Pain.

  Incredible pain.

  It was the only thing I could feel—sharp, relentless, a storm raging beneath my skin. Slowly, I forced my eyes open, and the first thing I saw was the grimy walls of a narrow alley.

  Pushing myself up, I stepped outside. The street was alive with strange creatures: lizardmen with scales shimmering faintly, squat dwarfes murmuring among themselves, and goblins darting nervously in and out of shadow.

  Their voices drifted to me, and somehow, I understood.

  "...you want to grab a drink..."

  "...those blasted goblins..."

  "...I heard taxes are rising again..."

  The pain flared anew. I looked down, horrified. A deep, ragged wound gaped open on my side, blood spilling freely onto the cobbles. Panic gripped me. Hands trembling, I pressed against the wound, whispering frantically, "Stop bleeding, stop bleeding, stop bleeding."

  Focusing all my will on the injury, the world around me slipped away into darkness. Then, as if by magic, the bleeding stopped. The wound sealed itself, leaving only a faint scar, pale and ghostly like an old memory.

  "What on earth...?" I breathed.

  I tried to find my bearings but the city felt strange, unfamiliar. I called out, "Excuse me... excuse me..." but the people turned away, indifferent.

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  I wandered until curious eyes began to notice me. My shirt was soaked with blood. Without thinking, I tore it off and tossed it back into the shadows of the alley. Luckily, I still had a jacket. I buckled it tight, and now you’d never guess I’d been bleeding out moments before.

  With that settled, I thought about what I needed next. Food and shelter—the basics. And all those things required money.

  Jingling coins in my pocket, I pulled out five: three gold, one silver, one copper. "I hope this is enough," I murmured.

  I roamed the busy streets until I found a kebab stall, tended by a humanoid elephant-like figure.

  “How much for one?” I asked.

  “Two copper,” he said.

  I only had one copper, so I handed him my silver coin. He counted carefully and returned ninety-eight coppers.

  So, one silver must be worth a hundred copper. And I guessed a gold was worth a hundred silver.

  After finishing my meal, I searched for a place to rest and finally spotted a sign: The Silver Stag Tavern.

  Inside, I asked the price for a night’s stay from what I was pretty sure was a kobold.

  “Thirty coppers,” he said, “and that includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” A good price, I thought.

  I went to my room to check it out. Just as the kobold said: one table, one chair, one bed, and an empty chest.

  Finally, I had a moment to think about what had happened. I was in a different world—a fact I had somehow come to accept. My heart still pounded from adrenaline, refusing to slow down since I woke up in that alley.

  After a few minutes, I managed to calm myself.

  Now, to figure out how long I could stay. If a night cost thirty coppers, then ten nights would be three silver, one hundred nights thirty silver—and if my guess about gold was right, three gold would cover a thousand nights.

  A long time to rest, if I could make it last.