I didn't sleep, in spite of the fact that I actually found a place to bathe. Well, more accurately, Mel found a place for me to bathe while I was out gallivanting around town. It was a tiny little public bathhouse, but they only charged a quarter to use the facilities. I took the time to shave my face and scrub away the days of dirt and grime and absolute filth that had coated me for so long.

Side note: I clean up nice. Sure, my clothing was still basically little more than rags, but I was sure to wash and dry those too, before I put them back on. So, overall, I cut a pretty decent figure.

Mel had also scored some cots for us, while I was dealing with the inspector. I don't know how she did it - perhaps she still had some gold left over, impossibly, from before - but it was most likely she had just sweet talked some poor sap into giving away two perfectly good cots.

With them set up, it was almost like we were really making it in the world.

Amazing how much your world view changes with a bath, a shave, and an actual bed to sleep on.

But, back to the whole not sleeping thing. I tossed and turned in the tiny room that should have served as the kitchen, but was currently our bedroom. Part of it was nervous energy. I was worried about the inspector and about how much repairs would cost us, but the other part of it was the incessant scratching coming from the cellar. I knew for a fact that there were rats down there. I'd have to higher an adventurer to deal with them, but I wasn't sure how much that would cost me.

During my time in Kinon, small time quests like this paid a quarter. Maybe a whole half gold, if you were lucky. Or if they were particularly huge rats. But here in Mystic Falls, everything economy based was sideways. Was exterminating a handful of normal-sized rats more or less than I was used to? I wouldn't mind paying some adventurer a decent wage to do a task for me, but if it was at least a whole gold they could just fuck right off.

I'd take care of it myself before I paid that much.

I must have dozed at one point, because I dreamed of Kinon. And of Duncan. Fucking Duncan. His smug little squished face, like some genetically fucked up dog. If he'd had sprouted a pair of floppy ears and a muzzle at some point, I wouldn't have noticed.

Kinon is... how the hell do you describe perfection and hell all at the same time? It's a glorious city - spanning for nearly a half day's walk. The buildings range from things impossibly tall - floor after floor, reaching into the sky - to squat little cottages that would be more at home out in the woods somewhere. It was polished and glistening, and everyone was friendly on the streets. You never felt out of place or alone.

But that was just the surface. Living within Kinon's massive white walls was a society of hatred and servitude. Every adventurer worked for Duncan or one of Duncan's friends. They used the guilds, specifically, to target new adventurers. And while every other thing in the city was decently priced, they artificially inflated the prices of gear (especially weapons) to keep adventurers working hard to get new shit.

They used our desire to better ourselves against us. You could be meticulous about your gear, and somehow it would still rust or break and you'd need new shit. Some rumored that they used rust monsters, while others said it was something in the air. But regardless, every adventurer who worked in Kinon borrowed money from Duncan or his friends, and every one of them made sure that the market supported our need to borrow money.

And once you were in enough debt, Duncan and pals would call on you for special tasks. Maybe it was beating up a shopkeeper who lowered their prices. Maybe it was importing something you were pretty sure was illegal. Whatever it was, it didn't matter how wrong it seemed. Duncan and friends would make it your duty, and so you did it.

I still wasn't entirely sure how I'd escaped. It had been Mel's idea, and she was one smart cookie. But she was also pretty small minded (that's not a height joke, I swear) and usually skimmed over some detail that was crucial to not dying.

Maybe my Luck stat was finally being useful.

After a few hours of maybe sleeping (as I dreamed weakly of the place I called home for many years) and a few hours of cursing everything that had gotten me here (and only one or twice was it Mel I cursed), I finally drug myself out of the cot. The rats in the cellar didn't seem to care that I was moving around - they made just the same amount of noise.

I thought about just dealing with them. I knew that was going to be something Derrick pointed out. But maybe if I left them there, that would be the only thing he focused on, and I'd be able to pass inspection way easier.

Instead, I worked on using what little supplies we had left over to improve the place. I reinforced the front door, upgraded the roof a little more, and even made some rough plans for what I'd do with the cellar as soon as it was rodent free.

Just after dawn, the front door opened.

You know how you sometimes expect one person, and so you see them even though it's someone else? I had been expecting Derrick, even if this was super early for the building inspector to be here. I smiled and stood, even crossed the room by about ten steps before the illusion bled away.

Duncan.

Not Derrick.

Duncan stood in my doorway. His bulging little eyes were bulging, and he'd grown a pretty decent neckbeard since the last time I'd seen him. Didn't make him look any less like a dog.

I must have been saying something, a greeting or whatever, because I started choking. And not just a few awkward coughs, but near retching. The force of my coughs bent me over, and I felt snot and mucus collect in my throat like I had the world's worst cold.

"Sorry, mate. Did I surprise you?"

"Fuck you," I choked out, even as I thought I was dying. At least I was still eloquent in the moments before I keeled over from apparently choking on air.

"Do you need a moment? Compose yourself? We've got a long walk ahead of us."

I glared at him, biding away the mucus and tears. Sure, I could have hocked a big old loogie across the floor, but then I'd just have to clean it before Derrick showed up. And I'd much rather spit in Duncan's face than on the floor.

Even if spitting on people was gross and I don't condone it at all.

"What the hell do you want?" I choked out. By the time I'd finished speaking, I was able to get a hold of myself enough to swallow the lump that was in my throat. It was vile. Do not recommend.

"Under the laws of our contract, I'm here to fetch you and return you to Kinon." The dog-faced man smiled, and it was the grin of a predator. "I've been worried about you, Harper."

"Bullshit." I wiped tears from my eyes and straightened up to my full height. Which was, thankfully, a full head over Duncan. I noticed that he hadn't moved any closer to me, and likely thought I was dangerous.

"I mean it. You vanished one night with no trace. We were all very worried about you. Thankfully some wanted posters spread around the adventurer's guilds in every town within a few days walk of Kinon was all it needed to find you."

I would have winced, but Duncan would have seen it as a sign of weakness. I should have known that visiting the adventurer's guild in Mystic Falls was a bad move. Duncan and his pals would have their mitts in everything. At least I knew now, though.

"Alright, well, you found me. Great. I'm not going back."

Duncan smiled a little wider, and his bulgy little eyes squinted from the mirth. "Of course you are, Harper. We have a contract."

"Fuck your contract."

"That's not nice," Duncan said with a sarcastic little click of his tongue. "You still owe me money, Harper. Sixteen thousand gold, to be exact. I can't just let that vanish because you got cold feet."

Shit. Hearing the number out loud made it so much worse. I was so horribly fucked.

Except...

"Look around you, Duncan. This place, this building you found me in, it isn't just some shack I'm hiding out in." As I spoke, he swept his eyes left and right, as if noticing the building for the first time. I itched to just cross the room and stab him with my sword, but I knew for a fact that Duncan was like thirty levels higher than me. I'd do no damage, and he'd just strike me down and drag my unconscious ass back to Kinon. "I'm building an eatery. I doubt you've been in Mystic Falls for long enough to get a lay of the land, but this place needs an eatery for adventurers." I straightened up and figuratively pulled up my britches. "So here's the deal. You let me continue opening this place up. I'll pay you a hundred gold a week as soon as its open, and as soon as I can, I'll increase it by at least a hundred a week until my debt is paid."

Duncan laughed. It was the laugh of a man who wasn't used to laughing - he was caught off guard and his high-pitched snorts of laughter were a sign of that.

"Oh, Harper, such a joker!" He wiped tears from his eyes that didn't exist. But he didn't stop laughing. "I love it. You'll run an eatery out of this little shithouse and you expect to make profit plus a hundred gold a week? Oh, I don't know if I should pity you or kill you where you stand."

"I'm not going back to Kinon," I said, weakly. "So it's either this or get to stabbing."

Duncan paused, and for a moment I swore he was thinking of drawing his sword. But he sighed and shrugged. "I must have a soft spot for you, Harper. You might not know this, but Mystic Falls is where I grew up. Funny, huh? But I know this place. I know the economy, and I know the needs. I'm not sure if you picked this place out of some odd sense of irony, or just dumb luck, but you're right. This place could use an adventurer-focused eatery. And if you think that you're the one to do it, I'll humor your little deal."

My eyebrows almost leapt off my head. Well then.

I wasn't expecting that.

"Uh, thanks?" I said, dumbstruck. "So, I'm free to open the shop?"

"I'll send someone to collect every week. Maybe it'll be me, maybe it'll be someone else. But you need to start paying as of one week from today. I don't care if the place is open or not." Duncan smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. There were way too many teeth involved. "If you fail to pay me, even if just for a week, you'll come back to Kinon, Harper. Either willingly, as a pile so beaten you'll be barely recognizable as a human, or as a corpse."

I swallowed, hard. Great choices. Either I gave this maniacle asshole a hundred gold a week - something I didn't have and didn't have any idea how I'd make so much - or I went back to being a servant. Or a corpse.

And I knew, in my heart of hearts, that Duncan wasn't going to let me off easy. If I went back to Kinon - either as a beaten lump or willingly - he was going to make my life hell. I'd be beating up old shop owners and robbing churches for the rest of my life.

But I had no other choice.

I nodded, firmly. "You got it, Duncan," I said, and the words caught in my throat. "Hundred gold a week. Starting next week."

"Great." He smiled again, and I really thought about just stabbing him. It would be so much easier to just die now. "We'll see you next week then."

And with that, the nightmare walked out the front door. Leaving me staring and confused.