The Innkeeper

Chapter 1753: Arse

When Giselle left the chamber, she looked around for Vera and gave her a nod before heading off on her own. Vera responded with a polite nod of her own, and waited till Giselle had left before she gave Lex an especially wide grin.

"Lex Williams, you dog you. Look at you go, having a secret rendezvous with a pretty lady when you should be working."

Lex rolled his eyes. This was a new side of Vera he had not seen before, and he was thankful for that much.

"You know, someone could say the same thing about me meeting you here like this," Lex responded in an attempt to contain her enthusiasm.

"Oh please, I’m a spoken-for lady. I’m going to marry an Oolin, and everyone knows that. You and I are just work friends at best. But a silver-haired kick-ass ballerina, who by the way is very single, is a totally different story."

"How do you even know any of that? I thought you’ve been having trouble with your visions," Lex said. It wasn’t like he had been specifically spying on her anything. It was just that he was constantly keeping up with what was happening in the Inn, and he had seen Vera complain to more than one person that she couldn’t do her normal oracle duties. That was really bad for her business.

"Oh you heard about that. Let’s go inside the chamber and talk a bit - that’s what I need to speak to you about."

Lex nodded, and stepped aside so that she could enter first.

"As it turns out, I need to speak to you about something as well."

Lex followed Vera in, contemplating the discussion he had planned with her for a long time. Since she was the one who had talked to him about the Nexus event, he felt like he might help her out a bit. After all, she was the best oracle he had ever seen, and she had helped him out a lot. If he could help her regain her abilities, or even improve them, then she could continue to be of tremendous help to him. It was a shame she had no interest in being the Inns dedicated oracle, or that would make things much more convenient.

Lex stopped his train of thought because the moment they entered the chamber, Vera dropped her jovial attitude and put on an incredibly serious expression - one he had hardly ever seen her use.

"Lex, I need your help, and the situation is extremely critical," Vera said, cutting right to the chase. "For all the times I’ve helped you out before, and all the times I’ll help you out in the future, this is the repayment I need. It’s more important than anything else."

"Tell me everything," said Lex, seriously, as he sat opposite to her, not wasting any time.

Vera sighed, looking exhausted as she wondered where to start from.

"Well, to begin with, my ability is not actually totally gone," she said, her eyes staring out into the distance, as if she could see a story play out in front of her. "In truth, I’ve had to stop using my ability so frequently to avoid attracting attention. That’s because if the truth of the scope of my ability leaks, then I’ll be forced to live a life of eternal servitude to some random Dao Lord who might capture me."

A heavy silence fell between them, mostly because Lex didn’t know how to react. If what she said was true, keeping her ability as discreet as possible was the best for her, and yet here she was, telling him. Either she really trusted him, or she’d seen a future where he kept her trust.

"Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told," Vera continued, finally turning towards Lex and staring at him deeply.

"My father has shown up, and revealed some things to me about the origins of my ability. At the same time, he’s offloaded a bunch of potential threats for me. But the thing is... I’m not convinced. I can’t prove him wrong either. So now... I have to go save my fathers arse, because if even one of us is caught, we’re all screwed."

Lex stared at her, and blinked.

"I think you may have skipped some details... but that’s alright. What do you need from me?"

Vera took in a deep breath, and steadied herself.

"No, let me start from the beginning," she said, clearing her throat. "My father is a selfish arse who uses people like tissue paper, and has no sense of remorse. He’s also somewhat of a mad genius when it comes to oracles. Are you familiar with the Essence Wormhole?"

Lex nodded. He remembered it well - the Essence wormhole was one of the potential rewards he got offered for completing a quest with Bastet as his guest. It was the one that least appealed to him.

"Well, to avoid the negative effects of it, the geezer put bits of the Essence Wormhole into different people and treasures, and then dumped them on Earth, thinking the dead zone would take care of them. That included me, by the way. Lo and behold, the oracle mad genius didn’t see a future with the Inn because he only had a part of the Essence Wormhole in himself. He could not see a future that involved Dao Lords, and when the star rating increase of the Inn happened, those with the Essence wormhole in them had a mutation.

"Now, we have a permanent link with the wormhole, rather than a fading one. That’s good and everything, since I can replenish my energy whenever I want, but according to the old man, if even one of us is detected in the future by a Dao Lord, all of us are screwed. The problem is, I don’t know how much of his story I believe, since I still don’t have enough wormhole energy to check myself.

"In fact, I still don’t believe him. But it’s a risk I can’t take - because one of us is about to have his future changed forever, and I can already foresee that it will affect me negatively. At the same time... it’s going to affect you as well, although I’m not sure how."