The Innkeeper

Hera noticed the old man’s body tremble, his pale face regain color and his weakness change into strength. Immediately she knew something had happened. She signaled Jimmy to hand over the key and quickly pulled him back to her side, but the old man didn’t seem to notice. All of his attention was focused on the key that was now in his hand, and the subtle warmth it spread into his body.

“How many years?” the man mumbled to himself. “How many years has it been?” In fact, the man did not need to wonder as he could probably recall down to the exact minute how long it had been since he last felt the comforting warmth of spiritual energy course through his body.

He broke from his reverie and looked at Hera and Jimmy with immeasurable excitement and glee before asking, “Where did you get this? Do you know what it is?”

Hera looked at the key and tried to recall. She had no memory of it, except that she had seen her son holding it whilst he slept at the apartment. Where could he have gotten it from except from there?

“Isn’t it just a key? It was in the apartment when I moved in, it probably belonged to my father – he was the only one who ever lived there before.”

“In your apartment? The last bit of your inheritance, I assume?” Will asked, his smile growing as though he suddenly understood something.

“Hera child, have a seat. We have some business to discuss.” The old man sat comfortably, gripping the key tightly in his right hand, while he asked his nurse to make a call to his lawyer. While they waited the old man’s home staff served refreshments and they all made small talk, though no one was too interested at the moment. The old man was clearly distracted by the key, while Hera was very curious as to what Will was thinking. She had no money and resources, if the key was something valuable the old man could take it and there was no way for her to fight back. He could even say the key was repayment for him taking care of her, but the old man insisted that business was business and family was family, the two should not mix.

Twenty minutes later his lawyer finally came, along with an entire team of important looking people all with their laptops in hand, ready to work at a moment’s notice.

“Hera dear, you must be confused so let me explain the situation first. This key,” the old man said, holding up the golden key in his hand, “is more than it appears. In the hands of someone who does not understand its value, it is simply a trinket. However, in my hands it instantly becomes something of inestimable value. To be exact, currently even I cannot accurately determine what it’s value should be. Determining that will take time and research. Despite that, I want to purchase it from you. I have two propositions for you, you can pick the one you think is more suitable for you.

“First, I can pay you a total sum of $100,000,000 to purchase it from you. After that I will become the owner, and whether the key ends up being more or less valuable has nothing to do with you. Second, I can pay you an initial sum of $1,000,000 and then take my time to determine its exact value, before paying you that amount. This way it could end up being more than $100,000,000 or it could be less. The risk is yours to take.”

The lawyer and his team had immediately opened their laptops and started working whilst the old man talked, and even now. The environment was suddenly so drastically different Hera was not able to acclimate. She shook her head and looked at the old man in slight confusion.

“Uncle Will, if you didn’t tell me about it I would never even know there’s anything special about the key. You could have just taken it and I would not have said anything. Why did you tell me?”

The old man chuckled when he heard Hera’s question, and looked at the girl with a look of endearment.

“I’m an old man, on the verge of death. What value does money have for me? One million or a hundred million, neither will keep me from dying, nor will they affect how I live my life. You, on the other hand, still have a long life ahead of you and a son to take care of. This money will seriously affect you everyday for the rest of your life, this decision will follow every other decision you will make for the rest of your life. How can I lack this little bit of virtue and steal from you, who is like my own daughter? You should make the decision you think is best for you and your child.”

Hera heard the old man’s words and felt moved. Her life had been so miserable recently, and she did not see any brightness in her future coming soon. But now, everything felt so different. She looked at her son, tears forming in her eyes again, and the child looked back at her.

“It’s very nice,” the child mumbled, telling his mother about the key. “It keeps me warm.” Hera nodded, as if understanding what the child was trying to tell her. She hugged the child as she was filled with determination. Since this opportunity was brought to her by her son, she would listen to him and take a risk with $1,000,000.

*****

The sound of thunder woke Lex up, who had not realized at all he had fallen asleep. Fortunately, nothing bad happened while he was dozing off. Instead, his chest felt much better and all his pain was gone. He also felt more clear headed now that he had time to gather his wits and wasn’t constantly trying to survive.

He was most surprised to discover that instead of feeling fear or panic, he was feeling excitement! The heart pumping, adrenaline filled adventure that he had felt more enjoyable than anything he had ever done. Obviously at the time he was taken by surprise and didn’t have the time to think of anything else, but now it was different. It was only now that he felt like he was in the cultivation world, and that he felt most alive when he was fighting for his life! He had to survive long enough to connect this world to the Inn, and he could do so by hiding and surviving off of the stuff he had in his backpack, but he no longer felt like hiding in the dark till he could escape.

He pulled up his quest menu and took a look.

Quests:

New Quest: As the most renown Inn in the universe, the Midnight Inn does not only host the rich and the powerful! Setup and develop the Pro Bono wing of the Inn and accept your first Pro Bono guest!

Remark: Keep working hard! If you raise your cultivation high enough, one day you’ll be able to cast illusions to make yourself look better!

Quest: With a great personality and abundant energy, Marlo is a great candidate to serve as a valet for the Inn! Hire Marlo as your first valet!

Quest Time limit: 1 month (6/30 days)

Quest Reward: 1 small staff dormitory, 1000MP, +1 Midnight Inn Level

Quest failure punishment: -1000MP (if host is unable to pay, it will result in immediate death!)

Sudden Quest: Kill 20 zombies before returning to Midnight Inn!

Quest status: 2/20 zombies killed

Quest rewards: 1000MP

Quest failure punishment: none

He had killed two zombies while escaping the park since he had received the quest, and had 18 more to go. Lex grinned with excitement. He could envision himself, sneaking in the dark like a ninja, stealthily killing zombies. But he was not a man who did things in a rush, he had to be prepared first.

He opened his backpack and took out a few granola bars to fill himself up. Fighting, running and then healing must have exhausted his body, even if he could not feel it yet. He collected rain water in an empty water bottle he had and drank some to rehydrate himself. Finally, he took off his shirt and armor to get a better look at his chest and assess his condition. He had no bites or scratches anywhere so there was no chance of infection, but his chest was mostly pink and purple, even after all that healing. The bruises ached, but he could tell that his bones at least weren’t hurt anymore.

He assessed his equipment, and other than his knife he only had a swiss army knife which barely gave him an advantage in combat. The firestarter would be useless in the rain so the only thing he could use to help him was his fancy monocle and flashlight.

That suddenly reminded him of his fancy monocle, and how he had manually set it to only show him data he thought was relevant because otherwise it showed too much data – but the monocle could not always determine what was relevant. He had the monocle analyze the entire building and give him all the details.

The building was made of igneous rock, the furniture of some kind of wood, and there were pieces of identifiable metals all around. The rain water was normal and everything seemed to be ordinary. The monocle discovered no secret entrance hidden in the walls or some mechanism to make a door appear. Lex felt it was a pity, but it was probably because it had not yet had access to any kind of database from this world yet.

Regardless, there was nothing more he could do at the moment to prepare. Now was the time to actually go out and take some risks. Lex grinned. It was time to kill some zombies.