Warming up

Today night came early, a storm covered the sun kidnapping light. Heavy rain hitting the roofs while strong wind blowing between the houses accompanied by loud thunder made the night quite scary.

In this small village, a soaked wet man is walking through the only existing street looking at each house trying to find a trace of life, a light coming through a window or maybe smoke coming from a chimney but he could find nothing.

Not matter from which perspective you see this is quite a spooky scene; from the people inside the houses a man walking in their small village where no one comes at night in the middle of rain is something that made them scared, from Ryu point of view, he found himself in a village devoided of life while freezing in the cold wind and rain he found this frightening.

After carefully inspecting the brick residences Ryu saw a dim light coming from one of the relatively bigger construction. He approached the front door and reached the front door, a heavy wooden door made out of dark brown wood with a raw design like one have just made a cut in a large tree and placed it in the door frame without doing any work in that wood.

*Thud, Thud, Thud*

Ryu knocked on the door three times with heavy blows and embraced himself trying to protect himself against the cold. He waited for a while for someone to come and open the door, but no one came. Losing patience he started to knock again.

*Thud, Thud, Thud, Thud,....*

This time he has no plan on stopping knocking on the door, someone will open it or he will break it knocking. Sometime after his hitting session, a muffled woman voice was heard behind the door

"Okay, stop hitting. I will open the door."

Hearing these words Ryu stopped, he gave one step behind and made an erect posture trying to make at least a minimum bid of a good impression. A metallic sound indicating the lock being open and the door started to move revealing light.

Ryu saw an old woman when the door opened, a slightly overweight short woman with white hair reaching her shoulders wearing a simple gray dress down to her ankles. Resisting the urge to blow the door open and forcefully made his enter Ryu waited until the door is fully open and he started to speak.

"Hello, I am Ry..."

But before he could finish his introduction the woman gave a step forward grabbed his arm and pulled him in saying.

"You are soaked son, introduce yourself latter."

With the abrupt cut in his introduction, Ryu could see the inside of the place, a large single room with a balcony three stools, and two tables with four chairs each, behind the balcony a shelf with bottles and two large men standing near the door in front of Ryu.

Ryu looked at the faces of these men and saw them sighing while the expression on their faces and their shoulders relaxed. They gave a step aside opening the path, and Ryu was pushed from the back by the old woman.

"There is a chimney on the back and a bathroom, take those wet clothes off. I will prepare a hot bowl of soup to warm up, go. Do you have dry clothes? I can find something for you if you don't."

"There is no need. I have dry clothes on me." Ryu said and went to the bathroom on the back, where he changed his robes and dried himself using some cloths from his ring. He stood in front of the fire for a few minutes until the cold that was rooted in his body until the bones were gone.

After a massage in his feet Ryu looked at the poor condition they were in and decided to not put the shoes on, it will do badly in causing a good impression but there is no helping it. He sands from the ground and went to the front of the tavern.

He was still limping, his feet hurting, but the joy to be out of the cold rain provided a good distraction to his general condiction.

When he passed the door, the woman had a bowl in her hand a stream of steam rising from a yellow liquid, she pointed to a chair and said.

"Sit here Lord, I have prepared a bowl for you. I hope it is within your taste." the treatment dispended on Ryu had made a huge shift.

When she opened the door first they were not expecting a cultivator to come, so they used an informal tone to talk with Ryu. But after he went in they were able to realize from the plain white robes he is wearing that Ryu is a cultivator, probably from the Earthly Transitions Sect, now they had time to prepare and use a proper way to refer to a cultivator.

Ryu accepted the bowl with thanks picked the appointed place, the two men and the woman remained stand side by side afraid to offend the man. Ryu took a spoonful of the soup and felt the warmth running in his body.

"It is the best soup that I ever had, thank you for let me in. I am Ryu Sei, I am a new disciple from Eartlhly Transitions Sect."

"You appraise too much lord. I Susan, the owner of this tavern, he is Cark and this is John.". Susan said pointing to the two men, the first one Clark is a tall man with a wide shoulders and brown hair, the other, John, is short and a little overweighted but the thickness of his arms and his posture revealing that he is not sedentary. The hands of these two displaying calluses that reveal they are manual workers.

"Take a seat please, I am feeling bad with you standing like this, treat me like any other person please, don't be so formal." Ryu said pointing to the two remaining chairs on the table.

The three looked at each other and embarrassed they took place at the table, it was obvious they were afraid of offending the man and bring disaster over their lives and the village. Something like that is not expected from people of the sect, a cultivator killing commoner for nothing is a thing that is not viewed with good eyes. But you never know, so it is best if you don't mess with one.

For some time they talked about the rain and the weather in general, it was an awkward chat with no real content. But it worked to settle the mood and the tension between them diminish.

The rain started to get thin and the wind was not blowing so fierce, so Ryu asked.

"Is there an inn that I can rent a room?"

"I am sorry lor-... Ryu there is no inn here. But I have an empty room at the back, It is shabby but the sheets are clean, you can you it for free tonight." Susan said a little hesitant to hand a humble room for the man, but it is they can provide, and it is best than nothing.

"No, I actually want to stay here for a few weeks. If I can have this room I want to pay for it."

"You?", "Want to stay?", "Here?" Each of them asked in surprise when Ryu told them he wishes to be in the village.