Matt woke late the next morning, to find Chubo climbing the stairs with a wooden tray overflowing with buttered toast. The little boy unceremoniously dumped the tray on Matt's bed and ran out the door. The tray had a note attached next to the toast. "Thought you might like a little snack - Clarina". 

He walked down the stairs from the attic and found the tavern as empty as when he had walked in. Strange, as it was nearly lunchtime, according to a clock mounted on a wall. He walked into the kitchen and saw Chubo scrubbing away at a plate, that looked as if it were about to disintegrate from all that scrubbing. To the young lad's right, Clarina was busy making a pot of soup, though the ingredients were not of Matt's knowledge. Purple pear shaped objects, a leg that used to belong to some kind of spotted pink bird, and some red leaves. 

The woman turned and gasped in surprise, embracing Matt in a tight squeeze. "Oh good, I thought you might have combusted." She said calmly. "Combusted?!?" Matt cried in alarm. 

"When a traveller appears unequiped, often their atoms and whatnot can't handle being in another dimension, so they catch fire." explained Clarissa. Matt slowly nodded, not yet fully grasping his current situation. "I didn't want to scare ye, so I thought best not to tell ye." She continued. "But don't worry. If you were going to combust, ye would have done so by now."

Matt nodded in understanding. Immediently after that, he was put to work, cutting the pear shaped objects, which oddly enough tasted like baked potato, skinning the legs of the bird creatures and mixing them in the soup as Clarissa added the leaves. Right as the soup was done, a man stumbled into the bar, wearing a sort of armour that Matt could only describe as half roman and half medieval. The man was obviously drunk, and fell over himself several times to get to a bar stool. 

'Gimme beer" He slurred in a thick scottish accent. Right on que, Chubo was there, filling up the man's mug with a foamy, sweet smelling liquid. He chugged it down, then called for a meal. Matt saw this as his turn to serve the customer. He filled a bowl with soup and served it to the man, who slurped it down as fast as the beer. Clarissa walked in through the back door and saw the man, soup splashed all over his trousers. She yelled and began to chase the man around the tavern with a broom, telling him to "GET OUT YOU MISERABLE DRUNKARD!!!" The man slumped down on one of the tables, defeated, as the barmaid told him off. 

"I got the coin this time", he panted, and Clarissa stopped beating him with the broom. "You sure?" The woman asked cautiously. "Sure as egg is eggs". The man said gleefully. He got up and noticed Matt standing there, having watched the whole affair. "Watch those eyes boy, or I'll have 'em for me lunch". He warned. 

Matt went back to the kitchen, but couldn't help overhearing a conversation between Clarissa and the drunk man. 

"Ernie, you've been drinking on the job again, haven't you?"                               

"Fuck off, you're not me mother".                                                                       

"No, but I care about you."                                                                                 

"You call beating me half to death with a broom caring?"                                     

'Come on now Ernie, you can't live like this. And don't go threatning my staff again."   

Ernie sniffed. "You call that runt staff? He won't be able to defend himself if a giant comes again". Clarissa sighed. "Ern, it was an earthquake alright? Not a giant". 

"But they're real I tells you." Ernie slurred. "Real as the sky above my head." He walked out the door and tripped over his own two feet.