Jason considered the suggestion of the Innkeeper. It would ensure that Rina would have a place at the very least and could give them more time before their funds run dry. He didn’t like the idea of using Rina’s credits for himself, but it did open up the possibility. It sounded like a good idea, but, in the end, it was Rina’s decision.

A notification sound rung in his head and a icon, not unlike that of a cell phone’s phone icon appeared in his HUD. He accessed it to find a message that Mittana had sent a friend request and an alert asking if he’d like to accept it or not. He did, although with hesitation. As soon as he did the alert vanished and a visual display of the sil`phane took its place.

“What happened?!” Mittana said excitedly, clearly frustrated with something. Her arms were crossed while her cheeks were puffed out. Her brows were furrowed and she was grumbling as she waited for Jason to answer.

“I was exploring the UI you told me about. You got cut off,” he told her.

“W-w-well, you should have called me back!”

“And how was I supposed to do that. I don’t know how this works and I don’t have your ID.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t cut people off mid sentence when they’re explaining things to you then!” she yelled at, leaning in towards her camera, before suddenly disconnecting.

Jason was left confused by this alien. He’s the one that was abducted, attacked, and harassed by crazy aliens, not her. There wasn’t much he could do about the situation so he decided to get back to the topic at hand, but before he could open his mouth another notification appeared. He accepted the call. Mittana’s image appeared back in his display.

“Get to the orientation in the market square soon!” she said quickly and disconnected yet again.

Jason sighed. He took a breath and turned his attention back to the Innkeeper and his wife, “Can you be a bit more clear about what you’re offering, Innkeeper,” he asked at the innkeeper. Having not been told a name he didn’t know how to refer to the innkeeper, but after speaking to the air like he had just done he was sure that they were ignoring him, and letting him take care of whatever he needed to. They probably knew about the UI and had a gotten used to behaving much like how people do on Earth when someone randomly starts talking to the air. They presume you’re either crazy or on a phone that they can’t see.

Hearing Jason refer to his profession, the Innkeeper returned his attention to him. “Me name’s Awlrek. Awlrek Tik’r. If’n the inn gets busy we’ll need help. Lil’ lass like ‘er would be a benefit. She’ll be paid 1 credit a day, get free meals, and she can stay in tha’ room in the back.”

“And what would she doing?” Jason asked, thinking that since they didn’t know anything about humans they’d ask more of a little girl than she could possibly do.

“Oh, helping me ‘round the tavern. It nae be easy t’cook, wait, an’ clean at the same time,” Awlrek’s wife interjected. “They call me Sú by the by. Short fer Sú-Sheh.”

“i don’t see why not,” Jason said. He pushed himself up and away from the counter, getting to his feet. “It’s up to her, but either way I have to check the square. Would you mind keeping an eye on her and explaining the deal to her when she wakes up? I don’t trust him just yet,” he nodded his head towards Awlrek, “but you seem alright Sú.”

“I would be delighted,” she said with a smile on her face, “and don’ worry ‘bout tha one. if he tries somethin’ I’ll hit wit’ another of me pans.”

Jason laughed as we walked out the door, waving to them as he did.

When they had come to the inn last night the streets were empty. This morning the streets were full of aliens going about their business. Most of them were moving towards the town’s square. Perhaps they were curious about the new animals in the zoo, humans. Or maybe they were going about their daily lives and had something to do in the square. In medieval towns the square was the heart of the settlement. If they weren’t selling something, they were delivering something to a shop there, or looking to buy what they needed to live.

Joining flow of people towards the square, Jason saw shops offering various wares. Things that he might be interested in getting later when he had more credits or things to trade. He was really only keeping his eyes open for any looking to take on workers. There weren’t any that he could see along the road there, but when he reached the square it was almost like a job fair with so many stalls set up that there was only barely enough room to walk.

In the center of the quare and at the entrance points into it there were aliens dressed in a silvery armor like a knight. Only their heads could be seen and much like how the sil`phane resembled cat-people these aliens had faces that were very dog-like. In fact, they were closer to looking like a dog than Mittana, and all the sil`phane he saw wandering the streets now, looked like cats. And while the average size of the sil`phane seemed to be about 5 and a half feet tall with generally lithe builds, the dog aliens averaged around 6 foot tall with a bulky athletic appearance. Jason took them to be some sort of military with how and where they were standing.

When he moved through the square to see what was on offer he found something unexpected. Most of the stalls were rivals to each other and looking for new human hires to add humans skills, knowledge, styles, and recipes to their own. It made sense from a business standpoint. The more you know about your prospective customers the better you could serve them and win over their business. But Jason wondered how useful this knowledge and skills would be considering everything that humans knew weren’t here. It’s not like you could make french fries without potatoes or even design the same types of clothes without the type of fabrics that modern human civilization produced and used in most of their clothing. It didn’t really matter to him though, since he had limited, at best, knowledge of most of these fields as would Rina. He felt lucky now about Awlrek offering to hire on Rina and started to reconsider how he felt about the gorilla.

Having gone to most, if not all, of the stalls Jason came decided to attempt to be a timberwright, better known to the modern world as a logger. There were safer and easier jobs that he could attempt, but they came with needing to learn skills that if one could not pick up fairly rapidly there was a risk that the employer would fire them. Then they’d be looking for work in a job market that was essentially filled. Being a timberwright came with several benefits that those other jobs didn’t come with as well. The timber supply was important to the world of this technological age. By taking on the job he would likely build a social network and learn about business tangentially. While doing the work he’d be able to get a sense of the lay of the land and build muscle while under the tutelage of someone who had been around for a while. On top of that, he would be going outside of the town and while, yes, it was generally safe, there was risk that an animal would attack him, but if that happened he’d be with someone. Even if he were not with someone, the chances that the attacker would be extremely dangerous was not high. This meant that the job of timberwright would get one used to fighting.

It was the perfect job to ease into the situation he found himself in. The only downside was that it paid only 22 credits guaranteed. Any other profits that were there would come from the luck he’d have from selling the timber and any animals that he killed. It wasn’t much, but at the very least it did take care of his living needs for the time being.

Jason returned to the stall that he had seen setup for hiring on new timberwrights. He hadn’t looked at any of the aliens at the stalls previously, save for in passing. He looked at only the job on offer and moved along. He had to do this to make sure that he had an understanding of the selection of jobs and their pay rates. So it was a surprise to him when he saw that the employer at the stall was not a mammalian type creature. He had seen mostly mammals, what he thought were mammals, for most of the morning. This creature however, he could only describe as an insectoid.

The alien had a smooth, white and brown carapass which was segmented so that its body seemed to mimic that of the human form. Where a human had 2 two arms this creature had 4. They looked insubstancial. Certainly not what you’d expect of someone who cuts and deals with trees as their career. It’s neck was much thicker than what one would expect of an insectoid connecting to a head that had many more segments, hiding soft bits behind armor that would move aways when needed. It had 3 sets of eyes along the centerline of its face growing larger as they went further back in their placement on its head. It had no nose or ears to speak of, but antennae connected about where his neck and the back of its head met. And it had a more substantial cranium than earth insects which obviously needed to be the case to house a larger brain. On top of all of this, the creature appeared to be nude.

Jason was taken aback by this sight, but it was only for a moment. It didn’t stop him from taking a step back. He wasn’t afraid of bugs, but who wouldn’t freak out when they came face to face with an insect the size of a human. The last time such things existed on Earth was millions of years ago during the paleozoic era and those things were monstrous things you did not want to deal with ever. It also didn’t help that humans thought of insects as primitive and this particular one didn’t look like it could even hear if Jason said something to it.

“Are you here to apply for this work?” a voice came from the direction of the alien’s head, but no mouth or anything equivalent could be seen to move, not even something like a jaw under a mask.

Jason was confused consciously, but on a subconscious level his mouth began to move to answer the alien, “Y-yes. I’ll give it a try if you’ll take me on.”

The alien looked him up and down, measuring him. It then wrote something down on a piece of paper and slid it across the stall’s table towards Jason. He took it and looked it over. It was simple map with a path drawn from the square to the town’s gates.

“Be there tomorrow at dawn. Credits will be transferred into your account after the work day. If we are satisfied with your work potential, you will be hired on permanently. Do you have any questions?” the alien said.

“Not really… How will I know I’m in the right spot?” Jason asked.

“We will be there. We expect punctuality.” it replied before standing up abruptly and walking away from the stall into the crowd leaving Jason dumbfounded.

Jason returned to the Inn after taking a look around the town. He even followed the path on the map to make sure he wouldn’t have any trouble following it. It didn’t take very long. He was slowed down by the crowd of people, but compared to modern human cities, the town was small enough that several copies of it could easily fit in almost any city on Earth.

The Tik’rs were happy to hear that he had found a job and that it would be enough that he could continue staying with them. They also informed him that Rina had agreed to work there. They discussed her wages and how to handle them. Sú suggested that it might be a good idea to pay her weekly or monthly, so that a significant amount built up and she could feel that first paycheck excitement. If not for that reason, there was also the reason that she had learned from Rina earlier that Jason and Rina didn’t know each other from before and it this would give them time to work out how to handle their financial situation. Jason agreed, but Rina was left in the dark about this decision. She would just assume it was how the Tik’rs paid their employees. When they were done discussing everything, Jason set up a permanent rental agreement and went up to his room to sleep. He hoped it would be a good sleep as he knew tomorrow marked the beginning of his life of hard labor.