Daybreak's Crest: A Zodiac Story

Chapter 38: Coming to Agreements

They travelled by foot again. Cancer was glad about that, at least; the throbbing of fatigued legs was nothing compared to the chafing on a horse saddle. (Aquarius made a remark that at least Cancer had been riding with an actual, experienced horse rider, but Cancer just rolled her eyes and replied that it was probably worse anyway, especially since it was Sagittarius.)

The town of Metis was quite large and busy. Aries, their 'tour guide', pointed out that it was because most travellers would opt to stay in Metis before travelling to the Coliseum, since the tiny town outside the Coliseum was incredibly small and housed very few inns. To the contrary, Metis was like a tiny city; horse-driven carts rattled down the streets every couple of minutes, and next to those, merchants yelled at passing people from their shops, and directly next to the merchants were the inns.

"There are a lot of inns here, thanks to how popular the annual battles are. Even without the annual battles though, it's still pretty busy here usually; there's a marketplace in the center of the town and quite a few well known taverns." Leo recalled. "I've only been here once, but it's quite a famous town."

"Taverns, you say?" Pisces hummed.

"Pisces, you're not considering... are you even old enough for that?!"

Pisces scoffed, though she didn't look particularly offended as she spoke again. "Of course not! Who do you take me for? I was just saying..."

Taurus cleared his throat. "Right... never mind about those. Are we staying the night here, then? In that case, Leo, do you have recommendations for which inn to pick?"

"Well... I've never actually needed to stay in an inn here before, so... no."

"Thanks for the help." Cancer said dryly. "Then can't you use your 'wonderful, charming personality' to go figure that out?"

"Oh, so you finally recognise my... wait." Leo squinted at her. "How do you expect me to do that?"

"That's not my job to figure out."

"Everyone, let's not bicker now." Libra said, raising his hands. "We shouldn't draw attention to ourselves, even here." He turned to Leo, humming thoughtfully. "Perhaps... well, uh, m-maybe you could ask for a recommendation from someone?"

"A recommendation?" Capricorn huffed. "I don't think you'd find anyone who'd give you an honest opinion here." He scanned the rows of doors closest to them, each with their own wooden signs declaring the name of the inn, and below; several smaller lines of text that appeared to be detailing the facilities. "I've never seen this many inns in the same place before, but if I had to guess... they're not going to be so kind as to point us to the 'best' inn."

"He's right." Taurus confirmed. "In the rare moments the mercenaries I was with stayed in an inn... there were always many inn owners advertising their own inns particularly to us. Unsurprising, given we were a large group and would therefore pay a lot."

"And was there any way you figured out which one to pick?" Virgo asked hopefully.

"Nope." Taurus shrugged. "We just needed a bed and a meal. We didn't have time to be considering things like that."

"...right." Gemini sighed. "Back to square one, then. Or maybe we can just make like Taurus's mercenaries and go with whatever."

Scorpio frowned as he sifted through his pockets. After a long hesitation, where he rustled a hand through his pockets, he spoke. "...bad news."

"What?"

"We might've spent more money than we earned back in Galene Town." Scorpio muttered. "We probably can't afford anything too high price..."