The Laptop - Ch.46 - Hoag's Hole (Patreon)

It was dusk by the time we finally trudged into the village.

The buildings around the outskirts were mostly small huts or cottages, but we also passed at least a dozen dwellings that were just wood frames with canvas walls and roofs. The structures in the heart of the settlement were all larger and more permanent-looking. And once again it seemed like something out of a fantasy story, with places like a general store and a livery or stables.

And while we should have been excited, we mostly just ignored everything else as we headed directly for our destination. That was the only two-storey building in Hoag's Hole, the village's combination tavern and inn.

As we approached I noticed that all the commercial structures were arranged in a large loose circle, surrounding what was probably meant to be the local market square. There were a handful of carts and wagons that looked like they belonged to travelling merchants, although everything was closed or sealed up tight for the night.

"Look at that," Gwen commented as she pointed at some sort of old-timey street lamp. "I wasn't expecting to see magic street lights in a place like this."

The lamps were simply made, basically a tall wood post with a smaller horizontal part lashed to the top. And hanging from that was some kind of crystal that glowed with a dull white light.

The elf girl had a point about it being unexpected. Not so much that they had magic lights on this world, but that a tiny middle-of-nowhere settlement would have any sort of public infrastructure like that.

As we made our way through the village I noticed there weren't a lot of locals out and about. The ones we did see all looked fairly normal though. By which I mean, they were either human or human-adjacent. We spotted one woman who looked like a deer-girl, with the ears and tail and cute little nubby antlers on her head. And there was a guy with green skin and leaves on his head instead of hair.

Happily none of the people we saw looked or acted threatening towards us. They mostly seemed curious, while a few acted shy. We even managed to get a friendly smile and a wave from a couple folks as we passed by.

Overall the place seemed peaceful enough, and that impression lasted right up until we reached the doors of the tavern. Which was apparently where most of the villagers disappeared to after sunset.

"Oh wow," Gwen commented as soon as we opened the door, while Chelsea's ears folded back.

The interior was crowded and smokey, lit by more of those glowing crystals hanging from the ceiling. The air was thick with the smells of ale, tobacco, and roasted meat. There was a din of conversation, although that quieted down as my friends and I stepped inside. We also saw a few more different kinds of people inside, including more demi-humans. There were even a half dozen dwarf-like guys sitting around a table in the corner.

There were some murmurs and whispers as all the locals stared at us three outsiders, and from the few words I picked up here and there it seemed like they were all speaking English. Or if they weren't, then whatever they were speaking I could understand it just as easily. Which was a relief, since it meant Annie was right about language not being an issue.

Despite the locals all staring at us as we passed them nobody acted threatening. Mostly they just seemed curious about us. None of them tried to stop us or talk with us as we continued on up to the bar, where a middle-aged human guy was handling all the drinks.

"Hello there," I gave him a friendly smile. "My friends and I would like to rent a room for the night, if you have any available?"

"We'd also like to get some dinner," Gwen added.

The guy looked each of us up and down then responded with some questions of his own, "You looking for the cheap rooms? Or do you gals want something nicer?"

"Nice," I replied without hesitation. "We'll take the nicest room we can get, please."

That put a smile on his face, "It's ten steeds for the night. Another two steeds apiece will get you the best food and drink in Hoag's Hole."

It only took me a second to realize he was talking about the silver coins, since they were the ones with the horse on the back.

"Perfect," I smiled as I opened up my coin purse.

I counted out sixteen silver coins and dropped them in his outstretched hand. His smile got wider as he checked the coins, then he turned and gestured to someone across the tavern. A middle-aged goat-woman carrying a tray came over, and I immediately got the impression they were a married couple. The barkeep whispered a few hushed words to his wife as he handed her something, then she nodded on response.

She motioned to my girlfriends and I, "C'mon girls, I'll take you to your room."

We followed the goat-woman to the opposite side of the bar, where a narrow staircase led up to the second level. From there she led us along a hallway that was dimly lit by a couple smaller glowing crystals, and we finally stopped at a sturdy-looking wood door. She used a chunky old key to unlock it, then motioned us all inside.

"Here you go," she said as she placed the key in my hand. "If y'all want to take your meal up here then just get yourselves comfortable and I'll bring it up to you in a few minutes."

There weren't any of those glowing crystals inside so the room was fairly dark, but enough light came in from the hallway that I could make out the details. And from what I could see it was actually a lot nicer than I'd been expecting, considering we were basically in a tiny frontier town in a medieval fantasy world.

It was a decent size, and we were at the back of the building so the noises from the bar downstairs were muted. A large solid wood-framed bed with a thick rectangular mattress sat in the middle of the room, while a table and four small chairs were arranged against the far wall, beneath a good-sized window. The shutters had been closed so we couldn't see outside, but that also meant nobody out there could see in.

"It was kind of crowded downstairs," Gwen finally responded to the woman, "So maybe it'd be best if we ate up here tonight?"

"Of course," she replied. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

After Mrs. Barkeep left Chelsea shrugged her backpack off and dumped it on the floor by the wall. Then the little catgirl jumped up onto the bed and stretched out as she smiled, "Oh this is soft! Like 'filled with feathers' kind of soft!"

"Maybe we should have asked for some candles? Or some of those light-crystals," I commented as I slipped my pack off as well, then left it and my bow on the floor next to the bed. I moved to the table as I added, "Otherwise we're going to be eating in the dark."

"Leave that to me," Gwyneth responded. One quick cantrip later and we had a glowing magical orb floating by the ceiling in the centre of the room, lighting things up brighter than a dozen candles.

I smiled, "Thanks Gwen, that's perfect."

Both she and Chels finally joined me at the table, just in time for Mrs. Barkeep to return with our dinner.

The goat-woman looked a little surprised at the light spell illuminating our room, but she kept any comments to herself. Instead she just moved to the table and started unloading the heavy tray she'd been carrying.

There was a large pitcher full of some kind of beer, a wooden bowl containing a big chunk of roasted meat surrounded by some cooked vegetables, and finally a full round loaf of fresh-baked bread. In addition to the food she also had three ceramic mugs for our drinks, and three simple wooden plates to eat off. And with that she left us to our meal, so all three of us dug in.

The food was simple but delicious. The roast was something similar to pork, dripping with juice and flavour, while the veggies were like potatoes parsnips and carrots. Everything was lightly seasoned, but rich and filling. The bread was great too, crusty on the outside but light and fluffy inside. The only thing I didn't love was the beer, but even that was ok. It was a little weak, and mostly seemed like it was there to help wash down everything else.

My girlfriends and I all ate our fill, then once we'd finished with dinner Gwen cancelled her light spell and the three of us all collapsed into the big comfy bed together. We weren't so tired to fall asleep immediately though. We had just enough energy left over for a little fun before that happened. When we did finally drift off though we all had a good long sleep.

After more than a week of waking up with the sun it felt like a decadent luxury to sleep in, and my girlfriends and I were in no hurry to get out of that big comfy bed when morning came. In fact we probably wasted a good two hours of daylight just snoozing and cuddling together, while the muffled sounds outside our window told us the rest of the village was already up and active.

We couldn't bring ourselves to waste the whole day away though, so eventually we all dragged ourselves upright. We got dressed, then made our way downstairs into the tavern. I didn't bother with my bow or arrows, I left those behind with my pack. Chels had her knives on her though, and Gwen was carrying her staff. I did bring the big chunky room key with me, and used it to lock the door behind us so all the gear we left behind would be safe. The barkeep's wife greeted us when we entered the tavern, then asked if we wanted breakfast. Which sounded like an excellent idea.

The meal was a few slices of thick-cut bacon on some chunky buttered toast, and it reminded me of our first day on Daearen. It was just as tasty as dinner the night before, and I was even getting used to the weak beer we had to wash it all down. My girlfriends both looked like they'd rather have coffee though.

When we were finished eating Gwen asked Mrs. Barkeep, "I don't suppose there's any chance of a hot shower or a bath here? We've been travelling for several days, and it'd be great to clean ourselves up properly."

"Sorry miss," the goat-woman replied with an apologetic look on her face. "Best I can offer you is to bring a pail of hot water and some clean towels up to your room?"

Our mage thought it over then looked to me and Chels and asked, "What do you two think? Are we staying here a while?"

I nodded, "We'll be here least another day, maybe two?"

"Cool," Gwen smiled. Then she told the woman, "We'll take you up on that later then. Either later today, or maybe tomorrow morning."

In addition to paying for breakfast we also gave her enough steeds to cover the room for another night, then the three of us decided to head outside and get a better look at the settlement now that we could explore it in daylight.

There wasn't much to see around the village outskirts, like we didn't want to go snooping around people's homes or anything like that. That left the 'commercial' buildings like the stables and general store, which were neat but not that interesting. Then we had a look around the edge of the lake.

We saw a couple small boats sitting on the shore, and two more were out in the middle of the water. It looked like guys were fishing with nets, which surprised me. Considering the lake was more like a big pond I didn't think there'd be much in the way of fish in there.

Finally we ventured into the market square, which turned out to be the most interesting part of the village. There we found about a dozen travelling merchants all hawking their wares. There was even a guy doing this world's version of street-food, which looked and smelled really good. Most of the others were selling stuff out of the backs of their wagons or carts, but a couple had more elaborate setups. Like there was a draper selling bolts of fabric, he had all his goods inside a small tent that he'd stocked as if it was a normal store, with shelves and tables and things.

There was another tent-shop that looked even more interesting. Both Gwen and I saw it at the same time, and her eyes lit up just like mine. Instead of cloth or spices or the usual sort of fantasy wares, this merchant was selling old tech. The elf girl and I exchanged a look, and we both smiled and nodded.

I gestured, "We have to check this out!"

"Oh heck yeah," was her enthusiastic reply.

Chelsea rolled her eyes but followed as the two of us headed inside the tent. The interior was cramped, with folding tables set up on either side. There were baskets full of junk on the tables, and bigger baskets full of bigger junk on the floor. And all of it was exactly like I imagined.

There were flat panel displays, keyboards, terminals and tablets. Then there were raw components, like circuit boards and cable assemblies and things that looked like power supplies. There were even parts of robots and other electro-mechanical stuff I couldn't even identify. All of it looked old, but at the same time all of it looked more advanced than anything I'd ever seen back home.

"Hey look at this!" Gwen exclaimed as she held up a flat vaguely-rectangular device with a screen on the front and buttons along either side. "It's one of those ubiquitous sci-fi datapads! I wonder if it works?"

"Ask the shopkeeper," I smiled. My grin faded as I realized I hadn't actually seen the merchant yet, but I figured he must be around somewhere.

As if on cue the guy wandered into the tent through a flap at the back. He looked like a typical fantasy-world dwarf, being no taller than Chelsea but strong and burly, with dark bronze-coloured skin, broad shoulders, and sturdy legs.

He looked to be in his early twenties, and had brown eyes, short messy brown hair, a thick brown moustache, and a big bushy brown beard. He was wearing some faded well-worn overalls that were covered in pockets, a threadbare grey shirt, and had simple leather sandals on his feet. He also wore a leather tool belt that was home to assorted pliers and tiny screwdrivers and the likes. And as soon as he saw the three of us a wide smile settled on his face.

"Hey kid!" his eyes sparkled as he greeted me with a very familiar voice. "I figured this old precursor tech would be right up your alley. It pretty much combines your interest in old computer gear with the excitement of advanced new high-tech stuff! What's not to like, am I right?"

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped open as I stared down at him for a second. Then I half-demanded, "Frank?! What are you doing here?!"