The Inn of the Lost is an inn of the world below, on the road to the Greta Menor, run by the Varumani and home to the underground’s only known truce. A blue banner with a silver fox flies over its old, “much used” building.
| Type | Place |
| Spanish entry | Posada de los Perdidos |
Description
A roadside sign points to it. Wall graffiti record guests’ fates, ruin or rescue (“my enemies were at my heels”). The doors close when full, when no more guests are wanted, or against a given person.
It is a heavily built-up log cabin on a partly stone base: furnished carved-stone vault refuges below, “many levels and platforms” above, Hobbit-like but “more orderly and even more mystical”. The common room has five tables, a counter, dusty mounted heads (deer with crooked glass eye, fox, wolf) and notice boards, making it an intelligence center. Rented rooms double as storage. Prices: a drink, 1 gold coin; a room, 5 silver; separate rooms, 3 silver more; adventurers pay an unrecorded fee.
It is reached by underground canals and hidden walks, some arriving on the platform of the exile Juan de Gó, canal guide; the oil lanterns come the same way.
The peace
“In the Inn of the Lost, peace inside”: neutral ground. Beyond the Gate of Peace weapons may be carried and there “could supposedly be conflict, but there isn’t”. Mostly human patrons respect all races and bow to the Varumani. The owner is sixty, white-haired, scarred, tattooed, “very rock and roll”.
The dead may be brought past the Gate; outside the truce zone, chapels (“a mini cemetery, like a hall of fame”) host wakes and burials, followed by Hack’s mushroom stew and good ale.
Conflicting accounts
The inn is placed on level 7A; on level 6, beside the gladiator arena of the great fox lord; or on “a false level 5”, a term never explained.
Open questions
- The fee’s amount and recipient, the split of command, who closes the door, the number of rooms, and what makes the Gate of Peace respected are unknown.
- Whether the banner’s fox, the fox lord and the wall’s fox head are related is unknown.
- Not to be confused with: Estellara, the old-district inn, the “head of Arris” atop the pyramid, the three-story one of Botfrida Dogoberta, and the “inn in hell” with large windows.