Chapter 17: Isekai Life & Baker House

Big Dap must be a pretty high level baker, or the only baker in town or something, because his house was pretty sizable. Not massive by any stretch, but it was closer in size to a modern house than some of the shacks I’ve seen people call home in this world. Separate kitchen and dining room, a pleasant little sitting room, and a second floor with what seemed like three bedrooms.

The man himself only stayed long enough to introduce us to his wife- an attractive, buxom redhead in her forties by the name of Ina. While I didn’t mind looking, I silently resolved to keep an eye on Voss and Raszil while we were here. The foul-mouthed gnome might be more trouble overall, but I could see Voss saying or doing something to insult our hosts just because he winds up thinking with his dick.

And Raszil was staying with us. Moruca still had a room somewhere in town, and begged off to return to it, but Raszil ended up deciding that a proper bed in the baker’s residence sounded better than returning to his dockhouse, moonshine or no moonshine.

Before we were even shown to our rooms, Ina sat us down at her table and made sure we had a proper hot meal. Fresh fruit, fresh bread (albeit without anything to spread on it), pine tea, and most importantly, not a drop of plain porridge to be found. It was amazing to me how such simple things could become heavenly after awhile.

What was equally delightful was just the opportunity to simply relax. We weren’t sleeping in cells or on the ground while on the run. It felt like forever since the last time Calliope, Voss, and I were able to just ... rest. I couldn’t really speak for Yua, because for all I know the little time we spent on the road together was the temporary blip of relative calm for her.

I was musing quietly oven my tea when Voss gave me a nudge with his elbow. I looked over only to see Ina smiling expectantly at me.

“Uh ... pardon?” I asked tentatively.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to distract you,” Ina replied politely, “I asked how long you all have been adventuring together, and this young man said that you would be the best person to ask.”

“Ah, right,” I said, thoughtfully. I could see why Voss tossed the question to me. Before, when we were asked about this sort of thing on the road, we would say that Katriana was my sister and Ashryn was my fiancee, but if I wanted some alone time with Calliope it would be best not to mention other fiancees. It was probably best to keep things as simple as possible. “Calliope, my fiancee, and Voss here met up with me in Tresens, and we had some adventures there. Then, we travelled all the way out here, to Pendleton. We picked up Yua in Osgoode Gate, where we rescued her from a menagerie that enslaved her. Raszil we only met a few days ago, after arriving here.”

“Oh!” she replied, turned to Calliope. “You two are to be married? When? After your journey?”

Calliope cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Sometime later,” she said simply, “Theodore has something he needs to accomplish first.”

That something happened to be “marry Ashryn”, of course, but Calliope wisely didn’t illuminate further.

Instead, she stood. “Would it be possible to have a bath?” she asked politely, “If it’s too much trouble, don’t trouble yourself, I’ve been able to wash in the rivers from time to time, but a hot soak would be nice.”

Ina stood as well, nodding. “Of course, of course. Dap set the tinder and filled the basin before he left to fetch you, I’ll just have to light it. Shouldn’t take more than a nonce to heat up.”

The two ladies left, leaving only us men- and Yua- sitting at the table.

Raszil swallowed the bit of bread he was chewing, and cast an aside glance at me. “Not comfortable answering questions, are you? Nor her, apparently.”

“She was prying into our romantic life,” I said, defensive, “Calliope is a bit of a private girl, and I certainly didn’t want to share the details of our relationship.”

“I mean regarding your sister,” he replied, offhandedly, and he seized a knife and sliced off another hunk of fresh, warm bread, “You skipped over her entirely.”

I hadn’t realized that Voss or Calliope had mentioned Katriana to the gnomish cleric. “I didn’t want to make things more complicated than they already are,” I replied with a shrug, “I’m tired, and having to explain about Katriana would mean also having to explain about the other half of the party, and Katriana’s pregnancy, and everything. Just thinking about it makes me exhausted.”

Raszil nodded, carefully tearing off the crust of his new slice. “Out of curiosity,” he asked before helping himself to a bite, “What is Calliope’s family name? I don’t think you’ve fully introduced us.”

“Uh, Blevins, I think,” Voss replied, reaching over to help himself to more grapes.

“Brevins,” I corrected, “With an ‘R’.”

“Brevins, right.”

Raszil frowned. “The Brevins of... ?”

It was my turn to frown. She didn’t often speak of her hometown. “I’m not sure, to be honest,” I replied, “She said she was born to a farming family.”

“Ah, I see,” Raszil replied with a shrug, “Sorry if I was prying myself, but she seemed to carry herself a certain way, I figured she was from some noble family somewhere.”

Voss barked a laugh. “No, Calliope’s just kind of like that, I guess because she got into magic school on her own merits.”

Raszil grinned in response. “Yes, I think I know the type.”

Soon enough, I was stuffed. In my previous life, I’d be horrified at the amount of plain white bread I just stuffed into my body, but of course, I could rely on my “heaven” to keep me from getting too fat. When Ina returned to the dinner table, I excused myself to go get my own bath, ordering Yua to come along as I did so.

The bath house was behind the main building, a small shed with a stone tub above a large wood stove. It appeared that the building was shared by a few of the houses on the same block, but despite that the people seemed to take their shared property seriously, and it was very clean and in good repair. As I headed over, I passed a flushed pink and squeaky clean Calliope, who only gave me a shy smile before heading back inside.