They were only out in the rain for a minute or so, before Anjel dragged her into another building, taking the token from her as she did so.

It smells like home.

Not quite like home, she realised almost as she thought it, but like the storehouse. The air thick with dust, food and leather. The scent of grain stored for the long months, and there underneath it all, the scent of drying wood.

"This is the quarter-house," Angel explained, not stopping for a moment, "you can exchange your tokens or coins here for goods. You won't get much with one, but it's better than you walking about in the rain without shoes."

Jump-touch was too overwhelmed to complain as she was dragged through the busy building. Just like in the Chapter House, there were people everywhere, chatting in small groups, moving things around, and going from place to place with concentration visible in their postures.

There were even a few sitting against the walls, studying thick books together, pointing out different things on the pages.

And the stuff! So many things, more than even in the little man's room. She had never seen so much stuff in all her life. Boxes and shelves and things, piled floor to ceiling. Each labelled, each in its own specific place. Painted lines on the floor indicated where walkway ended and where storage place began, and she once thought saw a human levitating a pair of boots down from a high shelf, with only a raised gesture of their arms.

Each area was labelled in two different languages, although she could only read one, and she had no time to stop and look.

"Come on, we have other things to do today," An-jel had her by the arm of her shirt and was pulling her along now.

"Can I help you?" Somebody called down from atop a stack of boxes, which claimed to be filled with cooking pots.

"Thank the Stone," An-jel sighed, "I thought we were going to have to go all the way to the back. Yes, my ward here needs..."

She could feel herself shutting down, as Angel carried on a spirited conversation with the trader. The human in charge of cookware, she assumed.

At least the human had let go of her shirt, although her skin still itched. She didn't like being touched except on her own terms, she had never liked it, and the kobolds had learnt that quickly, but people here kept grabbing her.

Jump-touch stood for a while, her eyes unfocused as she watched two young humans chat about a pair of wrist-bracers, the words going through her. Each of them taking the bracers on and off and making excited noises, while a third, bored-looking person watched and tried not to yawn.

"Come on," Angel said finally, taking Jump-touch firmly by the shoulder, too firmly to dance away from, and guiding her towards the exit again. "Shopping's done. Now we go to the public baths, and see if we can do something about your hair."

Did we get everything we needed?

I should have listened, and seen how humans trade. This is what I like, right?

She decided she didn't care as she watched her feet splash through the deepening puddles.

What's wrong with my hair?

Rat-tail had redone it only hours before she left, her last long interaction with him. It wouldn't need re-braiding for at least another couple of weeks. Were some of them coming undone?

It wasn't how most of the other kobolds did their hair, those that had it, but it was how hers had been when they found her, and they'd done their best to keep it up. It had apparently taken then a while to realise that it didn't just grow like that, and that it did, in fact, require maintenance.

She tried not to think about doing it herself, or how a human would do it with their stupid fat hands and lack of claws.

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She didn't want to cut it off, but it might be the best option?

Rat-tail had always done it for her, even before he'd taken over her care full-time. He had the nimblest hands and the best claws, so it had been his job.

The rain was running down her face like tears, and An-jel's hand was tight against her shoulder.

I want to go home.

But she couldn't go home, so instead she would be like Ale-wharf, and she would endure. She would be strong and she would unite people and she would help them to work together. That was what humans did, so it was what she would do.

She wouldn't take a second class, as the strange man had suggested, she wouldn't need one.

Jump-touch finally managed to shrug the hand off her shoulder right as they entered yet another too-big building. This one was all white stone and pillars, and she shivered as they left the rain, stepping inside onto cool, smooth stone.

"This is a bath-house," Angel explained, rubbing her hand against her coat, the small parcel under her other arm now damp from the rain. "It's a place you go to get clean. I don't know if you've ever had a bath before, but you're not coming back into my house until you're scrubbed."

Mean. She wasn't an animal. It was cold, up on the Mountain, but everyone still washed. If you didn't wash then you'd get sick, even kobolds. Your fur would go greasy, or your scales wouldn't shed properly. Germs would get into your food and you'd throw up for days.

She wasn't stupid.

At the end of the march, near their final camp down in the Valley, there was a place full of hot springs, which kept the whole area temperate and allowed their trees to flourish. Over the years the kobolds had hollowed one of them out into a huge basin, that they all soaked in together.

It was one of the highlights of the year, and one of the things that made the longer journey worth it, soaking in that hot bath for as long as any of them wanted, basking in the heat.

"I know what a bath is." She said simply as she was led towards a doorway at the back of the lobby, not wanting to argue with the human who had just paid for her class and arranged to have her token traded in.

It wasn't An-jel's fault she didn't know how kobolds lived, she was a human living in a human place, and she had never had the opportunity to learn.

[Cultural Scholar]. Her skill gave her both word meanings as they progressed deeper in the building. A Scholar wrote, but they did it for the benefit of others. Did that mean she was meant to teach?

I can do that.

The doorway led into an area where an attendant waited to take their clothes, and a few minutes later the both of them were stripped down and up to their necks in hot water.

There were a few other humans here, but they were scattered throughout the massive pool, hazy figures lost in the steam. The two of them had this corner all to themselves.

Jump-touch thought back to the Valley as the heat soaked deep into her bones. This pool was at least twice as big as the one there, how did they keep it all warm, and was one side hotter than the other, like back home?

The water there bubbled up from under the ground, and the run-off eventually formed the temperate swamp at the end of the valley. Where did all the water go, from here?

She could swim about and find out, but she was already starting to drift. She was starting to get a headache both above the eyes and in the back of her neck, and her comprehension of what people were saying had been slowing down for a while now.

I want to be alone.

"The city hires people to staff this place," An-jel said, leaning back against the stone edge of the pool. It took a moment for her words to be anything other than miscellaneous sounds.

"They offer bounties. If you pick the specific classes needed to keep it running, they fund your education and first five levels. If you'd picked the right apprentice or attendant class, you'd have been set for life."

"It didn't offer me much." Jump-touch was up to her nose in the water, and had to rise up on her toes to speak. It was barely afternoon, why was she so sleepy?

Maybe it was the language thing. She hadn't spoken to this many new people… Ever! Not that she could remember. She'd always had the option of walking off down the Mountain when the sound got too much, but there was no chance of that here.

"What other classes did it offer you?" An-jel asked.

She looked out over the water for a while before she answered. "It gave me apprentice, but it wanted me to have a teacher. Warrior, but I suck at fighting, and the one I took."

"Only the three?" she seemed surprised, "that's a limited selection."

"It said it didn't know me well enough, because I wasn't born near it."

Angel shifted in the water as she thought about it, the water wicking up her hair and her face flushing in the heat.

"Apprentice would have been a good choice, even at [Common]. The people who look after the bathhouse take either that and then upgrade it to attendant at level five. Or they take a more specialised class if it's offered. The man who runs the whole building is a Master of the Baths, and he's level twenty five. He started out..."

I wonder if that's high or not.

Jump-touch zoned out as An-jel kept talking and talking, the words washing over her like waves.

Human numbers, she mused, half-drowsing in the hot water. She didn't care. Things for humans to worry about, that's all they were.

"Come on," Angel said after a moment of silence, grabbing a cloth and some soap from a dish on the edge of the pool, "let's get you clean."