Lucas was worn out by the time they got to the village of Emmit’s Lake. Normally, his head turned like it was on a swivel as he took in all the sights and sounds. Tonight, though, he sat with his head leaning against his father’s shoulder. To call Emmit’s Lake a village was a bit of a misnomer. It was technically a village by the kingdom’s records, and it was taxed and treated as such. There was no court ranked noble residing here to ensure the crown’s laws were enforced. In fact, the crown probably didn’t even know the village existed. It was simply a line item on a ledger book and a notation as the location where certain luxury goods began their long trip to the homes of the elite in the kingdom.

The village itself was home to a blacksmith, alchemist, leatherworker, carpenter, and about a dozen other professions that were required to keep society running on the frontier. It housed anywhere around a thousand people in the village proper and another two to four thousand souls lived within a day’s walk from the village walls.

Due to the vagaries of crown law, the village had a wooden palisade instead of a stone wall that would normally be seen for an area that was as developed as it was. The wood itself was glossy and harder than steel. At night the wall let off a soft glow that lit up an area of about 20 meters from the wall. To call it a simple village defense was an understatement. There was one village guard on duty at the gate. He didn’t stop any of the traffic coming through the gate or inspect any of the goods leaving. He watched for beasts that got too close to the walls and had a variety of skills that would ping if someone on his wanted list came within line of sight. As such, his day was mostly filled with boredom unless one of his buddies came by for a game of checkers.

As Stan passed through the gate he got a nod of recognition from the young guardsman and gave one back. Stan debated stopping to tell the guardsman on duty about the bandits, but he wanted to get his son to the safety of the inn and a bed first.

There were only a handful of people in the inn when Stan arrived. Lucas followed him in, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The nap seemed to have done him some good as he was now looking around with obvious delight at all the interesting sights and sounds. Directly in front of them as they walked in was the bar. Behind it sat several large kegs of ale and a few bottles of strong spirits. To the right was the common where the few patrons sat and ate and drank. There was a set of double doors at the end of the common room that barred Lucas from seeing any more in that direction. Behind the bar was a door that clearly led to the kitchen and storage rooms. To the left was a set of stairs that led up to the rooms. Tucked neatly under the stairs was a third door that was also closed.

“Afternoon, Blake,” said Stan. “I need a bath for me n’ the boy, room for us for the night and whatever you have cookin’ for dinner as soon as it’s ready.”

The innkeeper, a blonde giant with a mustache that seemed to be trying to make up for the fact that the man had no hair anywhere else on his head, looked up at Stan and broke into a wide grin. “You’re in luck, we just so happen to have two baths available. You got a change of clothes?” he asked. “Those look like you bathed in blood.” He raised an eyebrow at the end of the sentence and left the question unspoken.

“Yeah, we got a change of clothes. Met some trouble on the road over. New bandit gang ‘bout two hours out. You folks had any shipments or expected arrivals not make it?” replied Stan.

Blake’s large grin faded rather suddenly. “Matter of fact, we have had a shipment that’s been due for a couple weeks now. Nothing major, the first real caravan came in almost as soon as the first honeysuckle blossomed, but there was some odds and ends coming from the capitol,” he replied.

“Well they’re not a worry anymore,” Stan stated. “I’m pretty sure I got ‘em all. If you can send someone to let the guard know about ‘em they hit me about two kilometers from the fork to the Davis homestead. Maybe someone can backtrack to their hidey hole n’ get back some of ya’lls stuff.” Stan didn’t mention Lucas’ role in the fight. There was no way letting anybody know about his ability to use [Sneak Attack] was a good thing. Lucas’ ability to learn new abilities and level up those same abilities was a well kept secret in the Hunter household. Only one other person knew, and Stan was planning on having Lucas meet him sometime very soon. If anybody else found out that Lucas could learn class specific abilities like [Sneak Attack] and [Stealth] before getting system access at puberty, there would be no keeping his son safe from the greedy nobles, wizards, clans, sects, and junior carpentry clubs that would do anything for an edge.

Blake reached over and rang a small bell on the counter. From out of the back of the inn the most beautiful girl that Lucas had ever seen emerged. She must have been sixteen or seventeen years old, but Lucas was immediately smitten. She had flowing golden hair that came down to mid back. It was pinned back to keep it out of her face and there was a pink flower in her hair. She had a brown apron on, but to Lucas it might as well have been a ball gown.

“This is my daughter, Helga, shell show you where to go to get a bath,” said Blake.

“Lucas, follow her to the baths, I know where they are. I’m gonna go grab my bag and meet you there,” said Stan. “Blake, you got someone can take care of my cart and mule?”

Blake nodded his head and hit the bell again, this time a different sound chimed through the inn and a young boy came in from the back. Blake told him to follow Stan and handle the cart and mule and Stan and the boy headed out.

“Follow me please,” said Helga to Lucas.

Lucas didn’t trust himself to speak around this angel so just nodded his head and followed behind. She led him through the door under the stairs that went to an area that was noticeably warmer than the common room. Along the hall were curtains, five to each side. At the far end of the hall were two alcoves that were across from each other and empty. Inside the alcove was a cubby hole that would could hold belongings, a bench, a stool, a bucket, and an extremely large tub.

Helga walked over to the tub and touched a rune that was mounted on a small pedestal at the end. There was a flash and steaming hot water came pouring out of a pipe in the wall into the tub.

“This is the control pedestal. If you touch where I touched more water will come out,” she said with a tone that indicated that she had given this same speech a thousand times. She reached over and grabbed a bucket and brush. “Fill this bucket with water, sit on the stool to wash and rinse before you get in the tub. Only get in the tub when you’re clean. The water will wash down the drain over there, so don’t worry about making a mess. You get up to an hour for the bath, I’ll flip the timer as I leave out. If you go over then you’ll be charged for a whole hour again, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Do you have any questions?” She said all of this with one long breath.

Lucas just shook his head, still too intimidated by this beautiful woman to trust his ability to speak coherent sentences. She stepped out and pulled the curtain to. As Lucas began to strip down, the curtain twitched and his father’s face appeared on the other end. Lucas almost fell trying to pull his pants back up as fast as possible.

“Don’t worry, son, Helga’s gone,” Stan said.

Lucas’ cheeks turned a bright red, but he didn’t say anything.

Stan let out a laugh. “You should know,” he said, “Helga has a passive charm skill. Pretty much every boy in the entire village is infatuated with her, and about half the adults that should know better. Poor Blake gets at least one offer for marriage a week.”

Lucas let out a sad sigh. Not because he had been charmed, that was pretty obvious from the way he acted, now that he thought about it. No, he sighed because now he knew had no chance. There was no way Helga would wait the 8 years needed for him to come of age. Lucas resigned himself to never finding true love and went to fill his bucket.