Jason and the T’kata entered the inn. It was late for Debris, but not for Earth, so Rina was still awake. She had been worried that Jason had not come home yet. The moment that she heard the door she rushed from her room, hoping it was a him, but she was also trusted to handle any new guests since she was going to be up anyways. She bounded out of the darkness of the hallway built to Eaugr’n body specs with a smile.

“Welcome to the happy Tik’r Inn! How can I help you?” Rina said cheerfully, her eyes were closed and she had a large smile on her face. She hadn’t taken the time to look. She wanted to do a good job. If it was a guest then it was just good work. If it was Jason, then she wanted to show that was doing good. She wanted him to know that he didn’t have to worry about her.

“You will not be able to help me. I will help him to his room,” the T’kata said to Rina and began moving towards the stairs with Jason.

Rina’s eyes popped open and she looked in the direction of the T’kata. She had never seen one before. Utterly surprised and scared, she screamed. She hadn’t seen Jason with the T’kata otherwise her reaction might have been different. A door crashing open and loud thumping came down the hallway. Awlrek flew out of the shadows over the head of Rina and the counter. He landed in a position that showed his readiness to put down whatever was threatening her.

“What ye be doin’?” Awlrek bellowed towards the T’kata, ignoring the guy she was trying to help up the stairs.

The T’kata turned towards Awlrek along with Jason. “I am helping the pupa up to his room. I understand he has a room here. Is that not correct?” she replied calmly to the rampaging Eaugr’n, unphased by any of the excitement.

All the noise had wakened Jason from his snooze. “Hey, Awlrek, are you kicking me out cuz I stayed out late?” he joked trying to ease the tension of the situation. Truly, Awlrek could have kicked him out. It technically was longer than 24 hours since he paid for his room and he didn’t know how Awlrek would treat the situation.

Awlrek and Rina looked at him seeing the condition he was in. Rine immediately ran from the room to the back. Awlrek loosened up as he looked the two of them up and down. “Ye best let me take it from here. Ye nae be strong enough to take care t’not injure him more gettin’ him up the stairs,” he said taking hold of Jason.

The T’kata nodded to Awlrek, let go of Jason, and stepped briskly out the door. Jason wasn’t sure he liked how fast she backed down to Awlrek and left him there without knowing the situation. This was a passing thought as in the next moment he found himself hefted over Awlrek’s shoulder. Luckily, his abdomen wasn’t injured, just burning from the workout he’d gone through that would last for days. Awlrek didn’t know that. Jason didn’t think he cared. By the time all this passed through his head Jason found himself swung off the gorilla shoulder and slammed into the “cushion” that was his bed.

The covers were pulled over him by Awlrek before the gorilla made for the door. “Rest. Pay for the room when ye be healthy,” Awlrek said as he left. Not quickly enough. Rina came rushing into room and to Jason’s side, brushing past the dodging Awlrek, holding her ARMS Cross. “Cure!” she shouted while holding the cross out towards him. Its jewel flashed. A light hazy green aura surrounded him. The wound he had on his arm started sealing shut beneath the bandages on his right arm while at the same time his sprained ankle stopped aching. He was grateful, but the ultimately it was pointless since the main problem wasn’t that his body was injured, but that he was sore from exhausting himself so completely. He made a note that whatever this magic was, it did not heal aches that were natural.

“Thanks,” he grunted out.

“You’re ok?” she asked.

“I think so,” he tried to comfort her without lying, “but I think I need few days rest to get back up to par.”

“Okaay. Get to sleep then. I’ll be watching you!” she said and then ran out the door, making sure the door was closed behind her.

Jason breathed deeply. His whole body was still in pain. Awlrek slamming him against the mattress did not help, but he couldn’t complain about it. He grimaced and struggled to roll over to a more comfortable position and tried to get to sleep. It took him several minutes. It was difficult to breath and it took time to find a position that didn’t ache. And even when he did find a position that was better, he still had to wait for the agony from moving to subside. And then there was the fact he had snoozed and slept earlier making it difficult to quickly drift off to sleep. Regardless, he was still exhausted. several minutes after attempting to get to sleep he was snoring away even though it felt like forever to him.

Jason slept through the night soundly and didn’t wake up till the afternoon. When he did he stretched painfully after he rolled over. This lasted for only a moment though as a shooting pain went through his body and made him cringe back. After relaxing a bit he crawled from the bed, dropping to the floor. He attempted to stand, but couldn’t bare it. His stomach growled. Hunger was a powerful motivator. He swallowed his pride and dragged himself down to the dining room on the first floor. Everyone was gone at this time of day save for the Tik’rs and Rina anyways. He pulled himself up to the stool at the dining counter and just waited to see if anyone would come by that would spot him or that he could call out to. There wasn’t much hope of this happening since Rina was doing her duties cleaning the rooms while Su had long since finished serving general breakfast and lunch. And who knows where Awlrek had taken off to. Though, they had to be somewhere around the inn since they offered dining at any time during the day.

Eventually Su passed by and saw him at the counter. She got him something to eat and went back to her chores around the inn. He hesitated a moment, remembering back the other day when he had smelt the now familiar scent of the meat he had been eating most days. He took another note to be more wary about what he ate and then dug. He was hungry and it would do him no good to starve.

The day passed pretty much the same. He tried to not to move around much and when he needed to he struggled with the soreness. At some point during the day he paid for his room and the next 2 days. It cost all his credits. However he was when time was up he’d have to get back to work or sell off the sword and axe he’d bought. After the fight with the wasp aliens he was confident that he could hold his own enough to survive on the streets if he needed to, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Over the next days he stayed in bed for most of them, either sleeping or looking through the ARMS user interface. He hadn’t used many of its functions as he didn’t want to mess with it without reading up on the functions and end up having something go wrong in an emergency. Now that he had time, he went through and read up and experimented with the HUD, but many of its functions he could only read about and think on how to use them since he didn’t have the items to experiment with. There was the option to contact Mittana, but he really didn’t want to deal with her in his current condition.

The day came when Jason’s time ran out. He was still feeling the previous day’s battle, but he had to do what he had to do. The timberwrights welcomed him back to work. There were several new T’kata to take the place of the ones that had died. The others were all people he’d worked with previously. Finding new workers or workers to cover more days wasn’t hard. Most people could use more work if they could get it. Jason thought he might suffer from anxiety or something, but he didn’t feel anything. The day passed like normal. He was slower than usual, but he was able to keep up and cut down the same amount of trees he could usually.

When the day finished he only had 2 credits to his name, but it was something, and he could at least spend another night at the inn. He sighed with the knowledge that he had a long road to a stable life. The events of the week had shown that if one thing went wrong he would find himself homeless and on the streets like so many other humans he saw every time he went out. Although, it didn’t seem so bad he thought. There were fewer homeless people that he could see with each passing day. They must have found a job or taken up living in those cheap houses outside the walls of the city he assumed.

The next day Jason woke up early for work, grabbed his belongings and headed off to work. He finally wasn’t aching, but instead, refreshed. The rest and work from yesterday must have done their job to restore him. The early dawn light was coming over the horizon and through the spaces between the buildings of the town. The sky was tinged a beautiful red. The smell of freshly baked goods wafted through the air and wind was cool and refreshing. One might even consider it idyllic if not for the aliens walking about.

As he approached the town square Jason could see that there were people gathering. There was a caravan of wagons approaching from the opposite direction pulled by creatures that resembled horses mixed with rabbits. It was an unusual sight to him. Not the rabbit-horses. It’s not every day that you see old time wooden wagons when you live in a modern earth city, but that also wasn’t it. He hadn’t seen anything like a vehicle the entire time he had been here so now seeing several wagons after a month was quite unexpected.

The caravan driver directed his wagon to circle over to the governmental buildings and park there. The other wagons followed suit. He was a large Sil`phane resembling a black panther, but with white fur extending from his mouth down his front and on his forearms and hands. He wasn’t fat nor muscular, but rather it appeared that he had a layer of blubber over a muscular frame. His physical features were imposing to say the least, but when combined with how richly dressed and confident he appeared to be this Sil`phane was down right terrifying. He got down from his seat and walked to each of the wagons, untying a bit which held the canvas to the wagon.

Lifting up the canvas, the wagon driver revealed cages full of reptilian aliens, dressed only with chains and collars. Some looked bulky and muscular, while others looked very feminine, petite with curves in all the familiar places. Jason thought that reptilian was the wrong word for them, but so was mammal since they had features that might categorize them as mammals, but they clearly looked more reptilian than mammalian. He had stopped to watch all this only because he had time and once he figured out what was happening and thinking out the xenobiological implications of these new aliens, he decided that he wanted no part of this making his way towards the regular gate.

The last wagon’s canvas was removed and in it Jason saw out of the corner of his eye Jason saw a human mixed in with the reptilians. They were pale and most definitely female, but she was curled in a ball. He couldn’t tell what they looked like or even if they were alive. There was nothing he could do he thought. This new world was harsh and while it had made him uncaring yet, it had chilled his emotions. In his situation and in this general situation, getting involved would only add another burden to himself for someone he didn’t know. Then he saw that the female had white hair. Not many humans were young and had white hair, dyed or otherwise.