The displacement and vertigo hit me all at once, and I roll across the floor. Or apparently, ground. Lying on my back after the spell, I realize I'm staring up at the open sky, so we must be outside. Fighting to sit up again, a voice calls out.

“Identify yourselves.” It's not a shout, no sign of panic, but the command is firm.

“Veshic Therfio,” the blue fox responds immediately. Almost like he expected the question. Or, I guess he did since he's teleported before? Where are we anyway? Everything is still spinning...

“Sir Veshic?” I finally manage to get the speaking man in my sights. He's some sort of scaly altraska, dressed in a mix of metal and leather armor, sort of like a town guard, but somehow different. “I see. Would you like a hand?” The man comes over immediately.

“Yes, that would be nice,” Veshic sounds surprisingly pleasant as he accepts the man's help back to his feet. His slaves rise around him, only looking a bit unsure on their feet for a moment before they recover.

“What about these two? They're with you?”

“Yes. Please take us to my father,” Veshic requests. There's a short delay, the men waiting for us to get up. Thankfully, Master Liina manages, the short respite on the guild hall floor giving her the strength to help me up as well, supporting most of my weight when the armored man turns and begins leading us away from... it looks like a courtyard in the middle of some manor house or something...

His slaves immediately disperse, and we're quickly directed, hobbling through numerous rooms to arrive before a similarly blue fox-altra. Veshic's father? Even though altraska don't really form families? Is it different for nobles then?

“Veshic, I see you've returned. Who have you brought with you?” he asks. “She isn't...” With his trailing words, he eyes Master Liina.

“No, sir. There's something important I need to tell you about. She's a witness, with more information on the topic."

Then they tell him. There's a bit of back and forth between Veshic and Master Liina in order to describe the destruction of Thanifa and the possible, unknown threat.

When he wants more information, Master Liina ends up telling him everything. She skims, just sticking to the general info without much in the way of details, but she describes everything from the beginning of the emergency quest, all the way up through our tenure in Thanifa, the attempted racial healing, botched meeting, and she finally makes it back to the destroyed town.

Once he has all the information, he thanks Master Liina kindly, and says she can stay as a guest while he brings this information to the others in charge. Then he dismisses us. I'm already half-asleep, so Master Liina piggy-backs me again.

We all end up staggering our way into some room. Maybe a living room or meeting room or something, and finally collapse.

At some point, I wake up, my body still dead-tired to the point where I can't do much beyond flop around on whatever I'm lying on, trying and failing to get up, before eventually succumbing to sleep again.

I think I wake a number of times, each time slightly less exhausted than the last, before I finally have enough energy to function somewhat.

Eyes creaking open, I find myself in an unfamiliar room. It's like five plus minutes before I even manage to remember how I got here. The crazy sequence of events that led up to this.

I still can't believe Rothol is gone, but with the town like that...

Maybe he was out of town. Keane turned out to be alive when I thought he was dead, so why not Rothol...?

I don't know how to make myself truly believe that, so for now, I ignore it and open my eyes to the unfamiliar ceiling. Stretching my stiff body, I find that I'm on a pretty comfy mattress, and roll onto my side.

When I actually have a chance to look around at where I am, and the rest of the room, I go stiff. I'm on a decent sized circular floor cushion, kind of like a fancy pet bed, with a huge, probably king size bed dressed in extremely pricey looking bedding, just nearby.

Despite my prior uncertainty about sleeping arrangements, I've been sleeping in bed with Master Liina for a while now already. So suddenly being relegated to a pet bed...

I end up burying my shamed, blushing face in the stupid pet bed. I'm still mortified when I hear a set of approaching footsteps. I try to drag myself up out of bed before they arrive, somehow not wanting to be seen in such a spot, but I'm so dull and heavy, I just can barely stumble myself upright.

Even when I manage it, I nearly double over from the onset of hunger pangs, and my head starts to pound. How long has it been since I ate or drank anything?

I'm nearly on my knees by the time the door opens and a woman walks inside. She's a fluffy sheep-altra who surprisingly, looks at me with a small smile. It makes me finger my slave collar nervously. Most altraska either ignore me or glare, or sneer or something.

Having a stranger look right at me and smile is... really weird...

“Good to see you awake. You've been out for a long time, a whole day already.”

That long? I glance around, but Master Liina isn't here, she can't give me permission to speak. I'll have to make do, I guess. Slowly opening my mouth, I want to ask... something? I'm still pretty out of it, I realize.

It's no good anyway. It feels like my throat is sealed shut I'm so thirsty.

“No worries, Sir Veshic ordered me to take care of you like one of his own. Follow me, we'll get you all fixed up. I do as asked, my stumbling gait bringing me through numerous rooms and halls full of fancy furniture and a handful of altraska working on things like cleaning and tidying up, despite the already clean appearance of everything.

It's a slow trip at my shambling pace, but the woman doesn't mind it, doesn't scold me or tell me to hurry up. She slows her own pace to match mine as she leads. We finally arrive in a small dining room, and I recognize a handful of Veshic's slaves already there, eating.

The sheep woman sits me down at one corner of the large table, plenty of space between me and any of the other slaves. A couple glance my way, but otherwise ignore me as they eat their food.

Tired from the walk, I slump forward onto the table. I think I'm halfway unconscious by the time she returns. She shakes me lightly, rousing me up from the table so she can set down food and water in front of me.

I have to take a long drink of water before I can clear my throat enough to thank her, my voice still coming as a low croak. She just giggles and fetches me another glass of water.

Barely able to keep my eyes open, I eat and drink. Fill the gnawing void in my stomach with the sustenance I need. Good, not starving to death is always good...

I sort of think I end up passing out again, because the next thing I know, my consciousness lurches at the sheep woman's voice. “Alright, let's get you clean. Come.”

Despite her words, it takes me a very long time to work up the energy to rise from my seat. However, she just waits expectantly, then leads me through another mix of rooms to reach a bathroom.

Standing there, the sheep-altra turns back to me, and I finally realize how short she is. Extremely, for an altraska, that even I'm a head taller than her. I guess the fluff of her sheep fur makes her appear a little bigger than she really is, but it doesn't do much for her height.

Then she starts to strip me, making me again realize incredibly late, how I'm dressed. Why is it like, a practically see through camisole...? My only other garment, a pair of frilly panties, follow to the floor soon after, then she pushes me over to sit down and starts to wash me.

I'm tired, and confused, and tired... My head droops a few times as the fluffy woman scrubs me all over. I must still be filthy, I guess I wasn't really washed since arriving?

I don't know, but it's hard to really think about that now. With her goading hands, she moves me to a tub, where the hot, soaking, wonderful water puts me to sleep almost immediately.

And then she's pulling me out of the tub again. I just keep obeying, letting her lead me around with her words and hands in a stupor. Dressing me, moving me around more, leading me somewhere else, to eventually be put down in another soft, comfortable cushion bed somewhere, to fall asleep once more.

When I finally wake again, in a significantly more useful state, I rise from my comfy little bed and reach my arms up, groaning and twisting and stretching to get all of my muscles, stiff and a bit sore from sleeping for way too long, back into a more relaxed state.

When I've finally finished, I rise. No wobbly, unbalanced feelings are a good sign, but I'm really hungry and thirsty again. I do manage to clear my throat and my voice doesn't sound quite as hoarse as I vaguely remember from the last time, whenever it was that the sheep-altra woman was taking care of me.

Didn't she tell me that I'd already slept for like, a day by that point? I don't remember much of what she said, but that part still sticks with me. Taking a few steps around the spacious, well decorated room I'm finding myself in, my toes toes rub enjoyably into the plush carpet. I think it's nicer than the modern-made carpet back in my house on Earth...

I shake my head, I've been on Verilz for a while now, I might just be misremembering something like that, and it doesn't matter that much anyway.

Turning around a few times, there's a nice big window beset on either side by dark maroon curtains to match the carpet, and complement the soothingly pale, purple walls. The coloring makes the room feel pretty dark and somewhat smaller than the otherwise open area of the insides would have it appear, and make it feel like a wonderful place to sleep. Even in that – as much as I hate to admit it – comfortable pet bed at the foot of the enormous four post bed that looks positively luxurious.

I'm assuming if we're staying in Veshic's house, the Therfio family manor since they're nobles, that this is Master Liina's bed? And I'm not sleeping in it because... why? We always slept together at home, but maybe she was just spoiling me...

I know that people back on Earth thought it was poor manners to let pets sleep in bed with them, and as much as I'm weirdly proud of myself as her slave now, I still don't much like the idea of being treated like a pet. But just looking around, that's the impression I'm getting from this room.

Still, it looks so nice, that I walk over to appreciate the delicate looking covers on Master Liina's guest bed. Hell, you'd never tell with his ridiculous attitude, but Veshic's family really is rich and powerful, aren't they? To have a guest bed like double the size of the one we have at home...

It's even dressed up, the blankets and everything laid and folded so pristinely that it's hard to even imagine she's slept in it. I trail a hand over-

“Gah!” I gasp and lurch back when there's a sharp burst of pain on contact with the covers. “Shit!” Grabbing at my suddenly burning crest, I wince. But the pain recedes so quickly, it leaves me sitting on my ass, almost confused.

I shake my head. God damn that caught me off guard. After rubbing at my chest briefly, I stand back up again.

Alright, don't touch the master's bed, got it.

I'm just starting to look around again when I hear the quickly approaching footsteps. I turn to the door when it opens, finding the same sheep-altra from before.

“You're looking much better. Come, let's get you ready.”

I hesitate, I'm still a little unclear about speaking or not speaking to this person. I'm a slave, but she's still taking care of me, maybe a servant of the Therfio family? How does that work exactly?

There's no way a servant, an employee, should be beholden to a slave, right? I mean, I guess she's telling me what to do, so probably not?

“Sure...” I respond uncertainly, but the woman either doesn't catch it, or just... doesn't respond to my words at all as she turns and begins to lead me from the room.