Dialogue Hesvar #158 - Generosity To Maids Cuts Both Ways

Hesvar #158 - Generosity To Maids Cuts Both Ways
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Or Read a summary of the first 149 episodes in Episode 150 - Recap.

Dawn has left the inn to get away from the creep and is heading South towards the next inn.



*Dawn pulls up the hood on her cloak as daylight fades and the temperature starts to drop surprisingly fast indicating an especially cold night to come.*

*As she does she mutters to herself.* "Good job Dawn. Never mind the time. What an idiot. I know better than that. I wonder if all the cats and dogs have problems with people grabbing their ears too."



*Dawn finally reaches the next inn and hastily knocks on the door eager to get out of the cold.*

Voice from inside: "We're full. Move on."

Dawn: "The common room would be fine."

Voice from inside: "I said we're full. Move on."



*It doesn't occur to Dawn that her pleading pose won't help through a closed door.* "Please, it's already freezing even though there's still a bit of light. I can't stay outside. Surely you can fit one more in the common room at least?"

*Silence.*

Dawn: "Could you at least tell me if the next closest inn is north or south?"

Voice from inside: "South. And since you're stupid enough to still be outside on a night like this I'll give you a tip. Hurry."

*Dawn sighs as she knows the person is right although she is surprised even the common room is full. Having no choice though she takes off south hurrying as suggested.*



*Dawn finally reaches the next inn. Even though she basically ran the entire way she's still so cold she doesn't even open her cloak to knock.* "He...hello? P...please I need a room."



*The door slides open.* "Good fortune for you we do still have a room available even this late. But speaking of fortunes, I hope you have one as we're not a charity."



Dawn: "Oh th..thank goodness. Y..yes I have money. How m..much?"

Proprietor: "That depends on which kind of money."

Dawn: "Singard cu..cu..urrency."

Proprietor: "Then it will be 300."

Dawn: "That's insane!"



Proprietor: "Consider it a freezing late night special. But if you'll pay in Vepsin currency it's only 30."

Dawn: "Th..that's still crazy, but your m..m..math is wa..wa..way off."

Proprietor: "That's my price. Take it or leave it."



Dawn: "D..d..do I at l..least get a m..meal?"

Proprietor: "Ha! Bargaining when your only choices are pay or die."

Dawn: "Y..y..you're dressed t..traditional Vepsin style. D..d..don't you expect haggling?"

Proprietor: "Not from someone from Singard, but since you respect our traditions I'll throw in a free meal. We have some leftovers from dinner."

Dawn: "D..d..d...deal."



Proprietor: "Clearly not Vepsin. The proper bargaining approach would be to say you don't have 300 and offer a lower amount as an empty room earns no money. Oh well, too late for that now. Come in out of the cold."



Dawn: "Oh this feels so good, but 30 Vespin should only be about 90 Singard. If you think so little of us why is your inn so much closer to Singard than Vespi?"

Proprietor: "My family long ago calculated that this location was optimal for desperate travelers thus maximizing profit. As to the conversion I'm factoring in the growing rumors of a coming war. I almost feel foolish even accepting Singard currency given the high risk of it soon being almost or completely worthless, but then as I said an empty room and leftovers earn nothing anyway."

 

Dawn: "You've got my money so be honest with me. Do you really think there's going to be a war or are you just using it to increase your profits? Even for Vespi wars are rare."



Proprietor: "Well you did kill our most esteemed Minister of Culture and Finance. Such an affront cannot go unpunished."



Dawn: "That rumor can't be true. Your minister is invulnerable. Maybe even immortal. If there is going to be a war I think it's going to be over the new source of metal we've found. Maybe your currency conversion should be going the other way."



*The proprietor waves off Dawn as he tries to cover his laugh.* "Hahaha. Don't make me laugh. I don't know how that rumor has any legs at all. The guy spreading it was clearly a simpleton. I mean if he'd found a new source of metal why was he going to Vepsi to get metal? Nonsense."



Dawn: "Wait. What guy?"

Proprietor: "Denise! Come over here and take our customer's cloak to hang up. She paid a premium so we can at least give her good service."



Denise: "I'm sorry sir. I didn't realize we had a new guest. Such a late arrival."

Proprietor: "She's paid for leftovers from tonight's dinner as well."



Denise: "May I take your cloak Ms.?"

Dawn: "Yes, thank you. Sir you mentioned something about a man and the rumors about a new source of metal. What did you mean?"

Proprietor: "Denise you were here on the night that silly man came in talking about metal from the sky. Do you still remember him?"



Dawn: "Mmmm, yes sir! On many a night. What girl could forget such a fine man? That precious little upturned snout, the incredibly generous tips, and of course those GORGEOUS blue eyes! I do wish he'd stop by again on a quiet night. We could slip off into his room and..."



Proprietor: "Ok, ok! I think that's enough Denise. I'm sure our customer doesn't want to hear about your fantasies."



Denise: "Sorry sir. I'll just go hang up this cloak and fetch our guest's meal."

Dawn: "Denise wait! As cold as I am I'd actually love to hear your fantasies. A hot scene is exactly what I need. I'd like to hear every little detail about this handsome generous man and those gorgeous blue eyes of his. What was he wearing? How would you peel if off bit by bit?"

Proprietor: "Interesting."



*Denise stops and turns around at Dawn's request and asks guidance from her boss.* "Sir?"

Proprietor: "Well you did pay a premium and it seems our other guests have turned in so if it's a fantasy you want I see no harm. Denise go hang up the cloak and fetch the food, then you two can discuss the *rolls his eyes* finer points of this man. Be sure to mention the parts about his daft ideas of heading up into the sky to meet the gods or whatever though. This rumor about a new source of metal needs to be revealed for the silliness that it is."

Denise: "Yes sir."

Dawn: "Thank you."

Proprietor: "Like all good businesses we aim to please. I must say I did not expect such a salacious request from someone from Singard though."

Dawn: "Oh, you must know our mayor."

(Yes, the title is referring to how one maid saved Kano from poisoning but now another may be getting him into trouble.)

 

Still pretty cool during the day, but I suppose compared to the night it feels pretty warm.

She's definitely made some progress, and she'll probably get a name too, but since Kano doesn't own any property it's not like his location would be listed anywhere.

 

Yeah part of why she wanted to move on was to get to another inn, but as she said to herself she should have been more thoughtful. I'm sure she's quite happy how it all turned out though.

I also saw the over resemblance when I reread what I wrote, but was like meh tropes are everywhere. The answer though is more innkeepers, especially those that weren't that skilled or came too late to the game and had to set up shop far from Vespi and thus overcompensate. Note the one with the other maid story was a day's travel from Vespi and was nothing like this one.

Vespi clearly has a strong mercantile culture. The Vespin Mercantile Guild has been mentioned often as a presence of Vepsin influence in Singard. The Vespin guard monitoring Ayr told her to report to the Vespin Trading Compound. The minister at the heart of the growing conflict was the Minister of Culture and Finance which kind of says how the two are linked. But at the same time the Merchant class is not the top class in Vespi. They fight amongst themselves to be top of their class, perhaps with the tiny hope they'll somehow make into the ruling upper classes if they do well enough, but those ruling classes have plenty of money and power and aren't concerned with mundane things like maximizing profit.

 

If it comes to a one on one fight between Dawn and Kano I doubt she's a match for him and his weapon. Somehow I doubt open direct combat would be Dawn's approach though.

 

Thanks on the story. Sounds like your laptop crushes blacks really badly, but I went ahead and upped the exposure a few stops on those images.

 

I poked at the VN mode some more. Made the text possibly overlay the photo with a semi-transparent background box. Now it works pretty well in landscape mode on a phone. I also made it so that clicking the dialogue box hides all overlays so the picture can be seen completely. Just click again to continue. This also changed text from black and white to white on black as semi transparent white is uhm, odd. :P

Oddly even though it wastes screen space I think I'd like it more if the text always was within the image even with space below. It seems nicer to keep the focus on the boundaries of the image at all times.

Easy enough to try by resizing the browser window on desktop/laptop. Not so much on a phone though.

 

More mods to keep the text on the image (with the exception of the thumbnail / intro part of the story). Cleaned up the tab order, button styles, colors, etc. as well. Works quite well in landscape mode on a phone now.

 

Sneaky seems more her thing. I also don't see why her initial response would be to kill him. She'd need to question him to find out if he was really the one that killed the minister and if so how. Then she'd probably also want to know more about this metal from the sky in case he's not just insane. Now he's not likely to speak to her willingly, so I suspect Dawn's goal would quickly become to capture him so they can interrogate him.

 

What do you offer the man who has everything? A trip to the skies?

 

Ideas? Whatever could you mean?

It happens. Life isn't the best here either. Injuries currently prevent me from crawling around to do stories but I've made some progress on what I feel is a very neat update to my game mode at least.

 

I should reach my "normal" level of ok. And yes the formerly JRPG thing except I'm going a different style now. One that to me at least really brings things "alive". I'm sure no one else will care though. Sigh.

 

Yes I just posted it to brigadoon as well as the other three styles I've tried to see what other ideas people have for the photostory format. Definitely the latest style is far and away my favorite. It just brings the stories the life.