“There used to be this really cool ice cream shop around here. They had all kinds special flavors they made in the back. It was great. We should get ice cream,” Kaiden starts to ramble.

He tends to do that a lot, one of his quirks I’ve picked up on. Sometimes he doesn’t stop talking, as if he just learned how to speak. He eats a ridiculous amount of food, but pauses on every bite as if he’s trying to find the ingredients. He cleans up after himself and doesn’t make a lot of noise, besides talking. I wonder if he’s naturally that way, or he’s afraid of what I’ll do if he does something.

“First off, it’s winter, and second if you know where this ice cream shop is, help me find this pawn shop,” I cut him off.

“Oh, I don’t know where it is. But, I recognize the buildings. I haven’t been in the city for three years. You know that. I can’t remember half of this stuff. You’ve been here a couple of months. Did you just not explore?”

“I explored for what I needed to.”

“Aren’t you cold? You should get a jacket.”

“You’re wearing my jacket. How did you get it anyway?”

“Mrs. Dalia gave it to me. She said I would grow into it. I’ve only grown a little since I drank that nasty stuff. Not even a full inch yet. Do you want it back?”

“No, you’re fine. It isn’t really that cold yet,” I kind of want it back.

“The weather said it would be forty-five today.”

“At least it isn’t twenty-five.”

I always wanted to live in the city when I was younger. I was just, always in trouble. I missed a lot of field trips here. I spent a lot of weekends at the temple all by myself. Now I’ve actually gotten to the city and can’t be bothered with leaving my apartment unless I have to. I had all these great ideas of what the city would be like, but all of that got corrected in the first couple of days. The apartment I lined up was a piece of shit. I fell for the pictures without ever visiting. I couldn’t find any jobs because I didn’t know anyone who was involved in the life. I couldn’t just walk up to a random Elf, blow their cover and ask if they needed something killed. Luckily, Mother Dalia has given me a place to start, because otherwise I’d be screwed. Sometimes I wonder if I would be better off in another city, one with less regulations on magic, creatures and all that. A place where everything isn’t meant to protect human eyes. A predominately Elven or Dwarven led city, they’re pretty lax on their rules about who sees what. Here, there’s fees and fines if you’re too liberal with your actions. I wonder what a city led by Orcs or Goblins would be like. I mean sure, most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but I’m sure the cities would be different in looks and feelings.

“Hey Jason, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“Elser told me that the reason I couldn’t see all this stuff before is because I wasn’t introduced to it. What does that mean?”

“What stuff?”

He pulls me close and whispers, “like vampires, werewolves, Elves, Orcs and Goblins. How do they hide that stuff?”

“Oh, that. Well there’s this thing called the Council of the Infinite that works in the shadows of the world. They’re made up of some Elves and some humans. I think they’re required to have one Orc, one Goblin and a few Dwarves. Anyway, through magic, and deception they basically hide the existence of non-human races through some big magic bubble. But, once the cat is out of the bag, sometimes it’s hard to put back in. I’ve heard of them doing magic brain wipes in cases where large groups have been exposed or a person couldn’t handle what they had seen. But, for one or two folks they don’t care and eventually the numbers grow, but not enough to drop the spell. They just roll with it. I don’t really know exactly how it works, but that’s the basic concept. Now vampires and werewolves are a little different. They aren’t actually races of people, technically they’re cryptids. So, they don’t play by the rules. That’s how urban legends get started. The Council can’t really do anything about them.”

“Woah, slow down. Why can’t they just let everyone be seen? What harm would it do?”

“History, wars, things like that. It was better this way. If you’re human, you see everyone else as human. If you’re an Elf, you see other Elves. There’s still racism, but this keeps full blown race wars from kicking off. In the past Orcs and Humans went to war. Dwarves and Elves have gone to war. Dark Elves vs all the other Elves. Orcs and Goblins are still at war in some countries. It’s crazy. That’s why so much is done to keep it all a big secret. If things ever got revealed, the world might fall into chaos.”

“That’s crazy, a lot to take in. Basically, they’ve got some magic field around the whole country,” Kaiden actually seems shocked. “What if we go outside the magic field?”

“Well, each country is different and handles it different ways. I couldn’t tell you what would happen if a normal person walked into another country and finds and Elf.”

I hadn’t thought about that so much in a long time. I’ll give the kid credit, he makes me think about things I haven’t thought about since leaving the temple or even longer than that. If Dalia’s tip about getting work is accurate I’ll need everything he’s asking at the top of my mind. In some ways, I’ll be starting all over again. I can guess it’ll be mostly vampires and werewolves causing issues around here but I’ll probably have to start from the bottom. Small personal feuds and all that. But, it’ll be work that I’m good at. I imagine that working in the city might be a little different now.

“This is a lot to take in.”

“Yeah, if you’re going to hang out with me, get used it.”

“There’s so much I don’t understand.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“Ice cream would help me understand this better,” he smiles.

“Fine.”