r/AmazingStories

So, today, I had the opportunity to chat with a very lovely old lady whilst we were both waiting for the bus into our local town.

We talked about absolutely everything and nothing at the same time, if that makes sense?

She told me that she had been in the Land Army during WWII, and I didn't know what that was, so she explained all of it to me.

I found the whole entire experience to be so enlightening and refreshing.

Anyway, after having shopped around my local town centre for a good hour or so after getting off the bus, I then came across her wonderful face once more.....

Whilst she was being held up by a couple of young sales people that were working on the high street trying to get people to sign up for some sort of energy company.

She was obviously at the point of signing up to everything that they were trying their hardest to sell her when I instantly swept in and said:

"Hi, my name is .......... and it's so nice to meet you both! Anyway, this is actually my grandma, and if you wouldn't mind? I am just going to go on ahead and jump into this whole entire thing right here and just take her on ahead home with me? I'm certain that she's extremely interested in whatever proposal it is that you're making to her but I think that it's very safe to say that we'll be leaving this right where it is and will be going on about our way now? I hope that's ok with you?"

I swung her right around on her heels (her little shopping trolley in hand as well), and we walled towards the bus station.

I wasn't sure that what I had done was the best thing, but then she looked up at me with a huge grin on her face and said:

"Thank the Lord for you, you sweet little thing!! I really didn't want to do it, but then you came along, and you did all of it for me, didn't you?! Haha!!!I bloody hate those types of folk, but you can't be seen to be impolite or bad mannered really, can you?!"

So, we got the bus back home together whilst sharing a paper bag that was filled up to the brim with rhubarb & custard boiled sweets......

One of the best days of my life.

Just goes to show what you can learn about a person when you take the time to sit down and shut up and just listen, I think. ❤️

Anyway, her name is, 'Agnes' She is 92 years old. She's approximately 4 feet tall as well.

And she's genuinely the best human being that I've come across for quite some time now as well!!......

And I really hope that I bump into her again, at some point in the future too.....

❤️❤️❤️🥹🥰

CHAPTER 7: The Weight Comes Off

They stepped into The Crooked Fang, and the atmosphere met them like a shift in temperature and intent. Warmth settled over their skin, hearth heat and stew heat, the kind that lived deep in timber and stone. The scent of slow simmered lamb drifted through the room, a grounded counterpoint to the sterile brightness of the Mandrake Bank.

Hyphae caught the aroma and paused. “I look forward to trying that,” she said, voice quiet but certain.

The main room wasn’t crowded. A few patrons were scattered across heavy tables, conversation kept low and unhurried. It was the lull between waves, system rest made visible.

Ki’Rhi’s eyes went up first. The basilisk head mounted above the bar, with its crooked teeth and clouded, milky eyes, was registered, categorized, and filed away without slowing her stride.

Behind the bar stood Herka. The large orc woman wiped down a glass with the steady rhythm of someone who had been doing this longer than most adventurers had been alive. She looked up, took them in with a single sweep, and offered a grounded greeting.

“Evening.”

Hyphae met her gaze with quiet respect. “Good evening.”

Ki’Rhi gave a small nod, her usual version of acknowledgment.

Near the hearth, Cecil’s rocking chair creaked to a stop. He turned toward them, cane resting across his lap, voice like warm gravel.

“Oh, you must be new. Let me have a feel of your face.”

Ki’Rhi didn’t blink. “No.”

Hyphae began a gentler refusal. “I appreciate the offer, but—”

A dish rag crossed the room with unerring accuracy, striking Cecil squarely in the shoulder.

“Cecil,” Herka said, still polishing a glass. “Leave the guests alone.”

“You would strike your poor blind husband?” Cecil grumbled. He adjusted his grip on the cane and resumed rocking, the rhythm returning to baseline.

The room settled again into its quiet cadence, as if this exchange had already happened countless times before and would again.

The pressure of Oakhaven stayed on the other side of the door.

Hyphae approached the bar with Bunny tucked against her chest, his ears rotating in slow, deliberate arcs as if sampling the room’s frequency. The warmth and the heavy scent of lamb settled over her like a physical weight, steadying her as she spoke.

“Do you have room and board available for the week?”

Herka set the glass down. She didn’t answer with words—just a single, heavy nod that told Hyphae to continue.

Ki’Rhi placed her coin pouch on the counter. The sound it made was honest: a modest sum, nothing more. Hyphae added her remaining coin beside it. Together, the pile formed a thin, uneven stack of metal on the bar’s scarred surface.

Herka studied the coins for a long moment, then lifted her gaze to the two of them.

By the hearth, Cecil’s rocking chair creaked into silence.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he announced, voice pitched like he was narrating the room’s internal accounting.

Herka didn’t bother looking over. “Cecil. Mind your own business.”

The chair resumed its rhythm. He muttered into the fire about modern economies and the youth’s lack of preparation.

Herka tapped the coins once with a thick finger. The metal clicked against the wood. “You’re short by two days.”

Hyphae’s shoulders tightened. Ki’Rhi didn’t move, her expression unreadable.

Herka continued in the same steady tone, as unshifting as the beams above them. “If you help around the place—morning and night—I can cover the gap with one free meal a day.”

Hyphae exhaled, the tension leaving her cleanly. “Thank you. Truly.”

Bunny perked up at the word meal, ears lifting into a sharp V.

Herka reached beneath the counter and brought up a heavy iron key. “One bed or two.”

Hyphae and Ki’Rhi didn’t hesitate. They looked at each other once, a quick calibration.

“Two,” they said in unison.

Herka gave a small grunt of approval—the closest thing she offered to affirmation—and slid the key across the counter.

Herka shifted into the practiced cadence of an innkeeper. Her voice was steady and functional, the tone of someone who maintained order through predictability.

“Bath’s upstairs. Big one. Water stays hot.” She wiped her hands on her apron, the motion clinical. “Amenities are on the shelves. Soaps, oils, towels. Don’t take the good towels outside the room.”

The key she handed over was heavy, the metal worn smooth by decades of contact. The wooden tag hanging from the ring had been carved with uneven lines that looked unmistakably like Cecil’s handiwork.

“Dinner ends at nine,” she added. “If you miss it, you’re waiting until morning.”

Hyphae nodded, Bunny shifted in her arms as if weighing the stakes. Ki’Rhi gave a sharp, singular acknowledgment and turned toward the stairs.

They crossed the common room at an easy pace. The hearth heat still clung to Hyphae’s skin. Ki’Rhi’s eyes moved out of habit, not tension, observing the few remaining patrons and the slow, rhythmic pulse of the Fang.

Halfway to the stairs, Hyphae stopped. Her attention wasn’t on the trophies, but the tools. Old orcish implements hung along the wall, their grips polished by the hands of previous generations. There were knot-carved handles and blades dulled by time, though never by neglect. They were mounted there not for show, but because they belonged to the history of the house.

Her gaze lingered on the wood and iron longer than anything else in the building.

J’s voice surfaced, quiet and academic, intended only for her. “Some of these implements date back several centuries.”

Ki’Rhi glanced at the wall, recalibrating her assessment of the inn’s foundation with that single piece of data.

They reached the stairs. The communal warmth of the hearth thinned as they climbed, replaced by a dimmer, more personal quiet. The upstairs hallway felt lived-in rather than staged—the transition from public space to private territory settling around them like a softer kind of gravity.

The room door clicked shut, and the quiet settled immediately. It wasn’t the hush of caution, but the kind of silence that comes when a space finally belongs to you.

Hyphae set Bunny down. He stretched long, his back legs kicking out behind him, then snapped into a sudden, bright binky that sent him skittering across the floorboards. The shift in his energy made the room feel warmer.

They unpacked without speaking. Ki’Rhi moved with her usual precision, placing Kusunagi V in a spot that was both accessible and out of the way—a location chosen by instinct, not ceremony. Hyphae found the small table near the window and set the Mycelial Fruit Bowl down. The moment it touched the wood, the mycelium settled, as if tasting the air. She coaxed a small portion free and fed it to Bunny, who accepted the offering with solemn enthusiasm.

The guest robes were soft and heavier than they looked. Hyphae slipped into hers with a quiet exhale, the fabric settling around her like a reset. Ki’Rhi tied hers with a single, efficient motion.

The bath waited—steam, heat, and the promise of washing off the day’s weight. They stepped back into the hallway together, the door closing with a soft, final click, and moved toward the hot water and the stillness.

Steam curled around them as they eased into the water. Hot enough to unknot the day from their muscles—heat that felt earned rather than given. They had rinsed off first, efficient and wordless, and now let the temperature do the work.

Hyphae let her shoulders sink beneath the surface. “This will be a nice change,” she murmured. “No cold nights. No waking up damp. No boiling water over a fire just to feel human.”

Ki’Rhi gave a low hum—barely audible, more vibration than voice. Agreement, in her language. Rare. Minimal. Real.

They had five minutes of that. Six, if the universe felt indifferent.

The door burst open.

Sir John of Braven strode in with his party as if the bathhouse had been constructed around his arrival. Still armored. Still loud in the way conviction becomes audible.

“LADIES!” he declared. “You must be new. Allow me to show you how things work around town—”

He did not slow. He did not assess. He simply committed.

Then he was in the water.

Wading directly into the space between them like it was socially designated territory, he settled his arms along the stone edge as if this were a lounge rather than a bath.

“You see,” he continued, already launching into a story, “just last week I cleared a dungeon so treacherous that five separate bards have attempted to immortalize it—poorly, I might add. There were traps, you understand, everywhere. Pressure plates, swinging blades, a corridor that tried to eat me—long story, I won, obviously—and the townsfolk insisted I take a week off to recover, but I said, ‘No! A hero must remain vigilant!’”

He inhaled, ready to continue indefinitely.

Then he pivoted toward Ki’Rhi with a grin capable of destabilizing civic infrastructure.

“Speaking of vigilance—if you’d like a private tour, I—”

Ki’Rhi did not shift. She did not answer. A small blade appeared in her hand with the same casual economy someone might use to adjust a sleeve. No flourish. No warning. Just correction.

A single lock of John’s hair detached and drifted to the surface.

He brightened immediately. “Ah! Spirited! Excellent!”

To him, this was an opening. To anyone else, it was a boundary already enforced.

Percival Morquero slipped in behind him, wearing a wetsuit as if the concept of “bath” had been translated through three unrelated disciplines before reaching him. The moment he registered the blade, his posture recalibrated.

“Oh! Fascinating—edge geometry suggests a non-standard forging lineage. May I inquire about tempering methodology? Also, statistically speaking, the probability you were able to conceal that within a bathing environment is—”

He was already citing sources that did not exist in this room.

Serene of the Dawn entered last. Robe. Calm expression. The kind of serenity that should lower heart rate but instead increased awareness of silence.

“I sense guarded energy,” she said gently. “Let us breathe through this moment together. Would you like a parable about boundaries and inner light?”

No one had asked for a parable.

The steam felt heavier now—not physically, but socially. Weighted by competing interpretations of the same space.

John was still smiling.

Percival was still talking.

Serene was still translating reality into moral instruction.

Ki’Rhi’s blade remained visible.

Hyphae leaned back slightly, watching the system converge on failure states from three different directions, and allowed herself a faint, tired amusement. A passing thought surfaced—brief, clean, unrelated: Bunny was absolutely making a decision somewhere that would later require explanation.

The peace was gone.

The pattern, however, was perfect.

They attempted, against all observable reality, to normalize their intrusion.

John started first, loud and friendly in the way a sunrise is loud and friendly—inescapable by design. “So! Where are you two from? Long road behind you? Adventuring partners? Lovers? Both? What brings you to our fine little town?”

Serene followed, her tone soft and steady, the kind of calm that pressed rather than soothed. “You carry the air of travelers. Long journeys can weigh on the spirit. How long have you walked together? What purpose guides your steps?”

Percival leaned forward, eyes bright with an academic hunger that was entirely too sharp for a bathhouse. “Your musculature suggests extended travel on foot. Fascinating. Are you conducting field research? A pilgrimage? A relational cohabitation experiment?”

Hyphae and Ki’Rhi gave them nothing.

It wasn’t rudeness—just the clean, flat silence of people who had not invited a conversation and had no intention of participating in one. The pause stretched, silence meeting noise in a quiet stalemate.

Hyphae finally cut through it with the only sane question left in the room.

“Why,” she asked, “are you wearing armor in the bath?”

Ki’Rhi didn’t turn, but her gaze shifted toward him—one clean, silent demand for logic.

John beamed, untouched by the question. “It’s efficient.”

He believed this completely.

Serene moved first, her voice softening as if Hyphae’s question had introduced a spiritual imbalance only she could perceive. “Sir John has… interesting habits,” she said, tone warm enough to fog glass. “Some souls walk unique paths. I sensed this early in our travels.”

She meant it as reassurance. It wasn’t.

John straightened, pleased. “Interesting habits,” he repeated, turning the phrase over like it had weight.

Percival leaned in further, already committed. “There is, in fact, precedent for armored immersion. With proper thermal management, drying cycles can be reduced, and if one accounts for moisture retention—particularly in older alloys—the time saved could justify—”

He was building a theory around John’s behavior as he spoke, assembling it fast enough to convince himself.

J finally broke his silence.

“None of that is accurate,” he said, voice clean and surgical in Hyphae’s ear. “Rapid heating and cooling increases material stress. Structural degradation accelerates. Maintenance load rises. This is not efficient by any metric.”

The statement landed flat and precise, cutting through the room without resistance.

Serene’s head tilted, her expression brightening as if J’s correction were a spiritual revelation. “Ah,” she breathed, “I sensed another presence. Your voice carries a quiet wisdom.”

J responded immediately, flat and precise. “Incorrect. My sensory catalogue has been active the entire time. You failed to register it.”

Serene received that as if it were a koan. “Mysterious,” she murmured, entirely off‑target.

Percival leaned forward, already accelerating. “If we consider alloy fatigue curves—”

Serene spoke over him without friction. “Wisdom often arrives through unexpected channels.”

John, tracking none of the content and all of the tone, beamed. “I do inspire people.”

The loop closed. Percival argued logistics. Serene reframed meaning. John assumed praise. J corrected every premise with increasing precision. None of them adjusted.

Hyphae and Ki’Rhi were no longer participants. Not even targets. Just two exhausted observers watching incompatible models collide in a bath.

That was when Hyphae noticed the water.

The clouding.

The faint metallic tint.

Particulate drifting from John’s armor like sediment.

Knight soup.

It wasn’t emotional. It was practical.

Hyphae rose from the water, calm and finished. She stepped out, wrapped herself in a robe, and left without a word.

Ki’Rhi followed immediately. No hesitation. No commentary. Hyphae left, so Ki’Rhi did the same. Clean. Efficient. Inevitable.

The door swung shut behind Hyphae and Ki’Rhi, the soft thud absorbed by the steam.

For a moment, the trio blinked at the empty space where the two women had been.

Serene recovered first, hands folding with gentle certainty. “They must be weary,” she said, her voice lined with misplaced compassion. “Rest is vital for body, mind, and soul. I should offer counsel when we meet again.”

Percival didn’t hear her. He was staring at the space Hyphae had occupied, brow tightening. “Where did that voice originate?” he muttered, finally registering J several minutes too late. “No visible source. Fascinating. I’ll need to run a series of hypotheses—”

John leaned back, armor shifting with a soft clink. A satisfied smile spread across his face, as if the entire exchange had resolved in his favor.

“I really am great,” he said.

None of them were correct.

The bath settled around them, water still faintly clouded, steam carrying the last traces of a moment that had already moved on without them.