Arthur glanced away from Itela towards Karbo and Eito, both of whom seemed to be trying and failing to look uninterested in who he’d choose.

Great. I treat these guys like terrifying monsters to start my day, and now I have to tell them that I prefer one of them to the other. Fantastic.

He could see why Itela was leaving the choice up to him. It was very polite. It was also the worst possible thing she could have done.

Without any real data to go off, Arthur went with his gut, which said the smaller, less-obviously-strong person was the better way to go. Probably. He had the sneaking suspicion he was bumbling into some demon-kind stereotype, and hoped any social blunder would be forgiven later as a first-day sort of thing.

“Eito, I guess?” Arthur said. “As long as I’m going both places eventually.”

“Splendid. Eito it is.” She turned to Eito, smiling. “I trust you have enough food? There’s a fund for the care of guests of the city.”

The way she said that last phrase seemed to imply some kind of special status, like she might have said convicted felon, but without any of the negative connotations the other phrase usually carried. For his part, Eito seemed disgusted at the prospect of taking money from whatever fund had been set aside for this purpose.

“And shame my entire family? I think I can afford to feed a child for a few days, Itela.”

“Oh, calm down. You know I have to mention the fund.” She turned to Arthur, gripping his shoulders and looking into one of his eyes, then the other, as if she was checking for problems. “And you feel all right? No dizziness? No shortness of breath?”

“I think I’m fine.”

“Good. Then get out of here and on your way. There’s still plenty for you to take in, today.” She gripped both his shoulders a bit tighter and then leaned close enough to whisper in his ear. “You chose wrong, by the way. Eito’s a good person, but Karbo’s nicer.”

Karbo, having found out he was off the hook on the matter of putting up the city’s guest for now, had begged the pardon of everyone present and left as soon as possible. Eito and Arthur followed close behind, completing the surprisingly long trek through a series of stone hallways leading outside to the street.

“So was that like a city hall?” Arthur asked as he looked back. The building itself was huge and shaped like a gigantic, three-story shoebox.

“That? Good gods, you must have come a long way. That’s a church, Arthur.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have expected that it’d be so… minimal.”

“All churches are.”

“Why? The gods here don’t like fancy stuff?”

“Oh, no, some of them do.” Eito chuckled. “But they all like different kinds of fancy stuff, and have to share the same building. Guess how church designers keep the peace in that situation.”

“By making everything look like a joyless, stripped-down nightmare?”

“Hey now,” Eito said, “even if you are right, that’s a little harsh. You get used to it, either way.”

The walk home turned into a tour of the surroundings. Eito claimed the city was shaped a bit like a pie, with each big triangular slice of it being considered its own ward, and to some extent its own local government. The center of the city was an exception to that rule, itself a big circular section that housed the city’s true government, its important services, and its most important businesses.

“And the best food carts, on average,” Eito said. “But that’s only on average. Every ward has its own geniuses in that regard. Don’t worry, I’ll show you.”

“And you are sure this is okay? Feeding me and housing me? I don’t want to put you out, and you don’t know me,” Arthur said.

“You’re the guest,” Eito said, as if that was a clear, final answer to the question. “Our city takes care of guests. We always have. And it’s paid off for us. It’s not like that where you come from?”

“Sometimes. Some individuals are that way. Our governments aren’t generally great at it. But it’s a pretty different world.”

“Well, here, we’ve benefited. New people bring new skills, or at least skills that sometimes aren’t as common. We get new food and new music.”

Arthur nodded. “It’s a melting pot.”

“A what?”

“A melting pot. A bunch of cultures mixing together, becoming something new.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Huh. I’ve never heard it put that way. I’ll remember it.”

Eito mentioned he lived about a quarter of the way into one of the triangular slices, which turned out to be a pretty good trek. Arthur wasn’t in particularly bad shape back on Earth, but even so, this walk would have been a lot for him. But now, it was easy, even with Eito setting a brisk sustained pace.

“Huh. That’s weird.”

“What is?” Eito asked, turning his head with concern. He was still a bit jumpy around Arthur, which Arthur had to admit was a reaction he had earned. He had been pretty quick to bolt earlier.

“This body,” Arthur said. “I haven’t had a chance to take a good look at it yet, but the man between your world and mine said it would be a bit different. I just didn’t expect it to work this much better. It’s fantastic.”

Eito gave him an odd look. “The man between our worlds?”

“Yeah. An older man. One who looked like me. My species, anyway. A nice guy.”

“Damn.”

“What?”

“It’s just, everything around here is normal for me. Besides you, I mean, and you aren’t all that odd, really.” Eito shrugged. “It made me forget that you’re not normal. Not yet, at least. You have had a hell of a day, haven’t you?”

—

Most of the buildings in town were similar to each other, at least in terms of materials. There were a few wood structures here and there, but the most common materials for walls seemed to be either white brick, red brick, or similarly red and white blocks of stone. The roads themselves were lined with a rock that wasn’t quite as crimson, but still carried a significant reddish tint.

“Why is everything so red?” Arthur asked. “Not that it’s bad. It’s just that everything seems to be either red or white.”

“Oh. That’s just this part of town. Red’s a pretty common color, but the real reason why it’s so red is because when this section of town was built, the main quarries supplying the city produced this color of stone.” He tapped one of the flagstones with his toe. “It’s sturdy, and it was cheap. Every now and again a quarry gives out, and the color changes. Some parts of town are green. I’m so used to the red that it’s a little bit of a shock every time I go there.”

They walked on for just a bit longer, with Eito pointing out various buildings he thought would be useful to Arthur. There was a library, which Eito explained was just one of many around the city. Arthur thought it was a good idea for him to spend some time in it sooner than later, if for no other reason than to get a feel for the world he lived in now.

The other locations Eito told him about were much more utilitarian, falling much more into the line of things like laundromats, repair shops, restaurants, and boarding houses. If anything, they made Arthur feel more at ease than any other of the other buildings. They were the kind of places you didn’t hear about much in stories, but also places every city had to have. He bet the tech worked differently here and that there were things he didn’t understand. But for the most part, it was a place people lived, with most of the same things you’d expect to see around civilization.

Soon enough, they were at Eito’s place.

“Is it made of bark?” Arthur asked, placing his hands on the surface of the building. “No, stone. It just looks like bark. How do they do it?”

“They don’t do it. I do it. I’m a tree-demon, after all. We have an aura. In a forest, it helps the trees grow. Anywhere else…”

“It makes things more tree-ish?”

“Something like that. You didn’t have tree demons where you came from?”

“Nope. Just people who looked mostly like me. Besides cosmetic differences like height and skin tone, everyone was pretty much the same.”

“Weird. I can’t imagine that.”

“Same, except I’m seeing it. Does every type of demon have some special power?”

“No. But that’s not the kind of thing you want to talk about in the street. Let’s go inside. I’ll make you some food and we can go over it.”

In the house, nearly everything was wood, or at least looked like it was. The exceptions were all metal objects, like what appeared suspiciously like a water spout, a few hinges and locks, and books, which on second thought were indeed made out of wood. Eito went to his kitchen counter, scooped something out of a bowl onto a wood-looking plate, and plopped it and a fork in front of Arthur.

“Here. I made it this morning.”

“I don’t want to be rude, but… what is it?”

The food in the bowl was from a family of food that Arthur tended to think of as glops. Not that he didn’t like a good glop. Chicken salad was fine, for instance. But as this was the first local food he had eaten, he needed to make sure it didn’t kill him.

“Diced meat and vegetables. A sauce made of wine, eggs, and oil.”

Pretty much chicken salad, then. Arthur dug in. He really was hungry, and the food was actually much better than he had expected it to be.

“Normally, I’d have bread, but you threw my morning plans into a bit of a shambles. We can go out tomorrow.” Eito packed some kind of pipe while he talked, lighting it with a match and beginning to puff away. “You asked about the powers various demons have. Before I tell you about that, you should know it isn’t something you would talk about in public, at least not without good reason.”

“Is it secret?”

“Not secret so much as just not good manners. This city is pretty good about security, and things are getting better all over, but not every type of demon always gets along with every other type. Call it historical friction, if you want.”

“People are still sore about it?”

“Wary, if you need a word for it. Everyone pretty much knows what everyone else is capable of, but I’d recommend you read up on it rather than ask about it. The library will help.”

“Got it.”

“I can tell you a little, at least. Most differences between races tend to be physical. Tree demons have an affinity for forests, which we’ve already talked about. Water demons are similar, but more direct. They can control moisture to some extent.”

“But they live on land?”

“Yeah. Geez. You really don’t know much, do you?” Eito shook his head. “They tend to live near water, but pretty much every demon can live in the same conditions. Whether they like to or not is a different story.”

“What about Karbo? I can’t help but notice that he’s…”

“Huge?”

“Yeah. That.”

“He’s an infernal. Infernals are pretty rare, as demon-kind go. Almost all of them are big like that, all of them stronger than almost any other kind of demon. Not by much, and not so much that leveling doesn’t smooth out most of the difference.”

“Leveling?”

“Yeah. It tends to make things a bit more even, depending on where you put your points.”

“Points?”

Eito stopped puffing on his pipe mid-draw, frozen mid-motion. When he snapped out of it a few seconds later, he leaned so far across the table, he almost bumped foreheads with Arthur.

“Good gods, boy. Are you from a system-less world?”