If there were a single place in all of Dewhurst that single handedly represented all the collective problems of the city in one neat little package, it was the bazaar. You could bring anyone in the realm here and just from an idle glance they’d be able to say, ‘Oh. You really weren’t kidding about this place... Wow, this is bad.’

Because it is indeed bad.

The stalls are lined with seedy merchants openly selling every illegal substance in the known realms, with a large focus on mana crystals of various purities. Back alley alchemists hawk their low quality steezweed potions and countless loan sharks patrol the market looking to prey on anyone who needs a couple of extra pieces of gold to finance their nefarious purchases.

Cheap booth girls show their tits, asses and sometimes even more all in the chance of getting you to stop by their stall while a dozen little street urchins work as an organized unit trying to pickpocket as many sacks of gold as they can like they were in direct of competition with each other.

Zutiria gets sidetracked when we pass by the flourishing community of local disgraced Mages who sell unregulated magical artifacts, occult knick-knacks and forbidden grimoires from within the comfort of shady tents, dark alleyways and shops located behind doors you’d swear weren’t there when you last looked.

She very much wants to spend the day rifling through their cursed inventories and I normally would have let her, especially since she’s just coming off of a very rough day.

Sam seems to be having fun as well, laughing at all the outrageous goods, gawking at Dewhurst’s absurdist population and constantly doing double takes to confirm that yes, someone is actually selling that.

Meri? Meri is... not home right now. This experience must be well beyond culture shock for the little country girl and she holds my hand while trembling. She mutters her typical, “Stand firm... stand firm...” catchphrase only her fear and jitteriness causes her to speed up and stammer, transforming her words into unintelligible bursts that sound a little like “S-s-staffirm-staffirm-S-S-STAFFirm”.

It goes without saying that I get a number of uncalled for looks from among the townspeople. There he is, the freak. The little boy who ruined our town. Probably killed his grandpa, too... 

Nothing I’m not used to.

Only now they typically fuck off when I give them a good glare back and play up the evil eye bit they seem to fear oh so much. Never gets old...

At the end of the bazaar is a very large red tent almost the likes of which you’d expect from a carnival troupe. The fabric of the tent is covered in even darker red paw prints from all sorts of different types of critters, including many strange prints I can’t for the life of me identify. Two very large, canine Beastfolk men protect the entrance of the tent from wandering riff-raff who want to sneak in and gawk at the puppies and the kitties- or worse. Above the entrance is a fluttering banner that reads ‘Besthal Pet Shop’.

Both men watch very cautiously as we approach, and they make sure to show me their fangs. I understand why, I know how I look and they’ve clearly already had to beat up who knows how many thugs today.

One might wonder why they even bother stopping in Dewhurst at all given how strict they are with the people they choose to adopt to, but it’s more that Dewhurst USED to be a nice little place and that it still runs through most of the major trading routes in Karnalle.

Everyone has to stop here eventually.

Traders can’t exactly just skip us over, and word gets around that the Breeding Tribe will stop by for a few weeks and so we’ll get people coming from nearby villages and the province’s capital of Dawnstead for trading. Even if our local provincial Lord, Osborne Gloomcrest, likes to pretend that we don’t exist, the rest of Karnalle still has to acknowledge us.

“Greetings,” I call out to the guard dogs while raising the sacks of gold, making it clear up front that I’m intending on being a paying customer if everything turns out well.

“BORK BORK BORK BORK-” The Dogman on the right side begins yelling at me in the words of his people, causing Meri to shriek and hide behind my back. This man is younger than his partner by at least ten years, probably in his early twenties.

“Down, Scrap. Down!” The Dogman on the left raises his furred, paw like hand and calms his companion. He sighs and says. “Sorry about that. You have the Dewhurstian look and it sets him off.”

“Story of my life.” I sigh.

Scrap whines and shrinks with his tail between his legs, getting an amused laugh out of Sam.

“You folk here to adopt?” The older Dogman asks.

“Yes. I run the local Adventurer’s Guild and I’m looking to add to our currently nonexistent cleaning staff. I’ve heard a great deal about the current boom of popularity that Catfolk maids have been enjoying and thought I’d go and see it for myself.”

“Personally, I don’t get it.” He sighs and his big, brown ears droop down off the sides of his fluffy hair. “All we have to do is dress one of our girls up in those frilly dresses and suddenly she’s got a hundred different offers. Ah, well. Hands?”

“Um... y-you want our hands?” Meri tilts her head after deciding it’s safe enough to come out from behind me. Now that we’re not getting barked at I think she finds them rather cute.

Sam lets out a laugh and walks up to the Dogmen, raising her hand for them both to sniff. “Like this, it’s easy! They can tell if we’re good or bad or not with their wet little noses.” Sam has experience among the Beastfolk, as according to her the King is very, very fond of them... just the same as most other red blooded Karnallian males, myself included.

“All clear.” Scrap says before giving her hand a small, respectful lick. “How bout you, Flufferson?”

“You’re good to go, miss.”

‘You might want to check again.’ Zutiria recommends via her text. ‘Her heart is full of perversion and she used to walk around town in a slutty bikini.’

“ZUZU-”

“BORK BORK BORK, WHERE WORDS COME FROM?! BORK BORK-” Scrap loses his gods damned mind over Zutiria’s perceived psychic attack, causing the Mage to blush awkwardly.

“It’s ok, boy, heel! She can’t talk normally. It’s okay... it’s ooooookay.” Sam reaches up and scritches Scrap’s pointy, alerted ears until he calms down.

“M-Miss, please... don’t... patronize m-me...” He blushes and his tail wags incessantly.

I’m not a jealous person, not over something this tame considering it’s just a part of their culture. If anything, it’s more amusing than it is anything else.

Sam walks into the tent and turns around to wait for us on the other side.

Zutiria steps up next and offers her dainty little hand to the Dogmen, and both of them share a very, very confused look on their faces. Both of their ears perk up and their tails fall flat, before they look each other in the eyes and turn around to deliberate for just a moment. After a few seconds of talking, they step aside and allow Zutiria to pass although they watch her as she goes, unsure if they made the right call. I notice neither of them give her the respectful lick that they did for Sam.

That’s... more than a little troubling and I can see from the look on Zutiria’s face she’s a little self conscious about it. I almost want to say something in her defense but it would likely make the situation worse.

Then just before things can get more awkward, Meri steps forward and offers her hand to the Dogmen who both immediately start laughing.

“Don’t even bother, Miss. Get in here.” Flufferson shakes his head and holds his side.

“W-What?! B-But don’t you need to sniff me to find out whether I-I’m good or bad?”

Scrap wipes a tear out of his eye and says, “Are you joking? We could smell you all the way across the bazaar. You’re like, the goodest of good girls who’ve ever gooded before in the entire history of goodness.”

Zutiria raises an eyebrow and adjusts her glasses.

Sam holds back an enormous, unladylike snort.

Meri’s face reddens to the point where it looks like she’s overheated in her armor again and without saying a word she enters the tent while staring at the ground from embarrassment. After she turns to face me she mutters, “I-I’m NOT a good girl... I’m Master’s... um... nnnn...” under her breath.

All the laughter seems to drain from their faces as soon as I take a step forward and present my hand to the two guards. They both take a deep sniff and immediately Scrap bares his fangs and begins to growl at me, though he restrains himself from barking fully and forces himself to take many continuous sniffs after that.

Both men pull away and the older Dogfolk, Flufferson, asks, “You live here long?”

“My whole life, regrettably.” I say as I choke down the bizarre, slightly masochistic fondness I have for this gods awful town.

“You sure as shit smell like it, scum.” Scrap snarls before Flufferson flicks him on the nose before he can presumably bark at me again.

“It’s not that- no shit you smell like the place you live in. It’s more like... you don’t smell... bad, per se. But there’s a darkness lingering on the scent...”

My eye twitches under my glasses thanks to increasing stress. I 

“Can I go in or not?” I sigh, watching the faces of my Guild girls growing more and more concerned.

“It’s... hard to say.” Flufferson’s tail droops and he becomes lost in thought. “It’s hard to tell if the smell is you, someone in your life, or just... or if the smell just represents you as a whole.”

...

As rude as this may sound, I have to fight back the urge to roll my eyes.

After yesterday’s metaphysical encounter with the divine I’m not in the mood for vague, dreary metaphysical bullshit about how I smell like darkness, allegedly. Can. I. Come. In. That’s a yes or no question, not an invitation for a philosophical debate. Darkness doesn’t have a fucking smell, that’s just... ugh.

I guess it’s no surprise my tolerance for this sort of nonsense has dropped significantly thanks to recent events.

You would fucking think that having a few afternoon beers in the Supernal Skies of Serenity would wipe the smell of darkness clear off a man, yet here we are...

“N-No, please you don’t understand! He only LOOKS like a scary thug!” Meri cuts in and makes sure to let them know.

“C’mon- can’t we like, vouch for him or something?” Sam grunts and puts her hands on her hips. “You really think a bunch of upstanding and sexy young adventuresses such as ourselves would all work for him if he were a weird, gropey, sex pervert?” I’m not sure what other types of perverts there are other than sex ones, but I don’t correct her odd word choice.

“...I-I mean he is, b-but... that’s w-w-why I... er... WE like him...” Meri blushes and says under her breath, presumably unaware of how sensitive the ears of Dogfolk happen to be.

Zutiria remains silent, probably locked deeply in thought over how she was barely able to pass security in the first place. I’m sure she assumes her words probably won’t be very convincing.

“...These girls are all your mates, yes?” Flufferson asks.

“Yes.” I put it right out there with no hesitation. There’s no use lying. They can probably smell every last thing I’ve ever done to them... I... fuck, that’s kind of hot now that I think about it, knowing that these men know that the girls are well and thoroughly marked as mine.

“How does that even work...?”

“Swimmingly.” I smile confidently and adjust my glasses, visions of the lewd going-ons back at the Guild this morning flashing through my mind.

“You smell like two or three other girls, too though...” Scrap lowers his angry glare for just a moment so that he can stare at my almost jealousy.

“They tell me I’m tall, dark and handsome. Can’t keep their hands off of me.” I repeat a phrase a certain Goddess used to describe me and watch as both men drop their guard a bit and start laughing.

“And you want... even more girls...?” Flufferson asks in disbelief.

I think I have an in here, now that they’re talking to me the typically friendly Dogfolk are lowering their guard and seeing that I have a sense of humor. “Yes. I can’t seem to take these ones back, and they all tragically refuse to cook and clean for me.”

Both Beastfolk look at me with confusion before breaking into laughter at my casual sexism.

“Get in here, man. We need to fix that for you right away!” Scrap clasps me on the back like I’m his long lost brother. “I got some sisters in there if you need some Dogfolk for anything, too!”

...

Was that really all I needed to do to gain the trust of this snarling guardian? Make a single joke in poor taste and then he offers to let me adopt his sisters?

“You should be fine, Guild Master.” Flufferson sighs with a grin and puts his paws on his hips. “You can’t be all bad. I’ve never made a bad call in the twelve years I’ve been doing this.”

Sam shakes her head and laughs. “Heh. Women.”

Meri looks at both Sam and Zutiria in confusion. “W-Was I supposed to be cooking and cleaning for him?! N-No one told me...! He always just does it himself so I thought I-I um... Oh, Goddess now I feel like an ungrateful house guest let alone a neglectful m-m-m-mate...!”

Zutiria just smirks ever so softly and shoots me a solo message, saying, ‘It’s a good thing we understand the concept of sarcasm and know that you’re not actually sexist, isn’t it Sir?’

I smile back at her and putting my arm around Zutiria and Meri, I lead my growing harem into the depths of the Besthal Pet Shop as I say, “Come on, girls. Let’s go find you some new role models that can teach you to behave accordingly in my presence.”

“M-Master... y-you should have told me, I would’ve, um-”

“Meri! It was a joke.”

“...Oh.” She blushes.

...

‘Making him a sandwich sometimes might win you some points, though.’ Zutiria tells her.

“Noted...!”