The walk to the inn was relatively uneventful. Annie had to fend off a few more people but before long they ended up in front of the inn.

Shadow was irritated that she had failed to figure out which of the buildings it was before they started heading towards the door. It was taller than most of the other buildings that were around, but it was hardly alone in its height. There were other buildings that were even taller. Well, one building. She had been betting on that one but they turned away before they ever reached it. Despite her mild annoyance, she was extremely excited about the fact she was about to go inside a building!

She started bouncing on her paws again. She’d been doing that a lot today.

Annie pushed open the door (It moved so easily! She wondered how that worked. Another question added to the list...) and stepped inside. Shadow followed right behind her, quickly moving back into the heeling position after making it through the hole the door left behind.

She stared around. It really was like a built cave. She took her time admiring everything. There was furniture in here, and people were using it. She didn’t know what any of it was called yet, but she could see its usefulness. She had theories about some of them. There was one thing people were using to sit on. She was pretty sure that one was called a chair. They'd been mentioned in a few stories she'd heard from her companions, and people sat on them. The other familiar one was called a table, which she learned about in the same manner.

She wasn't certain she was right though. For example, there was a taller table that the lady Annie was talking to was behind, but it looked different from the other tables in the room. By her current definition of a table (the thing you put stuff on to be able to reach it better if you were a human) the thing the lady was behind qualified, but the differences made her think it might be called something else.

She figured she'd know soon enough.

So many questions!

Annie was discussing how much it would cost to stay here with the lady behind the tall table.

Shadow had gotten a brief rundown on money and coinage. Basically, you could do stuff for—or give things to—people, and they would give you these very pretty coins. Once you had the coins, you could use them to get other people to do things for you—or to give you stuff. The coins were handy because everyone wanted them, where maybe not everyone would value the things you could do or the stuff you could give them.

It was still kind of confusing because as far as she could tell the reason everyone wanted the coins, was because everyone wanted the coins. They were valued because you could trade with them (they were also pretty, but apparently that mattered less.)

How did that system even get started? She had way too much stuff to ask already. That was at the back of the list.

Speaking (well, thinking) of her list, the number of things she wanted to ask was getting pretty large at this point. She took some time to organize all the questions and new objects she’d made note of into categories. Hopefully, the answers she received were relevant to more than one thing. It'd also make it easier to bring up everything that was relevant to a given topic. She hoped. She was kind of unsure how to categorize some of the things she'd seen.

She decided to count them all up as she re-arranged them. Numbers was one of her favorite things that Annie had taught her about. Right now, she only knew how to count and add, but there were apparently many more things that could be done with them!

They were already handy for things like this.

641! That’s a lot! … it’s going to take a while to write all this out.

Perhaps she could draw pictures or point? Describing all this with letters would be like torture. She would need to use quite a few words she didn’t know how to spell yet.

Well, it’ll be a good excuse to help fill out my spelling list more.

She went through it in her head for a bit. There were still so many that she knew the speech sounds for but not the letters. She always needed to sound those out, and she got it wrong more often than not. Why do letters have to have so many silly rules... It didn't help that the rules often had exceptions. They couldn't even keep consistent.

She really wished there was some sort of way for her to just see all the words and their spellings. Who knows? Maybe that was a thing. She’d have to ask Annie.

642…

She dreaded having to spell everything out anyway.

I really need to get this mana manipulation thing down.

It would make it so much easier.

Annie finally finished with the clerk. She looked annoyed now. Shadow had been lost in thought looking at stuff and categorizing her list, so she had missed what happened. It must not have been too bad because they all just proceeded up some sort of… built hill? It was like a series of little ledges that kept getting higher.

So awesome.

She was able to walk up them, though it was a little bit hard. They weren’t really sized for her. Her human companions were having a much easier time of it with their long legs. She'd need to ask what they were called.

643… I wonder how many questions I’ll collect?

It’d probably take over a week to ask them all at this point. She wasn’t sure, just guessing with her gut at this point. Though if what Annie said about math was true, she would eventually be able to use it to make a real estimate. But that would have to wait for later.

They made it to the top of the constructed hill, walked over to another door, and went through it. Inside the new area, there was more furniture she had never seen. There was a flat-ish lumpy thing in a corner, that looked to be covered in cloth? It was put up on some other wooden thing that seemed to hold it off the ground. There was also what looked like some sort of… place to put things? It was a four-sided thing that just had a big empty space in the middle of it. It was sitting at the base of the lumpy cloth.

There was also an opening to outside on the… outside touching part of the building. She could see the sky through it. She really wanted to go over and look out of the hole. She should be able to look down at the other buildings! They had to be higher up than before given their climb.

There was also some more of the sitting and putting things down furniture.

Annie closed the door behind them, then leaned back on it, and closed her eyes for a second.

Shadow glanced back at the door. Was Jonas not going to follow them in?

"I should not have let you play tag. What dog plays tag?" She asked the room, throwing her arms in the air, her eyes falling on Shadow.

Am... am I supposed to answer that? Shadow thought to herself.

Shadow shrugged.

I just wanted to play tag! You're the dog expert!

Annie just shook her head, running a hand through her hair.

"Sorry, Shadow. That wasn't really a question. I shouldn't have let your very manipulative expression get the better of me. No more playing tag alright? No more walking on your hind legs either. It's... not a normal dog thing to do. I was fielding some very hard to explain questions. Your collar now has special 'tag' and 'trick' functionality by the way."

Shadow frowned, or at least did her best impression of one. She'd seen a dog go up on its back legs when she was walking around!

She pointed over at Annies backpack and mimed writing.

"Yes, I suppose it's a little unfair to leave this conversation one-sided."

Annie removed herself from the door and started getting out Shadow's journal and some ink.

Annie started talking as she set up the writing supplies on the put-things-down furniture,

“I’m betting you’re wondering what most of this stuff is?”

Shadow nodded vigorously, her frown disappearing, and Annie gave her a knowing smile.

“Okay, let's get started. This is a chair, and this is a table. Most people do things like writing, eating, or drinking while sitting in a chair at a table if they're available.

She motioned for Shadow to jump up on the chair. Shadow did so.

“Okay, put your front legs up on the table, can you reach the ink and your journal alright?”

She could. It was kind of odd. She was standing up but all of her stuff was arrayed right in front of her forepaws. It would take a bit of getting used to but she thought she could manage writing like this. Annie had also put down a small cloth on the table.

She nodded.

"Good, whenever you're done writing, make sure to wipe off your claw on the cloth. It was fine when you were walking in the forest, but you don't want to get ink all over the inn."

Oh, so that's what it's for.

She nodded again, then started writing, Annie correcting the words she didn’t know how to spell yet.

'I saw a dog on its back legs!'

"Ah, so that's what it was. Yes, sometimes dogs will do that, but... not as you can. You're more nimble than the average dog. But frankly, most of the strangeness was from you trying to dodge and avoid the children... you were moving too much like a human would. People were getting unnerved."

'Why does that bother people so much?'

It really didn't make sense to her. How could her movements being humanlike possibly matter? Movements weren't smart, were they?

"That's... a hard question to answer. Would it be ok if I just told you they did? I know you have many other questions you'd like to ask."

Shadow thought about it, but finally relented and agreed to let the matter drop with a nod. She started up on her other questions.

'Where did Jonas go?'

He still hadn't followed them in. He'd been right behind them so... what happened to him?

“Oh, he’s going out to run some errands while we talk. He’ll be staying in the room next to ours.”

'Why isn't he staying here?'

“Well we only have one bed here, he wouldn’t fit. Oh, that’s a bed.” she said, pointing at the lumpy cloth thing.

“They… come in a lot higher quality than that one, but it’s essentially a comfy place for people to sleep.”

Shadow looked over at it in interest, her eyes sparkling. She gestured going over to it, asking if she could check it out.

Annie laughed and gave her the go-ahead.

Shadow hopped down from the chair (after wiping off her claws) and moved over to the big cloth thing, and started poking at it. It wasn’t the softest cloth she’d felt, but it gave when she pressed on it. She looked back at Annie.

“Go on, hop up on it.”

She readied herself, then pounced on to the bed.

She landed, and the bed formed a little divot around her. It was so weird!

She hopped again, landing again with a little 'paff'. She grinned over at Annie. Annie just grinned back.

She spent a couple of minutes jumping around, delighting in the way the bed squished under her. Annie finally stopped her when she started trying to climb up the wooden sides of the building to get more height.

"No claws in the walls! We don't want to damage the room."

Shadow nodded, and changed tacks, sprawling herself over on the bed and wiggling around. It was pretty comfy! It felt so odd compared to the ground. It reminded her of laying in tall grass. It was almost like someone had put a bunch of grass in a cloth sack, come to think of it.

She got herself back on her legs and hopped off the bed, running back over to the chair. She got back up and started asking questions again.

'Is it filled with grass?'

“This bed is actually! It’s filled with a specific type of grass we call straw. It’s a little more complicated than that, given straw is a processed form of a cereal crop, but you are essentially correct. Good guess!”

Shadow grinned. She loved it when she was right about things.

Shadow moved on to her next question.

Things went on like that for a while.