"So… uh… does that mean we will not be fighting or killing anybody this time around?” Siva asked as we navigated through the crowd along the walking street. I could barely hear him over the din.

  On both sides, vendors piled their wares into shopfronts built from shipping containers. Most had the entire front section cut away, turning the containers into open stalls with tables shoved up to the edge like makeshift counters. As we walked, I took in the spread. Mundane items like clothes, bottled water, and toothpaste sat right beside magical potions, scrolls, armour, and weapons.

  It was surreal.

  It was also suspicious.

  A lot of it looked like the same things we could already buy through the store interface.

  I stopped at one stall and picked up a potion bottle filled with shimmering yellow liquid. A handwritten label was stuck to the glass.

  Quick Healing.

  The vendor’s sign claimed it healed at twice the speed of a regular potion.

  The price tag read: 100 gold.

  I pinged Eva and had her pull up the shop inventory. The exact same potion was there for only 10 gold.

  And the colour was not even the same. Not quite. The official one was a deeper, richer yellow. This one looked like it had been diluted until it only resembled the real thing.

  Eva: That’s watered down.

  I put it back and walked away.

  The vendor immediately started shouting after me, dropping the price with every sentence like we were in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

  “Ninety gold!”

  “Eighty!”

  Then, louder, trying to punch through the crowd.

  “JUST FOR YOU, MY FRIEND. FORTY GOLD!”

  I did not even turn around. I just shook my head and kept walking.

  The other thing everyone noticed, quickly, was the vendors themselves.

  None of them were human.

  Most of them seemed to be the same kind of humanoid creature, at least at a glance. They looked like a cross between an armadillo and some kind of bird. They had rounded armoured backs. Instead of mouths, they had beaks. Beady, watchful eyes. Their hands ended in claws that looked like chicken feet.

  Up close, though, they were not identical. Unlike in most sci-fi movies where every alien of a species looks like the same actor in a different mask, these had little differences that made them feel individual. One had a moustache that somehow sat over his beak. Another had drooping eyebrows that made him look permanently unimpressed. The potion seller wore a fez perched on top of his pointy head like it was part of his uniform.

  But they did have one thing in common.

  Every single one of them spoke with a Middle Eastern accent.

  Jess finally noticed it after a flower vendor tried to press a rose into her hand. She declined, then turned to look at us. Whatever she wanted to say, she chose to send it in chat instead of out loud.

  Jess: Why are they all middle-eastern? This is so racist.

  Siva: Well at least it’s not an Indian accent.

  And right on cue, a different vendor called out from the doorway of what was obviously a tailor shop in a thick indian accent.

  He was tall and skinny, darker-feathered than the others, with the long-limbed silhouette of a skinnier, cursed Big Bird.

  “Custom shirt for you sir?” he said brightly. “Enchantment included. Give you great price.”

  Siva slapped his forehead.

  We all burst out laughing. Even Farah, who had looked beleaguered as we walked down the street, let out a small laugh like it surprised her as much as it did the rest of us.

  Other than the gremlin in the toll booth, these were the first non-hostile creatures we had come across.

  I would not even call them mobs.

  For once, it actually felt like an RPG environment. In the North and the West, anything non-human had wanted us dead. Here, they just wanted us to empty our wallets.

  And I could not decide which was worse.

  We were looking for somewhere quiet. Or at least quieter. Somewhere we could sit down properly and eat breakfast without having to shout over the crowd. The last line from the System update kept pulsing in the corner of my HUD as we pushed our way down the walking street, scanning for a break in the endless line of stalls.

  [Items List: Loading…]

  I did not know if that was a good sign or a bad one.

  If the scavenger hunt was just a list of items we could buy outright, then fine. Between the neon, the shouting, and the endless stalls, I was pretty sure you could find almost anything in The Bay.

  But I had a feeling it would not be that simple.

  The thought made my skin prickle.

  Shawn finally spotted a narrow opening between two containers. We squeezed through the gap one after another, emerging into a service lane behind the stalls where the noise dropped by half and the air smelled more like concrete and heat than spices and exhaust.

  And right in front of us stood a building I recognised.

  In the real world, it belonged to a global insurance company.

  I used to work here.

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  That memory hit me like a small punch to the chest. Not painful, exactly. Just sharp. Like something trying to remind me that I had once had a life that involved coffee breaks and email chains instead of blood and System notifications.

  I knew there was a café on the ground floor. And sure enough, through the glass frontage, the place looked like it was still functioning.

  We climbed the short steps to the sliding doors.

  They opened automatically, just like the old days.

  Cold air rushed out to meet us, a familiar blast of central air-conditioning that made my shoulders loosen before I could stop it.

  Inside, the lobby looked like it had been preserved in amber. Glossy floors. Bright ceiling panels. The faint smell of lemon disinfectant. It was the kind of corporate cleanliness that used to make me feel safe, back when my biggest threat was a Monday morning meeting.

  Except the people in it were not people.

  Creatures in business suits moved through the space with purpose, fast footsteps clicking on the polished floor. Nobody spared us a second glance. We were just another obstruction in their morning rush.

  And for the first time since all this started, the non-human figures around us were… recognisable.

  Not mutated nightmares. Not things stitched together out of horror movie logic. These were the kind of creatures you saw in RPGs. The kind you rolled dice against. The kind you joked about in memes and pop culture and never expected to see buying coffee on a weekday.

  A dragonborn in a charcoal suit strode past, tall and broad-shouldered, scales a deep burgundy that caught the light. He carried a slim briefcase in one clawed hand and a takeaway coffee in the other, the lid pinched delicately between talons. His tie was neatly knotted, and a small gold pin sat on his lapel like a corporate badge.

  Right behind him, a much smaller figure hurried by. A gnome, maybe, dressed in a crisp blouse and pencil skirt, hair pulled into a severe bun. She muttered under her breath while tapping at a translucent tablet. The screen’s glow reflected in her glasses as her pointed ears twitched irritably.

  A pair of orcs in matching navy suits crossed the lobby together, heads bent close, whispering like co-workers gossiping about a manager. One gestured with a thick finger, and the other nodded grimly as if they were discussing quarterly performance and not, you know, the apocalypse.

  Siva slowed until he was almost shuffling, head turning left and right.

  “Dude…” he whispered.

  Jess elbowed him lightly, but her eyes were wide too. Shawn wore an expression stuck somewhere between amused and delighted, like he had walked into a theme park built specifically to mess with him.

  Farah kept Farisyah close, one hand locked around the girl’s wrist. Farisyah still bounced on her toes and leaned forward like she wanted to ask a hundred questions. She could not, so she did the next best thing. She stared at everything with wide eyes and made small muffled noises that sounded like excited complaints.

  Nobody acknowledged us. Nobody stared. Nobody looked afraid.

  That might have been the strangest part.

  We followed the signs toward the café I remembered, moving deeper into the building. It felt like walking into a memory. The angles were the same. The lighting. Even the faint hum of the ventilation system. I half expected my old access card to still work if I pulled it out.

  At the corner, the café opened up behind a glass frontage.

  And it was operating.

  Creatures sat at tables like it was a normal weekday morning. A group of dwarves in rolled-up sleeves clustered around a small round table, eating something that smelled like fried dough and strong coffee. A lanky elf in a fitted suit stood at the counter, scrolling through a menu board with the calm patience of someone ordering the same thing every day. A lizardfolk in a blazer leaned against the wall, sipping from a cup with a lid, eyes half-closed like he was trying to wake up before a meeting.

  No panic. No blood. No weapons.

  Just breakfast.

  We hovered at the entrance for a second, like tourists afraid we had walked into the wrong place.

  “Okay,” Shawn said quietly, disbelief threaded through his voice. “This is officially the weirdest zone we have ever walked into.”

  Siva nodded slowly. “North tried to kill us. West tried to trick us into killing each other. South is… office vibes.”

  Jess made a face. “Do not say office vibes.”

  “I am saying it,” Shawn replied. “Because it is true.”

  We picked a larger table near the side, one with enough seats for all of us, and slid into the chairs. For a second, the simple act of sitting down felt like a luxury.

  Jess sank into her seat like her bones had been waiting for permission to stop holding her up. Siva leaned back and exhaled through his nose. Shawn sat forward immediately, elbows on the table, eyes scanning the café like he expected someone to jump out at him.

  Farah sat with Farisyah tucked close on the inside, one arm still around her like a seatbelt. Farisyah swung her legs under the chair and hummed through the guard, a muffled little sound that made Jess glance over and smile despite herself.

  Then a shadow fell across our table.

  A waitress approached without a sound.

  She was an elf. Tall and ethereal, with pale skin that caught the café’s light and held onto it. Her ears were long and elegant, her dark hair tied neatly back with loose tendrils framing her almond-shaped face.

  Her uniform was technically a waitress outfit, but it had been tailored in a way that felt just a little too deliberate. The hemline sat a touch higher than it needed to, the neckline plunging deeper than any café uniform I’ve ever seen. Every time she shifted her weight, it drew the wrong kind of attention.

  She was beautiful. She looked like an Enya song come to life.

  Her name tag read: MONICA.

  Shawn went very still.

  Siva’s mouth opened, then closed again, like his brain had momentarily forgotten how to operate his face.

  Jess’s eyes flicked to them instantly. She did not even need to speak. Her expression said everything.

  I cleared my throat, partly to break the moment and partly because I could feel my own smile tugging at my mouth. This place was ridiculous. Monica was ridiculous. The fact that her name tag said Monica, of all names, was ridiculous.

  “Good morning,” Monica said, voice smooth and cheerful. “Welcome. Sit as long as you like. Do you want menus, or do you already know what you want?”

  Siva sat up a bit too quickly. “Menu. Yes. Menu. We would like… menus.”

  Monica’s gaze slid to him, amused. “All right.”

  Shawn finally found his voice. “Monica,” he repeated, as if he needed to confirm it out loud. “That is your name.”

  “That is what my tag says,” Monica replied, unfazed. Her eyes lingered on him for half a second longer than necessary. “And what is yours, handsome?”

  Shawn blushed so hard I thought he was going to explode. “Shawn. Uh… just Shawn. And you are Monica. Hi Monica. I’m Shawn.”

  Jess made a quiet choking sound that might have been laughter. She leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table.

  “Hi Monica,” Jess said, all sweetness. “We are very hungry. And please ignore my friends. They have been outdoors for too long.”

  Monica laughed lightly, the sound bright and airy, then smiled like she had seen worse. “It happens.”

  Her gaze drifted to Farisyah and lingered for half a beat on the guard over her mouth.

  “And hello to you,” Monica said gently.

  Farisyah responded with two enthusiastic thumbs up, then an energetic wave. She immediately tried to speak and only managed a muffled sound. Farah tightened her hold, firm but practiced, and Farisyah acted out an exaggerated pout like a seven-year-old who had been told no. It lasted all of three seconds before she got distracted by the menu Monica was setting down.

  The menu felt real. The print was crisp. The prices were in gold.

  And every item came with an optional buff, for an extra charge.

  We ordered simple things at first. Coffee for everyone except Farisyah. Pancakes for Farah. Toast and eggs for Jess. Siva insisted on something “normal,” then added the minor buff immediately when Monica raised an eyebrow at him.

  Shawn ordered the most expensive coffee on the menu just to see what would happen, then immediately regretted it when Monica repeated the price out loud.

  When she finally walked away, the table fell into a strange calm. The kind that comes after you have been running for too long and your body does not know what to do with stillness.

  I exhaled slowly and let my gaze drift across the café again.

  This place should not exist.

  Just as that thought settled, every HUD at our table pinged at once.

  Hard.

  The sound was sharp enough that several nearby office workers glanced over with mild annoyance, like we had let our phone notifications ring in public.

  In the corner of my vision, the pulsing line finally changed.

  [Items List: Loaded]

  [Item 1: A blue pen]

  [Item 2: Scroll of Moonlight]

  More lines rolled in, one after another, until the list finally stopped.

  Twenty items.

  We leaned back in our chairs and studied it in silence, reading it once, then twice, then again like the words would rearrange themselves into something kinder.

  Some of them were not even items.

  How the hell was ‘A Genuine Smile’ on a scavenger hunt list?

  Then there were the ones that made us stop and look at each other, the amusement draining from our faces as the realisation finally set in.

  The South was going to be just as much of a shit show as the other sectors.