Surroundings a Little More

Alaric needed a place to keep his fish if he were to go fishing.

He didn't want to waste his time going fishing, getting something good and then having nowhere to put it.

The pool would have to do for now. The drunkard fish was all he knew how to fish right now, so the pool would be adequate for that.

The other two fish on his plate would have to wait. He would try to amass some drunkard fish before going for the others.

Drunkard fish were truly a good fish to start off with for him, but the expansion was limited. Because the good was a liquid, it would be simple to sell.

The fish would be a little harder to sell to people not in on the whole deal.

"Even if they were okay with it, I feel like if it became widely known that it comes from fish that would make it lose popularity." Alaric thought.

"Now that I think about it, I wonder if any other Esoteric Fisherman sells this..." Alaric thought.

"As long as they're not here I really don't care too much." Alaric resolved.

Truly for most people it wouldn't matter. Cities were so far apart, and going between them was uncommon. The main exception was coastal cities.

The ocean is much safer than land, so people from costal cities would sometimes travel to others.

"People from other cities that make it to a new city are really 50/50." Alaric thought.

Some people would be able to bring new technology and art to new places and would sometimes be able to find financial success due to novelty, but some would get kicked out for being foreign. There were often unique customs to cities, and were not very accepting of others.

Alaric remembered a kid from his elementary school. He had only came from a farming town a couple hours over, but he was still an outsider. He wasn't necessarily bullied, just treated different.

Alaric now concentrated back on reality. He sometimes had to do that to snap out of contemplation of the world.

He was walking around the strip next to the river.

He had his machete in his hand, and some basic supplies in his bag. He didn't want to be caught off guard while walking out.

Alaric had no goal other than to get some bearings for his situation.

The area next to the river was clear of trees, giving Alaric some temporary sight. The forest was rather dense on both sides, so he didn't feel like going in there.

OOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOEEEEE

Suddenly, out of the forest came a bounding fleshmonkey, running straight at Alaric.

"Shit I didn't know that I'd have to fight one so early!" Alaric thought.

He had to make some split second decisions now.

Running wasn't an option. Firstly, it would be impossible. The apes were insanely fast, and incomparable to a humans footpace. Secondly, there was nowhere to run to. If he kept running forwards the unknown that wouldn't be good, and taking him to his house wouldn't do anything for Alaric.

Alaric briefly considered bringing the monkey into the forest with the wolves but ultimately that would put to many animals on the table.

Luckily, the monkey was alone. Unfortunately, it was screeching loudly. Alaric would need to deal with it before it attracted too much attention.

This was the first time that he had seen one in real life. They were a little bigger than he thought. The monkey in front of him was six feet tall, and looked to be about 300 pounds. It had bright red fur that was sticking out in spikes across its body. It also had a ghoulish grin on it's white face. Fleshmonkeys were notable for having white faces with black accents, making them look like skulls. This was by their own design, as fleshmonkeys are born looking like ordinary monkeys, but they alter their own bodies to have a common form within the group.

Each fleshmonkey also would have a unique characteristic to differentiate it, the spikes seemed to be the characteristic for this one.

Alaric was getting distracted. This wasn't his biology class. This was life or death.

Alaric grabbed his machete. He could only hope that the fleshmonkey wouldn't alter him too much. As far as he knew, they did a lot of their alterations once they had their victims in their grasps, and it would be difficult if he was separate and moving.

Alaric readied himself, moving from side to side to disrupt the monkey's concentration.

OEEEEEOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEOOOOOOOEEEEE

The monkey was screaming and it came to a stop about four feet in front of Alaric.

Clap Clap Clap

The monkey started clapping ferverently with the strange grin still on his face.

Alaric decided to grin back. He was hoping to find some common ground as fellow grinners.

But that wouldn't be possible. This monkey wasn't like the rat. He wouldn't be able to have a healthy friendship with it. It would be more like dealing with a toxic ex. Only metaphorically though.

Alaric charged towards the monkey, machete swinging ahead of him, hoping to take it out quickly. This was not how Alaric deals with toxic exes. in fact he had no exes.

The monkey quickly readied itself.

Alaric caught up to where the monkey was, it wasn't really moving.

Shaaaack

Alaric slashed the monkeys gut, it seemingly wasn't doing anything. But Alaric wasn't stupid. It had to be doing something, so he went back for a second.

The monkey had transformed one of its arms into a sword.

Forearm and up of the monkey was now a fleshy red blade.

"Ok, time to regroup.." Alaric thought.

This was an unequal battle. He would likely lose if there was no intervention.

The monkey now shifted its magic from the sword arm to healing up the wound.

Alaric took this opportunity to reposition.

He quickly ran behind the monkey, and tried to slice open its back.

Sheeeeem

The back of the monkey was now bleeding as well. But the front was now healed.

While he could, Alaric ran backwards to create some distance. But the monkey was advancing quickly, swinging its sword hand around.

Shwing Shwing Shwing

The sword was likely made of bone, so it would definitely hurt to be slashed with.

Cheep Cheep

Alaric heard a quiet noise ahead of him. It wasn't coming from the monkey.

Behind the monkey, he saw his ride or die. The rat!!!!!

Alaric now concentrated on moving backwards. He understood the rat.

AAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The monkey now started screaming in pain, doing a kind of dance.

It flung its arms up in the air and it's legs were cycling on the crown frantically.

The rat had gone through the slash in the back.