Chapter Four

They say you never know what to expect when you’re in a new place. Meeting dogpeople, catpeople, racoonpeople in lab coats and suits were all unexpected things. Finding myself plus one pair of boobs was another. But you know something?

In a way, those are all pretty small. Thanks to my genre savviness, the idea of magic and interworld travel wasn’t too shocking. I mean, I’m not saying I expected it or anything. But if you’re at least familiar with the concept, then it’s not hard to deal with.

But what really shocked me was my first step outside. I touched the panel and watched the segments of the door rise up, then stepped outside. Overhead I heard a wild scream and nigh jumped out of my skin. All of my tails bristled and my head snapped straight up. A wyvern with scales painted in a bright yellow pattern. I have to assume that since I was able to read the word ‘Airferry’ and I hadn’t had an issue with the letters or numbers from before, that the transition process gave me the necessary access to communication in this world.

But it sure didn’t give me the means to cope with the shock! The wyvern was ridden by a little yellow skinned norm wearing leather clothing and a pair of goggles secured to a leather cap on his head and strapped under his chin. From the wyvern’s body hung what might best be described as a long rowboat, but beneath the boat…or maybe barge? Was affixed a set of thick springs. It swayed a little, and the air picked up and carried their scarves and hair to trail behind them. But they too wore goggles on their faces to compensate for the speed of the air.

Far above I saw an airship. Literally. A god damn ship. Right down to the keel and rudder, secured by what I hope were metal cables that were secured to a net which bulged as it was pressed by a massive balloon longer than the ship itself.

The street was fairly ordinary, simple cobblestone, but I did not expect to see a pegasus and an eight legged sleipnir hitched outside of a round domed building. In the street, elves and humans mingled freely with each other, seemingly not even noticing their differences. In the stories I knew, hostility was the norm, but this place seemed rather cosmopolitan about everything.

A dwarf cobbler in what I can only describe as ‘old timey’ heavy boots and overalls made of canvas and wearing goggles with multiple lenses that were raised out of position, was looking up at a wolfman in a suit with a puffy snow white kerchief beneath his jaw bristled and growled, enduring the thunderous dwarven shout, “I don’t care what yew offerah me! Ah cannae finish when yew wawnt! Greatness takes time yah damn furry fool!”

People holding swords and wearing bits and pieces of armor were as common as scales on a fish, their shouting and noise wasn’t the only thing. A woman with long high elven ears was leaning out of the upper floor of a shop and hawking wares, “Fresh batch’a potions! Heal’n or skin peel’n, if you’ve got the gold, our potions will hold!”

‘At least jingles and slogans are the same in every world.’ I thought while my eyes bugged out of my head. The buildings were not the usual blocky boring brick squares I was used to. The buildings were of a spiral shape with rail lines that wove and curved around them left and right, and on the rails were glowing ‘miniature trains’. No. Trains is the wrong word. They were more like roller coaster cars, simple open cars in which people were riding to get from one place to another.

Bridges that crossed from one floor of a building to another were not metal, but rather they were vines that grew down from pointy green roofs, and they did not raise, they unrolled from one another and lowered or rose out of the way of the little chugging cars before binding together again, including little green armrests for safety or comfort. Strangely, there was no smoke from the engine car, and even stranger, it was pushing rather than pulling.

The buildings themselves were arranged in various designs from spiral shapes with winding staircases and doors every dozen paces or so going up, to ‘stacks’ of irregular blocks where each cube had a bridge between itself and its neighbor, with zigzag pattern steps going up from one floor to the next.

All those on the ground jostled together, though they made a clear path for those on horseback, or flowed seamlessly out of the way of landing air ferries, and I never saw any indication that the wyverns landed close to people. With their ferocious looking claws and oversized mouths with sharp teeth, I expected it could eat a child whole and a grown child… a grown up, in two or three bites.

‘Thank you internet, for you have blessed me with weebness that has translated into genre savviness, that I may live and not die of goddamn shock in the face of my long dreamt of transition to a new world full of adventure.’ I uttered a weebs prayer that I recalled from an anime group, and it felt good.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the air. It wasn’t as crisp as I hoped it might be. There was a definite odor of smoke, but it was more like burning wood than foul coal, and it was touched with the scent of pastries and fresh baked goods.

Sweets are a bit of a weakness of mine, so I scrapped my first plan to go join the adventurer’s guild and placed my hand on my slate, then I said, “Show me the way to a bakery.” I watched as a streetmap faded into view like a person stepping out of a thick fog, gradually becoming clear.

I was staring down at the map indicator, which was really nothing more than building shapes and a road, nothing intricate, when I decided to try an experiment. I was represented by a little green dot, but there was no color elsewhere. Just little black lines. “Increase realism by one hundred percent.” I instructed it, and the top down view of the city grew exponentially more complicated. I could see the rooftops and the many people passing by, at least the tops of their heads. I still had a black line pulsing on the screen as my guide, but… “Damn. If things worked this well back home then people could just never look up from their devices.” I mumbled and said, “Remove people.”

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For a moment I panicked, ‘What if that killed everybody?!’ My head snapped up to look at the street. Everybody was alive. I gave a heavy sigh of relief and looked down, the realistic street and rooftops were there, but the ‘people’ and their mounts, thankfully, were gone.

You know, if I had to pick the seminal moment of this whole… whatever this is, it wouldn’t be showing up when and where I did. It wouldn’t be getting my slate or leaving the doctor behind. It wouldn’t even be stepping out the door of the building.

It would be this. The world was ‘real’ now, you know? I was about to actually move among the general population, all the dangers and experiences I wanted, were starting with ‘this’ one step more than any other.

It might seem strange to think of my life in genre specific terms, like a video game or an anime, manga, or light novel series. And I admit, it probably wasn’t my best idea. What made me realize it wasn’t the wisest thing was my epic trip to the bakery which, according to the map, was one block away.

What danger did I face?

What plot hook caught my eye?

Was it a mugging by a stranger?

Did I see a pair of pretty girls being mugged in an alley in need of some sexy rescuing?

Did a stranger grab me and whisper in a hushed and raspy voice, “I have been told by the gods that you would come, follow me, they’re looking for you…”

Or perhaps a military or bandit raid on the city that gave me a chance to be a heroine?

Hell no.

Nothing freaking happened.

Nobody stared at me with wonder and awe, I wasn’t totally unique, I saw two other kitsunes in just that short distance. I just tried not to bump into too many people, though I seemed to be the only one in the crowd like that. Pedestrians bumped shoulders a lot, without so much as an apology.

I quickly realized that it was so impossible not to, that there was no reason to apologize for doing it.

So I got over that fairly quickly, but I was mildly annoyed of the unfortunate reminder that I’d actually have to put in the work to have an adventure. There was no call to it for me, not that I really saw. ‘Summoned as a Janitor’ was the worst title I could possibly think of, and if I ever wrote this down, I’d be damned if I’d give my life story that title.

Anyway, the bakery… I really didn’t need directions for it after a little while as the sweet and savory scents tickled my nose before I was halfway there. I just leaned forward, following the tantalizing smell and soon found myself staring into the window of a shop. A line of baked goods, breads sprinkled with sugar, little green cakes with what I had to conclude was some kind of dark honey, and some little round crispy things with what was definitely melted chocolate, all caught my eye.

The door to the shop was open and I hastened within, a portly orc was wearing a giant oversized chef’s hat with a bronze clock face on it. One look and I knew it wasn’t decoration.

Whatever it was counting down for, it reached it before I reached the counter. It made a quick, ‘ding!’ noise and he said, “S’cuze me.” And disappeared into the back. He was a pretty standard orc, with thick muscled arms, greenish body and tusks for teeth below a porcine nose. His one distinguishing feature was that he was quite fat.

‘That’s how I know I can trust him. He’s eating his own work.’ I concluded and looked around. While what I saw of the city could be described as at least somewhat ‘dirty’ the shop itself was surprisingly clean. The racks were wood, except for two on the far wall which were of silver with even fancier items than on the wood, and I realized that probably represented a higher cost. The deeper you went inside, the more you paid.

“Fresh baked rumbldumplins!” He all but shouted, holding out the hot tray with his bare hands. Orcs were notoriously thick skinned, it was no surprise that his hands weren’t burning, but it was still weird to see one as a baker. He tilted it so I could see, and a little round pastry with an unfamiliar flower shaped ‘fruit’ I think? Sat in the center dripping with liquid sugar from what passed for leaves, landing on the flakey crust and drizzling down to the pan.

“You buy fresh, I give you discount on buying the old.” He said and his deepset amber eyes gave me a conspiratorial wink. “You my first customer of the day, so what you say eh?” He boomed at me.

I noticed the clock on his hat was ticking down again, and wondered what else was there.

“Yes. I say yes!” The rumbledumplins smelled great and looked even better.

“You make a good deal, I give you half off, eh? On any of the old but the sanziberry pie. We short of sanziberries.” He said and grabbed a newspaper from behind his counter.

“Why is that?” I asked. ‘Is this a plot hook? A quest beginning? Alright it’s a fetch quest, but still, it’d be my first!’ I could feel the excitement building and my heart starting to race.

“Oh, contract dispute. The bastards want triple the creds for the same thing. So I’m getting a new supplier and it takes time to get started. Fool too! Big fool. Sanziberries last a long time. Pie stays fresh. Do something like that with rumbleberries and I might have to pay first. Big fool.” He repeated with a shake of his big round head. “How many you want?”

The transaction was completed in a heartbeat, just like the doctor said. I paid ten creds and walked out with six rumbledumplings and a dozen chocolate crisps all wrapped up in old newspapers. I munched on one when I stood outside the shop.

“So much for a plot hook.” I mumbled while my eyes popped at the rich flavor melting on my tongue. When I realized at that moment, at the completion of my first ‘journey’ that literally not a goddamn thing had happened, or would happen, or could happen in the way it did in games and books and visual media, I snapped back to reality.

“I’m not getting a call to adventure. So… I’m going to have to pay it a visit instead.” I said, then swallowed my first purchase, and stowed the remainder under my arm for a moment. I touched my slate and said, “Show me to the Adventurer’s Guild.”