"Hello? Is anyone there?" A man's voice called from outside of the shop.
Sallia and I glanced at each other, before we quietly crept back towards the front of the shop, weapons at the ready. We slipped behind the counter before peeking through one of the smaller holes in the wall.
On the street in front of the shop stood a large man. He looked older than both of us, perhaps being in his late twenties. Unlike Sallia, he didn’t have any features that screamed ‘I’m not quite as human as you are.’
However, while I could certainly have found people with his physique back on Earth, they would have been uncommon. He was very tall and muscular, and resembled a humanoid bear or a bodybuilder. His movements contained a trace of awkwardness though, making his gait weirdly disconnected and unstable, despite his well built frame. For now, I took that as a hint that he might also be unfamiliar with his body. Just like Sallia and I, he wore simple pants and a shirt.
“Hello? Is there anyone here?” the man asked again, as he looked at his surroundings with a surprisingly… nervous expression. He didn’t seem abnormal right now. That being said, I was still very wary of ‘magic’ because I had no idea what it was capable of or when it might be used. I glanced at Sallia.
She looked back at me, then tightened her grip on her sword.
“You stand up and talk to him. I’ll stay hidden. If he starts acting funny, I’ll stab him. If you think he’s about to turn hostile, do your best to keep his attention and swing your weapon around. Even if you have no clue what you’re doing, you’ll be able to keep his attention away from me while I make try for a killing blow,” whispered Sallia. I nodded. Sallia was the better fighter between the two of us, so she would be able to take better advantage of a surprise attack if it came to a fight. Sallia quickly shuffled out from under the counter, before shifting behind a shelf. Then Sallia nodded at me, indicating she was ready.
I stood up and called out to the new person. “Hello? Who are you?”
The man’s gaze swiveled back towards me, containing both shock and fear. He didn’t seem to notice my weapon, instead simply settling on my face as the fear in his eyes quickly gave way to relief.
“Oh, thank Asaira! I thought I was alone in this bloody city!” He said, immediately taking a step towards me.
Unconsciously, I dropped into a defensive stance, and my fingers tightened over the handle of my warhammer.
The man stopped moving when he saw me fingering my weapon. For a moment, total confusion appeared on his face, before he seemed to realize something. He immediately held both of his hands out, palms facing towards me. It almost looked like he was trying to offer me a handshake, or ask me for spare change, but I immediately scuttled out of the way, because I had no idea what he was doing.
“Sorry! I am not armed, and I mean you no harm!” He said, maintaining his strange posture. I finally realized that there hadn’t been any signs of magic use. I glanced at Sallia from the corner of my eye, but she didn’t seem to be preparing to kill the man, so I settled back into place and gave the man another cautious look. Finally, I realized that this posture clearly showed his hands to me, and made it hard for him to attack me if he tried to start a fight. It was probably his world’s equivalent of putting one’s hands up. “I was just really – I mean, I haven’t seen another human since I arrived here.” The man’s voice sounded both anxious and awkward at the same time.
As I continued to observe him, I felt my wariness towards him decreasing. He seemed just like Sallia and I - a normal person caught up in this strange city of dead and the undead.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“I arrived here a few hours ago. I’ve been chased around this bloody city by skellies left and right. I haven’t seen anyone else alive though - just piles of bones and corpses,” said the man, shuddering a little bit.
“The only other thing I’ve seen so far is a bunch of boxes with numbers popping up in front of me. The skellies give me the creeps, so I’ve been dodging them when I could. Luckily they’re dumb as bricks, so even if they see me and chase me they’re pretty easy to lose if you have enough distance and duck around some corners. I saw all of the broken skeletons and weapons lying around out front, so I thought maybe there was a group of humans or something here. Anything has to be better than more skellies, right?” The bear-like man chuckled nervously, his actions totally at odds with his body. “Stick with your own kind and all that.”
“Do you have any clue how you got to this city?” I asked, unconsciously relaxing. I moved my hands away from my weapon. While I wasn’t totally sure he was safe yet, I was starting to feel safer while talking to the man. He hadn’t exhibited any obvious hostility or ability to threaten me, which was a relief.
“I… I honestly have no clue. The last thing I remember was getting some nice dragon-clam for dinner with a couple of my mates. I think I heard something after that… it sounded like screeching, I think? Then I heard a few screams and felt something hit my head, before I blacked out. Next thing I knew, I dreamed that I was flying above a giant black ocean. When I woke up, I was here in this city with a bunch of bloody skellies and floating boxes trying to get me to buy ‘a better body.’ I don’t know what that means, but it seems really weird. I’m so glad to see other people alive here - I can’t find the restaurant or my mates anywhere.”
I resisted the urge to snort when he said that he had found other people who were ‘alive,’ before trying to figure out what had landed this guy in the Market.
This guy had probably died as well, sometime after going to the bathroom. His memories were a fair bit more… put together than mine were, since he could remember exactly what he was doing right up until his death. However, he didn’t seem to have realized he was dead. Part of the reason I had realized I was dead was because I had spent months floating over a giant black ocean filled with souls. Apart from that, the Market was just incredibly different from what I perceived as ‘normal,’ which quickly helped me understand that this place was very different from my old world. This guy mentioned the black ocean as well, but seemed to believe it was a dream. And he also didn’t seem particularly surprised by the walking skeletons, and instead seemed surprised by how common they were. He also mentioned he heard screaming before he had died, and something had hit his head.
I thought about it for a moment, before I sighed and shrugged. I just didn’t know enough about his world right now, and the reason he had died didn’t seem too important. I beckoned for the guy to come into the store. Sallia quietly moved to the side, remaining out of sight to observe this guy for a little longer.
Doing my best to feel out the guy’s intentions, I walked right up to him, keeping his attention on me. I smiled at him and reached out my hand.
“I don’t remember my name, but it’s nice to meet you,” I said, holding out my hand.
The guy gave me a baffled look as he stared at my hand. Finally realizing his world also might not have a custom of shaking hands, I awkwardly put my hand back down.
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“You don’t remember your name? I’m very sorry - I thought my problems were bad, but I didn’t realize you had amnesia. My deepest apologies, miss,” he said, awkwardly shuffling in place. Suddenly, he seemed bashful, as if afraid he had brought up a sore subject.
“What’s your name?” I asked, trying to change the topic.
The man got a queer expression on his face. “You know, it’s the strangest thing. I’m sure my mates called me ‘little six.’ But I can’t for the life of me recall what my real name is. Must’ve hit my head harder than I thought. But my head doesn’t hurt right now. Weird. You know, now that I think about it, hearing you also can’t remember your name makes me feel a little better.” I gave Little Six a confused stare. What about him was ‘little?’ This man looked like a bodybuilder!
“Is that so?” I asked, keeping a wary eye on Little Six.
Despite the fact that Little Six was definitely in a range and position where he could easily attack me, this guy hadn’t done anything. Even after I had moved my hand away from my warhammer, he hadn’t attacked me. I was even doing my best to pretend I had dropped my guard. If this guy wanted to ambush me, now was a prime opportunity.
The man simply did nothing, continuing to watch me with an apologetic expression.
If he wasn’t attacking me with this kind of opportunity, he probably wasn’t going to.
As if affirming my assessment, after several more seconds of tensed readiness, Sallia quietly sheathed her weapon. She walked out from behind the shelf she had been hiding behind, then grabbed a random crate of friendship bracelets.
“I think I found most of them,” she said, grinning at me before waving at Little Six. Sallia didn’t show any sign of having been ready to kill the man mere moments ago, and was now doing her best to look like she had just been working on looting the shop. The man seemed a bit taken aback by her presence, but took it in stride a moment later.
“Ahh… Ahem. It’s nice to meet you as well, young lady … Asaira’s tears, what happened to your eyes?” Asked the man, shocked, as he stared at Sallia’s face.
“I was simply born this way,” said Sallia, her tone becoming unexpectedly dry as she stared at the man’s eyes and then took another glance at me. “It’s a rare birth condition, apparently. In any case, I can still see just fine, so it’s not a big deal.”
“Is… is that so.” The man gave Sallia a more probing glance, before he nodded, relaxing slightly. “Well, as long as you can get about your daily life unhindered, it’s probably not too big of a deal. Anyway, do the two of you know how we all ended up here? Or how to go home to Lendrium? I don’t know what’s happened to move all of us here, but I’d like to get back and check on my mates as soon as possible.”
This guy… still didn’t seem to realize he was dead. Which made things a little awkward. For now, I decided not to deal with the subject. He would probably figure it out given a little more time, but we had other problems to deal with right now.
“For now, the two of us have discovered we’re somewhere in a place called ‘the Market.’ My first guess for what happened to the residents is that the skeletons offed them. There are probably other threats here besides just the skeletons, so keep an eye out for them. The damage we’ve seen so far is way too huge for the skeletons to account for. Sallia and I have been wandering around for the last few hours and trying to find other people, or at least find out what happened here.”
Sallia nodded. “We’re still trying to adapt to this place as well. The boxes with numbers and letters are… interesting. Have you ever heard of anything about this place? Perhaps related to this ‘Asaira’ you keep mentioning?” I winced a little bit, before glancing at Sallia. Was she trying to ask if this place was in this guy’s version of the afterlife?
“Asaira’s teachings have never mentioned anything about this kind of place. Why would they? If I had to guess about this place, I would just guess that some rogue necromancers escaped the holy purge and are hiding here. Perhaps they managed to set up a teleportation beacon? I don’t know how they could have possibly found enough people to sacrifice to make one, but if they did…” Little Six shuddered in horror, before sighing. “As for why they brought us here, and why they haven’t sacrificed us or turned us into undead…” The man frowned. “I have no idea. Maybe they lost us somehow during the teleportation? For now, I’ll count my blessings. Once the king’s finest and the church authorities discover this place, they’ll surely raze it to the ground and purge this nest of evil. We just need to find a way back home before then, or we might get mistaken as spellcasters and executed. Or at the very least, we need to survive. As long as they don’t attack us at first sight, surely they’ll help rescue us and take us home.”
“If that happens, it would certainly be nice,” I said. “That being said, who knows what will happen in the future. For now, we should rely on ourselves. Hoping someone else will come and deal with the undead might just be wishful thinking on our part.” I had quickly decided that I should try to guide his thoughts away from the idea of relying on others. Unless I was seriously mistaken about the nature of this city, I seriously doubted the ‘King’s Finest’ would ever be making it here. Or if they did, they would probably be just as baffled as the three of us. At best, they would probably weaponless and trying not to trip over their new, poorly coordinated mass-produced bodies. At worst, they might join the corpse pile.
Little Six seemed to pause as he considered this. Then, he nodded. “You’re right. This place looks old. Who knows how long it’s been since the last living chaps were here? Relying on the King’s Finest and the church might just leave us stranded here with no way to survive. We need to figure out where we are and what’s going on. Otherwise, we might end up like those poor sods,” he said, gesturing towards the corpses on the ground.
“Do you know how to use any weapons, Little Six?” asked Sallia, gesturing towards the pile of weapons from the dead skeletons. “Also, did you pick up a friendship bracelet? We’ve been trying to figure out all of their functions, but we’re still a little confused on the exact details behind how some things work. Still, both of us have one, and it’s probably not a bad idea to have everyone wearing a bracelet. Just in case.”
“I can’t say I know how to use a weapon, or have a bracelet,” said Little Six, giving the weapons a closer look. “Why are these all middle ages weapons, instead of some proper rifles?” He looked at my warhammer again, before his eyes lit up. “Oh, is it because it’s hard to hit the skeletons in the head with guns? That’s actually quite clever. Unfortunately, the closest I’ve come to wielding a weapon is when my mates and I used to play Stickbatch when we were younger. If I find a weapon similar to the throwing natch, I think I could use it, but I don’t see anything similar here.”
What the heck was a throwing natch? I had literally never heard of this term before. I gave Little Six a blank expression, and then glanced at Sallia. She shook her head, seeming just as confused as I was. I decided to just ignore it, since it was probably some game local to his home dimension. If Little Six found a weapon similar to a ‘throwing natch,’ more power to him. If not, there wasn’t much we could do about it. First we would get him a friendship bracelet and a connection with our bracelets, though. Even if I still didn’t fully trust the guy, he seemed to be another person caught up in this mess, so I would just keep an eye on him where I could.
“Here, take this,” I said, grabbing a random friendship bracelet and chucking it at him.
Little Six caught it. It didn’t take long before he figured out how to equip it, and Sallia and I then linked him to our bracelets. While equipping the bracelet, Little Six had a strange expression on his face, especially for a few seconds where he seemed to zone out while staring at the air in front of him. I guessed that he was probably reading over the text related to ‘reincarnation,’ but that still didn’t seem to cue him in on the fact he had passed away, even if he did seem a little confused and uncomfortable after reading it.
Then I pointed behind him, at the pile of skeleton corpses. “Just take whatever fits you best from the debris on the street over there.”
Little Six looked behind him, before he headed over to the pile of bones and started sifting through the dead skeletons for weapons.
After a few minutes, he picked out a solid, sturdy mace made of the same green and purple metal my warhammer and Sallia’s sword were made from. He seemed very clumsy when he held it, and I was amused to see that his bodybuilder-like muscles granted him no advantage whatsoever here.
“It’s not quite right, but I guess it’s close enough,” he said, sighing as he tried to twirl the mace around. “I must say, even if this is the best weapon we have available, I really wish I could use all of my strength. I feel pretty weak and dizzy in this place.”
“Must be the damage to the head,” I commented dryly. “Anyway, Sallia and I are heading towards the center of the city. We figure this place must have a story, and information and weapons we might be able to use to survive. For that, we need to hit up the useful buildings and ignore the houses at the outskirts of the city. Since you spent all of this time looking for other people, I assume you’re coming with us?”
Little Six looked taken aback, before he furiously nodded. “I’d love to have some other people to stick with, Sallia and… miss. Since we’re both in the same situation and your plan sounds better than randomly wandering around, let’s stick together for now.”
With that, the three of us set out to see if we could discover more about this fallen city.