The young Boschterp was mildly relieved to see that the Witchhunter had greeted them with a friendly enough tone for a man likely long-acclimatized to that grim line of work, and that he had addressed their confusion with a welcome rather than with outrage, suspicion, or a sharp-loaded flintlock pistol.
Jan sat down and accepted the inn’s hospitality as best he could, trying not to get too much in anybody’s way, hoping that the meagre funds he had remaining were not going to be fully spent by the end of the night. Looking at the others, the two other companions seemed alright enough at a first glance. Hans appeared to be roughly around Jan’s own age, so they might have some interests in common, while the scarred veteran would likely be like a sturdy and dependable cliff that could weather the winds and waves of combat.
Jan held back a mild gasp as he saw the witch hunt present a coin to Hans; not so much for the value of the coin – being a son of a merchant family made life an exercise of counting coins and displaying one’s possession of them to one’s peers – but Jan had just realized, somewhat sheepishly, that he had no idea of how witch-hunters were appointed or paid in the Empire. Did they undergo specialized training at some faculty, or was it simply up to the local noble or other authorities to appoint whatever man appeared the best for the job? To what extent could a witch hunter be called an trained agent beholden only to the state and crown, and to what extent were they mercenaries who sought the battles that no other man dared face?
He bowed as best he could: “- I am Jan van Boschterp. It is an honour to meet one of the men who keeps the order and light of this land.”
He was about to ask the witch hunter what ills might be ailing the land, since the witch hunter needed comrades-in-arms, but thought better of it and let the questions wait till he heard the man himself told what he deemed was appropriate to tell.