Chapter 016 Town

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. A teacher is expected to teach truth, and may perhaps flatter himself that he does so.

-Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1918, Chapter XX 'Failure (1871)'

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Provent was a typical Calderinian town.

Not large, but not small either. It's Sanctuary supported a little more than seven thousand Native spirits, and recently under five hundred players as well. Like most settlements, its Sanctuary was the heart of the town. A large plaza, decorated in religious iconography of Theiodot and ILA, in her aspect as the Clothier, was its center and around it were important facilities, such as the town hall, the armory, and the barracks. Other facilities, catering to the recently deceased and returned, were also present including an outpost for the Bank. Not two streets over was a long street of stores, and to the north of the Sanctuary were the foods stores.

All of this, and enough housing for a thousand people or so, were protected by a thick wall of stone in a roughly hexagonal shape around the center of the town. Enchanted, even if not to the degree of Calderine's walls, it stood ten meters tall and two wide, with a group of four guards every thirty meters. Five times that number were stationed around the three gates, located at the north, south, and western sides of the town where the roads led to other settlements.

Around the walls, were more housing and shops. Less well to do, yet not impoverished, these were younger structures than those protected by the walls and the architecture reflected that, even if they were more numerous. They spread around the city and the Sanctuary sat at the right angle of a triangle with it's other points jutting northward toward Calderine and westward toward towns like Iren, Yfron, and Verc that sat between Provent and the sea. Buildings huddled close to the walls on the south and east sides, but they barely stretched a few streets over before coming to a quick stop. They were the newest of the buildings, stone still holding shape from being Sculpted to fit instead of being warn smooth by decades and centuries.

Flowing in a winding pattern, from east by northeast to the south by southwest, was the river that sustained Proven, the Mandory. It was not large, barely stretching wider than eight meters, but it flowed quickly. Heavy banks of stone and dirt rose along its edges, flood-banks half drowned by the rainy season, and guards patrolled the edges. More kept an eye on the irrigation that portioned off a part of the river and diverted it toward the town for use.

It took an hour of walking between seeing the first houses and laying eyes on Provent proper. The outliers of the town to the north and west were farms and homesteads, stretching for kilometers as small families set up residence close to the road yet as far from the town proper as they dared. Livestock was, of course, absent, but great orchards and farms, with the occasionally hunting lodge or shop, appeared more and more as the trio drew closer to the town proper. Grains and tubers were the main foodstuffs, hardy foods that could handle the rough weather of the heath during winter. Half the fields lay empty, what few trees that poked up from the brush were barren of leaves, and there was little in the way of traffic as the cold of winter winds encouraged people to remain in their homes.

Neron drew his jacket closed, wrapping his cloak tightly over his shoulders as Jorry let out another his of displeasure from the wind. An old lady, possibly human, shot him a suspicious look as she hurried up her front stoop and to close the door to her house before he drew near. 

It might have something to do with the fox rubbernecking around, trying to take in everything at once.

"What's that?" Cuholy asked eagerly. 

"Grain storage," Neron grunted under his breath.

"And that?"

"Tavern. Where people socialize and drink."

"Drink what?"

"Alcohol. It makes people feel good and supplements their limited caloric intake of food. It also leads to poor impulse control."

"Can we- Ah!"

Cuholy, at the sight of a guard patrol, rushed to hide behind Neron.

He kept walking.

"AH!" Small paws scrambled to catch up. Jorry, safely tucked away from the wind in his jacket, let out a sound of amusement but did not poke his head out. "Wait for me!"

"The more you flinch and hide," Neron muttered once they were far from the patrols. "The more suspicious you look. The more attention you draw. If you do want to go unseen and unnoticed, then you need to belong. Be part of the scenery. People will wonder what a fox is doing if it is skulking and hiding. People will assume you are harmless if you act as if you are."

"Right," Cuholy gave a little nod, tail wagging slightly. Her voice trembled. "I belong here. I am harmless. I am just a regular fox and I totally should be here."

"Saying it doesn't make it true," Jorry called from inside the jacket.

"It does," Neron denied. "If we tell ourselves to act a certain way and practice said actions, eventually it become subconscious. It is habit. If you wish to be a dragon, you act like one. If you wish to fit in, you observe what lets others fit in and emulate it. If you wish to be brave, you find what causes fear and act against it. Do it enough, and you will not remember a time when you did not."

Not his most subtle of manipulations, but after spending a day with the fox he got the feeling what she needed wasn't subtle. She needed options. Then she needed to be forced to choose.

"So, if I want to be like someone, I act like them? Then I become them?"

"With every action we take, we design ourselves consciously and unconsciously," Neron nodded. Then shook his head. Both actions done slightly so as not to be apparent to anyone but the fox. "Yet we will never be others. We do not have their memories, experiences, or goals. Repetition is key. It turns desired action into desired habit. But who we are is not for us to decide alone. Our environment shapes us. Those around us shape us. The framework of our reality shapes us. All we can do, is take those shapes as a framework and then shape ourselves into a form we desire that fits."

"And if we don't?"

"It depends on what you mean by that. If you do not shape yourself consciously, or at least try to, then you let everyone and everything else do so for you. You become what the world wants you to be. If you do shape yourself, but it does not conform to the world then you throw your shape against the world and you break."

"Why do we have to break?" Jorry asked, poking his head out slightly. His tongue tickled Neron's neck. "The world should break for us!" 

The snake's pompous declaration was undercut by the him ducking his head back into Neron's shirt for warmth.

Neron shook his head again, disguising the motion as a nod toward a pair of women crossing the road in front of him.

"The world is not a place. It is not a people. It is not expectation or laws or rules. The world is reality. We can not control the world. All we control is ourselves. If you ever believe you have broken the world, it simply means your perception of it is wrong. If you find your world breaking, you need to think about what assumptions led you to believing it was the world in the first place. Then you need to redesign your world with the new information. No one will ever have a completely perfect framework of the world, but every time we redesign our world-view, we get a tad closer and give ourselves more control."

Nobody said anything for a long few minutes and Cuholy kept her head down in thought as she trundled along beside him. She got closer and closer as more people joined them on the road, but stayed quiet. Perhaps she was already trying out his advice about blending in?

That lasted until they reached the wall of the town.

"Woah!" The fox's head was tilted all the way back as she looked up at the wall. "It's huge!"

"This is nothing." Jorry's tone was haughty, though he kept himself covered. "Calderine is way bigger. Bigger walls, bigger buildings, bigger roads, bigger everything!"

"Really!? How?" Cuholy kept her head facing upward as they walked under the gate. 

There were a dozen guards manning it, but nobody stopped them. They had no luggage beyond a bag and nothing that would trigger any warning skills. At least Neron hoped not. In all his reading and investigation, he'd never heard of any skill or spell that could distinguish a being with a Self from one without. That didn't mean it wasn't possible, just that it wasn't common knowledge.

Then again, it would be unlike God's Nature to have something so convenient.

"Because it just is. Calderine is so big that even if you walk all day you can't reach the end!"

Neron gave that some thought. Jorry wasn't technically wrong, if you counted the greater Calderine area, but the city proper would probably only be a few hours.

"Why do they need a place that big?"

"Because bigger is better. Obviously."

"Not strictly true," Neron denied. He was doing that a lot, he realized. With the addition of Cuholy for Jorry to bounce off of, he'd resumed the behavior he'd had when raising Aleen and Trau. Something to be aware of, as these two were not actual children, they were just uneducated. "Larger things have advantages and disadvantages, but so do smaller things. Large cities like Calderine have more people, more infrastructure, and with both comes a greater ability to defend itself, but it is less self sufficient. Food, for example, comes from places like this. If Calderine was cut off from the outside, it would eventually starve to death. Not here."

"...Why are you talking normally," Jorry grumbled, the pout audible in his voice. "What if someone realizes?"

"If you would look around us you will notice we are surrounded by people talking," Neron pointed out. "Talking while alone is suspicious. Talking amidst a crowd is normal."

A trio of adventurers, possibly Players, were covered in blood as they argued loudly over rewards money. A couple were huddled close, whispering in each other's ear. Nearby two young men were pulling a small cart laden with some sort of black stone, its wheels squeaked. With the wall cutting off most of the wind, people had relaxed their hunched postures and unconsciously slowed their steps.

The noise of the area got louder as they used the main street to approach the Sanctuary, the clamor of day to day life rising. Hawkers of wares trying to draw attention to their goods began to line the sides of the road. The clink of boots on cobbled stone, the jingling of arms and armor from adventurers, guards, or the paranoid mingled with the clinking of coin and the chatter of the crowd.

"Nobody is as invisible as someone in a crowd," Neron told the pair as he kept pace with the others beside him. "We are all self centered creatures and so long as you do not do something to draw the eye, then it will slide right over you." Neron caught sight of someone leaving town on the other side of the street clocking the fox by his side, then kept walking. "See? They do not care so long as it does not effect them. The guards are the same. They see you, they just do not care because you are part of the bustle, the scene. They rationalize you. You are a skill conjuration, or a tamed beast, or a familiar, or whatever they tell themselves."

"But, aren't I?" Cuholy asked, dubiously looking up at Neron.

"You are not," Neron rejected. "You could, at any point, jump on someone and bite out their throat. You would almost certainly get a level, possibly evolve. I could not stop you any more than anyone else. You are not peaceful because I tell you to be and control you. You are peaceful because you choose to be. You and Jorry follow my direction because you believe it to be the best one, but I can not force you to." A bit of sunk cost fallacy never hurt anyone. It was their idea to follow him, after all. "And this is another example of where being smaller is better than being bigger."

"Because I blend in better," Cuholy nodded, understanding his point.

"Yes, but you also appear to be easier to take down if you did do something. We, by that I mean animals, feel safer around creatures we are bigger than. If you were the size of that orc but exactly as dangerous you would draw more attention." There were exceptions, of course, like phobias and the mind's ability to recognize things like venomous or poisonous creatures, but evolution programmed in almost all life forms the idea that bigger equals more dangerous. It wasn't wrong to do so either.

"That's because being bigger is better," Jorry repeated.

"Yet the mice and rats could get a drop on us because they were smaller and went unnoticed," Neron pointed out and felt Jorry tighten his coils around his torso. "When you evolved you became larger and could kill them easier, but you lost the ability to fit into all their hiding holes. You also needed more food because larger bodies need greater sustenance, just like larger cities." 

Neron knew he was almost talking to a wall with Jorry. So much of his desire to be a dragon was tied into the idea that being larger was better than being smaller and he'd fostered that with tales of Jormungandr and other dragons like Vritra or Yamato no Orochi, dragons so large they covered mountains and swallowed seas. Yet, it would be doing Jorry a disservice to allow him to continually believe that larger was always superior. 

Neron's own size, for example, was an advantage in combat that allowed him to beat Fallon and Polo during his time at Ysold's, despite the latter being older and the former having more experience in brawls. Yet Ingrid, who was two heads shorter than him had still been able to kick his ass. 

If Gus were ever to live on earth then he'd have to deal with the fact that most of its infrastructure was not designed for people as tall as him. There was reason that most people who didn't live on mars didn't decide to go through with the same treatment to reinforce their bodies even though it made them objectively tougher and larger. The higher gravity would have a greater effect on his larger body, on top of everything else and his caloric intake was also proportionally higher.

It simply cost more to keep larger lifeforms alive than smaller ones.

"There is never anything that is always better, qualitatively, to anything else. Our world is one of trade offs. Every advantage comes with a disadvantage. Nothing is better. Nothing is worse. It just is."

"And it's up to us to use our advantages as best as we can," Cuholy's tail wagged happily. "I'm small and pretty so I can get away with stuff. Like food."

Neron didn't say anything to contradict the fox, she appeared to need the confidence boost, but the pretty comment was a touch exaggerated. With the patchwork fur and sunken and gaunt appearance the impression she gave was less 'pretty' and more 'pitiable.'

"I will grab food for you at the Sanctuary," Neron told her. "We will be there for a few hours so you can eat while we wait."

Her tail wagging picked up in intensity and her mouth stretched into a vulpine grin, which reminded him of one of his tertiary goals in coming to this town.

Taking a deep breath, Neron activated the Nest. His serpent's tongue had already been mastered, so he could keep it activated as long as he wished and was a common enough visual display from a snake therianthrope that it would not put off too many observers. It wouldn't fix the stigma around snakes, but Neron didn't need to worry about that while just passing through. Before they'd seen civilization he'd dismissed the rostrum he was practicing with and now he regained his temporary Jacobson organ.

Visually, nothing changed yet Neron twitched as his senses of smell and taste became infinitely more acute whenever he socketed his tongue in the little dock in his upper mouth.

The jacobson organ, or vomeronasal organ if Neron wished to be technical, was a troublesome trait to master subconsciously. Not because it was wholly alien, if it were Neron would not have been able to gain it at all with his stats and skill so low. It was a relatively common trait. Not just in snakes and lizards, who flickered their tongues, but also in mammals such as cats or horses. There was considerable evidence that humans even possessed a form of it, though it was vestigial.

To make a long and complicated aspect of biology simple, it was type of nasal passage located just above the hard palate at the top of the mouth that took in compounds and connected directly to the brain through neuron activation in response to those compounds. Those compounds come from prey, predators, or potential mates. Snakes and lizards used their forked tongue and flickering behavior as tuning forks to locate the source of those compounds more accurately than most any other animal.

Neron's problem? It was two fold. The first, and simplest, as learning how to tune the fork, so to speak. He needed to learn to direct his tongue in the appropriate directions and then identify the compounds his tongue was picking up in the air. All this was easily solved by simple time and practice. His brain already knew how to identify smells and tastes, it was no more than a more acute version of what everyone did all the time.

The second, and greatest, issue he faced was that the Jacobson organ was linked directly to his brain, specifically his amygdala, BNST, and hypothalamus. Which were, in turn, connected to emotions like fear, lust, hunger, the generation of adrenaline, stress response, reflex action and all manner of other instinctual behavior. All those million and one things bodies did in response to external stimuli were tied up there and Neron had turned up his instinctual response to eleven. 

Neron had decided his training of the Jacobson organ was to habituate himself to these responses and control them.

Food smells good? Saliva is produced, stomach starts rumbling, and Neron is wondering when was the last time he ate. He practiced internalizing this by the intermittent fasting he'd done the wild. Nothing crazy, simply going long enough to get hungry then exposing himself to the smell of a cooked meal for a while without taking it.

Attractive woman smells good? Heart rate accelerates, blood flows southward, and Neron is remembering it has been a few weeks since he's had sex. The wild wasn't so populated with willing partners that Neron had any choice but to practice abstinence. The subjective weeks traveling in game time, even if it was far shorter time in real life, meant this was the longest he'd gone without sex in decades.

Corpse takers carts smell of death? Hair stands on end, his throat revolts, and Neron is reminded of crushed bodies and spilled guts. His stomach recoils from food he knows he cannot digest and is unhealthy. A bit harder to train against but also not one that created much in the way of behavioral impact.

These three were perfectly normal, natural responses. Instinctual. Yet they produced immediate and almost uncontrollable responses because Neron began moving on instinct. A few steps towards the food, preparing words and body language to seduce a random woman on the street, or pausing in his steps to gag on bile.

And then there was the fear.

It had only happened once, back in Calderine, but it had been the reason Neron had held off on training with the Jacobson organ until he was out of the city and in the wild, far from most instinctual triggers.

Now here he was again, in a populated environment and exposing himself to every stimuli he could.

He almost caused an incident immediately.

The couple who'd been walking beside them, the ones whispering sweet nothings in each other's ears, had had sex recently and hadn't washed since, not even a quick Scrub. They stank of it, of sweat and release, of the hay they'd rolled around in during the act and the remains of their fluids on their clothes.

The lizard brain, that tiny remnant at the back of Neron's head from his ancestor's days of swinging through trees, immediately perked up at one of nature's most primal needs. To propagate. To ensure his genes survived. Not that of this lesser male. Neron was bigger. Neron was stronger. Neron was smarter. Neron was-

-Not a creature that acted on instinct alone.

The Neron who enjoyed a good book, who took joy a witty exchange of dialogue, who saw a group of people and entertained itself by cataloguing and manipulating them, who cared about his sisters and friend, and who chose to experiment with a skill because it was novel... 

That Neron stopped himself from doing more than half turning toward the couple.

That Neron took in the smell/taste of sex, his response to it, and the risk it posed to those around him. He categorized it, rationalized it, and evaluated it.

That Neron decided the risk was acceptable and kept walking with barely a hitch in his stride.

Cuholy did not notice as she continued to rubberneck around, taking in the larger and more solid houses, and all the people surrounding her. Jorry remained concealed under Neron's clothes.

Neron tasted the air again.

Sex. Sweat. Mud. Blood. Stone. Dirt. Fur. Steel. Food. 

The complex melange of smells and taste roiled around as Neron continued to taste the air. Every single one provoked a reaction from him. His heartbeat accelerated. His pulse pounded in his ear. His hair stood on end. Bile rose from his throat even as his stomach rumbled. His muscles tensed, ready to fight or flee or fuck. It was dizzying, confusing, disorienting experience.

And Neron walked through it all.

Neron's conscious mind, the one evaluating and categorizing everything recognized quickly he would fail. Today was not the day it would master the Jacobson organ. There was simply too much, too fast. The weeks he'd spent in the wild hadn't been enough to prepare for the torrent of sensations and their instinctual responses. Yet he also recognized his improvement from his time in Calderine. The mere fact that he could separate everything he took in, classify them, and recognize their likely source was a huge step forward.

Neron would fail this day. That was inevitable. This over-stimulation, if continued for too long would eventually drive him to exhaustion or he would not be able to stop an instinctual response. Yet his failure would be another step on his way toward success.

Neron's tongue flickered out with purpose, tasting for one specific scent. The two prongs were spread wide, covering as much area as possible. Neron retracted his tongue, slotting it into the little groove at the top of his mouth and once more dozens of different compounds lit up his brain. He tried to tune out most, to focus on his goal even as his tongue darted out again. He did not manage to ignore the others, but he did manage to identify a few sources of his goal in that first taste before the second returned. The new data point confirmed a few, rejected a few other, introduced a dozen new taste/smells, and helped triangulate them all slightly better as Neron had taken four steps forward in the time between tastes, pushing a few further away and drawing closer to many more.

Essentially, Neron was trying to do the equivalent of finding the source of a breeze using his sense of touch. Only there were fifty breezes and he only needed one. And each breeze was so soft that most people couldn't feel them.

Thankfully the breeze he was searching for was incredibly distinctive.

"Wha-Hey!" Cuholy cried as she scrambled to follow after Neron as he suddenly took a turn down a side street. Away from the main throng going too and from the Sanctuary, the crowd was less dense. A few people still dotted the street sides, talking lightly or scurrying along their way. Neron flickered his tongue out, tasting, triangulating, and confirming he was moving in the right direction, if only roughly. "Wait up!"

"Come on," Neron said, returning to speaking under his breath now that they weren't lost in the crowd.

"I thought we were going to that Sanctuary place?" Cuholy asked, her paws barely making as sound as she rushed to keep pace with his longer strides. "To attune yourself?"

"We are. Eventually. The process already started," Neron answered in between tastes of the air. "The range extends beyond the Sanctuary itself, it is just quicker while properly in it. Before we do, we have preparations to make."

"Preparations?"

"This way," Neron said in lieu of explanation as he turned toward an alley. Cuholy followed, though she paused slightly to begin to sniff the air.

It was not a long alley and Neron reached the other side on another street and turned toward to his left.

A large building in the Calderinian style, three floors of rectangular stone with a few wood beams along the edges more for decorative purposes than support. Dozens of windows, hexagonal in shape, covered most of the walls Neron could see, their tinted glass obscuring the inside from view but letting light pass through. Most were closed, and almost all of them were fogged up by steam, but a handful were open to let steam escape into the air and also releasing the smell of soap Neron had used to locate the building. Phillius' Bath House read the sign that hung over the double doors lightly swaying in the wind.

"Oh yeah," Jorry muttered in excitement at the sight. "Exactly what the dragon needs right now."

"Stay close to me," Neron told fox as he pushed open the right door and entered the foyer. 

There was an old dwarf, grey and wrinkled, sitting on a couch to the left in a fluffy robe as he read a book. He looked up as Neron entered, eyes flicking over him, to the snake poking its head out of his collar, the fox at his side, his dirt stained clothes and bulging pack. The dwarf grunted quietly and returned to his book.

Neron took note of the disguised guard, but didn't acknowledge him beyond that as he approached the elf sitting behind the wooden desk. Dark haired, svelte build, functional clothes, and a disinterested look in her eyes as he drew near. Her age was debatable, as he wasn't used to judging elves, but if they aged like humans in the real world then she'd be young, only a bit older than him and not done with her first century. It took him barely a moment to scan her, categorize her, and decide on his approach.

"Solo bath," Neron said bluntly. "Large. Hot. Less than an hour."

"Five Culs, or four Bank Bronzes," she replied, her tone one of rote formality. "Soap? Laundry?"

"Both," Neron answered, reaching for his pouch of coins. "Got my pets with me. They going to be a problem?"

"They trained? Controlled?"

"Trained."

"The one with fur is an extra Cul or bronze, and someone will check your room before you can leave. Any mess will be extra. Total is eleven Culs or ten bronze."

Neron counted out the money easily. Never one to spend frivolously, the vast majority of the money his sister had sneaked into his bag remained unused. Gold simply did not spend as well as silver, seeing as the average native worker would need to save up for months for one, let alone five of them. His time in the wild also hadn't left him many opportunities to spend it baring the three resupplies in towns. Between all that, and the occasional rat-catcher job he took in Calderine in the weeks after he killed the transformed duke, he still held onto three gold and handfuls of silver and bronze Bank coins.

"Stairs are to the right, then you'll head down the hall to the end, and the room will be on the left, second to last." The receptionist slid over a key attached to a wooden board, 213 carved in cursive across it in large numerals. "Place anything you want washed in the basket by the door, one of our staff will be there in twenty minutes. Make sure anything delicate is plainly visible. We are not responsible for Scrubbing too hard if you do not."

"Thanks," Neron grunted out with a nod as he took up the key and turned down the right hall. It didn't take him longer than a minute to find the room following the instructions of the woman and he unlocked the door, held it open, and gestured with his head for Cuholy to head in. Neron followed her in, closing the door behind him.

It was small, barely larger than a stall, with a hexagonal wicker basket taking up a third of the floor on the left, a long bench doing the same on the right. The air was hot and humid, choked with steam, and opposite the door two thick beige curtains hung from the ceiling, almost touching the floor.

"Yesssssss," Jorry let out a sibilant hiss of pleasures, slithering out of Neron's shirt and down his body to the ground as Neron unfastened his cloak and let it fall. As fast as he could, the snake wound his way through the curtain and out of sight. "Ahhhhh." The long sigh of relieve he released had Cuholy perking up and trotting over to see what was happening.

"Not you," Neron said, pausing from unlacing his boots to put a hand on the fox, who looked up over her shoulder at him, a question in her dark eyes. "Not yet. He has scales and does not pick up dirt easily. We need to Scrub first."

"Scrub?"

"I will show you in a second," Neron said, taking a seat on the bench and removing his boots, then the rest of his clothes, leaving him naked.

There was no shame in his nudity, nor was there particular interest from Cuholy, just as there wasn't when Jorry saw him or anyone else naked. It was only humans that felt shame at their unconcealed forms. Beasts did not care.

Neron rose to put items from his pack into the basket, starting with the more durable items such as his tent, sleep roll, cloak, then jacket. His clothes, both sets, were piled on top of it all while he put the bandage-like Lees Lens in the bottom of his pack, carefully hidden so as not to poke out. Just because he did not have a use for it yet did not mean that he hadn't taken his sisters' warnings to heart.

"This is Scrub, one of the basic spells almost everyone knows," Neron told the fox, who hopped onto the bench to get a better look and sat down. Neron took a minute of concentration, warping his Spirit to form the basic spell in his right hand. There was no light when he cut the form from his main spiritual body, unlike Shine or Spark, but as Neron passed his hand over his face he knew it was working by the tingling sensation.

Cuholy watched, head lolling to one side, as Neron ran his right hand over his head, through his hair, then down over his body in a slow but steady movement. From where his hand passed, faint particles fell to the floor. Dead skin and dried sweat, loose hairs and dirt, the accumulated debris of days on the road rose in a small pile around him. It had been two days since he'd last cast it, and over a week since he'd had a proper wash that wasn't from a Spring soaked clothe, so it wasn't a small amount.

"It shakes loose anything not attached," Neron said as he cast the spell again. He wasn't so masterful with it's use that it lasted long enough for him to cover his entire body. "It has other uses but it is mainly used to clean people and equipment. I am going to cast it on you before we get in the water."

"Uh, okay?" Cuholy shifted slightly, looking from Neron to the small pile of dirt. "It won't hurt, right? Or make my fur like yours?"

"It does not hurt," Neron explained, keeping his voice steady. "And I do not have fur. Body hair on humans is largely vestigial." Seeing her blank look, he explained. "That means it is a remainder from our previous evolutionary stage that we do not need anymore. We have clothes that do most of the things fur can do, and they are more versatile than fur so we do not need it anymore." Neron paused as he finished passing his hand over his foot. "Except as mating displays, at least. Our hair is customizable in shape and color so it a primary form of personal expression for sapient races. You can tell a lot about a person by their hair."

"Like what?" Cuholy asked as Neron finished Scrubbing himself and took a seat on the bench beside her.

It took a moment for Neron to respond, concentrating to cast the spell again. It was only when he began to run his hand over and through Cuholy's fur, drawing an 'ooooh' and a shiver from her, did he answer.

"Let us take the woman downstairs as an example. What did you notice about her hair?"

"It was dark," Cuholy answered, then shivered again as his hand reached behind her ears. "And reached behind her shoulders."

When it was clear she wouldn't say more, Neron spoke.

"The dark color was consistent in its inconsistency, individual strands of different tint that precludes the possibility of dye and with roots that match. There were no adornments, such as ties, clips, or anything else to hold it in place. It was cut in such a way to not get in her eyes, which suggests care, but without anything extraneous like accessories." Cuholy let out yip of surprise as his hand ran over her lower spine and tail. "All together, that gives us a point of reference. Combined with the fact that this is a well to do place, her clothes fit but were not fashionable, and her blase attitude means we can expect her to be a dutiful, if not charming, woman. More than likely, she also works as one of the staff in other aspects here, probably cleaning, and has been here for years. She knew what she needed to make her life comfortable and does not feel the need to go beyond."

"You got all that from hair and clothes?"

"When you know when, where, and what to look for, you realize the world is a story. Everyone is their own main character and everything we surround ourselves with are the accessories we use to tell it. I could be completely wrong about her, her story could be a lie she decided to tell the world, but I judged that if I wrote myself into her story in a certain way, I would get a certain response. I was correct there, at least, but the rest could still be false. That does not matter to me though. Her roll in my story is probably over, as is mine in hers. I read a passage, wrote a line I believed would fit, and now I exit her stage."

"That's... kinda sad," Cuholy said softly as Neron finished Scrubbing her down and stepped back. "That's like saying we're always alone."

"No matter if I stayed on her stage for a minute or her entire life, that would not change the fact that her story began and ends the same way as everyone else's. The first passage is always 'I was born' and the last is always 'I died.'"

Cuholy didn't say anything, just giving her body a violent shake to reset her fur from Neron's displacement and stepped beyond the pile of grimy fur.

Neron finally got a good look at the creature now that it wasn't covered in dirt, mud, and clumps of loose hair. Like he'd noticed, she was largely a mixture of grizzled white, grey, and black along her back, with a black stripe along her tail that ended in a black tip. Without the dirt, it was easier to make out brighter colored fur on her underside and around her face, largely white with only the slightest hing of reddish tint. The fur itself was patchy, most of the overhair stripped away revealing the inner coat of thin and coarse fur.

A grey fox. Not the worst species. Neron could recognize it by the distinctive coloring after a bit of research last night and it had a few advantageous traits beyond simply being a carnivore, mammal, and caenid.

"Are you guys coming?" Jorry called from beyond the curtain, his voice languid.

Cuholy, torn from her funk, looked up at Neron and he nodded. She bounded through the curtain with a foxy grin, tail swishing in excitement. There was a whoop, a splash, and then a cry of 'HOT!'

Neron parted the curtain of clothe to the bathing area to see Jorry noodling though the steaming water of a stone basin while Cuholy flailed wildly in the center, where it was deepest. The room, one designed for orcs, larger therianthropes, and other similarly sized patrons, held a pool of hot water in a stone square roughly three meters by three meters and half that deep, with stone seats carved below the water. One of the hexagonal windows they'd seen from the street let in daylight, though four lanterns hung from the corners of the ceiling for use after dark. A bucket filled with various soaps sat beside the curtain that Neron made not of as he entered the water.

As Neron slid into the water, he mentally changed his observations. Not three meters but two muis and one deep. If he wanted to blend in, he needed to use the local terminology. At least for local measurements. There was no need to do so for everything.

"Why is it so hot!?" Cuholy scrambled to the side of the pool in a frantic doggy paddle. She pushed herself up, back legs scrambling against the stone till she pushed herself over the rim to stand by the edge, soaked fur and pitiful eyes looking at the tub as if it betrayed her.

"Because it's great," Jorry sighed in relief, lazily swimming in a circle while keeping his little head above the waves caused by her frenzy.

"Hot water opens pores, relaxes muscles, reduces anxiety, and yes, feels good," Neron answered as he let tension melt from his body, relaxing in the hot water for a moment. Then he reached over to the bucket, sorted through the bars of soap until he found the unscented one, and unwrapped it. Jorry had wiggled his way across the pool again, pressing his scales against skin eagerly. Neron obliged, gently picking up the snake and gently rubbing his body with the soap.

"When I am a dragon I am- Oh yeah, right there- I am going to make the ocean my bath. Nice and warm. And I'm going to have an army clean my scales."

"I think fish will have opinions about the temperature of their home," Neron said drily. "Besides, there are plenty of places in the ocean that are hot. The sea bed is covered in active volcanoes."

"What's a volcano?""Wouldn't the water put them out?"

Neron spent the next few minutes explaining the basics of plate tectonics, pressure, magma, and the interaction it had with the ocean as he washed Jorry, then himself. Midway through he had to pause as the staff unlocked the door to clean the entry room and his belonging. He resumed his lecture on the formation of islands and continents when they were gone.

Beasts with a Self were not stupid, but they were ignorant. Before they gained sapience, they simply did not contemplate such far off things as volcanoes and where the earth they stood on came from. That didn't mean they couldn't learn. Jorry, for example, had a larger repository of knowledge than Cuholy because he had lived in a city his whole life. His mind, even unaware, could take on information around him. Once he had his Self, those background conversations became sources of knowledge, repositories he could draw on and learn from instinctively. It was patchwork, and non comprehensive, but it was still much more developed than Cuholy who'd never interacted with the Blessed races before gaining her Self. All she knew were the things that all animals instinctively knew.

It was probably for the best, Neron mused, that there was some form of genetic repository of knowledge everyone in this world held and beasts could learn passively. Otherwise, they'd gain a Self only to be little more than infants mentally. It also let him naturally slot into a leadership position that overlapped with teaching them about the world.

"Come over here," Neron gestured to Cuholy, who was sniffling around the various soaps, to approach the water. When she did, he reached up and picked her up with one hand.

"Hey!" She cried, little legs flailing in panic as Neron slowly lowered her into the water. "Don't! It's too hot! I'll be cooked!"

"You will be fine. You just need to get used to it."

"Noooooooooooh." Her complaint turned into a low noise of appreciation as Neron began to wash her, scratching and rubbing through her fur with the soap.

"Scrub removes the loose stuff," Neron explained as he washed the fox. "But I am not good enough with it to really clean everything, few are, and fewer still are good enough to remove smell."

"WhyyyyYYYyyy nooottt?" Cuholy managed to get out.

As he'd noted before, she was way too skinny. He could feel her ribs jutting out prominently and her limbs were thin, lacking both padding and muscle. Maybe he hadn't given her enough credit for keeping up with him all this time? That begged the questions though: Why was she like this, and why, in an area abundant with prey that returned from the dead, was she starving?

"Because it takes time and effort. Dedicated practice for months, perhaps years. And some people simply will never be able to. Besides, there is no point. Why put in all that effort when you can pay someone to do it for you? Instead, you do what you are good at and sell that service for money to exchange for the time and effort of someone who did."

"So they're lazy," Jorry deadpanned.

"They are specialized," Neron corrected, scrubbing extra hard against the fluff of the tail. "That is how humanity, or the Blessed races if you prefer, manage to get ahead. We all have limited time and talent. By specializing, we maximize our output before we die. In a well run society, specializing is encouraged and rewarded. 

"The person who came in earlier specialized in the spell Scrub?" 

"Enough to completely clean clothes in a minute," Neron nodded at Jorry. "When we leave, someone will drain this water then someone specializing in Spring will generate new water from the steam and their Spirit. Someone who specializes in a variation Spark will generate enough heat to warm it regularly so it is available. A specialist in Sculpt carved this stone basin. The water taken from here will be Scrubbed clean by another, then it will be reused, possibly by a specialist in Sleet to make it ice for preserving food. Or maybe cold baths. Those lanterns above our head have Shine inscribed in them by a specialist who turned that spell into a physical object. Those six, plus Scab, are the seven basic spells almost everyone learns because they are easy to do and versatile, yet only a few specialize in a spell enough truly master it and only one in a ten thousand will ever master all seven. Beyond them are further spells, that fewer still master. Each and every one contributes something to the whole of society."

"I still say those names are stupid," Jorry muttered indigently.

"They have other names in different languages that are not so... consistent but the first Player to release instruction on the basic spells was Martian, a linguist, and thought himself humorous. They stuck."

"So we should also specialize?" Cuholy asked as Neron washed the soap from her body. She appeared to be accustomed to the water now and did not struggle.

"You will," Neron nodded and reminded them of their earlier conversation. "Consciously or unconsciously, everyone and everything specializes."

"So what should I do?"

"Whatever you want," Neron shrugged, leaning back into the water to relax while it was still warm. "That is something for you to think about and decide on your own. Right now, just enjoy yourself. Once we are done here you will be specialized bait."

"...Eh?"

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