(i) A lineage of the Gods: Tiamat, the pre-cosmic Chaos from Babylonian mythology, was the mother of the inhuman, squid- or kraken-like sea God, Lir, Who was the father of the anthropomorphic sea God, Mananaan mac Lir, Who in turn remains active several centuries later in two of Poul Anderson's Viking novels.
(ii) Elven Gardens: This exotically named location in Ys is mentioned several times but the reader has probably forgotten the early description of enclosed paths, topiaries, statues and a stairway to a Temple.
(iii) Ys: The characters refer to the city of Ys as beautiful and a wonder of the world but again we might not remember the occasional descriptions of its wall, friezes and gleaming, colored towers.
(iv) Ysan inns: Five are mentioned and three are described, providing comfortable contexts for character interactions and conversations. They differ, depending on the economic circumstances or life styles of various Ysans and visitors.
(v) Gratillonius' challengers: Long periods can pass without a challenge but one can come at any time. The identities and motivations of the six challengers are an important part of the story.
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It's interesting that inns vary so widely in status and the range of available accommodation throughout history. In many times and places, inns are always a last resort, sure to be dirty and uncomfortable, often dangerous. OTOH, in others they could include very comfortable, even luxurious establishments -- Tokugawa-era Japan had many like that, for example.
Edo-period Japan also had commercial restaurants of a type recognizable to us, and a "restaurant culture" with reviews and fads. Conversely, while you could certainly buy prepared food, Europeans didn't have anything like that until the late 18th century and the modern Western version of the restaurant didn't become common until well into the 19th -- in mid-Victorian England it was still regarded as an unhealthy and odd French import. Respectable women couldn't dine out in them until surprisingly late.
In most of the Anglophone world, the first places that women regularly ate away from home (except as guests) were things like tea-shops, and dining rooms attached to the new department stores.
Those also included the first public washrooms for women -- middle-class women had previously been limited to what you might call "pee range" of home or a friend's house. There simply was no socially acceptable alternative for relieving themselves.
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