Another hour of searching eventually led Koyl and me to an inn that had a more robust construction than average, a reasonable fee for use, and that wasn’t entirely full for the night. The only negative was that the inn only had around eight rooms, and seven were full. Koyl spent around half a minute mulling over the possibility of sharing a room before finally agreeing, then we split the fee as we had agreed beforehand. Our presence drew some looks from people who were dining on the first floor, mainly the women, but nothing more was said of it.

The room contained two beds along the left wall, both simple wooden frames with mattresses stuffed with hay, a small table with two chairs, one lantern on the ceiling, and a barred window to the outside which could be shuttered to obscure vision into the room. I walked in, shuttered the window, then sat down at the table expectantly. Koyl closed the door behind him, listened for a few seconds, then flopped down onto the bed closest to the door. Neither of us said anything for a minute, then Koyl sat up with a sigh.

“I don’t think anyone will overhear us talking in here,” he said. “These walls are stone on the inside, this place must have been a guard outpost at one point.” I made a small gesture of recognition with my eyebrow, then waited for him to continue. “So you’re working for the cult of Rehv,” he began.

“I am not,” I immediately countered. “To my knowledge, my task has nothing to do with any local religious cults or deities.” Because the former are of no consequence to me, and the latter clearly do not exist, I added silently.

“You realize how it sounds though, right?” Koyl asked. “You need to go to a place that only a follower of Rehv would care about, to ‘repair’ it? Who hired you?” For just a moment, I considered making up an elaborate lie to tell Koyl. Then I thought better of it. I don't have enough cultural information to create something fully self-consistent that won't fall apart later, I thought.

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied, “I have to do this, that’s what matters.” Koyl grunted, then scratched his temple, then grunted again.

“Are you even being paid?” he sighed, exasperated because he already intuited the answer.

“As I understand it, the noypeyyoyjh far predates the cult of Rehv,” I said, ignoring the useless question in favor of gathering information. “Why would only that group care about it?” Koyl once again grunted in response, then made a face that indicated that he was trying to find a way to explain something to me “in a way I would understand.”

“What do you know about the cult of Rehv?” he asked.

“Not much,” I admitted, “I met one on Awsriyah, he was out-”

“You what?” Koyl blurted loudly, then he hissed and gritted his teeth. “Where did you meet this man? Was he in Vehrehr? Shit, we need to tell somebody if-”

“It was before I met you,” I replied, cutting off Koyl’s tangent. The drug he had taken was wearing off, and I could see him becoming more anxious. “A man was out in the woods and I ended up encountering him. We shared a meal, and he spoke a bit about his religion. Afterwards he left and headed east, away from Vehrehr.” Koyl exhaled and shook his head. I should probably keep quiet about that albino merchant, I thought.

“Of all the people for you not to kill, one of them had to be a cultist,” he muttered.

“You say that like I go around killing indiscriminately,” I jabbed. “The man was very polite, he gave me no reason to harm him.”

“Yeah, probably because you’re not Luwahriy,” Koyl scoffed, “If you looked like me, he probably would have tied you up and tried to yaeljhkawd you into working for him.” The word Koyl used took a moment to process, but was something akin to “brainwash” or “hypnotize”. “Is that all you know about them?” Koyl asked.

“I know they consider magic to be a gift from their god,” I said, prompting a disdainful expression from Koyl, “I suppose I could intuit that they believe in a deterministic world from some of the things the man said, but other than that I have no information other than the fact that they are obviously disliked.” Koyl inhaled, then yawned and winced.

“Okay, look,” Koyl said with a sudden fatigue in his voice, “let’s just put it this way: They don’t like anybody but them, and we don’t like them. They use their god as an excuse to do all kinds of heinous shit to people like me, and while they’ll leave people like you out of it for now, eventually they’ll come for you too. Maybe we can find a temple to go to and get you some proper education on the gods, then you’ll understand.” Koyl flopped back onto the bed again and groaned. “Stills feels like I’m moving up and down,” he muttered.

“So I’m guessing you don’t know much either,” I said, rising from the chair and walking to the second bed. It was just barely long enough for me to lay in it, but otherwise comfortable enough.

“You have any gods where you’re from?” Koyl asked, wondering aloud drowsily, “Ah, can you get the lantern?” I stood up and reached for the lantern on the ceiling, turning the dial on the side that controlled oil flow and snuffing it out.

“Go to sleep, Koyl,” I said, laying back down and closing my own eyes.

“You don’t snore,” Koyl told me the next morning as we ate on the bottom floor of the inn.

“You do,” I replied simply. Koyl shrugged and took a bite of his food, which was apparently a mixture of tubers, eggs, and some kind of local pepper-like plant. My own meal was a slab of cooked meat which I had finished in under a minute. I’m down to my last ten ngoywngeyt, I thought, I need to find a way of earning money before I end up completely broke. If I had known everything was this expensive here, I would have just killed Yehpweyl and taken all of the money. I'd have brought the backpack to Steelheart too.

“It’s seytoydh tawtdoym I tell you,” a man at the table beside us shouted out with his mouth half full. “The gods have it in for me, I swear! I finally make a big purchase and we can’t even leave because some teylmoydh animals decide to go on a frenzy and screw up all the roads. At this rate I’ll be ruined.” He slammed the table with his hand, nearly spilling two mugs of water that were sitting on it.

“Stop shouting,” the man across from him said, much quieter. Koyl and I, who were both looking at the first man, looked back at each other. Koyl raised his eyebrows, and I looked back at the distraught man who was now sitting with his head in his hands. If he’s some kind of merchant, maybe he has a job I could do, I thought. Tapping the table to get the attention of the men beside us, I locked eyes with the one who told the first man to quiet down.

“What happened?” I asked, gesturing with my eyes to the still-distraught man.

“Who wants to know?” the other man demanded. He was bald, or perhaps shaven, and wore a long brown beard. His clothing was simple in style but clearly high quality, made from a very soft type of leather instead of fabric.

“I’m looking for work, and so is my associate here,” I replied. “It seems like you may need some help with something. We could help you.”

“Oh piss off,” the distraught man snapped, “you’ll get no money from me you damned freelance reyvthay, go suckle on someone else’s teat that hasn’t run dry.”

“Worth a try,” Koyl shrugged, and then he went back to eating.

“So you’re saying that nobody is allowed to leave at all right now?” Koyl asked, looking at the guard suspiciously. After eating at the inn, we had decided to go to the north gate of Pehrihnk to see if we could hunt some deer. Animal skins and leather were being bought and sold frequently in stalls, so both of us figured we could have some money and work out travel plans. Unfortunately, we were quickly stopped by a crowd of agitated citizens and a number of guards who were doing their best to placate them.

“It’s bear season,” the guard said simply, “you don’t want to go out there.”

“I accept the risk,” I replied, “you have no responsibility for my actions. Now, I wish to leave, and so does my friend. We need some way to make money or else we'll be broke within days.” The guard shook his head disdainfully.

“By order of the baron, no resident of, or visitor to, Pehrihnk is to leave until the situation outside the walls improves,” he recited, clearly from memory. “You clearly have no appreciation for just how dangerous a single bear is, and there are dozens of them prowling about near the walls. That isn’t even counting the yeydhtao and naalfay sightings, something's got them riled up too. No, you will remain inside the walls for your own safety, whether you like it or not. Your budget is not my concern.”

“Then how is the city being supplied?” Koyl demanded. “Are we all going to starve when we run out of food? There’s no way anyone’s farming out there, Pehrihnk imports nearly all its food except for fish, and more than half of it comes in by land caravan.”

“Those in possession of an official inter-provincial trade license, and those under the employ of such people, are legally allowed to leave under the Free Trade and Supply Movement Act, as you would expect,” the guard stated. “You, however, are not in possession of such a license, and neither are you nobility or a diplomatic envoy. Thus, you will remain here. Now get back before I lose my patience and arrest you.”

“Gods be damned,” Koyl swore.

After the encounter with the guards, Koyl decided to split up from me with the agreement that we would meet back at the inn once nightfall came. He’s probably going to try to find money, or someone with a license to get out of the city, I figured, and soon enough I was wandering around on my own. Innumerable shopkeepers tried to call me inside their abodes to spend my precious resources, to no avail. There was a weapon shop that tempted me, but I thought better of it and kept walking with the idea that I might return later. Pehrihnk was a dense city, much like Vehrehr, and since I figured I might need to stay for a while I decided to scout the terrain.

Rooftop travel was essentially impossible due to the width of the roads, so I was forced to make a mental map without much of an overhead view to guide me. Markers of poverty were less obvious since all the buildings were stone, but eventually I figured out that the main visual indicator of an area’s class was the moss and growth along the rocks which made up the buildings. Paradoxically, the higher-class areas seemed to have much more greenery than the middle-class areas, but it was cultivated in order to control its growth for aesthetic effect. The business districts and main roads generally had very little or no moss, looking fully clean. Finally, the poorer areas had moss everywhere, and small weeds between the cracks of the road to indicate their lack of maintenance.

While walking around what passed for a slum, I took pause at the design of a building to my left. Unlike most buildings, it had a domed roof and a small yard outside with a winding pathway to its entrance. It was also impeccably well maintained relative to the other nearby buildings, with well-pruned vines along its outside flowering in many colors in what was probably pleasing to the humans of the area. After looking around to ensure my action wouldn’t cause offense, I crossed the yard in a straight line and pushed on the door, which swung inwards.

“Oh, welcome,” a female voice called out from inside as I entered, and paused to examine my surroundings. The building, despite being three stories tall, had only one floor. In the approximate middle of the floor was a large marble statue of two humans. The man, wearing armor, held a sword in his right hand which he was thrusting towards the sky. His thick beard covered most of his face, and his brow bore the wrinkles of age. His left arm was wrapped around the second human, a woman in long, flowing robes whose face was obscured by a veil. This same human was reaching out with a slender right hand to touch the male’s face, while her left held an open book.

Around the statues were two concentric circular patterns of pillows for kneeling, three of which were occupied by humans who appeared to be performing some sort of meditation. Out of the corner of my left eye I detected movement, and turned to see a woman in a similar dress to the statue's approaching. Evidently, the color of the robes was intended to be black, even though the marble used in the statue was white. Her gait was practiced and smooth, not unlike that of a machine, and she held her clasped hands just in front of her navel as she walked.

“I see that you are not from these lands,” the woman spoke softly. “Still, should you wish to pray here, you may do so. As long as you do not disrupt the other people or defile the temple, you are as welcome as any other.”