Izzy made his way down the alley away from the path of destruction, clutching the bulky and incredible coins. Keeping his ears peeled for any changes in the background noise, he inspected one of them a little closer.

  Unlike the brown coin from before, this brown coin had the number 4 on one side and the other side had a thick plus sign. It reminded him of the symbol for the Red Cross.

  “Weird,” he thought. “If this ends up being the symbol for healing, that’s really interesting. Why would the universal symbol of a medical corps be the same here?”

  He picked through them and found some more symbols. There weren’t any others of the brown one he’d used before with the flexed muscle, but he found a few that were obviously symbolizing fire, wind, ice, and one that could have either been a hurricane or, he looked closer, a spiral galaxy?

  “I really need somebody to help me learn these symbols,” he muttered to himself.

  Restacking the coins per their numerical values, he passed over a few small side streets that shared the same long alley. Looking over his shoulder, Izzy didn’t see any movement and the sounds of fighting seemed pretty far off now. Not wanting to be spotted along such a long alley, he decided to move one block to the right at the next intersection.

  “Doors and corners,” he thought as he came up to the corner. Putting his back against the wall of the building, he went to peer around the corner.

  “Oh shit!” he yelled, backing away from the corner.

  Just as he almost got his head around the corner, a face had appeared seemingly doing the same thing he was doing. A muffled cry of shock and shuffling of feet came from around the corner at the same moment as he had yelled and jumped back. His first impression and fear was that it was some kind of large animal, but as the face peaked back around the corner he got a better look.

  It was the face of an animal, but an extremely anthropomorphized version of one. The cat person stared at Izzy, mouth agape and appearing to match Izzy’s confusion. Izzy could see the needle-like teeth of a common house cat, only they were proportional for something more like a panther. His gaze moving past the teeth, Izzy took in the button nose, large whiskers, and eyes with a twinkle in them unlike those of an apex predator.

  “What are you doing here? Who are you?” the creature said. Its eyes did a once over of Izzy. “Why are you naked?” it added.

  Its voice sounded a little like somebody who had one of those fake vampire teeth things people used for halloween. Generally, the words were recognizable, it just seemed like they had to work a little harder to get the words out around the teeth. There was also an undertone to the voice, almost like the buzz of a cat’s purr. Surprised and glad he could understand the person at all, Izzy gathered himself up to respond.

  “No idea. Izzy. And once again, no idea,” Izzy said, trying to stand upright while holding the coins and covering his privates. This was the second time he had to answer that particular series of questions, and hoped it wouldn’t become a thing. “Any help with that last one would be greatly appreciated.”

  He smiled sheepishly, doing his best “I’m a clueless tourist” impression.

  The cat person came around the corner, shrugging off a vest they were wearing over a simple tunic. They were mostly covered in black fur with a couple large spots of white along their arms and a patch down the right side of their neck that reached down underneath their tunic.

  Taking off the cord from their tunic, they walked over to where Izzy stood trying to not laugh at the absolute absurdity of the situation. The cat person brought the vest up to their mouth and punched two holes in the top and threaded the cord through it, and then put each end through the arm holes.

  “Are you hurt? You’re covered in blood,” the cat person asked.

  “Not mine,” Izzy answered. “By the skin of my teeth,” he added, chuckling.

  Then he grimaced, remembering the quantity of teeth from which he had avoided injury.

  “May I?” they said, holding out the converted vest. It looked like some kind of hospital patient smock. “And my name is Rajir.”

  “Nice to meet you Rajir! And please do.”

  Rajir approached slowly and handed the top of the smock to Izzy, averting his eyes. Izzy reached out and brought the smock up to the front of his waist, holding it there as Rajir did his best to fasten it in the back and provide as much coverage as possible.

  While they were working, Rajir asked, “I saw you have a remarkable amount of spell coins, count me as curious. They aren’t exactly rare, but to have that many is a little odd unless you’re a Pathfinder. The city guards usually don’t even have as many, except for maybe some of the officers.”

  “When I got here,” Izzy said, holding tight to the front of the smock, “some guy saved me, told me to take them, and then ran off to fight. He said something about a “bear form” and how he wouldn’t be able to use them anyway?”

  Rajir grunted an assertion like that all made sense. “That was nice of him. This many wouldn’t be cheap. Do you have any medical ones?”

  “I think so?” replied Izzy, remembering the one with the plus sign and leaping at a chance to check one of his assumptions. “Brown, a number 4 and a fat cross on it?”

  “That’s the one, a group one no less. Could probably have settled for a Grade 2, but the Grade 4 is even better.” Rajir said, finishing the knot.

  “If you help me put together the rest of my wardrobe, then it is all yours.” Izzy chuckled.

  He knew the trade was ridiculous, but he was getting pretty sick of being naked on a battlefield and would have offered even more depending on the buyer. He also caught that there was some significance to the number on the coins; the higher the number, the more powerful the effect.

  “That would be incredible,” Rajir said desperately. Then suddenly as if he thought of something, he added, “I don’t just want it, I promise. We have some people hunkered down with us who could use the healing. They’d all be very grateful for the help. ”

  Rajir stepped back and took in the sight of the cumbersome pants.

  “Well, I suppose it is better than nothing,” Rajir said. “If you are worried about being modest, you may want to move it around so the tied part is on one of your sides. I did what I could, but this is still a little… well… cheeky.”

  Izzy chuckled at that, the absurdity starting to take him over again. A cat as big as himself, just told him to cover his shame.

  “Thanks,” Izzy said laughing. “This is already an interesting first impression, I’m sure.”

  “I’m just glad you’re okay, friend,” Rajir said, walking back around in front of Izzy. Rajir smiled, and Izzy was struck by how sinister the facial expression looked on such a face.

  Wanting to distract himself and not offend this helpful person, he took the makeshift clothing and rotated it 90 degrees so the slit of the vest was along his right leg. He saw what Rajir had been talking about, there was a fair amount of skin coming through. If he had left it the way it was people would get a bit more than they bargained for from behind.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “It’s like a kilt mixed with a sexy skirt.” Izzy joked. “I just need some red hair and some plaid and I could be a Scottish stripper!”

  Rajir cocked his head and Izzy noticed how much the expression was like a cat mixed with the facial expressions of a person.

  “Kilt?” Rajir said, struggling around the word like he was unfamiliar with it. “Scaw-tiss?”

  “Yeah! Big, plaid skirts. Red beards. Male Scottish stripper!” Izzy said, finding the mental image amusing.

  “I… I don’t understand,” Rajir said, straightening up.

  In the distance, back the way Izzy had come, there was an explosion and the sound of screeching.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Rajir said, changing the subject and looking down the alley with a worried look on his face. “Come with me. I had just stepped out of our hiding place for a moment to see what was going on in the area and see if we could find some help or another healer. You can wait with us and get cleaned up.”

  Rajir turned away and started to head back to the corner where the two of them had almost smacked their faces together. Izzy looked over his shoulder again and, with a shrug and not having anything better to do, started following his new companion. He stashed the coins in the pockets of the vest near his knees and turned the corner.

  The pair weaved through only a couple alleys and streets, Rajir talking all the while with his low, purring voice. Izzy found the timbre to be really quite pleasant.

  “This is crazy,” Rajir muttered, a little bit of a growl coming in and out of his voice. “Everybody I find has no idea what’s going on.”

  “Feel free to add me to that list,” grumbled Izzy.

  Rajir snickered in response, the sound like a mix of a cat hiss and the rumbling of beans in a rainstick.

  “It’s a long list, friend,” Rajir said. “Good thing we’ve had so long to build up our defenses. There have been plenty of aberrations over the years, don’t get me wrong. But it has been over 400 years since anything like this, I’m told. I’ve seen aberrations from the top of the wall on occasion. Usually groups of city guards or Pathfinders will go out and clean them up, but since we usually have a few Pathfinders scouting the area at any point in time, the numbers are known and the groups will outnumber the aberrations.”

  Rajir paused and shook his head, as if trying to shake a bad thought out of his head. Again, the gesture mimicked a house cat just for the sheer speed and force of the head shake. Izzy didn’t say anything, trying to soak up as much information as Rajir seemed so willing to give out for free.

  There was a lot Rajir said that didn’t make sense, but Izzy did his best to either fill in the gaps with context or to file it under his “stuff to figure out later” list steadily growing in the back of his mind. It was getting quite long. Rajir started walking and talking again, seemingly eager to get this all off his chest.

  “I was on the inner wall working on one of the new ballistae emplacements when all this started. I saw that… thing…” he whispered. “Blew a hole through the inner wall like it was a scroll. Half the ballistae crew just ran. They took off! Damned cowards.” The growl had entered his voice again briefly. “I helped build the things, so I stayed and made sure the crews had what they needed and that the ballistae were working. Then when the commander saw how many aberrations were coming, he practically pushed me down the stairs thanking me for my help and telling me to get to safety.”

  His shoulders slumped a little as the pair made another turn.

  “I took him up on the offer. I’m no fighter, it wasn’t my job and I had outstayed my welcome. But in the moment, I hadn’t thought about it, you know? We just got to work. I hope they are okay.” Rajir trailed off and they walked past a few buildings in silence.

  They came up to a small building made of stone and wood and was next door to a conversely eloquent shop. Izzy then noticed how much dust and grime had settled on the buildings, because the shop had no blemish whatsoever. The front was all fine woodworking with stone-arched windows on the verge of garish. A sign swung above the front door:

  Yelric Mooni’s Emporium of

  Fine Goods and Enchantments

  “Yelric Mooni’s Emporium of Fine Goods and Enchantments,” Izzy read aloud. “Why is this place so nice?” He said, looking around. “Does magic keep it clean?”

  Rajir had rapped on the door to the small building in front of which he had stopped. Muffled shuffling and scraping sounds came from behind it. He turned around and looked quizzically at Izzy.

  “You say,” Rajir said with a pause, “the strangest things. You don’t know who Yelric Mooni is?” he asked, as if that was the strangest part of Izzy’s sentence.

  “Should I?” Izzy responded, eyes flitting between Rajir and the door, concern breaking out on his face as the noises behind the door ceased.

  “You’re really not from around here, are you,” Rajir said, shaking his head. He opened the door and strode in.

  Izzy watched him walk inside and, after catching a glimpse of the occupants of the room, he responded quietly with his eyebrows raised.

  “No Rajir. No I am not.”

  Izzy walked in and shut the door behind him.

  —

  Izzy tried to control his face as he took in the room around him. He failed. His face was starting to hurt with all the changing emotions of the day. His eyebrows had gone up and furrowed so many times, he had grinned impishly as he learned new things, and his face still hurt from his tussle with the aggressively toothed creature.

  As he met the people in the room and experienced even more absurdity, his face didn’t get a respite. He watched as a few cat-people and what could only be a typical fantasy dwarf replaced the barricade for the door.

  When Izzy had turned away from the door, Rajir was hugging another cat person, the other one saying how glad she was that he had come back safely and Rajir saying he was all right. Spread throughout the room were wooden chairs of all shapes and sizes occupied by people of all shapes and sizes. The assortment of characters in this little room reminded him of a classic “bar scene” from a Dungeons and Dragons game.

  There were some more of the short, stocky people that could only be dwarves – these were huddled together off to the side by themselves. There were a lot of cat people, some with a lot of black like Rajir. There were also calicos, tabbies, and everything in between. There were even a few that were much larger, had golden fluffy hair, and whose faces were much wider and longer giving them a more lion-like appearance. Plenty of humans also dotted the room, and Izzy couldn’t make out any pointed ears like the man that had saved him.

  Izzy stepped away from the entrance and Rajir introduced Izzy to the group, being overtly gracious about their deal for the healing coin. All Izzy could do was stand there and blush as a result of the praise for his generosity and being once again reminded how naked he was. He really needed some more clothing.

  He got a feeling that Rajir, for all the help he’d given, was positioning Izzy into an awkward situation if Izzy tried to back out of handing over the coin or wanted more than was promised. This didn’t bother Izzy, clearly these folks needed as much help as possible, and it gave him a little more appreciation for the value of the coins jingling in his pocket. He’d have a little more leverage in the future when he needed it, but he could part with this one coin for cheap.

  “Of course!” Izzy said, using his best TedTalk voice. He’d pushed through enough awkward situations during his education and career, he could rally from just about anything. “Anything to help out in a time of need! How urgent is it that we take care of these folks, or do I have time for a quick wipe down and you know… a shirt,” smiling sheepishly and indicating his still mostly naked and gore-covered body.

  The room went a little quieter as most of the occupants looked to Rajir and nobody laughed at his disposition. This told Izzy a lot about the situation and Rajir’s position in it.

  Just about everybody in the room sought Rajir’s opinion, other than the dwarves who had just kept talking amongst themselves. Izzy was going to do what he could to stay in the good graces of this person. This wasn’t out of any feelings of needing to deceive, but due to noticing that, clearly, Rajir was trusted by a pretty diverse group of people. In a situation like this, that held a lot of weight in Izzy’s opinion.

  Also by nobody finding Izzy’s state amusing, obviously they had seen some rough stuff that night. Rajir met Izzy’s gaze and his face fell.

  “I’m sorry, friend,” Rajir said quietly. “We must ask you to bear this indignity for a little longer. There was a reason I risked going out there to find somebody who could help or, better yet, another healer. Please come with me… you’ll see why.”

  Izzy strode over to Rajir and was led through a doorway into a short hallway going deeper into the building. As they came up to a door at the end, Rajir paused with his hand on the latch.

  “Prepare yourself. We’ve been doing everything we can,” Rajir said. “There just hasn’t been enough help yet.”

  Izzy’s nerves had immediately started fraying as they walked down the hall. He could hear muffled moaning and shushing almost as soon as they left the main chamber. The air towards the end of the hall was still and shone in the light of small lanterns. A heaviness descended on Izzy’s mind and, despite Rajir’s warning, Izzy was not prepared for what awaited behind the door of the room Rajir entered.

  “Oh no…” he mumbled, taking in the state of the room.