When they arrived at the city, their escort only waved at the similarly dressed guards on duty at the gate and flew over the wall, landing them outside of a building marked with a pint of Ale on the sign.
"The best Inn in town. Well, the only Inn in town, but it's not bad. The owner is a retired bigshot from one of the major Sects, so he shouldn't freak out about having you two as guests." Steve told them.
"Thanks," Cain told him with a smile, then tossed him a trash amulet from his inventory.
It was a failed Rune Crafting project that increased attack speed, but the guard seemed overjoyed to have it.
"Dad, why is he crying?" Luna whispered.
"He's just happy that someone was nice to him. My gift is a foreign one, and it is possible that he likes new things as much as you do." Cain whispered back, making the other guards laugh quietly before taking their leader away.
[Note to self, Even Epic Grade random failure items are valued in this region of the planet. I need a notepad, does anyone have one?] Cain thought into the mental collective before remembering that there was nobody else there.
They stepped inside and found the Innkeeper wiping down a table in a heavy leather apron over plain gray robes.
"See, I need those, they look so comfortable," Luna told Cain, making the old man smile.
"I can order some for you if you have the coin." The old man offered.
"Umm, do you take these ones?" Luna asked, taking out a handful of gold coins.
They were the same ones from the Southern Continent, so the exchange must not be working on this planet, but the man didn't seem to mind. He took them from her one at a time and tested them between his teeth, then nodded.
"You can get three sets of good silk robes for one coin. How many do you need?" He asked.
"Um, three different colors seem good?" Luna asked hesitantly, unsure what would happen when she equipped them, as she had never tried other gear as a human.
"The same for me. Our travel clothes seem to stand out a bit too much here." Cain added, and the man handed back all but three coins.
"The last is for room and meals, I'm sure you're planning to stay at least a few days, yes?"
Cain nodded his agreement and led Luna to a table, where they could talk.
"I will bring you something to eat, and would the little lady like juice or milk?" He asked.
"Juice! I love juice." Luna cheered while the Innkeeper went to the back room.
He came back out a few seconds later with a pint of ale and a large glass of juice, which Cain barely grabbed before Luna took it as a single shot.
"Like this." He sent her a Mental Message, taking a sip of his ale.
Luna caught on quickly to the fact that she couldn't drink like a Lamia in a human body, and she happily slurped away at her juice while they waited for food.
"Sorry, I almost forgot." She whispered when the Innkeeper went in the back again, and Cain patter her head.
"That's fine, just remember your table manners from now on and you should be fine. Once we get some clothes that match the locals we can go explore the town and see what they have for interesting things." Cain suggested, keeping her from getting bored now that she couldn't just nap while hanging around his neck.
The clothes got there faster than the food, with a little human boy running in carrying an armload of cloth.
"Master Moon, I have your order." The boy called as he skidded to a stop.
"Just leave it on the counter and take the coins to your master. Good work boy." The Innkeeper called back, then returned with bowls of stew, fresh bread, and a stack of sliced fruit pieces.
"Thank you. This smells really good." Luna thanked him.
"What if I told you that this was made with Magical Tiger meat?" The old man asked curiously.
"Magical Tiger? That sounds tasty, and they're pretty mean, so they wouldn't run away the same way that the Panthers do. They're so good, but so hard to catch." Luna explained.
Cain nodded in agreement, and the old man smiled.
"You have good taste. It's a low-level Tiger though, the harvested stuff from town is too expensive, so I pay one of the local hunters to go get me meat every week." The Innkeeper explained.
"You must not get many visitors in town, back home at the farm, we got dozens coming through every day on their way to the cities and trade routes, so we were always looking for more meat," Luna told him happily while trying to navigate her spoon in a way that didn't involve dumping food down her throat.
"It sounds like a lively place, what brings you so far from home?" Moon asked.
"There was a portal, but it only opened from one side, so we couldn't go back through," Cain told him, shrugging off the dangers of traveling through portals between worlds.
"That doesn't happen often, but at least it won't last long. That sort never does. Part of my duty here in town is to collect news of dangers that might threaten the town and keep them from getting out of hand." Master Moon looked like the sort who could handle himself, despite his advancing age, and Cain admired his dedication, even in what was likely Semi-Retirement for him.
"Once we know a bit about the area I would be happy to go hunt something for your stew. A good cook is a blessing no matter where you travel." Cain offered.
"No need, unless you're taking the little one to do it. The beasts in the area are barely her match, if you helped it just wouldn't be sporting." Master Moon laughed.
"I think that could be fun. But if there are no challenges for Dad in the area, we should move on, once we know more." Luna said very seriously.
"Good kid you've got there, but don't let her ignore her own training just because she's got to travel with you for a while. It would be a shame to see such a prodigy fall behind just because of circumstances." The Innkeeper told them.
"No worries, I will keep working hard, so that isn't a concern. I'm getting really good with the blowdart gun too." Luna told him proudly.
"The blowgun? Are you training as an assassin, little one?" Moon asked curiously.
"Nope, it's just easier to work than a bow, you know, because of my arms," Luna told him, then realized that she only had two now. Fortunately, the man took it as meaning the length of her arms, not the number, because the thought that she might have more than two wasn't the first thing through a human's mind.
"What do you use as poison though? Good poisons can be hard to come by." He asked.
"I have a small supply of snake venom that paralyzes. It's pretty good stuff, and it doesn't kill things you don't want to die. Like that weird guy with the blue hair that kept running behind the targets when we were at the Library." Luna explained.
Cain assumed that it was some sort of Library servant that Luna wasn't waiting to let finish his job before starting her shots, so he just let the topic die without explanation, he didn't make her look bad after all.
A group of guards came in and broke up their conversation with the Innkeeper, ordering drinks and soup, then starting in on the usual complaints about the boredom of their job, and the lack of travelers recently, even though they should be seeing more travelers now that the dry season has come and the roads to the mountains were getting better.
"There are mountains? I've never seen mountains. Are they huge? Is there snow? It was really hot at our house all the time, I would like to see snow." Luna rattled off questions for the guardsmen.
"Indeed there are mountains, and there is snow at the top of them all year round. If you had come here a few months earlier, we got some snow even this far down into the valley last year." One of the guards explained, and Luna gave Cain her patented begging face, now a bit different, and matched with a human body, but no less effective.
"Are there any Sect Compounds in the mountains? I wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes as a lowly traveler." Cain asked.
"Stay away from Dragon Mountain, and the three black peaks, and you should be fine. They're all a ways into the mountains, so you should be safe near the road, even as a wandering cultivator." The Guard told them, gesturing towards landmarks they couldn't see from inside the Inn.
"Thank you, I will keep that in mind. Luna here needs to keep up her training, so we will head out into the wilderness in a few days, once we have rested up again." Cain told them with a smile that set the guards at ease.
He was huge and looked pretty scary with all those tattoos, but the traveler seemed to be a decent guy, and with a kid that cute he couldn't be a terrible person, at least in the guard's minds. Master Moon had a much broader view of the world and knew full well that even an adorable wandering cultivator was still a wandering cultivator, and that little one specialized in poison.
