A Different Type Of Adventure (Mandy Grace & Venus)

Within a small town which many may pass by during their travels without much notice, a pair of young adventurers and at times bounty hunters began to unwind within their paid room after days of having to settle on soft grass within tents for their bedding. The female of the pair, Amelia, slowly stretched out her limbs while laying flat upon the top of the bed. Her soft eyes gazing up at the ceiling, with the scent of a single mug of ale within her breath as she let out a long sigh of relief.

"Well, this isn't the best living accommodations we've had to make do with, but it's also rather far removed from the worst." She noted to her male partner and longtime lover, while turning over to her side and watching him with a soft smile as she reflected briefly on the only other Inn nearby which seemed to cater toward the higher class, "Bit of a shame we couldn't afford to stay at that other establishment, however. The room's here are nice, but the rest of the place seems a touch too.... raunchy, for my tastes."

She was in fact referring to their brief visit to 'Lucky Lass', the tavern located within the back of the Inn they settled on for the night. A tavern which seemed to wear its lewdness on its sleeve, judging by the sign with a busty wench holding a flagon of ale which greeted the pair of travelers when they stepped inside briefly for a bite to eat and a quick drink. A visit which, despite only last for perhaps a half hour, dragged far too long for Amelia's liking as the woman tended to keep her gaze lowered when it came to the female employees there, while also restraining a clenched fist at the way a few of the male customers would stare at her before vanishing into a room with their whore of the night. They could not leave that tavern fast enough for her.

Her lover and partner in their long travels together, Marcus, seemed to feel differently as the man worked at discarding his pieces of armor and heavy leather, "Oh? I was finding it to be a rather nice change of scenery from the usual broken down warriors and farming locals we see during our travels."

""Of course you would..." The woman mused with a roll of her eyes of the dark haired male; finding herself a touch annoyed at the obvious ways he was watching some of the girls, but also shrugging it off since she didn't believe him the type to go cheating on her with any tavern wench. Frustrating as his wandering eye may be, she did love the man, and surely he had some sense of standards. Or so the somewhat prudish warrior felt on the latter, as she got up off the bed long enough to begin reaching for the covers; peeling them away in anticipation of sharing the a warm bed together for the night, "In either case, I think we should try to get some sleep. The path ahead is a rather rough one from what I've heard."

It was perhaps about then that Amelia noticed on how her beloved had stopped unclothing after removing the heavy projective wear, as the muscular figure showed a little hesitation while letting out a slow, "Actually...."

"...Marcus?" She asked uncertain, then quickly caught onto what he was going to say, as the slender yet fit woman began to grow irritated at her partner, "You know you can't handle your ale. You promised that we'd only be down there for a quick drink or two to help us unwind before heading to bed."

Letting out a sigh of frustration over not getting his way almost immediately, Marcus walked to the bed and leaned in enough to take her surprisingly (for how often she worked a bow and sword) soft hands within his own while pleading, "Come now, Amelia. Another drink won't hurt us. Plus it's been too long since our last town with a tavern."

Staring up into those light brown eyes of his, the woman wanted to remain firm on it, but knew that doing so would simply lead to another half hour or longer of bickering about it as she relented, "....Fine." Slipping her hand free of his own, the woman began to crawl into the bed and lay there with a light scowl as she finished, "But I'm going to sleep. Just... try not to make a scene, okay?"

Giving her a satisfied smile over the final outcome of their short debate, the male adventurer would simply respond with a brief "Aye" while turning and heading out the door to help himself toward another drink. Or two. Or three.

Staring at the closed door, Amelia shook her head and pulled the covers over to attempt in getting some shut eye. The best she could hope for was his stumbling back to bed after having one drink too many. But more likely she would have to find him passed out at a bar table while sleeping off the previous nights drinking binge. She only hoped there wouldn't be any damages this time. They were already a touch short on funds as it is....

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Perhaps an hour had passed since Amelia managed to get to sleep. The early evening hour had since given away to darkness outside. The hoot of an owl could be heard from the cracked open window. Crickets in the distance. But it would be the noise of people yelling in the distance and heavy objects being flung around which would stir the naturally alert adventurer from her slumber. "Hmm?" She slowly let out as her eyes shot open; the woman's instincts for survival snapping into action as she was out of bed within seconds and grabbing for her usual garments. One too many late night 'visits' by bandits and the like had left her able to redress in record time, as she made her way out of the room with a simple dagger in hand.

"What's that noise?" She mused to herself while walking out into the hallway of the Inn. Following the sound, she soon realized where it was coming from, as a sense of dread overwhelmed her while rushing for the stairs which lead down into the surprisingly large tavern. "What's going on down here?! Marcus!" She called out while rushing down the stairs and spotting her partner, laid out on the floor, for reasons beyond his inability to coordinate his feet in keeping himself standing on his own.

Looking past the varied customers and employees which were staring at the embarrassing sight before them, the man spotted his lover rushing towards him and gave her a wide, albeit crooked smile, "Hey, darling.... I may have... have had a bit too..." Unable to finish the sentence, the man cupped a hand over his mouth to attempt in keeping the contents of his stomach down.

"By the Gods." She stated with some disbelief over how badly he'd messed up this time. There were a few scratch marks on him, along with some broken chairs and mugs scattered nearby. This wasn't simply a case of his getting too drunk to stand and tumbling over onto a table or anything similar, as Amelia glanced over at the various faces around them and searched out someone in charge while attempting to make matters right, "Look, please, don't hurt him! He's normally not like this, we've just been traveling for so long. We'll cover the expense of any damages caused."

The moment the pair of them walked through the door Molly knew this pair was going to be trouble, no decent folk wore armour when coming into a town unless they were part of the town watch. Given that she knew all of the town watch by name since they were all customers of her establishment the proprietor knew that they were not, and that made them troublemakers in her eyes. Still she wouldn’t turn them away unless they actually caused her a problem, so she troubled herself to affect a smile as they had enquired about a room, and then another slightly brighter one as they paid for it.

She herself was a decent sort of woman, a respectable one you might say though on that point some may have disagreed. There was no armour to be seen about her own person at all, just a black bodice over her usual white loose fitting shirt which just happened to be rather low cut to show a fair amount of cleavage... not at all to get extra tips from the patrons of course, that would be despicable. Hey legs were completely obscured by a wide dark green skirt that fell all the way to the floor, not even the tan doe-skin shoes she wore were visible beneath it. The last little addition to her ensemble was a cloth she used to tier her long golden-blonde hair back with, which matched the colour of the skirt she wore of course, and was likely made by the same tailor from the same piece of cloth.

Frankly Miss. Molly was not at all disappointed when she saw the two customers go up to the room not long later, she'd noticed the girl was a bit of a looker but she didn't need the pair of them scaring of her local regulars. Good, decent clients who paid their tabs and kept the peace were what she wanted, not riff-raff like them. So out and mind and out of sight it was until that man came back down alone, but even them the owner 'forced herself' to take his money as he bought several drinks.

His cup was probably never empty the whole time he was down there as by usual standards it was a quiet night as there were only about thirty customers in the place, but the 'back business' was even quieter still. Maybe that was why Elisha, one of Molly's best earners, troubled herself to come out into the main tavern as if she were fishing for clients.

Perhaps that warranted a bit of explanation, as the 'lucky lass' was not only an inn and tavern, but it was also the front for the town's only whorehouse. Elisha would quite unashamedly admit that this was what she was, a whore, and a very successful one at that. The reason for that being that she was the only one here that was willing to take clients of the fairer sex, at least since Molly herself had settled down with her husband Mort.

In any case what had happened was that Elisha had seen Marcus and figured that the drunk and new customer was likely to be easiest to persuade to part with some of the contents of his coin pouch, and a short while of outrageous flirting and not particularly subtle hinting later he'd pulled her into his lap and fondled her a little. This was not new to the whore of course and she had been quite okay with it, but when she suggested getting into a room in the back Marcus had laughed and pushed her off his lap to land with a bump on the floor.

A fair number of patrons around him had seen this and been none too pleased with the way he was treating a member of their community, and a bar fight had ensued, as it happened, one that Marcus had lost and caused a fair amount of damage during the course of. Yet the worst of it was that in the aftermath Molly had been trying to comfort her sore-bottomed whore only to have the girl quit on her.

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And so now here she was standing with her arms crossed below her bosom, making the already impressive sight stand up a little higher in the process. Mort, her husband who weighed in at probably close on two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle, was brandishing a cudgel which had been fetched in case Marcus decided to get violent again. Both of them were standing there with a gaggle of patrons behind them and now that pretty girl in armour (or rather, no longer in armour) whose name the owner of the place had managed to forget.

Ignoring the first volley of questions asked and the offer of repayment made Molly arched an eyebrow and looked at the dagger her latest customer was holding. “Drop the butter knife, girl” she instructed in a dry tone “nobody is dying here tonight unless you do something foolish”. Mort slapped the wooden cudgel against the palm of his hand as if to convey the point further, but Molly let the topic slide after that.

“You're damn right you'll be paying for this though, that's seven broken chairs, a cracked table, a whole bunch of smashed mugs not to mention the spilled drink which you owe the rest of my customers for depriving them of” there was a general murmur of agreement to that point from the assembled group of men and women behind Molly “and then to top it all off your idiot of a man over here has gone and made my best earning whore quit her job, so you'll be compensating me for the lost business as well”.

As it happened they were standing right next to a table (one of the few that had not been overturned) and so Molly tapped the surface “start counting out your coin, girl, I hope you have a deep purse”.