“So, where exactly are we? The afterlife?” Lloyd asked.

Lloyd and I had sat against the wall in what I assumed to be an isolated backstreet, judging by the layout. If I was being honest, the style of buildings and roads, the smells and colors, even the air, they were all just like the city we came from. Like being the key word here.

I pretty much knew every street back home, to the point where I could tell exactly where in the city I was with a single glance. But this place felt alien to me, familiar but distinctly different, like someone had taken the city I once knew and rearranged it, shuffling around the buildings and roads.

“No clue,” I reluctantly admitted.

We sat in silence, processing our situation.

“Are the kids going to be ok?” I wondered out loud.

“We had plenty saved up, and they know how to take care of themselves,” he reassured me.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, not fully convinced.

Lloyd continued. “If they need help, they know how to get in contact with some of our old friends.”

I could only give a half-hearted grunt of acceptance.

“Von,” Lloyd said after a long period of silence. I turned to look at him. “What do you want to do now? I mean, we need to get a place to sleep and some food, obviously, but I mean after that.” He was always one to plan for the long-term.

I raised an eyebrow, “Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself?” I questioned him.

Lloyd smirked. “We’re thieves, remember? If there’s something we need but can’t get, we steal it.”

We stared at each other.

“Pftt!” I cracked up, which set Lloyd and I into full-blow laughter.

I held out a fist, Lloyd bumping it with his. I stretched out before trying to stand. For some reason, ever since waking up, I felt utterly exhausted, like I had spent the entire day yesterday running, and now my muscles were refusing to cooperate.

“That said, let’s ask around, maybe someone can tell us about this place.”

“Try not to act too out of place, don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention,” I warned Lloyd. “Why don’t we just walk around first, get a feel for the place,” I suggested.

“Sounds good.”

----------------------------------------

“Von, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Yeah, I think so. Giant rats, walking around on two legs, right?” I said, barely believing the fact that I said that and was serious about it.

We had made our way through a maze-like alley and found ourselves standing before a bustling street. It was normal enough. Unless you count the humanoid, bipedal monsters scattered throughout the crowd of humans. Of the non-humans, I’d have to say at least seventy percent of them were the Rat-humans. The other thirty percent was a melting pot of all kinds of human-creature hybrids, from wolfmen to bird-people.

Seriously, what the fuck am I looking at?

The human population seemed normal enough. As far as I could tell, they were all normal humans, though if anything seemed odd to me, it was that the population seemed far more diverse than the city I grew up in. I saw humans of all ages, from babies carried in their mother’s arms to old men hobbling around. As for fashion, the styles, colors, and designs of their clothing were similar to what I was used to.

The non-humans, though, came in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and colors. I spotted a short, relative to the others I had seen, rat-person with bright orange fur. Moments later, a massive figure passed directly in front the mouth of the alley we were in. I belatedly realized it was probably a bull-person, judging by the horns.

As for clothing, the non-humans wore less than humans did. There were even a few who wore nothing but a loincloth. I guess the fur or scales cover up pretty much everything else. I could guess that some of them didn’t even need armor, as they had tough-looking hides or scales to protect them.

What I did see a lot of was accessories. Almost every non-human wore accessories or jewelry of some kind. Glimmering chains draped over horns, detailed bangles clasped around thin avian legs and thick furred biceps, and rings embedded with gemstones worn by those with humanoid fingers. Of course, just as many of them were more subdued with their adornments, limiting themselves to only one or two simple pieces.

At first, I thought we were in an extremely affluent area of the city, but nothing I could see indicated it as such. All the stores and stalls I could see from my narrow vantage point were middle-class at best.

“Well,” I started, “at least we’re not the only humans here.” It would have been almost impossible to fit in if humans weren’t a common sight around here. It was also a good sign that we weren’t getting many strange looks as we stood at the entrance to the street.

I sighed. Might as well just go with it. This is too real to be some kind of hallucination.

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We decided to start wandering around town, eavesdropping on as many conversations as we could, trying to pick any information about this place. Thankfully, the people here spoke the same language as us.

Since we didn’t yet know the layout of the city, we decided to stick together. It was inefficient, but better than being separated with no easy way to meet back up.

After about an hour of meandering about, we were able to learn a few important pieces of information.

This town’s name was Lowestoft, and it was ruled by someone named Lord Cadius. Shockingly, thieves are apparently respected in this city, though it’s still a crime to steal. What’s up with that? Neither of us could figure out what that was supposed to mean.

Finally, the race of humanoid rats are called Ratatoskrs, and Lowestoft is their homeland.

Lowestoft was extremely large city, about three times the size of the one we came from, judging by the size and curvature of its outer walls. It was also a disorganized mess, primarily consisting of backstreets and twisting roads. There didn’t seem to be any central street, but we did stumble across a plaza with a fountain in the middle of it.

This is stupid. I felt a strong urge to slap whoever designed this clusterfuck.

It was getting late, the sun starting to dip below the horizon. I felt exhausted. Lloyd didn’t seem to be doing much better himself; his face was a touch pale.

We needed a place to sleep soon, and I didn’t feel like hunkering down in some random corner of this labyrinth for the night. We would have to sleep in shifts, and even then, I wasn’t sure we were in any state to defend ourselves. We had no weapons, and I could tell we were much physically weaker than when we were alive.

“This is a nightmare,” I groaned. “Do you think we should try looking for a map?” I asked Lloyd. There was no way we’d be able to memorize this layout anytime soon. It’d take months, at the least. The main issue was the numerous spider webbing corridors that started and stopped seemingly at random. I had a hunch that a map of this place would look like a bunch of lines drawn seemingly at random.

“I haven’t seen any yet, so I’m pretty sure no one is selling them. This is so strange; how does anyone find their way around here? It’s a damned maze, but no one even bats an eye.” Lloyd complained. There were signs at each street corner with the names of each street, of course, but there were just so many that it was impractical to memorize them all.

Then I had a thought. Did the locals use a landmark or some other marker to determine where in the city they were? There had to be, there was no way any sane person would be able to navigate this mess just by the street signs alone. I scanned the crowd, looking for anyone who wasn’t looking straight ahead. If there was some kind of marker it was most likely above eye level, somewhere easy to see.

There, in the crowd, a human tilted his head upwards towards the rooftops. I followed his line of sight and spotted it: a flagpole bearing a large pink flag swaying in the breeze. Could that have been it? I took another look around us, and sure enough, I could see the top of another flag in the distance, this one was green. I shared what I found with Lloyd.

“Good eye,” Lloyd nodded.

All that’s left is to figure out what each flag was supposed to represent. Was the city split into districts by trade or by wealth? Or was it split by something else? Or was it split at all? If we could determine which areas of the city were likely to hold certain types of facilities, we would have a much easier time surviving in this place.

For instance, if you’re looking to do some pickpocketing, you’ll want to go to an area with middle-class shops and stores. People heading to the lower-end shops won’t be carrying as much, and the people going to the high-end shops often have bodyguards. The city guard tends to patrol the wealthier areas more frequently as well.

We had two options: we could survey the area and try to determine what kind of distinct it is, or we could ask someone about them. Since it was getting late, it would be faster to just ask someone. Besides, it wasn’t that strange to ask where they might find lodging. I shared my plan with Lloyd, and he nodded.

We were getting ready to head out when I noticed a group of Ratatoskrs approaching us. There were three of them, and they were obviously looking for trouble. They smirked wickedly as they approached us. They probably enjoyed the thought of us cowering and begging them to let us go, or something like that. Basically, they were a bunch of thugs who got off on beating up the weak and defenseless for kicks.

The one on the left had ash-grey fur and wore a muted green cloak and a pair of armored bracers. The one on the right had light orange fur, wore a belt with pouches of assorted sizes tied to it, and a thin bracelet of gold on his left wrist. The one in the middle was wearing a black vest and the tip of his left ear was missing. They all wore a dagger somewhere on their person, either holstered and hanging from a belt, or tucked away in a pocket.

“Look, boys,” the one in the middle said. Vest, I’ll call him. “A pair of defects. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.”

Defects? I don’t know what he’s talking about, but if something he’s able to discern with a single glance, it must be pretty obvious. My mind starts running through the possibilities, but I quickly stop that line of thought. This isn’t the time for that. These people are itching for a fight, I can tell. I need to come up with a plan, and fast.

Recent memories invaded my mind. I recalled the terror and despair caused by a simple mistake. I shuddered.

Deep breaths. I forced myself to calm down and assess the situation again. How strong were these enemies? Should we just run?

Lloyd steps forward, his tone jovial and demeanor friendly. “Hey there, I don’t know about defects, but we are pretty strange people.” He was trying to deescalate the situation. Though, I wasn’t familiar enough with the kinds of people around this strange new world to predict how they would react. “Why, Von here likes to read! And he grew up on the streets! I mean, how does a street urchin-”

Smooth, Lloyd.

“Shut up,” Vest barked. “We aren’t interested in acting all friendly with a pair of Dusts. Unless you’re lookin’ to bleed, I suggest you hand over everything you got.”

Dusts, that’s something I should remember for later. For now, I had to focus. It was clear to me that they wouldn’t take kindly to the idea of us being broke, but nonetheless, it still needs to be said.

“Sorry, but we’ve got nothing. Look,” I flip open the pouches on my belt. All empty. “See?”

Vest scoffs. “Sure, of course you don’t,” he drawled, the sarcasm palpable. Is this guy an idiot? Even if I was hiding money on me, it couldn’t be in any significant quantity.

I sighed, turning my head to look at Lloyd. His eyes met mine. “Yeah,” he confirmed with a nod.

“Oh? Do they have some kind of plan?” The one on the right, Orange, said mockingly. “I guess they really do want to get gutted like a fish.”

They drew their weapons, while Lloyd and I spread out as much as we could in this cramped backstreet. I goaded Vest and Orange, while Lloyd drew the remaining Ratatoskr away.

Taking stock of the situation, I couldn’t see this ending well for us. We’re both exhausted on top of being weaker than normal, and they are armed. We also don’t know the physical capabilities of the average Ratatoskr. It’s going to be easy for them to use unexpected movements to get in a clean hit. And in a battle like this, a single mistake is going to be the end of us.

My mood suddenly took a nosedive. Fuck…

I smile sadly. Life is unfair, after all. At least that is still the same, even in this crazy, nonsense world.