Quies approached a young man at the front desk of the modest inn. He seemed to be scribbling something down on a piece of paper, not noticing that someone had just walked into the establishment. It was only when Quies was a few steps away from him did he glance up.
"Are you looking for a room?"
Quies stopped in front of the reception desk.
"Sort of. I booked a room for a week a couple of days ago. I was just wondering if that still applied since I was gone for a while."
"Sure. Name?"
"Quies."
'Did she book it under my name or hers? The person at the front is different this time, so I doubt he'll know...'
The man at the front leaned back in his chair as he flipped through the pages of a thick leather book. The joints creaked as he rocked forward and backward.
"Is this right?"
The two front legs of the chair made an audible thud as he stopped his rocking. Scooting it forward, he laid the book on the table and turned it towards Quies.
As Quies got closer, he could see all of the names written down in rectangular tables—numbers accompanying their side. Despite the large quantity of people who had decided to book a room at this specific inn, the page he was at was only around a twelfth of the entire thickness of the book. There were a little less than ten names written after him. Speaking of which…
'What the depths!?'
He stared at the dried ink shaped in the form of his name… not. Actually, his name was spelled like such:
Quais Talo
It was a rather spectacular sight for him.
'Really? Q, u, a, i ,s… Quais… Not even that, they even put the wrong last name! I'm Quies Sokolof for depth's sake!'
"Excuse me, sir. Do you see your name?"
He snapped out of his prudent thoughts.
"Oh, uh, yeah. This one."
He pointed with his finger at his name. Keeping track of it, the receptionist read his name and jotted a note down on a separate piece of paper.
"Do you have your room key?"
"Huh?"
"Your room key. You should have gotten one."
'Crap. I don't have that… did I leave it inside the room? I must have.'
Despite him only being gone for a few days, he had completely forgotten where he had put the keys to his room. Maybe he had left it inside, maybe Valerie had it. He really didn't know.
"I… I think I left it inside the room."
The young man stared at him for a while before sighing in disappointment.
"Follow me."
The young man closed the book lightly, nocking the pen on its leather cover. Fixing his glasses for a moment, he treaded forward and away from the front desk. Quies promptly followed.
'If it's not in the room…'
He tried to recall whether Valerie had given him keys to his room, but he couldn't remember a single detail. It was such an insignificant occurrence that his mind must've just filtered it out. Plus, with everything that he had just experienced over the past few days, of course his mind would be overwhelmed.
Though, he did start noticing a pattern of forgetfulness with himself these past few days. One major example was that bloodrending book that he assumed his mother wrote…
'Why did she write a book about bloodrending… for herself?'
From what he saw in the library back home, he was able to come up with a few solid conclusions about his parents.
First, his father was a galebreather, and his mother was a bloodrender. That was how he was able to naturally inherit a nascent affinity to blood, though he wondered why that wasn't true for galebreath. If he had a sibling, would that sibling have a natural affinity to galebreath, or even an affinity to both? Was it even possible to have an affinity to two attunements?
The song was rather complicated.
However, through these conclusions about his parents and their attunements, he was able to piece together another mystery.
Both of his parents were targeted by Zi'eer, though for separate reasons. His mother being a bloodrender, and his father for his investigation that would undermine the lord's mental veil. He didn't want to remember the horrible sight of his father's body in that field…
He was looking for his mom. She said she would be getting groceries earlier, but the fridge was already full.
"Is this your room?"
"Oh- yeah."
He read the room number and made sure it matched what he had seen on the book. After confirmation, the young man pulled out a keychain which had a key to every single room in the Inn. After rummaging through the mass of copper, he singled out one and inserted it into the lock, opening the door.
"Thank you."
"Yep. Don't forget your keys inside, please…"
Putting the keychain back into his pocket, the young man left with an unamused look on his face.
As Quies shut the door to his room, he glanced at the bedside table where he assumed he left his keys. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the faint shine of a copper key.
He immediately plunged himself into the soft embrace of his mattress.