Which was pretty much as impossible as everything else The Blind Pig had offered him thus far. He shook his head, glancing at the door to his right, which had a gold-plated number nailed in its center. A six. “Makes sense,” he muttered. “Why start at one when you can start at six?”

Welbernius had said there would be a key in the door, but he didn’t see one. Maybe he’d forgotten? In any case, Ludo tried the knob, which didn’t move, not even the slightest rattle to prove the door could be opened once unlocked. Great. This night is getting better and better.

He started down the hall. The doors were staggered left and then right, such that no two doors faced each other. Thus, the next door was on the left. “You’ve got to be japing,” he said as he stared at the gold-plated number on the next door. Six again. And, like the door before, no key, the door locked fast and tight.

He almost turned around then and there with plans to ransack the kitchen and other private quarters until he found an exit. But curiosity got the better of him and he soldiered forward, trying each door, swapping from right to left and then back again. Unsurprisingly, every door was plated with a gleaming number six, and each door was locked, until—

He found the promised key.

Ludo smirked at it. Welbernius hadn’t lied exactly, unless you counted the things he’d omitted. But there was a room six with a key that had been left in the door. A key that Ludo now turned, feeling a satisfying click and then the knob twisted as easily and quietly as if it was brand new.

The room was well-lit by a lantern, revealing the most boring, basic room that ever existed in any inn ever. The walls were brown to match the floors and ceiling. The lantern hung from a hook, as there was no desk or table to be found. There was, however, a small bed. It would have to do, even if his legs hung over the end.

Ludo still felt warm from the ale, so he didn’t bother with the blanket, dumping his satchel on the floor and then eyeing the light for some way of reducing the flow of oil. There was nothing. In fact, now that he looked closer, the lantern had no wick or even a flame. There was no source for the light, and yet it glowed yellow just the same.

Just another oddity of this already odd place.

With no other option, he lay on the bed and closed his eye, which did little to block out the lantern’s bright glow. But then the light faded, darkening to a deep black. He opened his eye to darkness. He snorted and closed his eye once more.

It was only when he’d reached the very edge of the precipice between wakefulness and sleep that he realized the dwarf had called him “Mister Vica” when he’d never told him his last name. Sleep took him.