Onwards to the village!

You and Thompson arrive at the village, it seems they're having a productive evening by the haste the people have moving back and forth through the streets, nothing out of the ordinary to you besides the clear medieval time period.

"Where do we get the money for an inn?" You figure if anyone knows it's your strange inter-dimensional friend.

"I know a few people who might be willing to help, however..."

"This is where the culture gets weird isn't it?" You guess.

He nods and continued, "The history of this place plays largely into why the culture remains as it is. You see, there used to be an abundance of rather predatorial shape shifters who would visit the village and wreak havoc on it's members by acting as certain people and then doing as they pleased with others once they got into powerful or personal positions. These shape shifters were psychopathic by nature, so in order to find out who was truly a part of the village and who was a shape shifter, people came to the conclusion that everyone needed to know everyone else's personal lives to such an extent, constantly, that no such creature could sneak into the population without their knowing. And since one of the most personal parts of life is...shall we say..what goes on in the bedroom. The sexual act became a pivotal part of ensuring the validity of any trade or any deal. Now, thankfully, as you can clearly see, people don't immediately begin screwing in public whenever they make a trade. Instead, they have another step where a 'verifier' who documents the validity of these acts and works as a professional witness. Once a verified act has occurred, all trades are open as long as the witness is present and verified themselves. The verifier is one of a group (a large portion of the population) who has been trained in herbs to such a degree that they can give the people a mixture capable of combining their consciousnesses into one for the intended experience in a virtual environment, with the side effect of it seemingly taking longer in the dream world than in real life, making it possible for the whole process to take place in a matter of minutes. The verifier also acts as a witness if both people, after the experience, agree that the other individual was a conscience-driven person. people don't have to constantly have sex with everyone because of this, so it makes it possible for the person who's not on official business to only have this virtual experience with one person they trade with or, alternatively, they can do this with the verifier themselves. After one act is done, the person verifying the act will stick with the person who has been verified and stand as witness of the act to any future deals made until the end of the day. After that you have to be re-verified since the creatures loved to sneak in and replace people at night. Now, as strange as this cultural choice is, it was truly effective in ensuring that the creatures had **** but to seek power elsewhere. This means that there's hardly any danger of shape shifters in the modern era here, but the culture still persists as more of a tradition than any practical necessity."

You consider the implications of this for a little while, walking through the village streets and watching as people walk along with their 'verifiers' to do commerce. "What about marriage and loving partnership? And what of sexual orientation? What if the person isn't interested?"

"Well, people generally accept the tradition so there are no issues with marriage, it's not the real act, only a virtual simulation of it. As for sexual orientation, since you usually trade with several people in one day, it's usually not hard to trade with someone of your sexual preference. And since there are few negative consequences of this whole ordeal, it's not common that people won't be interested in doing it. You don't even have to have sexual relations in your experience, but that's the tradition and so that's what most people do. You could easily test each other in different ways though."

"Fascinating," you say thoughtfully.

"For our purposes only one of us have to go through the process since we can trade on behalf of the other and such, I know someone who's willing to help so you might make a choice on if you want to get involved once we get there."

"So..all we have to do is get verified and your friend will take care of the rest?"

"Exactly right! We don't even need a verifier (though they are verifiers themselves) since they'll take care of other trades, all we have to do is prove we're really us to them."

"Sounds like a trusting bunch," you remark sarcastically.

"It's not their fault! It's simply part of the social normality, they'd feel like a traitor to the village if they didn't follow customs."

As you thought about it you realized it did make sense, kind of like people wearing clothes. It's more a culturally enforced matter than a utilitarian one, but it was so normal that to refuse to do it would be nightmarish for everyone involved.

Thompson continues, "Follow me, I'll take you to them, you'll get a better idea of what you're getting into."

You nod and begin weaving between the crowds of people, following Thompson to a cottage a little ways off the main road.

It was a relatively large two-story house with a sign outside. A crude carved picture of a papyrus with a checkmark on it, marking it as a building meant for verification, you assume.

Thompson gave the door a good rapping and stepped back.

"Come in!" A voice called from inside, and Thompson opened the door and waved you in, closing it behind you once you walked through.

"Thompson! Hello, and what a lovely surprise! Who's your company? Why, he looks just like you when you were a young man!" An elderly woman around Thompson's age welcomed you both.

"This, is Daniel-" he motioned towards you, "-he's an interesting friend I..found lost amongst the hills, I figured I would bring him back before anything nasty got to him. Daniel, meet Sofia," he lied and introduced you.

"Well, shall we get straight to the process?" She gave Thompson a look, you sensed the two were closer than they let on despite Thompson's will to lie. You would have to ask him about why he lied later.

"Of course! Daniel was thinking about trying it out, weren't you Daniel?"

Sofia perks up at this, "Oh! Is that so? Sarah! You have someone interested in meeting you!" She called upstairs in an overly motherly tone.

You got the idea this was one of those awkward moments where people try to find an excuse to have the younger ones absent so they could 'get down to business' in private. That is, until you noticed who was coming down the stairs, at which point your thoughts stopped reaching such levels of complexity.

You always thought yourself the kind of person to judge a person by how they act rather than how they look, but as she came down the stairs you couldn't help but hope she was as beautiful on the inside as she was at first glance. It didn't hurt that she had an arousing outfit on either, a semi-long skirt and a blouse (both green) showing more than you felt perfectly comfortable acting like you couldn't see.

"Hello," she waved nervously and you weren't sure how to respond, so you were glad when Sofia did for you without missing a beat: "I'm sure you two have much to talk about upstairs, isn't that right Sarah?"

"Ok mom," she agreed unenthusiastically and motioned you up.

You could probably get out of doing anything too personal later, but if you wanted to play it entirely safe you could object now.