The moment Amelia entered the hostel, the pungent smell of roast beef and beer hit her nose. The lights glowed a friendly yellow and a small group sat gathered around a table in the common room.

They played a board game with dice and colorful pieces, giggling with each other and taking swigs from their frothy golden cans. It was a jovial trio: Mino, the owner, along with another sun elf with her arm around a bearded human man. They enjoyed themselves on this winter night with drink, fun, and friendship. Otto, too, sat just at Mino’s feet, sleeping there instead of his little bed.

When the group noticed Amelia, they greeted her with an unexpected level of warmth.

“You’re back, great,” Mino said brightly. Her eyes were chipper and her pink-tinted skin seemed deeper and darker than this morning. This woman really did like Amelia, and she hardly understood why. She had completely rebuffed all of Amelia’s attempts to be rude, but none of it had managed to stick.

“Yeah, I am.”

Mino looked more closely at Amelia and saw the specks of blood on her jacket, the sweat on her body, the glass-made tear on her right pant leg. She blinked a few times in half-comprehension.

“Did you have fun with... your day?” she asked.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Well, that’s, uh, good.”

“Is there laundry service here?”

Mino nodded. “Sort of. We all go down to the hot springs together once a week and use their washboards and tubs. It’s free, at least.”

Amelia looked down at her blood-stained jacket and scrunched her mouth. “Got it.” So she was going to be buying some new clothes very soon, it looked like.

The other sun elf, purple-skinned with dark black hair, leaned back in her seat on the couch and took her arm from around the bearded human. As she chomped on a piece of roast beef, she gave herself plenty of time to take a good look at Amelia. Her hair was a wavy mess of swirls and cowlicks. Her sleeveless shirt, thin, white, and loose, showed off her heavily tattooed arms and torso. The art on her body showed off strange symbols that spread into flowing depictions of fractal flowers, as if daring any onlooker to guess the meaning behind it all.

“This the new one?” she asked Mino as she continued to stare at Amelia.

“Yep. A new boarder,” Mino confirmed. “I haven’t gotten a chance to introduce her to everyone yet. Hopefully we can get around to that, though. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun.”

Amelia did her best to avoid sighing in frustration. If not for the remote sanctuary this place provided, she would be packing up her things tonight. She did not come to Fleettwixt to make friends, and some cutesy sun elf was not going to be the one to change that.

The other elf held out an unopened can of beer. “I’m Aeo. Aeo Tatheth. One of the other boarders, unfortunately.”

Mino took the can out of Aeo’s hands and shook her head. “Amelia doesn’t drink beer.” She looked at her. “Did I guess right?”

“You did,” Amelia said. She was unsure if she even had the capacity to get drunk, considering most of her remaining internal organs did not actually function. Anything but water was likely a disaster in wait.

“Hehe. I’m good that way.”

Aeo kept giving Amelia a look, like she knew something no one else could recognize. “What brings you to Beechhurst, anyway, Amelia? Fun and games?”

“It’s a good base of operations for my revenge plan.”

“Okay, I was predicting lumberjack, but that’s neat too.” Aeo chugged the rest of her beer can and, when empty, tossed it behind her. It bounced off the recycling bin and onto the floor. “My guy over here is a lumberjack. You could have worked with him. This real hot guy next to me.”

The bearded man turned his head to Aeo. “You don’t remember my name, do you?”

“Oh, yeah, Tad, what are you talking about?”

“It’s Haar.”

The common room went quiet for a minute.

Mino cleared her throat like she was about to say something, but then never did.

It was up to Amelia of all people to break the silence. “Nice tattoos. I like them.”

Aeo’s awkward demeanor vanished and a wide grin projected from her face. “Aren’t they great? I did them myself. That’s my main job, actually. I have a tattoo parlor in Uptown. Can’t afford to live there, but I like it better in Beechhurst, anyway. It’s got my best girl, after all.”

Mino giggled. “Oh, stop.” Before Amelia could say anything else, Mino hastily added, “Aeo’s my best friend. We’ve known each other since we were kids. Or at least we have some photos together from back then, so I guess we were friends.”

“We literally can’t remember a world without each other,” Aeo said. “Didn’t plan on ending up in her hostel, but I guess that’s what life gives you.”

“That I understand,” Amelia said.

The conversation went silent again, with that Haar man still grumbling about his date forgetting his name, and Aeo continuing to stare into Amelia’s eyes. Eyes that looked significantly more interested than just one minute earlier.

Without breaking eye contact, Aeo turned her head slightly in Mino’s direction and said, {You never told me she was as hot as Lachwest’s Forge. My Gods.}

Mino shrugged, trying to suppress the obvious smile forming on her face. {Yeah, she’s kinda gorgeous, even with the scars and stuff.}

They were speaking in Imduin, the native language of the sun elves who inhabited the continent for thousands of years before the Saxonia Dominion conquered it. From the way they talked, they seemed absolutely unaware that Amelia was fluent in Imduin, and she decided to keep it that way. She traded a glance with Haar, pretending to be confused about their sudden conversational shift.

{What happened to her?} Aeo asked.

{I don’t know. Maybe you can ask her?} Mino all but pointed in Amelia’s direction.

Aeo clasped both hands together. {I’ll ask her, all right.}

{Don’t you dare... Not again...}

{If this hot lady’s not in my bed by springtime, I’ll give you a gold.}

{A bet? Really?}

{Too afraid to take it up?}

Mino grumbled, then realized that Amelia was simply standing there silently. She gestured to the empty seat next to her and beckoned her to sit down. “Well, here’s that little welcome party I promised, Amelia. Not exactly what I wanted, but at least we’ve got a board game. I just wish Phelia and Hummer were here, but they’re both out tonight. Gruzut’s here, but she’s already asleep...”

“The roast beef is very good,” Aeo added. “And we’re almost done with this round of the game. It’s called Yabachi, you ever heard of it?”

Amelia shook her head, but actually, it was a lie. She had played it many times with Ed when they lived in the research facility; there was hardly anything else to do in those days but train and play.

“Well, the rules are simple,” she said. “We all have a collection of three hero pieces, and the board is filled with all these monster pieces with different abilities. We try to capture the best ones before the other players, then once everything’s been claimed, we fight to the end. I’m trying to get that Sky Raptor over there, but Mino over there keeps sending out her monsters to block me. It’s really rude, but she doesn’t seem to care whatsoever.” She said the last bit with pointed, sarcastic bitterness.

“I’m sorry for being so good at Yabachi,” Mino told her. “Speaking of...” She moved one of her hero pieces and knocked the Sky Raptor over. “This piece is mine.”

“Nooooooooo!” Aeo shouted.

“Shhh!” Mino put a finger over her mouth. “Gruzut’s asleep, remember?”

Aeo rolled her eyes, then said in a lower tone, “Maybe if she ever came out to socialize, I’d care more.”

“Don’t be rude...”

“Rude is a state of mind.”

“I don’t even understand what that means, Aeo.”

Amelia had decided she had enough of the elves for tonight.

“Thanks for the party,” Amelia told them, “but I’m very tired. Is there a bath drawn?”

Mino, with a disappointed expression growing on her face, said, “Yes. Feel free. Just remember to wash before you soak, since other people use the same water.”

“Thanks.”

The board game continued, and so did the beers, and so did the bearded man’s grumpy demeanor, but Amelia would not be at her own welcome party any longer.

***

Amelia’s skin lit up in that soothing burning sensation, those first seconds after entering a hot bath.

She honestly did not expect anything from the hostel bath; if it was shared, it had probably been drawn up and heated hours ago, which would have meant lukewarm swimming pool disappointment. But, surprisingly, it was as hot as if she had lit the fire herself.

It was a big bath, too, enough that she could stretch out her legs and sink all the way down to her chin.

If there was one thing in life Amelia could appreciate with no reservations, baths were it. The only time even a golem could sit and enjoy herself in peace, quiet, and relaxing warmth.

If only Ed were here, everything would be perfect. They had shared so many baths together. Amelia would hold her girlfriend by the hip, stroke her pale, bare back, and plant a kiss on the back of her neck. And then they would both sit back and bask in the kind of sustained silence that only true love could afford.

If only she could have one more bath like that. Just one would be enough.

Today was a great first step, but Amelia knew she was no closer to finding Ed than before. Finding out about the synth trade, killing that faun drug dealer, meeting the helpful prostitutes... It was all fun, to be sure, but it opened up a whole avenue that Amelia was not sure she wanted to explore. Destroying the entire synth trade would be the kind of dramatic action that would draw Ed out from wherever she was hiding, but if it took weeks, even months, would that be worth it?

Until she found another lead, though, she had no other choice. It was either attack drug dealers and find their suppliers, or sit around at the hostel while everyone tried to befriend her. Amelia much preferred the former.

Mino and Aeo were nice enough. Or, rather, Mino was extremely nice, and Aeo was nice enough for a sun elf. But she could not imagine herself staying with these people for the long term. Too cheery, too simple. They reminded her a lot of some of the villages she had stayed in over the past year, but much better off. They did not need to work at the quorium mines just to survive. They did not face starvation every winter.

This hostel was temporary, Amelia told herself—she could not let herself become attached, because it had absolutely no value to her quest for revenge; brushing them off was the better path. Despite the growing feeling that that her brooding loneliness might be coming to an end, she continued to tell herself otherwise.

Amelia continued to relax in the bath, but something stirred in her. She felt bad.

No anomalies detected.

Don’t worry. :)

Mana levels stable.

Access Core fully operational.

So it was not her soul that was the issue; it was her heart. That nonexistent organ that plagued her nonetheless.

“Am I a bad person?” she asked herself.

“Bad person” does not register in the Access Core.

Please input a valid command.

She put it out of her mind and decided not to let herself answer that question.