“So! What's the plan!” Dema rasped as they left the gates behind them. The houses in this town had very flat roofs, looked rather compact and were so tightly placed that a myriad of tiny corridors branched off the main street into the innards of the city — most of them leading downwards, since they were sitting on hills.

“I don't know much about this town,” Theora said with a short hum. “We could either go to a place to inform ourselves, or try to find somewhere to stay for the night first.”

“This is slightly fishy, though!” Dema said. “No people outside, even though it’s in the middle of the day.”

That was indeed peculiar. Not a single person was outside. The streets were empty, as if they were still walking through a forest. It was raining a little, but not to an extent of a storm or strong inconvenience. The clouds were dense, but still let through a lot of light. The streets looked eerily calm; there were no threats to be seen nor to be felt — no people, no monsters, no environmental hazards that Theora could make out.

In short, she couldn’t ascertain a reason or even hazard a guess as to why they were completely alone outside. There had been guards, after all, at the gates, so that was additionally confusing.

“Is the town abandoned?” she asked.

Dema took a look around, gazing at the houses. “Nah. They're at home. Lots and lots at home.”

Theora glanced at the windows — after a while, she could make out the occasional one that had lights burning inside. Though not as many as she would have expected from a settlement this large. 

“I wonder what’s going on,” she mused. “The guard mentioned ‘trouble’ of some kind. Is it related to this?”

“Yeah I wonder too!” Dema cheered. “Wanna knock on a door and ask?”

Theora hesitated. That would have never occurred to her. The only time she’d considered knocking on stranger’s doors was when she’d destroyed the System in the vicinity and offered her help to avoid negative consequences of that. That said, it didn’t seem like an awful idea. “Will you be doing the talking?”

“Yeah, of course!”

With a sigh of relief, Theora nodded. “That’s good then.” Talking was tiring.

Dema gave her a smile, then her expression turned contemplative as she studied the houses, presumably using [Appraise] on the people inside.

After a while, Theora noticed that Dema wasn’t just looking at a random house to join. She appeared to be… searching for something?

They went along the main street for a while, but every now and then Dema made them enter a side-street, as she was putting her chin in her hand. “Hmm,” she hummed each time she looked at a building, but then turned away. 

They made their way up and down the rolling hills, sometimes returning to the level main street, pacing by smaller temples, a lot of residential buildings, some larger ones whose purpose Theora couldn’t make out — although those mostly seemed abandoned.

“You know, if it’s just about asking what’s going on, we could just knock on any door, really,” Theora suggested.

“No!” Dema rasped firmly. “Gotta be a perfect one!”

‘Perfect one’? Whatever could the ‘perfect one’ be that Dema was looking for?

It’s not like Theora minded — it was Dema who’d volunteered to do the talking, so in her book, the girl could take as long to choose the house as she wanted. 

And after walking for about half an hour, Dema finally brightened up, and turned into a side-alley. A few steps in, a wooden stairway led up to a brick construction perched between two other houses — a small apartment in the air, suspended like a bridge. “That one’s really good!” Dema yelled. “There’s two women inside, and they have a baby! Just like us!”

Theora choked on spit and coughed and spluttered, unable to form a clear sentence, so she just shut herself up.

Already at the top of the stairs, Dema knocked on the wooden door with three sound and clear punches, looking down wide-grinned as Theora went up to join her. A few moments later, the door swung open, and a young woman appeared. She had short red hair and freckles, green eyes and was wearing comfortable indoor clothing; loose garments and a short scarf. She was almost as thin as Dema, but had much longer limbs.

Her eyes went up and down Dema’s body, and then, with raised eyebrows, she asked, “What’s up?”

“We wanna talk to your wife!” Dema exclaimed.

The woman blushed ever so faintly, started shaking her head in confusion, and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Dema proceeded to point at some area in the house, where apparently she knew the other person was, due to her [Appraise].

“Oh, that’s—” the woman started. “We’re not… I… I mean… We’re just roommates!”

“Sure!” Dema cheered.

“Uhm… Well, Balinth can’t come to the front right now, she’s busy. Who are you?”

“Oh!” Dema let out, and then pointed at herself. “I’m Dema. And that cutie there is little rabbit.”

“Theora,” Theora supplied. 

“We’re travellers! We just arrived, but it’s, like, a total ghost town! We got no clue about what’s going on. So our big plan was to just, knock and ask.”

“Ah,” the woman hummed, and nodded. “I’m Helena.” She looked back and forth between Theora and Dema, as if lost in thought for a moment. “So you are… just… travelling companions?”

“That’s right, for now!” Dema confirmed, and Theora wanted to just sink into the ground and disappear.

Still, even though it always ended up in a complete and utter mess when she let Dema ‘do the talking’, she’d always choose that mental fluster damage any day over actually having to speak herself. 

Somehow, Dema’s response made Helena smile, and she opened her door a little wider. “I guess we can have a coffee in solidarity,” she said, stroking a hand through her hair, and went back into the house, leaving the door open for the two of them.

Dema gave Theora a proud smile following her accomplishment, and then scuttered inside. Meanwhile, Theora had absolutely no clue how this short talk had resulted in this outcome. It was like having seen incomprehensible magic performed in front of her very eyes. Like Dema had hacked her way through a System prompt with a string of fuzzy and nonsensical words that somehow cracked it open at its seams.

“Hell? Everything okay?” a feminine voice echoed out from the depths of the apartment, and Helena shouted back in the affirmative. 

Dema scrubbed her bare feet over the entrance mat and vanished into the small home, while Theora took a moment to unlatch her boots and then joined after. Following a few turns through the cosy rooms filled with cute little wooden sculptures and tons of books, Theora arrived in the living room, where the person who was apparently Balinth sat on a large chair. She was a large and plump woman with a cute and round face, coily dark hair and a healed-over crooked and broken nose. She was nursing a baby she held in her arms.

Dema shouted a short “Hi, I’m Dema!” at her and looked around in the pretty room. Then, she plopped herself down on the sofa across Balinth. When Theora just awkwardly stood in the corner for a few moments, Dema patted the space on the couch next to her, and said, “Sit!”

Feeling awkward enough already, Theora just obliged, and slowly and shyly joined Dema on that couch, feeling the body warmth in a way she rarely did otherwise, because typically, she managed to keep a healthy distance. But now, their legs almost touched as they sat side-by-side, and Theora did her best to not accidentally bump into Dema.

As the two of them sat down in front of her, Balinth’s face cheered up dramatically. “Nice to meet you!” she said. “I don’t get to meet many people, since…” She pointed down to her leg. It was bandaged heavily and seemed unable to carry any weight. “Glad to have guests.”

“Glad to be here!” Dema replied and nodded to the baby. “How old?”

“She’s three months now. Her name’s Zeka.”

“Yours?”

Balinth nodded. 

Theora could barely focus on their conversation. When had she and Dema ever been so close? Usually, the two of them were travelling the open world, where there was enough space to never have to engage closer than an arm’s-length with one-another. Even when taking care of Dema while sick, Theora had maintained as much distance as possible.

And, of course, the hugs were a new thing too, but hugs were hugs, and that was very different compared to just sitting next to each other leisurely. 

After all, a hug had a proper function — hugs existed to calm emotions; the pressure on the nervous system helped one struggle through life. This sitting-next-to-each-other was very different in comparison; it didn’t calm Theora down at all. If anything, it elevated her heartbeat to amounts she rarely felt even when fighting off the world’s strongest creatures.

In contrast, Dema barely felt fazed at all. She bumped into Theora multiple times as she shuffled herself into a comfortable position, and although they were the softest bumps imaginable, the spots where she hit Theora were left feeling like impact craters of gentle warmth.

Theora’s head started spinning. 

Dema stretched her head a little to get a better view of the baby, and grinned ear to ear while doing so. After a moment, she flopped back down on the sofa, touching Theora hip-to-hip, which sent electrical shivers all over Theora’s skin.

This was definitely close to getting too much.