u003cu003c A few hours ago "Attention!" A pack of evil rodents were having a meeting in a trash bin close to a food joint. The leader, a grey furred rat with a ruby eye, smacked his long pink tail to grab the attention of his soldiers. He marched on his small feet, holding a toothpick as his sword.
"Today my fellow rats, we shall steal!" They squeaked in festivity after their leader made the announcement.
"For so long the evil feline clan have oppressed us. They hate us, they eat us, they want us to suffer!" The rats trembled by the mention of the word "Feline"
"But have no fear. Today we will fight! We will steal!! We will unite and build our kingdom!!!" After his brief speech, the lean, gray rodent lead the way as his soldiers warily followed behind him. The rats flowed like a muddy river at every corner of the city, in search of things to steal and take to their trash castle.
***
Artemis scanned the Area, and luckily no Beastman was in sight. With the little time she had to leave the place, she put on her cloak and dashed down the path leading to the unknown.
She kept her hooded head down as she walked in the dark. Her stomach knotted, her legs were weak, and her breathing wavered from shallow to deep.
She rushed to a dim back street and took cover behind a garbage canister. She was hungry, but she decided to stay covert for the night.
She angled her back close to the brick wall of the alley, crossed her legs, and arms before lowering her head. It wasn"t comfortable, but she preferred to stay that way.
Out of sixty rats that went on a mission, only five came back alive. The leader excluded. The cat exterminator poked him with his Excalibur (toothpick) and swallowed him whole. Truth be told, the mission was a complete bust.
The wounded five fortunate to endure advanced back to their dumpster and they found a shrouded figure close to it.
"Hey Arco!" A rat called over his friend as it crawled towards Artemis.
"What is this?" The figure had an unusual aura, and they contemplated what was below the cloak.
"Do you think it has food underneath the cloak?" Arco, a white-furred rat shrugged, "Since it"s sleeping. Let"s search it for anything useful."
A few hours later u003eu003e
"Agh!!!!" Artemis bounced to her feet, her hands travelled everywhere. "Where is it? Where is it?"
It was gone. How? When? Where? Who?
She dashed forward, her eyes turning to every direction. The place was crowded with Beastmen, and slave humans. She couldn"t hold the pa.s.sersby responsible, and none of them would come to her aid or bother to find out the reason for her distress .
"A night in Sol. I don"t know how I"ll locate the fox clans" territory. Someone has stolen my money, it"s bright now, and I"m in the middle of nowhere with a sword poking out from my cloak."
She wondered if she should toss the sword away, or try to move with it. She chose to carry the expensive sword along. She took in a deep breath as her stomach grumbled and she advanced with the crowd.
She couldn"t see the faces a round her, but she could sense the piercing stares. What to do?
She had her hands on the hood of her cloak and pulled it back a little to see where the crowd was heading to. There was an enormous gate around a mile away, and it seemed like tickets were being slipped into a box. Armored beastmen counted the slaves as they pa.s.sed with their new masters, and they registered the numbers in a book.
Artemis still had her head down as she slowly progressed. She heard the sharp, hard, nonresonant sound of chains clanking beside her.
Her gaze fell to the chained ankles of humans that walked In a line.
Just like shesuspectedo, she"d walked into a slave district. The portal she used was a direct link to the area. If she"s caught, she might end up getting sold or killed.
Everyone moved forward, and there was no way she could turn hack. Where would she run to? Nowhere was safe.
She had no tickets, and she couldn"t bribe her way with or without money. "I"m done for" Her mind alarmed her of the disastrous condition she was tangled in.
"Maybe if I conceal my aura, there"d be a better chance of surviving" After a few seconds of thinking, the idea of altering her ears to that of a beastman popped up in her head. Orion warned her in the parchment about the risk of doing that, but she didn"t have a choice.
"Hey!!!" Fear creeped on her skin the second a gloved hand s.n.a.t.c.hed her arm, and her hood was forcefully taken off. She was trembling. She couldn"t look at the helmet that secured the face of the beastman in front of her.
"Where"s your ID?" She tilted her head. She didn"t know what the beastman meant by an "ID"
"Please don"t delay us!!!" A grating voice came from behind, and the beastman holding Artemis had to pull her to the side. She watched the distance between her and the gate widen before the beastman angled her face to his.
"I said where"s your ID?" Artemis didn"t answer. She thought her fake ears would grant her access to leave the premises, but it still pushed her into a difficult situation. Misfortune was unavoidable.
"Look beastkid. You know you"re supposed to carry your ID around at all costs."
"Truly, sir" She pretended as if she knew what he was talking about, and all she had in mind was escaping from the beastman.
"I"ll allow you leave if you recite your ID number" Artemis swallowed hard. ID this! ID that!! She wished it wasn"t important. She was so close to walking out of the gate, but the beastman just had to get in the way.
"I"m waiting!"
"173829262?!" She blurted out those numbers then closed her mouth afterwards.
"You can go now." Her face beamed, and she quickly turned around. The smile on her face sunk as three other beastmen surrounded her and she realised she was lied to.
"i believe you"re the strespa.s.ser that came from earth. You"re certainly not a beastman. You"re probably a taboo child. "
They knocked her out without giving her a chance to speak. There was nothing she could say, and no lie she could to tell. The guards were aware of a trespa.s.ser and it ended up being an interesting one.