6 Valedge Inn

As the orb of coins had exploded Mikax removed the hourglass from one of his pouches and activated the scroll he had removed earlier completing his dramatic exit from the capital city of Mythden. The scroll that Mikax had used was a single-use teleportation scroll that would take him to any random city/town of the current country he was in. Mikax had never been outside of the few rooms of the castle so he couldn't use a teleportation spell because he had no place to go in his mind.

As Mikax appeared in his new location the sudden *pop* that had occurred alerted some of the locals on the street. The scroll would always teleport you to the front of an inn so Mikax gathered his bearings and entered the building.

"Where am I?" Mikax immediately asked as he approached the middle-aged man behind the counter.

"This is the Valedge Inn. Are ya lost? What shop are you looking for?" The man gave Mikax a confused look, the signs in the town were all the standard pictures used to identify shops so he should know that this was the inn.

"No, what's the town name?" Mikax realized his question could be confused and was far too vague so he continued, "Where am I in location to the capital?"

With a look of understanding on his face the man gave Mikax a wink, "You're plenty far from the capital young man, actually you're in the last town before demon country anymore, Redgate. Most of the other ones have already been wiped out or abandoned."

"Of course I am" Mikax couldn't believe how both lucky and unlucky he was he only had one of those scrolls as they were mostly useless since he had traveled all across E2. He couldn't teleport again like before, however, he was as far away from the capital as he could get without leaving the kingdom. 'Maybe this will buy me some time to just relax, unfortunately, it seems like I'll be interacting with the demons anyway'

The old man watched Mikax for a few seconds as it looked like the man was trying to work something out in his head. Finally, he asked, "Will you be staying or just passing through?"

Realizing he was just standing around Mikax finally snapped out of his thoughts. "Yes I would like to stay but do you accept these?" After he asked that Mikax made one of his gold coins appear. Mikax was certain that it was worth its weight but he was unsure if it would be acceptable as currency since it was from another world.

The innkeeper's eyes were wide seeing the color of the coin. Although he had seen enough money to equal a gold coin he had never seen one in person as they were usually only handled by nobles and royalty which were exceedingly rare in this part of the country. As Mikax placed the coin on the counter he finally noticed why the patron had asked such a silly question. He had never seen the markings on the coin before.

"If you don't feel like answering the question ye don't have to but where are these marks from?" The innkeeper couldn't help but try and quench his curiosity by asking.

Shrugging his shoulders Mikax decided to answer the man's question, "From a place called E2, until a few weeks ago it's where I lived." Mikax didn't care if the man knew, he had after all just distributed about 500 of them inside the King's throne room.

"Never heard of it, so it's not from the Azran Kingdom, is it at least real gold?" The man hoped the answer was 'yes'. He didn't care if it had male private parts drawn on it, if it was real gold he would accept it.

Laughing Mikax replied, "Yes, that I am sure of." He could see the greed and desire in the innkeeper's eyes.

Beginning to grin ear to ear the man picked up the coin off the counter. "I'll have to have the blacksmith verify this for me real quick but have a seat at the bar and have a drink on the house till I come back." With that the man ran to the bartender, telling them to keep an eye on things for a few minutes and to take care of Mikax.

Never one to refuse a free drink Mikax gladly sat down and saddled up to the bar. The bartender was not what he expected though, it was a young man around 15 years old. In all the media that portrayed older times, the young person was always the desk clerk, and if he wanted to get stereotypical it was a younger woman who would fall for him. Not that he was disappointed, he had no interest in the loli type. He preferred his women to be full-bodied and older than him. Hell, he didn't even mind playing the role of step-dad from time to time.

"What's on draft?" Mikax asked out of habit as the young man approached him.

"Sorry Sir, what's a draft?" The young man asked clearly not understanding his meaning.

'Shit' Mikax knew instantly that the drinks available to him weren't going to be his preference. "Sorry, it means what do you have available where I'm from." He didn't feel like explaining earth things.

Nodding his head in understanding the boy started to list some drinks all sounding fairly terrible to Mikax. The only one he knew that he had tried before and that was something he would enjoy was Mead. After stopping the young bartender from continuing on he ordered himself a mug.

As he tried his drink he was amazed. It was surprisingly refreshing and had hints of a flavor that he couldn't put his finger on. A type of seasoning that left a splendid aftertaste on his tongue. While sitting there enjoying his drink he took a look around the room.

The bar area was small and cozy, there were about 10 tables that could hold 4 people each near the walls. In one corner was a small stage that was most likely used for traveling bards or local musicians. It was mostly dead right now as Mikax assumed it was around 2 in the afternoon. Most likely everyone was out doing their day-to-day type of work.

While enjoying his drink Mikax had seen the innkeeper come back in, only he wasn't alone. A very excited-looking bald man wearing a leather apron who was covered in soot was tagging along. When the two saw Mikax they made a beeline directly for him.

"I hope you don't mind but the blacksmith was extremely interested in meeting you. You're allowed to stay by the way. Rooms are 10 coppers a night, so I owe you a lot of change." After saying that the innkeeper began to rub the back of his neck.

"Don't worry about it. I plan to stay for a year and will from time to time need food and drink. We can just call it even." Mikax waved his hand in the air like it was no big deal. Really to him, it wasn't, he had well over 1 million gold in his storage pouch. Turning to the blacksmith he asked, "So why did you want to meet me?"

"Ah, I hope you don't mind, I am Braka. Truthfully, the few gold coins I've seen and been able to appraise with my smithing skill have been around 50-60% purity. Your coin is 100%." The smith was nervously rubbing his hands together like he was going to scare Mikax away. "I've never heard of this place called 'E2' that you said you were from but the person who made this coin is by far the best smith in the world to be able to purify a metal to such an extent."

"Unfortunately the man passed away," Mikax lied since it was easier than telling them he just killed a bunch of people and threatened the King after being summoned from another world.

The blacksmith Braka's eyes dimmed as his hopes to meet such a legendary smith were dashed. "I see. That is unfortunate." Without saying much more Braka had left to go back to work.

"Sorry about that, he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer." The innkeeper bowed his head in apology. "Also, I was rude earlier and never introduced myself. I am Orion and the barkeep is my nephew Onas."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Mikax." He finished his drink and turned back towards the bar, "Nice to meet you too Onas, I'll take another one of these if you don't mind."

The boy looked towards Orion since the man hadn't paid for his first drink. He was unaware of the current debt the Inn was drowning into Mikax. Orion of course nodded his head and informed Onas that Mikax could have anything he wanted without paying.

"While he grabs your drink let's get you signed in and shown to your room. I can give you the entire top floor which is usually a few coppers extra a night but I'm pretty sure you're covered." Orion then led Mikax back to the desk to get his name and room number recorded while grabbing his key.

After getting checked in to his room Mikax made his way back to the bar. As the day went on he barely left the stool. He was almost completely immune to poison so he had made it a challenge to himself to get obliterated. The night passed by completely uneventful. The innkeeper Orion was amazed as Mikax kept knocking them back.

By the end of the night, Mikax wasn't blacked out drunk but he could feel the effects of his attempt. Luckily, the regulars and guests had left him alone if they hadn't then Mikax might have been more deadly to the town of Redgate than the demon army.

He was struggling with being alone in an unknown place with almost no hope. He wondered what his brother was doing, if he was looking for him or even knew the real extent of what had happened to him. He had no one specifically to take all this anger out on. Even if he decided to rampage thru the country he doubted anyone would even begin to warm him up.

Eventually, Mikax had enough self abuse and decided to head to his room. He had fallen asleep almost instantly. He had no desire to wake up right now and hoped he would find out it was all just a bad dream in the morning.