Chapter 26:

I belatedly realized that I should have spent my time waiting by gathering my thoughts. So I slowly pulled out the chair and sat before answering.

Eventually, though, I sat. And take a deep breath. "Thank you," I said. "The training was extremely beneficial, and I hope that it is worth the favor."

Loki gave me a smile over his wine before he took a sip, and I sniffed my glass, appreciating it a lot more than I had the bland beer I had drank earlier.

I ran through the questions I had for Loki and started off with the most immediate one, "I actually came about an earlier deal we made. Where is my dagger?"

Loki cocked his head and looked at me. "The dagger was to keep you out of the snow. There's no danger of you going back there now."

"Still, I don't remember preparing part of our deal that it could just disappear." I shot back.

"True." Loki frowned at my answer. "That was not part of the deal. But the dagger is also something that can only really exist in the Lesser Hall."

I shrugged. "That's not really my problem, is it?"

Loki rolled his eyes and reached into his jacket, pulling out a smaller knife. "This is just an ordinary knife, but the dagger you had would be no more useful here. But take this and call it an apology for not laying out terms to your satisfaction."

I took the knife. It was an ordinary knife, about eight inches long. Sharp enough that it can cut, but nothing fancy. "All right, that's fair. No hard feelings."

Looking at it, I knew the knife was probably worth maybe 50 coins, which was well beyond what I could have rightfully demanded. With a sigh, I tucked it in my belt.

"I'm prepared to pay a lot for this information," I said, going against my better instincts but wanting to be upfront about what I needed. "But I need to know where someone was. Someone who died ten years ago. My wife, Helen."

Loki closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. It took a second before he opened them and gave me a sad look. "She's not in Valhalla."

I blinked. "Wait, you're just going to tell me?"

He looked at me with a slightly hard expression. "Dude, I'm not a dick... It costs me nothing to look this up, and clearly, you care a lot about it. What religion was she when she died?"

"Christian," I said.

"And how did she die?"

"Cancer." My voice was monotone. The grief long since pulled any emotion out of telling the story.

"Ten years ago," Loki mused and frowned. "I'm sorry. She's likely either merged into the heavenly host or been reborn."

I frowned and sat in silence, considering. "Well."

Loki ordered for both of us, as I didn't respond to the waiter's question. It was five minutes later, at least, when the food came, and I came out of my stupor.

I would need to figure out if it was actually time to move on. I had been borderline old enough when she had died, that it was normal for me not to continue dating, especially after I finished my morning and I just had never really found someone special. Not that I was against it. Not that I thought my wife would be offended if I had found another partner after she left, but I just hadn't.

But now hope had been returned to me that I would see her again. There was an afterlife, after all, and now I was learning that she was actually gone. Well, it shouldn't have been as hard as it was after, as long as I had to get used to it.

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I shook my head, and Loki gave me a consoling half-smile. "You're probably wondering how to move on most. This is a talk that I've had surprisingly many times. A lot of the people who are willing to seek me out or take my offers have something they want like this. And it's always with great regret that I have to inform a business partner of mine that I can't accommodate what they want, no matter how much they're willing to pay. But I have gotten pretty decent at helping people move on."

I nodded. If he was as straightforward as he said... He likely just had lots of practice, and if not, well, I would think about his words.

"Well, there are many ways, depending on what you want and what you want to do. But I would say the first thing is to establish yourself here. And there will be many ways to move on. Throw yourself into a challenge. Build a team. Make friends." I nodded. What he was saying was pure common sense.

"I do offer lots of services that can help you with this," Loki said, transitioning back into his business persona. "I have everything you can get at any other shop. Of course, though, I won't be able to get you a much better price, but it's worth asking as part of the friends and family discount. You can expect maybe 10% off."

I smiled. "But beyond that, I have a list of much more interesting things. I have several banned items that were restricted from dungeon runs and challenges because of inherent imbalance, magical weapons, and the like. But it might be necessary to defend yourself or to do any sort of extracurricular wet work. I have things for party finding, assassination services, and resistances. I can help you get the market price for any sort of bribes or intimidation that needs to be done. And I can teach you magic and all that is nice because I will make bargains instead of just taking coins."

Hearing the full list of Loki services, I understood why it was so much more valuable here than it was in the Lesser Hall. So many of those other things just weren't important there. But now. I frowned, thinking. "What sort of payment?"

"More favors," Loki shrugged. "Favors. Tasks. Selling items, all sorts of stuff as well, though I do take coin as well. It's always welcome. Easier to hide my businesses the more coin moves through."

I nodded, digesting the information. "I think I might be interested in some of that party finding services."

Loki nodded. "Good. That's actually a relatively cheap ask. I don't provide the service for free, but I just take a percentage of the parties. Loot for the first six months of service. It seems perfectly reasonable to me."

I was surprised at how reasonable that was, "but the percentage" Loki said and waved his hand. "That's negotiable. Somewhere between 10 and 30 percent."

That was surprisingly reasonable. Let's just see why Loki was distrusted so much. So far, he had been nothing but stand up to me. "Oh, I do have a couple members who I would like to party with, so I'll talk with them and see what their plans are. Maybe. They don't know about you, obviously."

Looking up from his plate, Loki shrugged. "Well, let me know if you make a decision."

I stacked one of the coins on the table. "Could perhaps I purchase some general information? I don't want to abuse your hospitality too much."

Loki smiled and waved, the coin disappearing. "Sure. Ask away."

"So what if I run out of coin after the first month," I questioned.

"You'll be homeless and have no food. You'll also have no way to get back into the dungeon. That rarely ever happens. It does get cold here, but people usually go into the duels. They'll likely lose a bunch. But if you take good rules with minimum coin, you're likely not to run out. Though. That's not necessarily a good approach to this."

I couldn't help but agree that it sounded better than living in the Snowbank but worse than Lesser Hall in some ways. "Why haven't I seen any people like that around here?"

Loki shrugged. "Magic. You tend to end up in familiar situations. And also, you're in the newbie district toward the center challenge."

"There are other challenges?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No, but there are different entrances. Further out in the city where there are different types of districts."

"So the people I see around are mostly new-looking, and yeah, they are likely all within a year or two of joining Valhalla. Most people move out once it becomes clear what strata they are in, and they work their way up in levels."

"What about these punishments? Thor's administrator looking at?"

"If you don't complete the minimum part of the challenge, you get extra punishments. Those vary. It depends on who's administering them."

"You had mentioned getting sent back to the Lesser Hall before," I remembered.

"You know, that is one of the kinder options. I highly recommend you abuse the hell out of being able to run the dungeon as many times as you can this month, both for coin and for hitting that mark. You would like to avoid that if possible. Besides, this is a rather lucrative month. Not every month is it so easy to make a profit on a run."

That left me with a lot to think about as we ate our steak. When the waiter came back, and we placed orders for desserts, I had a couple more questions ready.