The Innkeeper

Chapter 2059: Gen Z

Alright, so in the interest of preserving his workers sanity, he may or may not have embellished a little. No, that wasn’t the right word. He had reimagined the tea party as a universal version of Comic Con. No one had doubted him, because why would they? Lex was a well known member of the Inn. Everyone trusted him since, after all, he worked for the Innkeeper so often.

Eventually, they would learn that this had, in fact, not been a Comic Con. When that happened, it would have been Lex who had misdirected them - not the Innkeeper. Besides, he would have done it for their own good, to provide them with a once in a lifetime opportunity. Honestly, although it was slightly awkward, he did not expect anyone would have any complaints.

From the kitchen, the Innkeeper walked into the pantry. The refreshments and food from the kitchen would be brought here, and all the waiters would receive everything here. This would avoid them having to enter the kitchen and disturb everyone repeatedly. It was not the most efficient system, but it was the one that worked for them.

Even among the waiters, there needed to be a manager overseeing operations and coordinating the different departments and areas of the tavern that needed seeing to. The worker who was acting as manager was called Pierre.

Pierre was uncharacteristically short for an Inn worker, reaching 4 feet (1.2 meters) when he wore boots with a high heel. As if to compensate for that, the man was gifted with a voice that more than made up for any lack of presence due to his height.

"Brenda, for the last damn time, you do not taste test all the drinks before giving them to the guests," Pierre yelled over the cacophony that filled the pantry. "No, the drinks are not poisoned. What do you mean ’that’s what an assassin would say’?"

The Innkeeper chuckled hearing all the commotion. He had to say, this current generation of workers was a little different from the older ones. He wondered if he should distinguish them by generations. If that was the case, what would that make his newest workers? Gen Z?

No, wait, that was a few decades ago... or was it? Traveling between different zones with different flows of time really messed with Lex’s perception of what time it was - and his age.

"Good work, everyone," the Innkeeper said, suddenly attracting all the attention in the room towards himself for a moment. "I don’t want to disturb your workflow, but your service has been phenomenal so far. If you run into any issues, or need any help, feel free to reach out to me at any time. This is going to be a long event, so let’s do our best to make sure our guests remember it for a lifetime."

Although the Innkeeper only spoke briefly, his praise greatly reinvigorated all the workers. Before the Innkeeper left, he looked towards Brenda and gave her a wink.

One day, he would tell the story of how one of his workers took a sip out of multiple Dao Lords drinks, and lived to tell the tale. Of course, first she needed to actually get through this alive to tell the tale!

Seeing that the workers and kitchen staff were doing well, Lex decided to go check up on all the services that required workers - such as the Gift shop!

Oh, the trinkets that had been added into the gift shop were truly... well, in keeping with the theme of keeping things simple.

It did not take long before he reached the Gift Shop, and actually found a crowd inside! To be honest, just based on all the mortal, simple items he put in there, he never expected the Gift shop to attract any kind of attention, but it seemed he was mistaken!

On one side of the shop was the counter, and behind it all the goods and souvenirs that had been prepared for the tea party. On the other side, there were about eight Dao Lords surrounding a large, wooden basin that was 4 feet - or one Pierre - wide.

Inside the basin were eight colorful, spinning tops, clashing against each other for dominance. Yet, unexpectedly, the battle ended in less than a minute.

Well, considering that the tops were simple toys, and that the Dao Lords had not used any powers when deploying them, it actually made sense.

"You know, normally, people only deploy two of them at a time for a proper bout," the gift shop attendant explained to his customers. "But I suppose a royal rumble is not a bad idea either. Now, what you all have is a basic spinning top. For actual clashes like this, you want the upgraded ones with a heavier base and more aerodynamic design..."

The Innkeeper retreated from within the Gift Shop silently. Sometimes, it was best not to tempt fate too much. Also, he did not know what to say to fully grown men, women and beasts playing with spinning tops except that they should add spikes to the tops, but that would lead to a whole other kind of fight that he didn’t want to encourage, if middle school was anything to judge by.

From the Gift Shop, the Innkeeper went to the Hot tub room where he found Voidmaw and Ventura both sitting in the hot water and chatting. Once again, Lex retreated silently. Why did everything seem so dangerous?

From there he went to the bar. Hopefully, things would be safer there. After all, it wasn’t like his current guest list could get drunk on mortal drinks.

"So what other kind of milk do you have?" the Innkeeper heard someone ask as he stepped in.

In front of him, a cow was sitting at the bar with a dozen different glasses of milk in front of it.

"No, explain to me how this makes sense. Yes, I am not saying that I am discriminating against almonds - I have many good almond friends - but how does that work? I mean, if you mutate the almond and give it organs, yeah, but then that doesn’t count as mortal."

Lex resisted the urge to sigh, and retreated once more.