant simply drinking in the public bar area until you pass out where you stood, then worried about it in the morning!)

So to keep his kit and himself “diplomatic event standards” clean, he had to not enjoy any alcohol himself, while also avoiding any of the puke, bar fight blood, piss, soiled food, s**t, spilt beer and spit beer.

All the while facing all the taunts from all those noticing that he was saying sober.

AND feeling jealous of them all at the same time!

It was the equivalent one of us, in this world, being a designated driver at a turn of the century new years eve party at your favourite wild rock stars house IF you were still only in your early twenties! And you desperately wanted to party but could not!

Despite all the danger, traps, hardships and adventure Broody had ever faced, THIS had been by far the worse night of his life!

In the morning, he carefully unfolded what he felt he could while multiple snores of past out tavern patrons filed the air around him.

Broody needed to do a quick check of what had could see without any mirror then tiptoe out without getting his outfit ruined and then somehow make it to his station to report for duty and stay clean!

Carefully and slowly he groomed and dressed up the best he could very slowly and gingerly over the next hour from about 4 am in the morning, onwards.

As he had nearly finished and was about to creep past all the unconscious bodies to fresh air,

A human of indeterminate age and gender sat bolt upright and projectile vomited then immediately collapsed, straight deep-pan back, with a large crack as their head hit full force on the stone-clad floor. Then after a brief blowing of some gross anal wind, resumed snoring loudly again.

Broodly looked down in dismayed horror.

And shouted…

“What the Wipe!”

“My armour is covered in human ‘Glad Or-real’!”

“I only cleaned the Flushing thing yesterday!”

There was a soft creak of stairs as someone had obviously heard him and had then decided to retreat back to their own private room.

That meant someone upstairs with a private room was awake and up!

Those private rooms had washbasins and mirrors!

If he asked really, super, nicely with the full beam of his ‘school of charm mentality’, he might be able to ask for that person's help!

Broodly tried to wipe the worst of what he could, off,

This took about forty minutes.

He then went upstairs to try and charm himself up some help.

Both a mixture of his elf ears and his ranger training made it easy to know which of the five available rooms the mystery person on the staircase had come from.

It was far too early at this stage for Broodly to realise that he was about to have both the best and worst day he had ever had in his long elven life! – that is, so far!

Glad Or-real was about to get a surprise knock on her bedroom door!