The Innkeeper

Lex was no longer in the front entrance of the Emporium. Instead, he had followed Powell to the back and was now sitting comfortably in what looked like a small guest room. There were very few furnishings, but it was decorated very tastefully. Lex could feel his mind calm down as in his chair, taking a sip of some tea another Powell, a butler Powell if you will, served him and Powell.

Between the two of them was a projection playing a video, but this time the recording was not of him in the dragon's hall. No, this time the recording was from the point of view of the ship that had been repeatedly targeting him back at Frigra. It went right up until the artillery explosion.

The worst part of it was that at each second of the video there were annotations made thoroughly analyzing Lex, his reaction to the events unfolding and his strengths and weaknesses. This was just one of many such videos that Powell had managed to get his hands on.

His strengths and weaknesses had been thoroughly analyzed, and though many mistakes had been made in the analysis, many of them were also correct.

Once the video ended, another one began playing immediately. This one was a very short video taken by a public security camera on Polebitvy. Lex only appeared in the video for a moment. Even so, someone had found the video and made annotations on it as well. Mainly, it noted down the time and place of this video and commented on, and questioned how Lex was able to travel all the way from Polebitvy to Frigra in such a short period of time.

No recordings of him from any other planets, such as X-142, Vegus Minima or Earth had been discovered yet, but he believed that unless the attention on him dropped significantly, it was only a matter of time before someone realized.

From there, it would not take long until someone associated him with the Midnight Inn. Of course, Lex doubted that even the craziest conspiracy theorist would conclude that Lex was the owner of the Inn, but connections could be made nonetheless.

In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he was sure that a number of Inn regulars would have already recognized him. If that were the case, the connection would have already been made.

Fortunately he had made preparations in advance, and already linked his identity as Lex to the Inn worker Leo. The connection would not be easily discovered, and only be found if someone were trying to purposefully unveil his secrets.

That would cause them to believe that the information they unveiled was legitimate, and not a ruse he had purposefully put in place to hide his actual identity.

His identity as the Innkeeper was safe, for now.

For now, he had two immediate concerns. The first was the massive number of bounties on his head! He was officially a wanted man! It felt both intimidating and very cool at the same time, especially when considering that all the bounties that had been placed on his head were from various dragons!

The second thing he had to worry about… was the Lex Williams fan club! Powell had only mentioned it briefly, but it had over thirty one billion members already, and those were just the ones who signed up on the portal. Moreover, many of the fans were from various races, and especially a few races who had strong contention against dragons!

"Alongside details of Barley Holdinson, the device I gave you also records detailed information on all the dragons who have put bounties on you, as well as all the dragons associated with Pelvailin Ur Bahatna Gorgin. But even I only have limited information on dragons, so what I gave you is barely more than what is publicly available."

Powell made no mention of any remuneration for his efforts, and Lex did not bother mentioning it either. The man was clearly giving him a favor, and Lex needed all the allies he could get at the moment.

"Thank you, that is quite helpful. Do you have any idea what other kind of trouble I can expect from this?"

"What you have to look out for most are people interested in collecting the bounty on your head, or those who want to rob your gains from the dragon's hoard. These are your greatest threats. The chances of you running into a dragon are minimal at best. True dragons are very rare and they disdain doing things secretly. If a dragon is coming towards you, it will do so openly and publicly. That will give you enough time to run away, or make any other preparations you need."

Lex nodded, and collected all the information Powell gave him, before taking out the Peronian jade and handing it over.

"By the way, I will need the best protection you have against divination," he said, hoping to get his hands on some treasures. This was something he would have to pay close attention to.

*****

On Nibiru, the young Tiffany, who had once been saved/kidnapped by Lex, was watching a recording. In it, she saw a very familiar face belonging to the man she had always thought had died protecting her. She could still remember how he ran away while pulling all the attention of the wolves towards himself, while leaving her to hide in a tree.

It was his heroic sacrifice that had given her courage throughout her life, and allowed her to pursue the goal of freedom for humans on Nibiru. But suddenly, she discovered that the man was alive. Not only that, he was a mighty dragon tamer. He was the hero that the humans on Nibiru needed!

She clenched her fists and decided to immediately go to the Midnight Inn and put up a task to contact him. But before that, she turned her attention to the problem at hand. Surrounding her hideout was a small colony of Vermillion bats, coming to assassinate her. They thought she could not sense them, but they did not know that what awaited them was not their target but death!