We continued along the coast past the lair of the basilisk and within half an hour we came upon a town. I stood stock still once again and just enjoyed the sight of it. People were everywhere. I had finally made it to civilization. No more sleeping under the stars. There were plenty of people to talk to down there. Some of them even looked to be women. Oh this was going to be amazing. My vision may have gotten rather blurry at this point as something got in my eye.

The town we came upon sat inside a good sized natural harbour with numerous docks sticking out into the water with a great many boats sailing about in the water. Stretching from the docks to the stone walls of the town were wooden shacks and lean-tos. Here and there were larger buildings that looked like warehouses, inns, and the like. There appeared to be a proper road leading through the slums on the far side of town.

In the middle of town was a large area surrounded by a stone wall. The stone wall looked to be at least ten meters high. It was an impressive sight though I had to wonder how effective it would be against the monsters which flew or burrowed through the ground. Maybe they use magic to ward off those kinds of creatures? I could just see the tops of trees and a few elegantly carved towers on the other side of the wall. From what I could tell, it looked much nicer inside the walls than it did outside.

As we approached the town I started paying less and less attention to the buildings and became more and more obsessed with the important part of all this, the people. Curious about the kinds of humanoids that inhabited this world, I tried to see if there were humans, elves, or any of the other races I was familiar with. Shortly, I realized they were all there. Everything from dwarves to people with all different kinds of animal ears. The regular humans were comforting to see. At least I could blend in by pretending to be human. I looked at myself and reconsidered the whole blending in thing. I didn't see anyone who looked remotely like me down there.

The people were dressed in a variety of styles. There were Roman style togas, robes, tunics with pants, saris, and even a kimono. None of the colours were particularly bright, they were all muted shades of brown, grey, or the like with the occasional bits of white. The cloth looked as rough and uncomfortable as one would expect from a medieval setting. There was also some leather and furs here and there. Everything looked pretty ratty and worn. I guessed that I wasn't going to be seeing high fashion in the slums but this was worse than I thought it would be.

Still, they all at least had clothes. None of them were wearing their hair to hide their important bits like I had to. This was going to be interesting. Well I would just say I was a traveller from a far off land. That would explain it. Definitely.

"Hey Gregory, do you think they will mind my appearance?"

*Flip*

"Now that is just mean. You are supposed to be supportive here."

*Shake*

"What do you mean no? There are times when I wonder why we are friends!"

*Shake*

"Okay, I know you are good to me most of the time. Still, you need to learn to be supportive!"

*Shake*

"You aren't going to be supportive? Or that isn't the reason we are friends?"

*Shake* *Flip*

"Wait are you trying to say that the reason we are friends is that I have no one else to be friends with?"

*Flip*

"That does it. You are going to be sat on. It is only deserved. Hey stay still. Stop running around so much!"

A little while later, we calmed down a bit and headed into town. Somehow the nervousness that was overwhelming me earlier had subsided greatly. Thanks Gregory.

There was no proper entrance to the town. The shacks seemed to have sprung up wherever the owner felt like it. There were gaps between some of them that formed alleys. Within these alleys, many people were wandering about. Some seemed busy with a focused look that was hard to miss. However, most of the people here seemed to have fairly listless expressions and were just sitting in their homes.

As I walked through the slums surrounding the city, I was busy looking every which way. I couldn't help it. I had never seen any of these races before. I hadn't seen people in years. I hadn't seen a woman since I was born in this world. Sorry for staring. I didn't mean it. Just a bit too tempting to avoid looking once and after that it was just too hard to look away.

"Gregory, look at her. Isn't she beautiful? She even has dog ears. I think I am in love. Do you think I should go talk to her? What should I say to ... ?"

While I was still mid sentence, Gregory had hit my jaw forcing my mouth closed.

"Hey! Why are you doing that?

Gregory hit my chin again.

"Are you trying to tell me to be quiet?"

*Flip*

"First you insult me and now you want me to shut up. What is it with you today? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the log?"

*Shake* Then Gregory pulled on my beard to force my head to face forward.

It was only then that it registered that I was getting a lot of strange looks. I guess staring at a matronly, middle aged, and rather overweight woman was a bit strange. Her teeth were missing and she clearly didn't take care of herself. There wasn't even a hint of makeup anywhere. My standards had slipped a little okay.

I was sure the odd looks from the people all around us were because of my reprehensible behaviour of staring. It definitely wasn't because I was walking toward the town so covered in hair that no one could see what was underneath. Of course, the log Gregory was carrying seemed to be moving on its own too. I am sure the people of this town saw this kind of thing all the time. I hadn't seen anyone else looking like us but I was sure there were some about. We weren't that strange surely. If it was just my staring at people, I could stop staring and everything would be okay. I had no idea how I was going to fix my current appearance. Walking around naked with all my pox scars and scary looking face was not going to be an improvement. I know I could find someone to heal me up with magic and at the same time remove my horrible curses. They were given by goddesses though so maybe there isn't anyone powerful enough to do that. No way to know unless I ask right?

That said, the current attention can't be good. Not only was everyone staring at us but the looks were distinctly unfriendly. If I wasn't careful, I might get lynched. Right, staying below the radar would be a good thing until I was all healed up. I immediately moved behind one of the outlying shacks and did my best to sneak away. I heard a bit of a commotion behind me but no one followed me so it all worked out in the end. I hadn't been near people in years so it was only natural that my people skills would have deteriorated a little. I just needed to get a bit of practice in and this sort of thing wouldn't happen anymore.

Once we were out of sight of the commotion behind us, we came down from the rooves we had been quietly walking on and started walking the alleys of the slums. I would call them streets but they were way too narrow and winding for that. Maybe I am too used to seeing roads from Earth. These things were barely wide enough for me slip through in some places.

People were talking to one another, calling out I assumed to sell their wares in slightly larger areas of the alley, and in general making noise. It was a bit overwhelming after living with the quiet of nature for so long. It didn't help that I couldn't understand a word of what was being said. At least, it all sounded like the same language. I decided to call the language of this world Gibberish.

The things for sale looked pretty basic. We saw few actual stores, most merchants had their goods on threadbare blankets. The goods themselves were generally food though there were a few simple metal tools and furs. I knew nothing about the different kinds of metal but because the tools were grey I decided to assume they were iron. The furs seemed to be from relatively small animals, like something one would get from a rabbit or the like.

People tended to get quiet and stare at Gregory and I as we went past. Well, they stared at Gregory's log and I anyway. Gregory was being shy and hiding under his log out of sight. Seriously, I just have long hair. You have dog ears and you over there are super short. Why are you all picking on me? I just wanted to walk down the street looking around in peace. There is no need to stare like this right? If you are wondering why I wasn't just sneaking down the street so they couldn't see me, then you are a wierdo. Who in the world sneaks down a street in broad daylight unless they are planning a crime? I was just planning to look around and maybe meet some people. Hard to meet anyone if they don't even know you are there.

As we walked I started to notice a few commonalities between the various people we saw. The one that stood out the most was that everyone here seemed to move really slow. I am a patient person but waiting behind them while they walked was agony. I ended up moving around them as best I could rather than waiting for them to finally decide to take another step. There were occasional shouts from behind me but lets ignore those. What did they expect was going to happen when they walked that slow?

I was also surprised there wasn't more of a smell given that we were in the middle of what looked like a medieval slum. I never saw soap for sale at any of the roadside merchants either. Everyone looked relatively clean and disease free but it was clear that there was not enough food to go around in this area. Most of the people here were really thin and looked around with apathetic eyes. Looked REALLY slowly. Just in case I wasn't clear enough before.

As an experiment, I wanted to find someone who was walking alone down an abandoned alley. I eventually found an old woman who had a world weary look on her face walking down such an alley. I immediately walked toward her. When we got close to one another, I moved aside my hair to let the person see my face. I was ready to run and hide immediately if they reacted the slightest bit strange. What I did not quite expect was for the old woman to have a look of surprise, followed by revulsion, followed by nausea. I had never seen someone's face literally turn green before. I left her heaving against a wall and resolved to not show my face again. Next time I might kill someone. Actually, lets leave that for my final ultimate attack. If all else fails, I will just show them my face and use that to kill them...or at least create an opening so I can run away. I was very glad I had a full head of hair. I suppose it would have been weird for me to go bald in my teens but, given what those goddesses did to my body, going bald so young would not have surprised me. If I was bald and had no hair to hide how I looked this whole meeting people thing would be many times more difficult.

After wandering around for a while longer, Gregory and I decided to take a rest in an out of the way spot. It wasn't that we were lost. The alleys may have twisted about like a snake with diarrhoea but Gregory and I were used to navigating the jungles of our island. Something this simple couldn't confuse us no matter how bad the street planning was. We just weren't exactly sure where we were or how to get back to where we had been. Definitely not lost. I did think that the city planners needed to up their game a bit though.