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His name was Klbkch. It was what the members of other species called him, at least. His true name was longer and hard to express with lips. So he thought of himself as Klbkch or sometimes ‘Klb’. It was important to have an easy, affable nickname. At the moment, Klbkch was off-duty. He had signed […]

It was a beautiful morning. The sky was deep blue, and the sun shone down pleasantly. The inn felt so quiet, only one panting, ragged breath could be heard. It smelled like mold and faint dust. The floorboards, worn smooth by age, were slick with sweat from Erin’s palms. For a second, it seemed so […]

Erin woke up tired and bleary-eyed. She mechanically got up and remembered that she’d forgotten to gather any blue fruits. She looked at the bag full of food she’d dragged all the way to the inn. It was too much work to make pasta or bread, so she ate one of the sausages instead. It […]

Erin walked through the city, feeling the unwelcome sun warming the back of her neck. She was hot, sweaty, and tired. But most of all, she was anxious. It was a terrible, biting pain in her stomach that refused to leave her no matter how much she tried to relax. Because she couldn’t. She was […]

Erin woke up. Generally, this was an ordeal. Today, however, it was fairly easy. Because the real ordeal would come later. Such as right after breakfast. Erin stared glumly at the three shriveled blue fruits on her plate. She bit the first experimentally and chewed. And chewed. And chewed. “Rubbery.” It was incredibly difficult to […]

It took her a long time to clean up all the broken wood. It was just as well she needed fuel for the fire in the kitchen, but it was still a pain to pick up all the splinters. Especially when one got stuck in her hand. But she’d done it, and now it was […]

Erin stood in front of the cupboard and sighed. Loudly. “Men.” Erin paused and thought about that word. “Males. They eat and eat and eat. And then I have to clean up the dishes. Typical.” True, she was an [Innkeeper]. Or at least, she kept an inn relatively clean. But that didn’t make her feel […]

At some point, Erin slept. At some point, Erin woke up. These were minor details. What mattered was the sound. Knock. Knock. She tried hard to ignore it. But it kept going and going, waking her up from her peaceful oblivion. After a while, the knocking was too much to ignore. Erin opened her eyes […]

It was instinctual. The black metal pot flew through the air even before the creature finished speaking. “What the—” Before the creature was struck by the flying pot, it made a very uncharacteristic, very Human, very surprised sound. After it was struck by the pot, it didn’t make any sounds at all. The image of […]

Erin woke up with a big smile on her face. Actually, she woke up and went back to sleep several times before the sunlight got too bright to ignore. But when she eventually got up and ate breakfast, she got around to the big smile. It came when she was eating more blue fruit and […]

A giant insect stood in the doorway. It had large, black, bulbous eyes like a bug, no pupils, just tiny facets reflecting the light, a dark brown chitinous body, almost black, and a pair of swords at its sides. A giant shell like a beetle or turtle’s covered its back, and the entire effect made […]

Erin woke up with her back against the inn’s front door. Her neck was aching, and her hand was burning. It was morning. “Ow.” She held her hand. It was hurting— “Feels like it’s worse than yesterday. Which is probably my imagination.” She sat, cradling her hand for a full minute. Then she remembered why […]

Erin woke up suddenly. Her hand was burning. Though her head felt like fog, she couldn’t fall back asleep. Instead, Erin just sat and cradled her hand again. She couldn’t move it or the pain would get worse, but sleeping or relaxing were beyond her as well. She could only sit in agony. Bit by […]

The next morning, the young woman sat in a chair and pondered. It seemed stupid. No, it was stupid. But there could be only one explanation. “When you level in dreams, you level in real life?” Erin thought about that for a moment. “Huh.” She sat in the chair for a few more minutes. Those […]

The fruit in her hands was blue, probably a fruit, and pretty large. Erin had seen monster apples before in stores, the weirdly expensive ones that were three times as big as their smaller cousins. That was about the size of the blue fruit. Her stomach rumbled just looking at it. Erin raised the fruit […]

The inn was dark. That was because the world was dark, at least for the moment. Two moons hung in the sky, one light blue, the other pale green. But their soft light was obscured by a shifting layer of clouds overhead.  However, despite the late hour, one figure moved restlessly around the room. A […]

The inn was dark and empty when the traveller arrived. It appeared suddenly, rising above the gentle hills and valleys of autumnal grass that blew in the wind, green, orange, and even purple in places. The rolling plains were deceptive from afar. At first the many hills and divots seemed gentle, mere waves along a […]

I have left another note at the end of Volume 1, but I feel I should preface the rewrites by explaining what’s changed. Seven years ago, I wrote The Wandering Inn’s first volume and had no idea it would be successful, or even read by more than a dozen people. I had hopes—but the first […]