The people I saw walk the streets of the city weren’t all human. The majority of them were, but there were other races here as well. The ones I’d seen so far were what I assumed were either dwarves or very short and bulgy humans. A few green and brown coloured muscular humanoids with short tusks that were probably orcs and also some kid-sized miniature people with hairy hands and heads that felt just a bit too large for their bodies which I think were halflings.

Once I even think I saw somebody with pointy ears, but I lost them in the crowd before I could determine if they were some kind of elf.

It was cool seeing all of these races in real life, but I wasn’t surprised to see them. Every single one of them were races that existed in ‘The Wayfarer’s Realm’ after all.

I’d walked around the city for a couple of hours, doing nothing but exploring and enjoying the sights. I tried staying as far away from the tower I’d arrived in as I could just to be safe though. The tower was by far the tallest building in the city and you could see it from even the outer edges of the city. And the city was pretty large, so that was saying something. It’d probably take me a couple of hours to walk from one end to another.

I hadn’t gotten a good look of the tower when I was closer, but from here it looked to be an exact replica of the tower from the forest. I wanted to ask people about it, but right now I was afraid to ask too much about the tower. I’d heard people talk about an intruder having exited the tower and being chased by the guards and I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to myself. Better to wait with the questions for a later time. But judging from how much people was talking about it, the tower seemed to be a pretty big deal.

When I saw that the sun was starting to go down, I decided that it was probably best to find some place to sleep. I asked a nearby person for a place where I could pay for lodging and he pointed me to an inn a few blocks away. The inn itself was decently sized and had a sign above the door that had both text on it, which I couldn’t read, and a picture of a man lying down on a bed.

The inside of the inn looked about as I expected. It was a medium-sized room where basically everything was made out of different shades and kinds of wood. Even all of the furniture was made of wood, although at least the chairs had cushions on them. At the side of the room there was a pair of stairs that led to the next floor and next to the stairs there was a long counter were a brown-haired woman around my age stood reading a book.

When I entered, she looked up at me and smiled a bright smile. She took a piece of paper from where it lay on the desk and put it between the pages in her book as she closed it. “Welcome to the Weary Trouper!” She announced happily. “How can we help you today? Are you in need of lodging? Because we have that in spares, and its cheap too!” She said in a rehearsed voice.

I walked up to the counter and looked around the room. About a quarter of the tables in here was currently filled with people eating different meals. I’m unsure whether that was a small amount for this time of day.

“I’d like to pay for one night’s stay. How much is that?” I said to the girl and started digging around in my pocket where I’d put some money that I’d taken the time earlier today to hide and pull out some more money from my storage.

“Six silvers for lodging for one night for a single person and eight silver if you want a small meal in the morning and evening too.” She answered.

I took out eight coins of silver that had the same ring with an eye shape encrusted on them, just like the gold coins had. She took them from my hand her smile grew even brighter. “Follow me then, and I’ll show you to your room.” She led me up the stairs and into a hallway that several doors in it. Stopping in front of one, she pulled out a key and unlocked the door before she opened it up and gestured for me to enter.

“This is your room. There’s a wash basin under the bed and an outhouse in the yard behind the building. You can also fill up the basin there if you want. I’d recommend not leaving any personal belongings in your room while you’re not here. We do have locks but there are other ways for people to enter rooms.” She giggled into her hand and continued. “But I guess that doesn’t really matter to you. You don’t have any belongings with you after all.” She said and handed the key to the room.

“I’ll be going downstairs now. You can come down anytime during the evening if you want your meal. All you have to do is ask me. My name’s Arianne.” She said.

“Nice meeting you. I’m Sha-“

I cut myself off.

I tried playing it off by coughing casually before I tried again. “Sorry. I’m Garlyn. Garlyn Grandwell.” My voice sounded pretty stiff as I said the name. It was a little bit embarrassing to be honest.

She looked at me a little oddly, but the smile was still on her face. “Nice to meet you, Mr Grandwell.” I winced at the name. It was cool and all in the game but being called it for real felt off. I didn’t mean the name Garlyn, but perhaps I should have just introduced myself with my real name instead? Or maybe a mix of them? Garlyn Yates sounded good. Cooler than Shawn Yates at least. And definitely better than Garlyn Grandwell. I hadn’t thought about it before, but that really sounded like the name of some noble.

Arianne told me goodbye for now and left the room and I sat down on the bed. It wasn’t that bad. I’d expected worse. It wasn’t as comfortable as my own bed, but I’d fallen asleep in my chair and had to deal with the back pains from that enough times to appreciate anything that was bed-shaped and at least a little bit soft.

I was pretty tired from the day. A lot of things had happened, and a good night's sleep felt welcoming. I could think more about what I should do next tomorrow. I went downstairs and asked Arianne about the evening meal, which she shortly after came out with and put down on a table for me to eat. I promptly ate it, wished her a good night when I passed her by at the counter and then went up to my room to sleep for the night.

“Mr. Grandwell. Mr Grandwell!” I woke up to the voice of knocking on my door and somebody shouting. It took me a few seconds before I remembered that I was supposed to be Mr. Grandwell. I really had to ask them not to call me that, I felt ridiculous when they did…

“Mr. Grandwell!” The voice continued. “It’s morning and if you want your morning meal, you’ll have to get up now.” The knocking stopped and I heard steps move away from my door and further down the hallway. Then I heard knocking on another door and the voice shouted the same thing again to whoever it was that lived in that room. I didn’t recognize the voice. It was deep and masculine though, so it probably belonged to a man.

I got up out of bed and put on the clothes that I’d bought the day before and made my way downstairs. Arianne was there and greeted me with a smile as I descended the stairs and she pointed me to an empty table.

“You can sit down over there Mr. Grandwell. As soon as my father is finished waking the customers up, he’ll come down and we’ll prepare the meals for everybody. It won’t take longer than a few minutes.” She said and I went up to the table and sat down.

The voice that woke me up must have been her dad then. I hadn’t thought about it, but it was obvious that she couldn’t run this place on her own. It probably wasn’t unusual for places like this to be family businesses either.

After a couple of minutes, a large stout man came down form the stairs and entered a back room behind the counter together with Arianne. Not long after both of them came back iron plates that had bread, meat and some vegetables on them that they distributed around the room to the customers that sat at the tables. The meal was mediocre but filling and after I’d finished Arianne came up to my table to take away my plate.

I’d spent my time eating thinking about what I should do now, and I had an idea about what I wanted to do. I was stuck in a fantasy world after all with cool magic powers and I had no idea right now how to get back home, so I should use the opportunity whilst I can to enjoy this a bit. Maybe I could go out on adventures and defeat monsters if they exist. Or I could go out and explore the world and see what it had to offer. Or I could just focus only on learning magic and try becoming some kind of sage.

There was a bunch if different exciting things that I could think of doing, but first I think I should try to achieve a dream almost all kids dream about.

First, I should learn to fight. And for that I’ll need a weapon. I had a few lower-level weapons from ‘The Wayfarer’s Realm’ in my storage but those were only different kinds of swords, shields and bows. Not the kind of weapon that I wanted to use.

As Arianne took my plate and turned around to leave, I stopped hear and asked. “Hey Arianne, do you know a good place to buy weapons in the city? I’m new around here and don’t know the place well.”

She shot me a surprised look. “You want a weapon? Just so you know, you won’t be able to go around town with most kinds of weapons out in the open without permission. The guards will stop you if they see someone like you walk around by yourself with one. You’re not a guard or a soldier of some kind, are you?” She asked.

I gave her a wry smile. “No, I’m not, but you don’t have to worry. I’m not planning on walking around the city with a weapon at all times. But that makes me curious. How do you get permission to have a weapon on you?” I replied.

She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked over to the other tables where there were still empty plates that she had to pick up. When her father waved his hand at her and moved to pick the plates up himself, she visibly relaxed and looked back at me.

“Well most guards and soldiers are allowed to carry weapons. Nobles too. You usually don’t get stopped as long as you look the part. There are probably some of the guilds whose members can carry weapons too, but I’m not sure.” She seemed to think for a few seconds. “Oh, and I think people registered to the arms schools can also get special permission papers to carry weapons if they want. Them and members of mercenary companies and the likes.” She added.

One thing she’d mentioned had caught my attention.

“What are those arms schools?” I asked her.

“They are schools where you can pay to learn how to use different kinds of weapons. The city guards and the royal army have their own establishments so most people who go to arms schools are those who are hoping to join mercenary companies or just want to learn how to defend themselves out in the wild, I think. I don’t know how many arms schools there are here in Dustdrift, but if you’re interested Waldemar probably knows. He’s a blacksmith and has a shop where he sells some of his wares a few blocks from here. It’s not really a weapon shop, but he probably has a few weapons you can buy at least.” She finished.

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.” I replied and she told me how to find Waldemar’s shop before she left for the back room behind the counter. I decided to set out for his shop immediately.

Buying a real weapon and learning to use it. Just the mere thought made me so excited that I could barely contain myself and wanted to run through the streets to get to that shop as fast as I could.