“... yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~”

Jason was wakened by an obnoxiously loud whining noise in his ears. He rolled over, his hand swinging out to reach for a cell phone that didn’t exist on a night stand that also didn’t exist. The momentum of his arm carrying him off the bed that was smaller than he was used to. He crashed onto the ground, wrapped partially in covers.

“Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~,” the sound came again, loud and clear.

Dragging himself the rest of the way to the floor, Jason unwrapped himself from the blanket. The cool air of the morning made him shiver. He had taken the skin suit off, feeling awkward wearing it to sleep. The device wasn’t far from him and it was a private room so he didn’t feel like there was any danger from doing it. However, it was only relatively safe. Who knows what the innkeeper might get in his head. It wasn’t very fun to fight that hulking brute Jason thought, but if an inn killed all their clientele it wouldn’t last long, so, there was a good chance that nothing would happen, at least, not during the night. Jason grabbed and activated the device, restoring his clothes, and prepared to head out.

“WAKE UP! NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~,” a voice shouted into Jason’s head.

“Where is that coming from?” Jason asked to no one in particular.

“You’re losing your mind human,” the voice said.

“Ok. Enough. Show your show yourself,” he said in a raised voice.

All that came from his demand was laughter.

“Whatever. I have more important things to do than deal with such a nuisance,” he muttered and started towards the door.

“Awwww. You’re no fun. It is I, The wonderful Mittana!” the voice said.

Jason grumbled, “Why are you bothering me?”

“Well since you came up early you might miss Debris Orientation. Just wanted make sure you come by the market square. Lots of people are going to be out there looking for new employees,” she said and then continued under her voice, “... and see how odd and cruel you humans are!”

“What was that? And where are you?”

“Nothing!” Mittana said quickly, sounding flustered. “I’m in the DRA Offices, talking to you over the ARMS UI implant that you were installed with when you registered yesterday. You didn’t notice?”

“Nothing I recall,” he thought back on everything.

“Oh. You must not have done anything to trigger the UI to activate it. Just think about opening the UI…” Mittana paused for a moment, “It’s like the UI used to get your ARMS.”

“ARMS?” Jason had seen this word yesterday on the menu, but didn’t know what it was, so, took the opportunity to get the information.

“Those discs. They’re called ARMS, Augmented Response Military Systems. They serve as your equipment and there are several different kinds and grades. The higher the grade, the harder they are to find and meet the requirements to use, but they’re better and look so much cooler!.”

While Mittana was explaining ARMS, Jason did what she had told him and up popped the menu in the center of his vision. He thought to move it to the upper left of his visual range and it moved. Then, thought to close the menu and it collapsed into an icon there. After experimenting with moving the menu around, opening and closing it, adjusting its opacity, and trying whatever else he could think to do with it, he finally got around to opening the menu and read over the times to refresh his memory of the options there; ‘Support’, ‘Profile’, ‘ARMS’, ‘Inventory’, ‘Maps’, ‘Contacts’, ‘Market’, ‘Library’, ‘Settings’. Now that he knew what ARMS were he was a bit more interested in that, but the ‘Settings’ selection, which wasn’t there previously, was something he wanted to explore first.

Selecting ‘Settings’ brought up a new menu consisting of options for a HUD, volume controls for audio, public information options, and contacting restrictions. Going through all the options, Jason turned on the HUD, along with any information the HUD would display and arranged it like a MMO HUD. He was curious about the HP bar, but put that aside for now. It’s not like thinking on it would give him the answer. After that, that went on to adjust the audio so that Mittana couldn’t shout in his head, turned off all information he was sending out, and made it so that to contact him they had to be on his contact list. He had already seen that not having this feature on was a bad idea, especially one there were excitable cat-girls around.

When turned off the ability to contact him without being on his contact list, Mittana’s voice stopped. Jason didn’t want that to happen. Yes, she was annoying, but she also provided useful information and that can only be a good thing in this new world he found himself in. He could switch the contact settings back to how they were, but it would be better to figure it out an alternative way, so, instead he looked in ‘Contacts’ for any clues to solving the situation. There, he found the standard options that one might find in a cell phone’s contact list, including ‘add a new contact’. Unfortunately, the system asked for an ID number to send the invite since the person he wanted to contact wasn’t someone he could see.

Jason sighed. He felt his stomach was empty from only having the rations for dinner last night and decided continue his exploration of the UI later. For now, he’d look into the breakfast the innkeeper’s wife had told him about, but first he had to wake up Rina. He went next door to wake Rina, at first knocking on her door, but got no response. Not wanting to invade her privacy, he slowly cracked open the door calling out to her. The bed was empty. A rush of panic went through Jason, but then he saw the girl laying on the floor sleeping peacefully. He went over to her and tried to wake her up. All he got was sleep talk mumbling of words that sounded like some fantastical latin language. Jason picked her up and carried her under his arm out of the room and down the stairs.

A meaty aroma could be smelt coming from the inn’s kitchen. Jason took in a deep breath, bringing in the scent. He normally would not eat breakfast nor one that was so heavy in meat, but he found his stomach grumbling and desire to eat was awoken in him life he hadn’t felt at any time in his memory. Making his way down into the dining room, he caught sight of the innkeeper’s wife behind the bar stirring a pot something while singing. It sounded like a gruffer gaelic song. Now that he thought about it, the implant must be the reason for the reason people could understand each other here. It seemed though, the translator not to translate certain words and phrases, and even seemed to preserve accents as close to they would sound in the listener’s native language.

Jason set Rina down in a seat at the bar counter, letting her arms rest on it as a pillow, before taking the seat next her. The innkeeper’s wife heard them and came out to greet them. She wore a dress that was reminiscent of a medieval peasant dress with dark brown bodice over it that together showed off her ample bosom, especially as she walked in her normal way, which was slightly bent forward with her hands very close to or touch the ground. It wasn’t very clear whether her size and figure was normal for her species, but Jason got the impression that she was an attractive, slightly, plump, overly endowed, middle age member of her species. When he could pry his eyes from her cleavage he noted that unlike the innkeeper he who had plenty of facial hair on his jowls and a full head of hair, she had only a light fur on her head which would likely be soft to the touch, but if one tried to grasp it, they’d find it very hard to do so.

“I take it yer up for a meal, are ye?” she asked, hardly waiting for the answer as she spooned a chunky stew into a wooden bowl.

“Yeah. Your cooking smells delicious,” he responded as the bowl was plopped in front of him almost before he even finished speaking.

“What about the wee one there?” she asked while covering the pot to not let the stew grow cold.

“Maybe in a bit. It doesn’t look like she’s planning to wake up any time soon,” he said.

“Well, eat up. Yer day is gon’ be long me thinks,” she said, wiping around the counter.

Jason picked up the nearby dull grey metallic spoon and poked at the meat that was in the stew that she had given him. The steam wafted into his nose making the scent that much more intense. He was salivating, but reluctant to dig in. Not knowing what the meal was made him anxious. He didn’t want to eat it and then find out that it was soylent green.

“It’s not gonna bite ye, ye know. You must be from one those worlds that be disconnected from their livestock. I don’t ken the livestock ye ‘ave, but that be cattle, like all worlds ‘ave. It’s not our kin if that be what yer worried about. Best t’eat ‘fore it gets cold,” the innkeeper’s wife explained, having seen Jason timidly poke at the meal.

It didn’t take much to push Jason over the line. As soon as he heard that it was a type of cattle he dove into the stew. The meat was perfectly cooked to his liking, savory and textureful, and the broth was creamy, like a thick milk, but with a hint of pepper. It was simultaneously like nothing he had ever eaten before and all the best steak dinners he had eaten in his life mixed into one. If this was Earth, there was no doubt that this meal would make the inn and the innkeeper’s wife very famous in short order. Of course, the more amazing thing was that anything of the flavor was transmitted to Jason’s brain as he wolfed down and licked the bowl clean in moments.

“Must ’ave been hungry t’ve down me stew like tha’,” the Innkeeper’s wife said.

“It was awesome.”

“Why thank ye kindly. Good t’ken that yer kind be liking me cookin’,” she smiled proudly.

“It’s definitely better than eating rations which I’ll be doing if I can’t get more credits soon,” Jason replied, “I should probably leave for that job fair Mittana was talking about soon.”

“And the wee one has the same problem?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m gonna have to find something safe for her or something that will take both of us. I don’t think that’s going to be easy given appearances,”

Just as Jason finished making his remark the innkeeper came from the back. He was now dressed to match his wife in medieval peasant attire. He wore a simple off-white shirt that, while loose, seemed to be a bit stretched from his muscles and large frame, along with matching pants. Over this he wore a open vest with the laces hanging down as if he hadn’t finished dressing. Instead of boots or footwear that you’d find on most peasants of the middle ages, the innkeeper wore something like a leather bracer that left his foot bare. It was odd to human eyes, but when you considered that his foot was similar to other primate feet that maintain prehensibility it was common sense that they’d not wear shoes like humans did.

“If that be a concern, why not let the lass work here. It would come with room and board,” the innkeeper said in his deep voice, “and ye wouldn’t need to worry ‘bout harm coming to her,” he grinned that vicious grin at Jason as he made his way behind the counter to his wife.