Joe shook his head as the little Ratboy left, sighing deeply. He knew the little fellow was far too spooked to be convinced to stay much longer, and yet it made his bones ache nonetheless to see him go.

  “Fency Rhett”

  What an awful name to convince an animal person of. To be labeled like a breed of pet…

  There was a reason slavers were killed quite brutally by any Paladin or Knight who happened upon them, after all. Both the law of the land and the opinion of the gods were that subjugators were not to be suffered.

  ‘There are many mysteries in this world, but evil isn’t one of them,’ he thought to himself. To deny someone their own free will, when they didn’t intend to do the same to another…

  He shook off the ill thought. What was important was that Sunnymeat was a safe place. There wasn’t any nastiness like that here, he knew. Mayor Dry made sure of that.

  Instead, Joe’s main worry came to the boy’s origins. Freedom given, and shocked by strange culture, the former slave would surely get into quite a bit of trouble around town.

  His small size, and unusually animalistic appearance would make it difficult for him to stay out of said trouble.

  He hoped the Ratboy didn’t try to follow through on his threat to overbuy in spite of the old Orc’s warning. Nothing infuriated a baker quite like the sight of a gold coin during the lunch rush.

  “Well, on the bright side, I’m sure those coins will at least get him some decent clothes,” the Orc mused.

  –

  “Hell yeah, Jerry-mode activated,” Rhett whispered, cracking his neck as he scurried over to the smell of something baked, using the windy, dust-choked gutters to travel safely underneath the feet of the larger people above.

  The clattering of metal grates under leather boots and hooves rattled loudly, covering his transit well enough, despite the need for him to slow down and cover his ears at times when the volume got a bit too much, for how close he was to it.

  Slowly, over the course of the next day, hunger had driven him to figure out where the hell he actually was, and bit by bit, he managed to figure out a few nibblets of lore about the local SCP ripoff.

  Firstly, the place did actually have boundaries. Despite his worries, and his status as a Rodent of Usual Size making it difficult, he figured out by reaching the edges of Sunnymeat that the place was maybe a few blocks wide, end to end.

  Secondly, the place did NOT have a “method to its madness”. He knew this because part of the process of finding the exit to this madhouse involved spotting part of it being expanded.

  Plans? Architecture? Road Work Ahead (He sure hoped it does?)

  None of that was present in the village’s expansion. Instead, several Orcs were using a large mallet to quite literally hammer logs into the superstructure of the hive-village, and let come what may with the huts that crumbled down and fell like tetrominoes in the process.

  The ones that fell, it seemed, were simply reinforced with more rope and logs, and called good. Even the inhabitants didn’t seem too torn up about it, boasting something he couldn’t make out, as they smacked their palms into the stronger structure left behind.

  At the very bottom several meters down at the base of the village, Rhett could see a foundation of something stranger. Pitch-black, marbled logs that looked more like steel than wood, practically splinters now, but with more than a few heavy, massive logs jutting out like conveniently accidental palisades.

  He wondered why they didn’t just use that for the houses, considering a thin branch poking out was apparently strong enough that someone had built an entire hut supported on its end, the thin branch not bending at all, despite the hundreds of pounds of wood and straw balanced precariously atop it.

  The walkways were similarly maddening, the rule of thumb being that if your house was in someone’s way, and they really did not like it, your house would include a new doorway through it in short order.

  That is to say, he actually watched someone dragging a small wheelbarrow behind them, who, upon seeing a large detour in their usual route, finally decided to simply pull out a hammer, and begin plowing through someone’s bathroom, prying off planks in the process until a new path was made.

  Privacy was a war between people barging into your house and installing empty doorways for you, and you piling more planks to add a few more doors to the rest of the house.

  The final, most dumbfounding part was the actual bakery he located, nestled in one of the village’s main arteries, rope ladders and stairs spiraling out from it like the strands of a vast spider’s web.

  There was an eternal question, that all chefs longed to answer. “How much sawdust could you put in a Rice Crispy Treat before someone noticed?”

  He had no clue, but apparently, 100% was the answer this town would likely conclude.

  Shaped like cartoonish logs, complete with colored circles and ‘bark’, with dark bark-like crusts and billowing clouds of steam pouring out of ‘branches’ shaped onto them, loaves of the bread were served out by an Orc to several of the darkly tanned ‘Beach Elves’, each one taking it with at least some measure of a smile.

  How did he know that anything at all was off here? Well, Rhett had eyes, you see, and noticed the lumbermill attached to the bakery, and the helpers shoveling the sawdust into a large mound of dough.

  No wheat could be seen anywhere, and the only nod to edibility was, frighteningly enough, something like a cross between a Pineapple and a Coconut, that itself had been crossed with a car battery’s contents.

  He watched as an Elf cracked one of the spiky fruits in two, letting the hissing, vibrant yellow liquid pour into the vat, visibly melting the contents with sparks and a few outright fires that were put out with a rag kept in a water bucket near the vat, seemingly for exactly that purpose.

  It was enough of a mainstay that one of the children working there had the sole job of mopping up any spills from that process, using a hot metal paddle to evaporate puddles he saw, before sliding it back into the bread-oven to heat.

  Sawdust and acidfruit went in, brownish-black bread-dough came out.

  Unfortunately for Rhett’s desire to not eat the suspicious food, people did seem to be consuming it. Many with a grimace at the hard slices and craggily chunks that they could break off, others, with more relish, literally in some cases, as butter and some kind of green paste were popular things to smear on top of it.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He cracked his neck once again. Utilizing the rare and highly dangerous Jerry-mode (running really fast through the streets with a leather glove he found over his head) had gotten him this far. Now, it was time to put it to its ultimate test.

  Peeking through the hole in his disguise, he fumbled for his copper coin, before barreling towards the stand, popping out of a grate in a flurry of motion

  Scrambling up and partially over the edge, he slapped the coin down and yelled, “One food please!” with an exhausted puff.

  The baker, too busy to notice the lack of a body underneath the table, grunted and shoved over a loaf, the wooden log skidding like glass on a bartop.

  Rhett struggled to grab it, as it knocked him clean off and left him and it bouncing over the wooden flooring.

  He let out a faint squeak of manliness instead of terror, when he heard one of the elves go “Huh?” and look over.

  Holding absolutely still, he waited until he could feel the unmistakable aura of someone shrugging and no longer caring, before daring to shift under his loafen exterior.

  Shooting up, he chortled with menace, lifting up the loaf and running for the gutters before anyone could notice.

  –

  “We got Animalpeople here now?” Jok asked, kneading the gluey dough with brutal punches.

  Nyd shrugged, hucking a lump of dough into a log-shaped mold.

  “Guess we got one now. Least till the Mayor makes nudity illegal,” he shrugged.

  “Nah, he don’t got the balls.”

  –

  Rhett groaned, throwing his head back. “So fuggin cromchy,” he proclaimed.

  The bread was more like a gigantic (even for normal people) cracker, than anything leavened. Mostly aerated by the reaction of sawdust and that acidic juice, the whole thing was a menace for biting through.

  -That is, unless someone were blessed with the teeth of a bigass rat, which permitted that someone to crunch straight through the thick crust of the loaf.

  Additionally, to make up for the fact that sawdust, anomalously edible or not, tasted like nothing, the loaf was suffused with extremely large shards of salt, and grains of what felt almost like little bits of sugar, intensely-sour-sweet in flavor.

  ‘I guess that’s the fruit juice?’ he mused, prying off another crumb with his huge teeth.

  His feasting was not without purpose. As it turned out, his hidey-hole was too small to fit the entire loaf into, and that meant he had no choice but to adapt, deliciously carving it down to size, so he could stow the leftovers.

  Like everything else in town, the loaf was incredibly dry, so he felt comfortable in saying it probably wouldn’t mold too quickly for him to eat it all, if he was careful with it.

  He pried off one more big chunk, before stuffing it into the Towelhole, the act making him feel suspiciously like a squirrel, as he covered it up with his stolen leather glove.

  Climbing inside after his ill-gotten gains, he let out a sigh of relief, pulling up the lens, more of a mask at his size, up and onto the top of his head, his ears flopping to either side of the dinnerplate.

  Leather strips were good enough to make something of it, and in a wonderful twist, his sensitivity to light was so much better with the probably-magic item protecting him.

  Through the lens, everything had a strange look to it, like if an AI had been ordered to make a photo look like the inside of someone’s eyelids, purples and static dancing over everything.

  It looked cool enough to easily make up for losing roughly 10% of the internet content he used to mainline like a drug.

  Despite this, he did have some minor worries. He still needed water, for one, and stealing some from the puddles around the local well was not an ideal solution.

  Not least of which because it had people there who were actually paying attention to their surroundings, a pair of guards making sure everyone saw the signs declaring “No experimental liquids” before they approached the source of life-giving water.

  Worse, he had the sneaking suspicion that pretending to be a hand wouldn’t help him as much with spending the silver and gold coin still stowed in the patent-pending Towelventory.

  This was something that kind of sucked, considering he actually saw cool magic stuff for sale at one of the huts, not least of which was apparently a student’s spellbook, barely used.

  He tried not to think about the fact that most of the magic items he had seen were being sold out of what seemed almost exactly like garage sales back home…

  Laying back, Rhett thought about the whirlwind of days he had been through recently. If he had magic, could he do incredible things, be like one of the heroes from the stories he liked to read and leave bad reviews of?..

  “...Eh” he waffled. That sounded really exhausting. Plus, then he’d end up stumbling on an OP cheat skill, blowing up planets, one-shotting dark deities, amassing a bickering harem...

  He might have been lazy, but he was no hypocrite. “Yeah, screw that, we’re doing Rat Sims. Just make my special power a sandwich icon that pops up over my head when I want a sandwich,” he smirks.

  Chewing on another piece of Sawbread, he hummed, kicking his leg idly as he reclined further.

  “...I want a sandwich,” he realized, iconless.

  –

  The next day, he had a plan. This town did have one restaurant, and it delivered, and he had a blank bit of newspaper, and a dry marker salvaged from the nearby rubbish bins.

  There was a solution here. He might have only had a silver coin, but there was the trick.

  On the paper, he scrawled his demand.

  “Make me your mightiest sandwich! Deliver it to this exact location and leave it on the floor,” the note read, with a little map he had drew on it as well.

  He might not have been able to sneak in long enough to look at the menu, but he had ordered dumber takeout in the past, and he doubted they’d complain if he let them keep the change, surely?

  Wrapping his silver coin in the note, he scurried over to the Beach-elf run delicatessen,

  “Shop of He-Who-Weaves-Sandwiches-As-The-Finest-Silk.”

  Apparently, Elves had problems with naming their kids.

  He waited, until one of those weird Cronenberg Centaurs exited the store, bell dinging merrily as he left alongside his shorter daughter.

  He snuck past, ignoring the shouts of “Father! Rodentia!” and the whinnying of the man’s torso-horse, scurrying over to the counter.

  Through the misuse of the non-stepping stools that were arranged around it, he clambered up onto the counter, depositing his note before dropping down with a thump.

  Sneaking to the exit again, he ignored the additional teenaged shouts of “Hewho?! Got an order here!”

  Unfortunately, the door lacked another rube for him to sneak past, forcing him to hide near the doorway as a girl leaned over the counter, looking around and failing to spot him.

  “...Guess he already went out,” the girl remarked, unfolding the paper and reading the note.

  “Friggen Knights,” she grumbled. “Ooouugh, I’m going into battle… Aauuhg, make me your mightiest sandwich…” she mockingly moaned.

  Despite this, she seemed genuinely confused by the weird order, much to Rhett’s consternation.

  “Guess we’re using real bread for this one,” she muttered, taking the silver and shoving it into a small chest, before disappearing into the back.

  Rhett’s eyes widened, when he realized something odd about the entryway. It wasn’t pitch black, but pitch-black leather, instead. An unbroken wall of the stuff, nailed tight over the doorway. The woman had walked through it with nothing but a ripple to show that she had.

  The dead flesh continued to ripple for a moment, like a disturbed pool, before stilling and returning to normal.

  “Jeeze,” he blinked, slightly amazed at the strange power.

  The bell above him dinged, and he jerked, scrambling out before anyone could notice him.