The steps lead upward, assumingly into the back kitchen of The Hall, where he would see the group of friends that he had made in his time in the afterlife, and he was going to punch every single one of them in the face… His body ached, having only slept in a chair after a night of what he could only assume was a night of drinking, this all purely based on the hangover that still hung around his mind. As he started to climb his footfalls were heavy, practically stomping as he made his way up the stairs. He was still livid about the whole thing, sticking him in some garbage mini dungeon to test his skills as they’ve developed so far… as he grumbled to himself, the realization settled on him like a weight, they all knew what he was wanting to do, every one of them. They did this to test him, to make sure he was ready, or that was what he was hoping because if it wasn't someone might even get stabbed. His emotions rolled back and forth as he climbed the steps, most of his anger abating by the time he put his hand on the knob to let himself out. He turned the knob, then tried to push, to which, nothing happened, the 'Ku thud' of a lock stopping the door from swinging, Davin's anger jumped again, pulling out his picks, feeling for the keyhole to be able to open this last thing in his way…. The lock popped, with almost no effort, undoing the catch and peeking into the room ahead of him, guessing that his test wasn’t truly over. He readied his improvised club, knowing that whoever was on the receiving end of it, likely deserves it.

He pushed the door open slowly, watching for anyone that could be waiting for him, as the door swung open revealing a dark room, Davin started to grow concerned, he also had no idea what time it was… He suspected that it was potentially midday based on the amount of light that was, the door swung silently, but based on how loud the door thudding was, there was no chance that anyone nearby didn’t hear it. Stepping into what he felt was an empty room… The blinding flash, and loud cacophony all culminated in what sounded like congratulations, standing with his face-covered head pounding from all of the overstimulation, almost causing him to collapse to the ground. All Davin could do in response was a groan, all articulation leaving him in a moment, covering his ears and holding his eyes closed he stood in the center of the room while the cheering continued. It took several minutes from what Davin could tell for the cheering to come to an end, his head was throbbing once again.

"I hate every last one of you." Was all that Davin could say to the whole situation, he pushed his way out of the room, ignoring everyone as he passed them. Passing through the main room of The Hall to even more cheering, he started to run. He had never to his knowledge felt so infuriated, he'd been tested daily since he arrived, in some aspects he would even say it was torture, he'd been beaten and knocked unconscious more than he ever thought would be possible without forming some serious condition. In the short time that he'd been here, he honestly thought that he had made actual connections, his first friends outside of work and his family in more than a decade. He felt like he was the butt of a giant joke and he hated it, he eventually stopped running, finding himself in an area that he didn't recognize, his initial bout of steam having run its course, he found a soft patch of grass and flopped onto it.

The sun was high in the sky, backing up the thought that it was, in fact, a new day and that he'd spent the night tied to a chair, he ached, physically more than emotionally at this point, the sun felt warm, he stretched out, the tiredness and stress of his misadventures finally catching up with him. When he woke, Jes was sitting near him, she also had fallen asleep, her head balanced on her knee sitting over him like a sentinel. He chucked, letting out a long exaggerated sigh, he moved over, sat next to her, and leaned in, while he was still mad, he wasn't sure who to be mad at, this still wasn't his world and he didn't know all the ins and outs that he should be aware of. Davin bumped his shoulder into her, slowly shaking her awake.

"Hmmm? Oh... You're awake, I didn't plan on falling asleep…" her tone sounded sad, almost hurt.

"It isn't the first time you’ve fallen asleep waiting for me, I'm just starting to think it's just our thing." Letting out a silent chuckle, his shoulders bouncing.

"Are you okay?" She couldn't meet his eyes.

"Yes and no, at this moment in time, I don't know how to process it all, going on I don’t remember what happened last night after my first drink, I'm guessing it was drugged? And then was tied to a chair, left down there for what felt like an entire day, with no food, water, and with nothing on me… For what? A test? Some form of hazing? What did any of that prove?" his voice showing more and more of his irritation with each word.

"It's tradition, I had to do it too… It's to make sure that you're ready…" her last words trailing off as she felt them die on her tongue.

"From where I'm from, most of that would be considered a crime." Staring her down, his gaze carrying all of his anger.

"Crimes?" Her eyes went wide as she thought of the ramifications of what they had done.

"Yeah, even if we just look at the fact that I was basically kidnapped and locked in a basement, and that’s just the start." His hands moved quickly as he gesticulated.

She shook her head and buried her face in her hands. "It's meant to be a surprise…"

"It was a surprise alright, thought I was gonna be left down there…" An involuntary shiver ran down his back, bumping Jes as he shook it out.

"We do it for every new rogue, it's how we know that you're ready to go to the wilds and keep yourself safe. So we didn’t even think about what it would mean to you…" tears formed in the corners of her eyes as she looked at Davin.

"I figured that the alerts that I'd unlocked my class were good enough." Annoyance rang in his voice.

"They are, but all of the classes have their own graduation ritual."

"Graduation? So rogues get tossed into a dungeon and are expected to break out?."

"Basically…" Her words were barely above a whisper.

Letting out a long sigh. "I really didn't enjoy any of that, I know that I'll be facing much worse out in the wilds and that you all want to make sure I'm ready, but I feel it’s a little redundant after having spent the last few weeks by my counting, having that be what I wake up to just about every day, but knowing that it was also my friends that put me down there…"

"I hadn't thought about it that way, I can see how that could come across as a betrayal of trust." Pulling her legs close to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "I guess I would feel betrayed if you did that to me…"

They sat in silence for a while, the two of them just watching as the sun sets light fell through the city. The gurgle that came from Davin's stomach was loud and long, and it broke the silence so readily, the two of them started laughing.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Hungry? Jes asked, still giggling as she tried to compose herself.

"I did storm out of my graduation party, so I've effectively not eaten since yesterday afternoon when I was still in long dock, so saying I'm a bit hungry would be an understatement." Holding his stomach as the hunger pangs hit him.

"My treat, so what sounds good?" she looked around for any food stalls that they could partake in.

"There was a pie vendor down the stairs earlier, don’t think that they're still there, but anything would be fine at this point, I'm freaking starving." Feeling a little redundant in stating the obvious.

"Pies sound good, haven't had one in a while." Pulling herself to her feet and offering Davin a hand up.

Davin took her hand, pulling himself up with her help, they locked eyes as they stood there. "I still don’t think this will make us square, but it’s a start." He headed towards the stairs where he'd last seen the pie vendor at.

The pie was amazing, but a big part of that was likely due to the fact that he was famished, the need to eat, sleep, and drink was still strange to him, and he expected death to get rid of those needs so that way he would just be able to enjoy the afterlife, but since this place was powered by the beliefs of people, those things tied in strongly to every aspect of life, or unlife in this case. He thought about his own beliefs, the things that made up his everyday life, and the things that he had no idea how they worked, would those count? Could he get a microwave and use it like he did back home? Did he want a microwave? He knew the basic ins and out of cooking, he knew he could do much better than just microwaving things. While he ate, he thought about the things that he could do with his skills, survival would let him forage, and he knew a few basics could be gotten easily enough. He needed to talk to Hugh, and see what he would and wouldn't eat…. Did Hugh know about the test? A flush of anger rose in him for just a moment, and he let it wash away, he was too old to let things like this linger on him, and effectively he was one of the younger individuals here in the grand scheme. He had no idea how long anyone had been here, and basing it off of how they spoke wouldn’t do him any good, since part of the magic that held this place together also gave everyone the equivalent of a babel fish. Davin turned to look at Jes.

"Does the translation magic that works in the city also affect those in the wilds?" Tapping his ear unconsciously.

"Hmmm, to a limited extent, spending time in the city or the few major settlements like Edges Rest ingrains the 'common tongue' into you, you’ve actually been speaking it for the last few days, I'm surprised that you didn’t notice."

Davin blinked in surprise, sounding out words that he didn't think would exist here like 'internet' and they felt odd in his mouth. "Hmmm, fish." He felt his mouth moving slightly differently than it should. "That is unsettling…" Now fully aware of how his mouth was moving differently than it should.

"It does take time to get used to, especially once you're aware of it." Clearing her throat, she proceeded to say a line of words that sounded like French, but he didn’t recognize a single word. "Speaking your native language gets a little more difficult, but you can still do it, it's a bit harder when you don’t have many that you can talk to." Jes's face fell a bit, a sad expression lingering.

"I get that, my world has a lot of languages, and I can only remember how to say a few things, like 'Bonjour comment allez-vous?" His French accent falling a little flat to his ears.

Jes's eyes went wide as she clearly understood what he was saying, her lips turning up into a smile. "Je vais bien et toi?"

"Wait, you actually speak French?" Surprise plastered across his face.

"French? No, this is the language of my people, we called it 'Terrien' and my entire world spoke it."

"Terran? Earthling? You called your world Earth?" confusion filled his voice.

"Hmmm, I guess we did, I never thought about it." Finishing her pie.

"I wonder who else called their world 'earth', honestly that was pretty surprising."

"Surprising? You know the words of a different world, and the fact we effectively called it earth was what you found surprising."

"Eh, over the years, my world has had over seven thousand languages, and I know by the end of my time at least a thousand of those were recognized as dead languages, so the likely hood of some language overlap didn't seem outside the realms of possibility."

"More than six thousand languages?!?! How many did you speak?" Her eyes went extremely wide.

"Me? Oh, just the one, but it’s a mixed language, it took the words for thousands of languages and worked them into its baseline, and there was a bit of overlap with some, where the different dialects of an area that used the same base language, like from where I'm from there is a dialect known as 'country' and it's just an accent on the base language, but was different enough that if you didn't speak the base language it was almost impossible to understand."

Jes blinked at him uncomprehendingly. "Six thousand languages and you only spoke one of them?!"

"Yup, I didn’t come across most other languages in a day, other than Spanish, I would sometimes go weeks without hearing any other languages." Shrugging as he finished his second pie. "Unless you worked internationally, or worked with the languages, there wasn’t much reason to learn them."

She stared at him baffled. "I have learned four languages while I've been here."

"That actually brings up another question, how do I learn other languages?" His curious smile melted her heart some.

"Just by being around it, but it only happens outside of the city and settlements."

"Good to know." The two of them started walking back into the heart of the city, his anger almost abated.

They grabbed a few more foods on their way back, stopping at the chocolate hutch that they had on their date, Jes having gotten some of the dried beans so that Davin could experiment with them. The rogue's training hall was almost completely empty by the time they made it back,

Jes lead Davin to her apartment on the upper floors. Calling it an apartment was a loose description, it was closer to a studio, where there was a single large room that had a kitchenette and then a small off-room for a private bathroom. The largest stand-out feature in Davin's mind was what he considered one of the most exciting things that he'd seen, a shower, while simple, it was there.

"Would it be weird to ask to use your shower?" Davin asked shortly after Jes had shown him where the bathroom was so that he could clean himself up.

"Uh? I don't see why not, I'll grab you a towel." She wandered over to a cabinet and pulled out a towel and a few rags.

"Thanks! I've missed showering, I only have access to the baths, it has hot water?"

"Yes, I've not used it in a while." passing over the towel and some soap.

"Why not? Showers are amazing, clean hot water running down your body, I far prefer it over basically making human soup."

"Human soup?" The horrified expression on her face told Davin how she felt about that description.

"You're sitting in hot water and basically stewing." Chuckling after his statement made Jes frown deeper.

"That is the most horrifying thing I've ever had the displeasure of being present for." She shivered and looked at her hands clearly thinking about her last bath. "I think I'll take one too…."

"I don’t think there is enough space for both of us, but if you want to try." Davin looked into the bathroom at the small shower stall.

"What?" Jes's cheeks flushed darkly as a small squeak came from her turning away quickly. "Go shower, I'll see you shortly.