The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

Soon after showing him the town centre, Celys had to excuse herself as she needed to get to work. Myra, though, chose to stick with him, citing that she could continue her duties while with him.

Interpreting his odd look correctly, Myra clarified.

“I am mostly in charge of taking care of the foxes in Kirkwall,” she said pointing at the significant skulk that had formed and was still following them. “With so many here, I don’t have to worry about slacking off today,” she said brightly as she crouched down, produced a brush from somewhere, and began giving one of the smaller foxes a few strokes.

Joram nodded, though still more than a little curious as to why they’d been following him. Then, on a whim, he shifted his crutches to his right hand before he crouched down as well, though it was a bit awkward balancing on one leg. When he did, the foxes rushed him, tackling him to the ground under their combined weight.

With a startled grunt, then another one as he landed on his back, the foxes swarmed over him, sniffing him in every place they could reach. Even the large, dark purple, fox from yesterday with six tails was there and participating in the mobbing.

“What’s with you guys today?” Myra demanded, directing the question at the foxes who proceeded to ignore her after giving her the briefest of glances.

Proving that fox’s personalities were a bit more feline than canine, they began to sit on him, looking for all the world that they’d found the best resting place in the world. Unfortunately, he was nowhere near large enough to accommodate the nearly fifty foxes that had gathered, which resulted in a few nips here and there to encourage the smaller one’s who’d gotten lucky to abandon their hard-won places.

“Um, is this normal?” he asked Myra as she continued to look flustered at how the foxes were behaving.

“No, this is beyond weird,” she said as she tried to herd the foxes away from him with about the same rate of success one would expect to have while trying to herd cats.

“Huh,” he said, wondering if he should try petting one of the very soft-looking foxes.

Eventually, his willpower broke, and he reached over and gave the dark purple fox an experimental pat on the head, ready to pull his hand back at he first sign of teeth.

To his surprise, the fox leaned into his hand and began to… purr. Well, it sounded a bit like a cross between happy dog growls and a cat purring. Whatever it sounded like, it was an obviously happy sound. It was so happy, in fact, that he could see its tails swishing around excitedly as it tried to lean further into his hand.

Getting a bit of courage from that, he slipped his other hand out from under a couple of foxes, much to their displeasure, and started scritching the fox with both hands. He worked its cheeks, then its ears, then along its neck as it soaked it all up with great enthusiasm. Eventually his hands made their way back to its incredibly soft ears, and took his time gently massaging them as the fox seemed to turn liquid and sprawled on him, displacing even more foxes that then huffed at the large purple one.

Then he was at a loss for what to do next. He still had several foxes on his leg, not having been kicked off their perches by the larger one. He also now had a sleeping fox resting on his chest that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk moving. Sure, it had seemed to enjoy the attention he’d lavished it with. But he also worried that it was ultimately a wild animal, and might not take kindly to being moved without its consent.

He looked over to Myra and just about burst out laughing at the poleaxed look on her face. But through great effort he managed to hold it in. Then, not wanting to risk waking the fox by talking, he tried to pantomime “what do I do?”.

Myra’s mouth bobbed a few times before she was able to speak.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said faintly, then went back to trying to coax the foxes off his legs… leg and a bit.

He was taken with just how cute it was to watch Myra work. She was trying so very hard to be polite with the foxes, while at the same time trying to be just firm enough to get them to listen. Eventually, though, he was left with just the large dark purple fox napping on his chest while the other half of its body sprawled on the ground between his legs.

He was once again impressed with just how large the fox was. It was probably closer to the size of a timber wolf, now that he really took it in. And sooooo soft! If he weren’t worried about being eaten in the night, he was tempted to take it home with him so that he could cuddle it on a regular basis.

Then Myra worked herself up to waking the large fox. She first tried nudging it in the side. When that didn’t work, she tried shaking it gently, then with a bit more energy until it opened one eye to regard her.

“Now, you can’t just sleep on someone in the middle of the road,” Myra said, shaking a finger at the fox like it was a child. “It’s rude. You should know better. I’m sure that you can visit more with Joram later, but for now, we have things that we need to take care of,” she finished, sounding so very much like her mother that he almost laughed.

The fox turned its head way and closed its eye again. But a few seconds later it huffed, then slowly got up and sat beside him, looking for all the world as thought it was terribly put upon.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Joram kept his mouth shut as he reached over and grabbed his crutches. Then, to his surprise, Myra held out a hand to help him up. He accepted, though he was a bit uncertain if someone so small could help. But then he was surprised again when she yanked him up with nary a grunt of effort.

Once he was settled with crutches in place, Myra started explaining things again.

“So, we’ll need to go to the bank to get you an identification card. After that, we’ll head to town hall to register you as a citizen of Kirkwall. From there, you’ll be able to buy property, or even start up your own business, though you’ll still need to apply for permits and stuff,” she explained as she guided him towards the bank as purple fox followed closely at his side.

Then another thought occurred to him, so he decided to ask.

“Does the adven- er, Exterminator’s Hall also provide identification cards?” he asked, thinking about the classic trope where an adventurer would get a cool identification card that would show their basic information and rank on it.

“No? Why would they? At most, they’ll just provide you with a membership token that shows your current standing in the Hall,” she said, giving him a weird look.

“Ah, I see,” he replied awkwardly, not sure what to say to that.

“You see, the bank’s services span just about every aspect of life. From identification cards to a place to save your money to getting a mortgage for your first home, or even getting a loan for starting your own business. They can, for a select few trustworthy people, even extend a line of credit so long as you have appropriate collateral,” she explained, sounding as though everything should have been common sense.

Perhaps it was, but he was still quite new to her world and so knew next to nothing about anything.

“Hello, how may I assist you today?” a young woman asked them as they entered the bank.

She was also a foxkin, though her colouring tended towards the more traditional oranges of normal foxes.

“We need to get an identification card as well as set up an account for him,” Myra replied for them with a smile.

“Then, if you would proceed to the registrar at the end of the counter, you’ll be helped there,” she said, sounding oddly formal.

He shrugged as they stepped over to the indicated desk, the fox still following along beside him.

Once there, a middle-aged fellow greeted them, then nearly fell over when he noticed the fox.

“So, an identification card and an account, then?” he asked, shooting side glances at the fox.

“Yes,” Myra replied, looking slightly exasperated as the man retrieved a few forms and an odd box-like device.

“If you would be so kind as to fill out these forms,” the man said as he passed the forms to him.

Looking at them, Joram decided that he’d best sit to fill them out. Especially when the man presented him with a quill and inkwell.

Not looking forward to trying to write in an entirely new language while also trying to get used to writing with a quill in said new language, he decided to read over the forms first.

It was pretty straightforward, all told. Things like his name, age, birthdate, residence, and all that were to be expected. Unfortunately, he didn’t have his own residence, nor did he know what his birthday would be here. The calendar was different enough that just picking the seventh month wouldn’t quite work, as there were fourteen months in the year here, with varying numbers of days in each month.

He looked to Myra, then hesitated. Should he really ask to use her address for his application? Then he shrugged and went with it because he could always just come back and update his information.

With her help, he managed to fill out most of the application, except for workplace and age, that is.

“You really don’t know how old you are?” Myra asked, giving him a concerned look.

“Not really, no,” he said, not really lying. Because, was he still the same age as he’d been on Earth, or was he just over a week old due to having his entire being remade by Altaea? For that matter, what had she actually set his biological age to? Was it zero? Or had she “aged” him to be the eighteen or so years that he now looked like?

“Well, you look to be about the same age as me, so we’ll put down ‘twenty’,” she said, marking it down for him while just putting a dash through the employment section.

“Very good,” the man said, whose name he couldn’t remember. “Now, please look at this,” he said, holding the box up before touching something on its side when Joram looked at the thing. “This will imprint your image on your identification card, as well as register your unique mana signature for easy identification in the future,” he said, then placed the box back down on his desk.

The guy then placed what looked to be a whitish metal card into the device before tapping another part of it. A few seconds later, he removed the card from the device and handed it to Joram after noting down what looked like a long serial number from the card.

“You can take this to any of the clerks and they’ll be able to help you with any financial transactions that you’ll need,” the man finished with a smile for them both, then a little bow to the fox.

“That’s it? I now have an account here too?” Joram asked, surprised at how quickly everything had gone, all things considered.

“Yes. From now on, you’ll just need your identification card to enjoy our services. Just remember, even though your first identification card from us is free, getting a replacement will cost one silver,” the man said, bringing up and then relieving a concern for him.

“Thanks,” he said, then stepped away with Myra so that they could speak with one of the tellers, or clerks, as the guy had referred to them as.

“How may I help you?” a young woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties asked them as they approached.

“Am I able to exchange monster cores for currency here?” he asked, thinking that having some pocket money on him would be more than a little bit helpful.

“Certainly,” she replied with a smile.

So, Joram pretended to dig into his pocket as he retrieved most of his cores, leaving a few of each behind, just in case.

Celys had been correct with her assessment of his monster cores, as each was graded to be high quality, and thus fetched him what she’d quoted him the night before. Then after seeing the pile of money, he decided to change in one of the bronze half bars for fifty bronze coins instead, thinking that having smaller change might make things easier for him when he went out to buy stuff.

So it was that he left the bank with fifty bronze, eight bronze half bars, eight silver, and three silver half bars in his “pocket”. Well, he kept most of the bronze coins in there along with two bronze half bars. The rest, he dumped into his inventory, not wanting to risk losing any of the higher denomination currency.

“Now that that’s taken care of, let’s head over to the town hall and get you registered as a citizen,” Myra said, taking his hand in hers and almost dragged him along before she remembered that he needed it to get around.

Blushing slightly, she cleared her throat before just leading the way, the fox once again following them. He supposed that if the foxes were considered sacred beasts here, they were probably allowed to go wherever they wanted to.

Once inside, she led him to another desk. This time, things went a bit quicker. He got a little token that designated him as a citizen of Kirkwall. He’d also have to return to update his information with them once he got a place of his own, though.

Then, as they were getting ready to leave, a page or something stopped them.

“The Chief would like to speak with you before you go,” he said politely, indicating the way with an outstretched hand.

Myra looked a bit annoyed, but then took the lead to her mother’s office.

“Sorry for the interruption,” Celys said once they’d entered her office, a cozy place with a few chairs in front of her desk. “I know I said that I’d get you a price for your moss stone this morning, but it took a bit longer to appraise than anticipated.

“So, if I don’t include the round pieces that one of the guards said belonged to your weights set, I’m prepared to offer you sixteen gold and twelve silver for the lot of it,” she said while sliding a slip of rough paper over to him.

He looked at what was written there, taking in the weight and the going rate for moss stone. Overall, it was a pretty good offer given that it had only really taken him a couple of days to collect that much stone.

“Sure, that sounds good,” he said, just happy to have more money as a buffer.

Celys smiled, then produced some more paperwork, a contract apparently. After quickly reading through it, it basically just stating that he was selling her x-amount of moss stone for y-rate per pound, he signed it and received a small pouch filled with gold and silver coins. He quickly fished the bronze out of his pocket and added it to the small pouch, then stuffed the pouch into his pocket.

He then remembered that he could now easily buy a small place on the east side of town, and wondered if that had been her plan all along.

“Great,” Celys said, looking pretty happy. “It was good to do business with you, but I now have to get back to work. I’ll see you later this evening,” she said, obviously dismissing them, but still pretty polite about it.

“Do you want to look at houses, then?” Myra asked him hesitantly once they were back outside.

“Nah, I think I need to rest for a while, though,” he said, idly patting his fox follower on the head as they stood in the street.

Myra brightened at that, then once more took the lead as they started heading back to her house… still followed by the skulk of foxes, the purple one in the lead.

Oddly enough, once they arrived back at Myra’s house, all but the large dark purple fox wandered off. That said, it continued to follow him, even going so far as to follow him to his room.

“Why is it following me?” he finally asked Myra, who shrugged.

“’She’,” Myra corrected absently before continuing. “This particular vixen has always done what she wanted,” she said, giving the vixen a stern look that earned her a quiet huff in return.

“Ah, OK, then,” he said, not quite sure what to do about the vixen. “I’ll just go lay down for a while.”

“OK,” Myra said, giving him a bright smile. “I’ll let you know when supper is ready,” she said before taking off.

Shaking his head, he looked down at the vixen before opening his door and heading inside. She, of course, followed him in, so he had to wait to close the door over until she passed into the room fully. He didn’t latch the door, though, as he was a bit nervous about her having an accident in his room.

For that matter, was she even house trained?

He looked at the vixen again, then sighed. At least he had [Cleanse] if anything happened.