“Not in the slightest,” Belmont said. He rose to his feet and clanked across the room over to the window. He inspected it with a frown, then reached into his bag and searched around for something.

Arek rolled his eyes and turned over, trying to muffle the sounds. It wasn’t particularly effective.

After several minutes, Belmont finally let out a noise of approval. He wandered back over to his bed and reached into his bag, pulling out what appeared to be a thick wooly tarp. He laid it out over his sheets and climbed on top of it. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t take off his armor.

Arek hit a relieved sigh. Allowed silence at last, he started to drift off to sleep.

“Do you think someone could enter through the ceiling above us?” Belmont whispered.

“Go to sleep!” Arek snapped. “At this point, I’d rather someone dropped down and stabbed me.”

Belmont grumbled out a few complaints, but he said nothing more. Arek let a small grin cross his face as he finally, blissfully allowed the darkness to take him.

The following morning greeted Arek with a warm, comforting beam of sunlight directly concentrated into his eyes.

The orc groaned, rolling over to get out of the light. Unfortunately, the damage was already done. Arek grumbled under his breath as he pushed himself upright. The room was dark.

Sunlight had managed to poke through the window and illuminate only a single spot out of everywhere in the room – and it was Arek’s bed. The orc rubbed the weariness out of his eyes and stood up.

Belmont was still asleep. The sun evidently only had it out for one of them. Arek reached down and grabbed his travel pack, slinging it over his shoulder before he headed towards the door.

His foot landed on something slippery and he pinwheeled his arms, barely catching his balance as the oil all over the ground nearly sent him crashing down.

Arek pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes. He carefully stepped over the patch of oil and grabbed the door handle. He noticed something was awry just as the handle turned. A dark blur at the corner of his vision was all the warning Arek got.

He ducked as a pan swung through the air, clanging against the door with a loud bang. Belmont leapt from his bed with a startled sputter, his hand reaching for his sword.

“We’re under attack!” Belmont yelled.

“By you!” Arek snapped back.

Belmont blinked and looked around, realizing that nobody else was in their room. He frowned and sent Arek a confused look.

“Why did my trap go off if nobody else is in here?”

“Maybe because you rigged it to the door?” Arek suggested, unable to stop a small laugh from escaping his mouth at the ridiculous situation. The pan had been tied to the ceiling bars with some sort of thin thread, although Arek wasn’t certain how Belmont had managed to keep it there.

“But why did you set it off?”

“Because I didn’t notice it,” Arek grumbled. “You had the pan on the floor last night! How did it get to the ceiling?”

“I moved it, of course,” Belmont said, clicking his tongue. “What if someone was listening in on us? I had to modify our defenses to make sure they’d be unprepared for them.”

“Well, I suppose it worked,” Arek said. “Just on me instead of an intruder. It seems a bit pointless to trap a room against ourselves.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t set our own traps off,” Belmont said. “They’re meant for the intruders, after all.”

“How am I supposed to do that when you change them overnight?” Arek asked. “Actually, don’t answer that. Can I open this door safely?”

“Watch out for the dagger I tied to the other side’s handle,” Belmont said. “And the caltrops I’ve got next to the window, in case you need to climb through it.”

“I don’t think I’d fit through that window,” Arek said, sighing. He carefully opened the door again and glanced back. “Are you coming down?”

“Right after I set up the traps again. We don’t want someone to hide inside our room while we’re gone and then get the jump on us,” Belmont said.

“Right,” Arek said. “That sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll just use our special knock if I get back before you come down.”

“A good idea,” Belmont said with an approving nod.

Arek just massaged his forehead as he closed the door, taking care not to use the handle. He peered down at it – Belmont had indeed tied a dagger to the inside of the door handle, and it was much harder to spot than the orc had expected.

He sighed and sliced the thin lines holding the dagger to the handle, removing it and tossing it into his bag. It would be bad if a maid tried to open the door to clean the room and cut her hand.

The orc wandered over to Malissa and Ming’s room, rapping once on the door. There was no response, so he headed down the stairs.

Unsurprisingly, Arek found Malissa and Ming sitting at a table. A large stack of bowls had piled up beside Ming, who was in the process of shoveling soup into her mouth with a large spoon.

Arek wandered over and sat down.

“Good morning, Arek,” Malissa said.

“Morning,” Arek said. “Ming hasn’t been down here this whole time, has she?”

“Just a few hours,” Ming said. “Their soup is good. Sorry for cheating on your cooking.”

Arek chuckled. “I suspect I’ll live, as heartbroken as I am.”

He peered at Ming’s unfinished bowl, sniffing. The soup actually smelled quite good. It was rich and earthy, with notes of soy sauce and a pleasant warm note. Arek licked his lips and glanced around for a waitress.

It didn’t take long to spot one. The woman from the previous night swept over to their table, her eyebrows only raising slightly at the sight of Ming still eating.

“Could I get what she’s having?” Arek asked, nodding to the growing mountain of bowls.

“Of course,” the waitress replied, smiling and heading into a door behind the counter.