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It wasn't the fanciest inn that Elysia had ever played in, but it sure as heck wasn't the worst either. From what she'd seen so far at least the place was reasonably clean and was without the stench of piss or vomit.
The innkeeper was a nice enough sort too, letting her barter for room and board for the night. All she had to do was play her lute, sing, and recite poetry. Not a bad deal for either of them. She got a warm, dry bed to sleep in, plus hot food, and the innkeeper got to watch his customers linger to listen and dance to her performance. The longer they stayed, the more drinks they bought, and the more money the innkeeper made.
Some of the men tried to buy her drinks too, and her lute case had a smattering of coins in it to boot. A good day for a young bard, indeed! The only downside was the locals only really loved a handful of songs, so she ended up singing the same folktales over and over again. Great for them, mind-numbingly boring for her. At least it freed up her mind for actually observing her audience. There were some guys with cards that had been gambling at one of the tables all evening, but they didn't seem to be attracting a lot of attention.
She didn't know a lot about gambling, to be honest. Sure, she found that a lot of inn common rooms had at least a few games of cards or dice going on, some people just liked to risk their coin for a chance to gain a lot. Elysia figured coin in the hand was worth more than potential coin, so she played and minded her own business anytime she encountered gamblers. Today wouldn't have been any different, except the merry mood in the room changed abruptly when a fist loudly struck a table and the word cheater rang out.
Her fingers faltered on the notes as she stopped singing and turned to look with everyone else at the table of men. Elysia had no idea if the guy was cheating or if the accuser was just a sore loser, but either way an angry crowd was not a good thing. Bad for business and bad for your health too, if you were the one about to get your face smashed in, which kind of looked like what would happen to the poor guy that had been accused of cheating.
Now, if one were to listen to logic and reason, one would stay out of it. Except Elysia was a bit more impulsive than reasonable, and she hated to see someone get the tar beat out of them. Violence was seriously not her thing! Hopping down from her seat, the little bard hurriedly interjected herself into the middle of the mess. "Hey now, let's not get all riled up over a handful of coins. Why don't you let me buy you a drink there big fella and we can all cool off and go back to having a good time, right? You know, singing and dancing and nobody fighting!"
