The fish market tued out to not be the best spot to spend the night.
It like the kinda place that never entirely stopped moving....LIKE EVER.
There was merchants pulling down shutters over stalls while other merchants were already pulling them back up for the early morning trade and between them was a crazy amount of workers and delivery people and ugh a millions cats of various sizes.
It honestly smelt like shit to.
I circled around to the back entrance as Oracle had suggested and here the picture was more of what I had expected.
There was a huge set of large wooden bins that from what I could see were mostly emptied,, but stil had some fish heads and some fish tails and even some vegetable scraps and a shit ton of onion skins that smelled like ass.
I spotted something separate from the rest, wrapped in the cloth something that smelled like it might be cooked sausage.
I walked up to the wrapped up cloth.
Opened it up.
It was a sausage.
I picked it up.
[ GUTTER INTUITION: Environment scan complete. No threats detected in immediate vicinity. Item assessment: Sausage (pork, herb), approximately 8 hours old. Safe for consumption. ]
"Good enough for me aslong as i dont die from it,"
I ate it up.
It was so cold and slightly over prepped,
But.
It was the best damn thing I had tasted since arriving in this world.
I was already considering my next move, which involved finding somewhere warmer than an alley to sleep before morning.
[ GUTTER INTUITION: Incoming. Two parties. One: single individual, physically compromised, fleeing. Two: multiple individuals, organized pursuit. Distance closing. Recommend: step aside or intervene. No threat to user detected from either party at current range. ]
I pressed myself against a wall.
This person appeared from the side street to my left. She looked pretty young but probably was around my age if i had to take a wild guess. She also had bright blonde hair and, was wearing metal armour I think its metal i dont know. And carrying a sword.
She ran around the corner of the market building really fast and shennearly went down on the wet cobblestones but she somehowcaught herself..
"Help me," she said as she was breathing hard. "Please."
Behind her from the same side street, came the sound of three or four sets of boots.
I am not sure I can fully explain what happened but I moved before I had fully decided to stepping forward and pulling her hard by the arm into the space behind the large wooden bins. It was a pretty narrow gap between the bins that smelled of stinky ass fish and old wood.
We pressed flat against the wall.
My Drifter's Dominion skill pulsed.
[ DRIFTER'S DOMINION: Claiming temporary ownership of space. This area is being registered as user territory. Passive concealment field active for duration of occupancy. ]
The boots I heard had reached the corner and I saw what looked to be four men came into view wearing armour. One of them raised up his hand and the guys with him stopped. He looked around the market sweeping left right.
His eyes passed directly over the spot where we were standing.
And kept moving.
I did not breathe and from the sound of it neither was this girl next to me.
The man who put his hand up spoke to the others that was way too quiet for me to hear clearly, but they eventually moved away down a different street as I heard their boots fading away.
We waited.
"They're gone," the woman said, after a long pause.
She stepped back from me, immediately. She looked me up and down. The thin clothes, the battered cup, the general "I live in an alley" energy. She had this look of embarrassment move across her face. Like wow I cant believe this freak in an alley just saved me.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't mention it."
"How did you do that? They looked right at us.?"
I thought about how to explain Drifter's Dominion to a person from a fantasy world in terms that wouldn't take twenty minutes.
"I claimed the space, It works better than it sounds."
She gave me a look that was trying to figure out if I was being deliberately obscure or simply unhelpful.
"I'm Sable,"
She said nervously
"Sable Vorn. Knight-Errant, Third Class, Kingdom of Velthas."
"Well ummm... Im Rymur Kaito, Currently: no fixed abode."
She looked at my cup.
She looked at my blanket.
She looked at the fish market bins I had been searching through.
"I see," she said.
"Those men," I said. "Who the HELL were they?"
Her jaw tightened.
"They were Enforcers working for someone in the royal court who would very much like me to stop asking questions about where the Caldenmere relief fund money went before the city's south district flooded last month."
She glanced down the street where they had gone.
"I've been running away from those bastards for three days. I'm kinda running low on options."
I looked at her armor, her exhaustion.
"I have a box," I said.
She blinked.
"Sorry?"
"I said.... I have a cardboard box that just so happens to also be in an alley. It's not much, but it's technically claimed space and if my skill works the way I think it does, nobody is going to be able to find you there unless you want them to."
She stared at me so uninterested.
"You're offering me shelter,"
She said slowly.
"In a box."
"In a claimed alley,"
I corrected.
"With also a box in it. Its better than it sounds."
She thought about this for approximately four seconds.
"Fine," she said. "Lead the way."