The rest of the walk to town only took another 2-3 hours after that. I was starting to get the hang of walking here, it helped that Zgax had decided to walk closer to me, allowing her to catch me when I fell. That allowed me to better appreciate the slow increase in vegetation sprouting through the rubble and the small patches of exposed dirt that had started cropping up.
A bit after that we stumbled upon a pasture for some sort of livestock animal. It was about the size of a truck and covered in short fur. It’s four mighty tree trunk like legs slowly crushing anything in its path. Luckily, the behemoths only seemed interested in some sort of large bushes. Zgax explained that they were kept this far out because the inhospitable wasteland acted as a natural wall, one that they couldn’t just push down.
As we got within sight of the town, Zgax had me give her back the cloak to hide her armor. Speaking of the town, it was a lot lower tech than I was expecting, with buildings made entirely of wood and stone. Zgax told me that this world wasn’t as industrial because the inhabitants didn’t want to destroy their remaining half of the planet with industrialization.
We took a bit of time to explore the town, which I learned was named Thallen. Other than houses, it had a church, a tavern, a town hall, and some farms and ranches like the one we passed earlier.
After looking around, we entered the tavern, it was getting late and we needed to eat. This is where I got my first real look at alien life. Most of the people here, who I assumed were the native inhabitants of the planet, were very tall and lanky, down to their heads being stretched and curved back a little. Their skin was a dark purple and their pupils were almost star shaped.
The individual working the bar was very clearly not one of these people. They were a large bipedal crab thing. Their hands had three serrated claws rather than crab claws and their legs looked almost digitigrade. The defining feature of the large alien was their head, which consisted of what looked like the prongs of a trident, it was even made of a gold like material. The first type of alien talked at it and laughed at jokes it didn’t seem to tell.
Zgax waited for a lull in the conversation before walking up “hello, we need a room, two beds.” it continued standing still for a moment before it handed over a key, its hands would probably damage a key card afterall. Zgax handed over some currency I didn't recognise and we set off to our room.
“What was that thing?” I asked once we made it to our room.
“A Trichic, I'm surprised to see one in the empire, it takes a lot of courage to leave a culture like that.” Zgax spoke from experience.
We took a bit of time to set up our sleeping spaces with what little possessions we had. She kept her side of the room very organized, but maybe that was due to how difficult it would be for us to make a mess. After that we just kinda sat there until one of us broke and started a conversation.
“How are you holding up?” I was surprised Zgax broke before me, “everything is probably really different and disorienting.”
“Everything here is so similar to earth. The layout of the town, the buildings, even the style of the beds could conceivably be found on earth. The only big changes are all the sentient non humans and this planet’s inability to decide whether it is ahead of earth or behind it when it comes to tech.”
“Huh, I guess there can only be so many ways to do something efficiently, although this town is so low tech because getting all that tech is expensive, and this town is small and out of the way. I’m glad it’s not too new though, it’ll help ease you into, well, everything.”
“Thanks” I said meekly, averting my eyes to the ground. “I’m not really used to people being so kind to me.”
“You're not used to the bare minimum?” Zgax laughed a little as she said it, the kind of laugh that contains a hint of concern but is still mostly jovial. “Then I guess we need to work on raising your standards don’t we?”
“Ya, I Guess.” I turned to the window, afraid she might piece together why I seemed so invested in my shoes all of a sudden. “It’s getting pretty late, we should probably get some sleep.”
“Now that you mention it, I am pretty tired, I guess long walks tend to do that to you though.”
In lieu of an off switch for the lantern, Zgax through something over it before we crawled under our thin blankets and went to sleep.
***
Santan Corvain pushed open the door to Nemna’s tavern, letting the sound of the creaking door sink in. It was the sound of a job well done, the sound of relaxing after a long time away from home, the sound of victory, at least, it usually was. Santan had had a lot of firsts in the prior month, each one more wild than the last. First he was given this job by the emperor himself, rather than the emperor’s second youngest Zarin sending him like the previous times he worked with the royal family, then he learned his target was another royal. By the time he was offered help by that thing, he shouldn't have been all that surprised. But all of that paled in comparison to this. She had the audacity to come through here, his home town! Santan was furious.
Nemna, who seemed to see this even from a cursory glance at his mind, spoke into his mind, Santan, what’s wrong? Did it not go well?
“Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just the first time I've had to come here while still on the job.”
Don’t be too har- Nemna’s thought was cut short as she collapsed to the ground and let out both a psychic and audible scream of pain and Santan’s new and temporary (hopefully very temporary) traveling companion stumbled through the door, it’s heavy armor clanking together as it struggled to stay standing. One arm hung limp at its side while the other clung to the door frame. Psyotites began flooding from inside of its armor, Santan didn’t know how it was fine letting them crawl all over it’s skin, at least that’s what he assumed was happening.
“What the hell are y-” Santan too was cut off by the thing as its head shot up and spoke…
“Your target is in room Six on the second floor. She seems to have acquired a powerful ally who we might not be able to fight at the moment. We need more information before striking.” before turning on a dime and walking out of the building.
Oh jeez