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After what feels like an eternity, you finally make your way to the counter, where the aged, fleshly-looking man you have taken to be the proprietor sits, sharpening a quill over some ledger. It is only when you set the push-cart down and let go of the handles that you realize just how tightly you were gripping it, and how clammy and sweaty your hands - and the rest of you - has become. Hoping to push past that, as well as the sensation of eyes roaming up and down your back, you do what you can to compose yourself, partly by just breathing, and partly by distracting yourself with mentally running through the story that you are going to feed him - which will be basically the same one that worked wonders on the dry goods merchant. But before you can get a word out, he starts the conversation.
"So you got too big for the beds, and the mistress kicked you to the curb - is that the way of it, now lassie?”
"Wha - "
"Well, disregardless, we don't need no more help here. And even if we did, my wife is of a jealous bent. Sorry."
What in the Heights of Hell? Setting aside that he is not making a lick of sense, this conversation has gone and charged right off of a cliff. He has even started to turn his attention back to his ledger. Damn it, the sooner you get out of this common room, the better. Just … keep talking.
"Sir, I'm already employed - I'm just looking to rent a room for the night, for - "
He interrupts you with a grunt, squints his eyes at you with a new, and thoroughly unsettling look, then sets his quill and penknife down on the counter.
"Employed, hmm? <span class="mu-i">Self-Employed</span>? You know, I should stop you right there, say that this isn't that kind of house, that we don't want your kind of custom, or the reputation that comes with it. And that should be the end of it. That is what my dear father-in-law would want me to do, may he find the Wisdom, and that is certainly what my <span class="mu-i">wife</span> would want me to do."
Suddenly, his mouth breaks into this leery, animalistic grin.
"But that bastard is stuck on the Heights – <span class="mu-i">if he is lucky</span> - and my wife is in Princeport. Its a good place for her. She can make anywhere more miserable just by her being there, but with the ‘Port, that place is so damned miserable already no one will notice her going an’ making it worse.”
He pulls a key out of a pocket, glances at it, then slaps it down on the counter.
"Fourth room on the left. Go get yourself situated. Whenever Bertram gets back with the shopping, I'll be dropping by to collect, and then to discuss the terms and conditions of your stay tonight. Until then, you don't make it with anyone, you understand?"
Pattern's Perdition! This ... this doughball of a sot thinks you are some manner of streetie! But as hard as you are seething, and as much as you are offended, you have stumbled into most of what you were after without any effort at all. You wanted to get out of the common room as quickly as you can - well, here is your out.
