Chapter 27:

As we slowly ate through our crème brûlée, we chatted about many things, mostly prices and markets. We discussed how gambling worked, both in the challenges and the duels, and how Thor had been absolutely lying about having to earn your keep through the challenge.

"In order to avoid the punishment, you do need to participate in the challenge, and usually that means a slight profit," Loki said. "But you absolutely do not need to be winning the challenge regularly to survive or thrive. Many people pay teams to carry them through as they make money doing various businesses. Thor just doesn't seem to understand that.

"Of course, there's no way it would work if you worked as a shopkeeper or something, as these automatons do just fine for any legitimate business. But some of the bartenders and others are just regular people."

"Seems that Thor doesn't really know what he's talking about," I muttered, and Loki laughed.

"You don't know the half of it. He's just been on the wrong side of one too many bad deals, so he thinks fighting is the only way—fighting and crafting."

"Crafting?" I asked.

Loki nodded. "Yeah, but not here."

"What do you mean? What comes next?" I asked.

He frowned and rubbed his chin. "I'm not sure you need to know this yet, but there are lots of different options. This is where Valhalla becomes more interesting. But beyond it, well, you'll see. You've got a long way to go here. This won't be finished anywhere near as fast as the Lesser Hall."

"But there's some stuff beyond the hall proper, right?" I confirmed.

He nodded. "Yes. I mean, the most obvious one is the Greater Hall of Valhalla, but that's not the only option."

I let it slide for now, as it sounded like I would be here for a very long time anyway.

Before I got up, though, something occurred to me. "Oh, Focus. What does that do?"

Loki gave me a gleeful smile. "Just don't put any points into it for now. We will talk more about when you learn some magic."

***

It turned out that the newbie house offered a decent spread of meals. I had a bowl of stew in front of me and a plate of ribs off to the side. I was ravenous after the challenge, and even a full steak dinner with Loki hadn't been enough to satiate me. I had two entrees and just a glass of water in front of me. The waitress had looked at me like I was insane when I ordered water but had no problem providing it. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything like a salad or even a side of potatoes—just meat, stew, and bread. Honestly, I wasn't complaining too much. It was quite hearty and very filling.

As I slowly worked my way through the meal, the common room became rowdier and rowdier as people stopped ordering food and continued ordering drinks. They were getting more and more boisterous, though it wasn't nearly as crowded as it had been when I first left. When the waitress came back to check on me, I touched her arm as she turned to go. She turned back with a wary look on her face, but I didn't grab her or anything. I pulled out a coin and placed it on the table.

"Is tipping culture a thing here?" I asked.

She looked at me strangely. "I won't say no to a tip, but it's not expected, especially not here where no one has coin," she said, looking at me suspiciously. "How did you get in here?"

I pulled out my medallion, and she looked at me strangely. I gestured to the seat across from me, and she slid in. I glared at some people, making eyes at me across the room to keep them away.

"How did you get coin so fast? You weren't one of the groups that came a week ago. I know all of them."

I shrugged but pushed it over to her. It was one of my two coins, but I was hoping that maybe I could make a friend. "You're a regular person in Valhalla, right? What are you doing here? I thought people didn't work these sorts of jobs, that it was avatars and random stuff."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

She blushed, looking away. "That's kind of personal."

I looked her up and down. "Ah, you didn't complete the challenge last month."

She gave me a glare but half-rose from her seat. I patted the air, consoling her. "No judgment, no judgment. I'm obviously new here and trying to figure out how things work. I am looking to form a party. I have a few friends that I would consider dependable. Still, we have a certain limited range of abilities, if you know what I mean."

"Pair o brutes?" She guessed.

I shrugged. "Not that bad. But we do have two open spots. Perhaps you know someone looking for a team."

She ran a hand over her face, put her elbow on the table, cupped her palm, and rested her chin on it as she looked up at me through her bangs. "Maybe," she said thoughtfully. "I get off at midnight. I'll go ask around after that. Find me in the morning. I start work at ten."

I checked the clock over the fireplace and nodded. "Miles," I said, offering her my hand.

She clasped my wrist in a slightly different shake than I was familiar with.

"Lagertha," she said. Only then did I notice the brilliant blue of her eyes, framed by the pale hair I associated with Scandinavians.

"A pleasure," I said, and I went back to my meal. She left to serve more drinks.

---

An hour later or so, I made my way up to my bedroom. I considered trying to do the ritual again to see if I had gained any levels or anything. Still, without the ability to assign free points, I didn't feel like messing up my entire floor again. I already wasn't exactly sure how I was going to fix it. The smeared blood had long since faded, but several of the runes were carved into my floor in a very obvious spot. I imagined that wasn't too uncommon, and no one had mentioned anything about us being liable for damages, but, well, I was just tired.

As I pulled off my boots, I considered just leaving my shirt on and lying in my bed. Still, I stripped out of my clothes and climbed under the covers, falling asleep before my head sunk onto the pillow.

The next morning woke me with rays of sunlight piercing my eyes at what felt like much too early an hour. I hadn't drunk that much, so I didn't have a pounding headache. Luckily, my alcohol tolerance had started to recover in the last week or so; three drinks would have definitely given me a hangover when I was almost seventy-three, but in my twenty-seven-ish-year-old body, it was nothing. Still, I blinked bleary-eyed before I realized I had forgotten to close my shutters. I stumbled out of bed and moved them so that only a crack of light came in before stretching.

I needed my clothes. I swore I had left them on the ground, but they were hanging up in my wardrobe, cleaned and pressed. I was sure no one had come into the room, though.

"Magic fuckery. Must have been magic fuckery." I never changed my clothes in the Lesser Hall so well. I slipped into them and stumbled downstairs for breakfast. The clock said it was six in the morning, but most people were already up. The breakfast drink of choice was a hard apple cider that I watched most people have many pints of. I had orange juice and coffee.

When I finished, I still had several hours before I was supposed to meet Lagertha, so I left my plate and got up, leaving the house to go wandering. Perhaps I'd go find Bjorn and Jonas. They had given me vague instructions to their newbie house, so as I wandered the city, taking in the sights, I made my way in that general direction. Most streets were well-lit, but every once in a while, I did notice an alleyway that was a little bit darker. I avoided going into any of them, but with the fresh light, the city seemed less strange and less perfect than it had previously.

***

The rows of what seemed to be mostly drinking establishments were no less busy, but neither were they packed. Every once in a while, there was one place that was full, but that was usually when a musician was playing something. Occasionally, I would stop and listen to several bars of a tune from the outside, but I never went in.

Many people referred to them as skalds, and whenever they were there, people were close. As much as there was music, even more, there were stories—stories with the accompaniment of rhythmic chanting and clapping from the audience. Stories that seemed almost familiar, but I didn't stick around long enough to hear one. I'm sure I would soon, but I had a destination in mind and only got distracted once by a dusty old bookshop.

I hadn't seen anyone go in or out of the shop, so I poked my head in out of curiosity. I quickly realized why it wasn't popular. It wasn't skill books or spell books or anything like that, but simply books—books of fiction, books of nonfiction, books of science. Everything. And not one of them looked like they had been touched in fifty years, based on the amount of dust. The automaton didn't even react as I tapped it on the forehead before I left the shop. That would be good to remember, but I didn't have any use for that right now.

Not too much later, I found myself poking my head into a different newbie house, one that I magically couldn't enter but could see inside. I saw Jonas sitting by himself, eating breakfast. I waved to get his attention, and he looked up.

"Hey, Miles," he said in a sleepy voice before picking up his mug of drink and shuffling over to the door so we could talk.