The Innkeeper



"Who is it?" Lex asked as he got up and rubbed his eyes. He had been writing down every major interaction he had with the system as best as he could recall to try and understand what its rules were. There were many things he could explain, but the insistent death threats by the system in his early days and their sudden disappearance was one of the biggest changes he couldn't properly explain.

He had a few theories, of course, such as reinforcing the behavior of doing quests. Or perhaps it was just the standard operating procedure for systems. After all, Lex's quests had to do with the Inn, but what if he had the Murder system? There is no way Lex would have randomly done a quest that involved murder - not unless his own life was on the line.

But regardless of what it was or why it stopped, it was certain that giving such quests were the exact reason Lex had such distrust of systems.

"It is the guest named Alysha, the one who spends all her time with the Krab-man, John."

"Oh?" Lex was genuinely surprised. He had been thinking of a good way of approaching her, but who knew she would reach out to him first.

It was a good thing Lex told Mary to keep an eye on her, or else he would have never even known that she was trying to reach out to him. That was because there were countless guests who would try to meet the Innkeeper. Occasionally Lex would take some time and meet some of the guests randomly, but with millions of guests at the Inn, it really wasn't feasible to meet everyone.

Mary would only ever let Lex know about guests requesting meetings if either Lex had been paying special attention to them, they had genuine concerns that only Lex could resolve or their identity was special. Of course, Mary had no way of guessing someone's identity just like that, but usually it was easy to find out.

"Send her to my office," Lex said as he teleported there.

"She's already outside."

Once again Lex was taken aback. It seemed the matter was quite serious. But while Alysha was outside Lex's office, it was actually quite difficult for her to make it to Lex. This was because the pressure radiated by the reception hall made it very difficult for her to cross. It was only her sheer desperation that allowed her to cross the room.

Lex himself felt quite bad about forcing her through such a situation, especially since he himself wanted to meet her, but the specific functions of buildings given by the system were things he had no control over.

He made a mental note not to meet certain guests at the office.

Right outside Lex's office, Alysha took a moment to fix her ragged appearance, as best as she could under the circumstances, and then entered the room.

"Welcome guest," he said, wearing a gentle, warm smile. "I hope I did not keep you waiting for too long."

"No… not at all!" she said, her voice barely audible. It was not that she was shy - which she was - but that she had spent so much time alone, she had become unused to speaking, and so had become very soft spoken.

"Excellent. Please, have a seat."

Alysha only barely nodded before she scurried to sit in front of the Innkeeper, her eyes looking down at her feet. Once upon a time, she wasn't so socially awkward, but now she had become like this.

Upon seeing that Alysha herself wasn't about to start the conversation, Lex didn't wait for an awkward silence to fall, and asked, "How can I help you today? Is there something you need?"

At the same time, he chastised himself a bit. With Alysha he had gotten straight to the heart of the topic, while with the emperor he had so much small talk because he wanted to get more information on William.

"I uh… no I mean… yes, actually…" Alysha tried to find the words, but the more she messed up, the more she got confused about what to say. From the corner of her eye she peeked at the Innkeeper, but found him attentively listening to her ramblings, a warm smile still on his face. He did not seem impatient at all, and was content to let her finish in her own time.

A strand of confidence filled her as she paused talking, planned out her sentence in her head, and then said it out loud.

"The Inn has been gate… No, I mean great! The Inn has been great. But I thought… I wondered… I mean, there's another problem that I had, and I wondered if you might be able to help me, actually. Since, you know, the Inn, and it's so big, and cool, and powerful. I mean, you're powerful, not the Inn!"

Lex let out a soft chuckle, and spoke slowly, so as to not alarm her. "It is no trouble at all, though I do not know if I can help you yet. Why don't you tell me what you need, and I'll see if I can find a way to help you out."

"I uhh… you see, I have this thing in my head. No wait, not in my head, like it's not my imagination, it's real, but I can see it in my head. I mean, I can't see inside my head, but I can control it with my thoughts, but it's very real. And it's given me a deadline, and I was able to meet the deadline due to the Guild room, but now it's giving me more quests and… I promise you, this is all real. It's not my imagination. It's…"

"Please, guest, calm down," said Lex when he noticed Alysha becoming frantic. His smile was just a little bit larger, but he couldn't help it. He had been looking for ways to broach this topic, but Alysha had done it on her own.

"You're talking about your system, right? I believe you. Calm down and tell me everything from the beginning."