[Well it's a good thing I don't look like a twisted love child between lumpy perv into animals and a cat anymore. But still 10S that’s some good money. Then again what do I know, I am living off scraps and threatening to yell rape. But from what I understand a poor family can live off of 1G(gold coin) for a year, so that's approximately 1/10th a year's worth of work.
Damn, they must suspect me of something if they are willing to put out a wanted poster for me for that much. On the bright side, they can't know what really happened because I doubt they would only offer 10S for me if they knew I killed and ate Paul. And if they did know, I am a little insulted for the small reward].
Thinking of Paul I don't see a poster up for him so they assume he is dead or is too dangerous to put out a reward for on a common notice board? As I look around the notice board I see a poster for a job for people under 5’5 foot to kill giant rats in the sewer. The pay was 25C for every rat-tail retrieved and handed into a city or adventurer guildhall.
I don't know how tall 5’5 foot is but considering I need to be under it and I am 8 years old I think I am ok on in that department. The pay is good, also I bet I can eat the giant rats. That could solve my money and my food problem [nice].
To start I just need to take the poster to a city or adventurer guildhall and they will take me to the sewer entrance and unlock it. After reading this I take the poster and decide to give it a go the day after tomorrow as tomorrow is booked for the library. Putting the poster in my bag I start to walk back to the ally maze thinking that it is the best to hide while I sleep.
On the way back I take a chaotic route in case I am followed. Once I am back in the alleyway maze I notice that there are a few more people here than last time they are dirty and they keep their heads down as they scuttle about. [I don't want people to see me do the workout, especially now that I added the tentacles to it] Not wanting to be watched I walk around trying to find an empty area but have no luck, so I decide to climb on to the roofs of the small houses and start my work out there. The reason I didn't do so before is that there isn't much room for sprinting but I will have to make do with what I have.
It takes me another hour to do the workout and I can move one tentacle about as well as I would normally a toe while doing the workout at the same time. Once this is done I take out three days worth of rations from my bag and eat them all. With food in my stomach, I put the spare clothes and my old uniform in the bag and use it as a pillow as I lie down on the roof. It did not take long for sleep to take me.
Luckily there were no nightmares this time but my body is stiff after two nights on the cold hard stone. Getting up from the poor excuse of my bed I do some stretches and start the morning workout. Once done I descend from the rooftops and started to make my way back to the library.
[I should buy a pen and paper to make notes from the books I read. I decide to change my face again as to not have any meetings with the shopkeeper from yesterday and so I don't have to continue the lie of the old face with the old librarian.] I didn't change much, just enough to look like a different person who is slightly tanned, less chubby and has green eyes.
Passing by the market on my way to the library I buy a pencil and 4 papers for 75C [Damn that old lady was not lying when she said that books are expensive]. When I reach the library I pay the fee of 20C now leaving me with 70C and 3S. Once inside I walk around looking at the title of the books grabbing anything that could be interesting. In the end, I gather books on Demons, Monsters and the city layout.
Not having any idea of what I am, I decided to read the book on Demons, as I am intelligent for a non-human creature. After reading the “basics of demons” I learn that they are intelligent creatures of evil meant to balance out the gods good [well that's bullshit. Gods sanction mind control on their priests, Kill and tortures anyone who doesn't worship them, Make praying addictive and allow rape on children who serve them.
So the gods are not the embodiment of good. I believe that the gods are the embodiment of order because order when compared to chaos, would be good in the eyes of most mortals hence the confusion. Order would also explain the mind control as everything will go to plan if there is no free will, and anyone not actively worshipping the gods are considered against the order.]
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Coming to this conclusion I continue to read the book. Demons are physically stronger than humans by a large but unknown margin and have many different forms and species most of which are unknown. They fight with their physical strength, manipulation of negative emotion, shadow magic, necromancy and hexes (short-term, quick-acting debuff) and curses (long-term slow-acting debuff) as well as other unknown means. [What’s up with all the unknowns?]. According to the book, Humans and other sentient creatures would have fallen to the demons long ago if it weren't for three factors.
One, they live on another plane of existence Hell, and it is difficult to get to the ‘overworld’ from Hell. The only known ways are possession, summoning and very rare special rifts. Two they have no known ruler or organization and seem to live in a constant state of chaos and anarchy [supports my theory of the gods being order while the demons their natural opposites, chaos].
Three, their true names, which all demons have and know from birth. Their true name can be learned by humans by performing a ritual with the demon's blood. Once their true name is known the humans can control the demon. In fact, most of this book was made from a demon being forced to give information when humans learned its true name before the demon managed to kill itself.
[True name huh? well I can't be a true demon otherwise I would know my true name, and I seriously doubt its Jacob. If it were the church would have far better control over me. If I did have a true name then how would I find it? If it's a part of me, something that is the only sense of order in me then it must be in me somewhere. Maybe I am just not a demon, which would be a shame because I sort of liked the idea of being the opposite of the assholes that call themselves Gods.]
I wanted to give finding a true name ago, so I put the book down, got in a comfortable position and thought about my self, what I like, what I dislike, what I have done, what I plan to do and what I am. I go into deep thought, drifting around in my conscious while these questions circle around in my head for what feels like hours. CAEDES (carnage in Latin) like a thunderclap my true name resonates within my body, mind, and soul. I feel strength run through my body as my mind begins to shift slightly.
With my true name learned new information starts to appear in my mind. I now know that I am an only ⅓ demon while being ⅓ human and ⅓ shapeshifter while also having a soul from a different world. Turns out knowing your true name allows you to know your true origins mine being that my human mother was impregnated by a shapeshifter and once she was a week away from giving birth was possessed due to a space tear being opened nearby. But due to the collective strain of being processed and giving birth, the body of my mother manages to remove the demon.
Then when I was born my soul came from a different world, shattering and then merging with the existing one in the baby's body. The new soul managed to restrain the instincts of the body before they were forcefully pushed down by the church's mind magic.
[Is that what the sludge is? the suppressed instincts and fragments of the original soul? I suppose it makes sense given its rudimentary intelligence and instinctual behavior. And my soul from another world makes sense I guess. Despite the lack of memories I have still been intelligent for my age. Similar to how a person with amnesia still has the intelligence and thought processing power of the original person they were before. I can feel the memory there but I can't quite reach them and they appear hazy.]
Because of my weird-ass ancestry, I am an unknown and unique creature [sweet as well as disturbing, I like it].
With that bombshell dropped on me I just sit in for about half an hour. The sludge inside of me seems restless but oddly more docile than before as I feel it merging slightly with me, but instead of feeling intense hunger like I anticipated I only feel more... 'whole' but with an increased sense of desire to leave the city and become stronger.
Once I have come to terms with what I am and the slight merging with the sludge, I move on to the other books I have gathered. Noticing that there was not much light left coming from outside the windows I decided to look at the city planning book as I feel it could be more useful in finding the city or guild halls for tomorrow.
Looking through the book it seems to be a map of the different city sectors with many symbols displayed on it. There were 5 sectors in the city going from the outer wall they were the slums [Oh so that's what the alleyway maze is called], mid sector, high sector, noble sector, and the royal sector. The buildings on the map were represented by squares and the more into the city one went the larger the squares with more space between them, while the edge of the city was overcrowded with a mess of squares that sometimes overlapped.
Looking on the different pages of the book I eventually find the key with the list of symbols and their meaning such as a hammer being a smith, a shield for the guards, a sword for the adventurer's Guildhall and a star made from two triangles for the city hall. There were four city halls for each sector one in each direction, North, East, South, and west. The adventurer's guild halls were scattered around seemingly at random.
Looking around for a bit I find what I assume to be my location, an open book representing a library around an area that I recognized close to a small market, has the symbol of a basket, and not too far away from the slums. Once finding myself, I look for the closest guild/city hall. The closest hall was from the Guild about an hours walk from where I usually sleep.
With this information memorized I leave the library just as it was shutting and headed back to the slums, still believing that it is the best place to hide from the church. Once I reach the slums I do my nightly work out and go to sleep eager for tomorrow.