“Might as well make yourselves comfortable. I don’t know what they are up to, but they say we’re staying the night.”

It was that proclamation from Ike that sent me to test the limits of my new body. I wasn’t a big drinker back on Earth, not really, yet I had a suspicion that here I could drink that world’s ten fittest livers under the table and still have plenty of sobriety to spare.

The waitress who took my order gave me a quick, furtive look when she approached but kept her eyes downcast as I told her to give me the best ale they had. Seemed like a good way to welcome myself to the world properly, and besides, everything was being paid for by the ‘party pool.’

Still, as I handed her a coin from my pouch, I couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. Ike had given me nearly a thousand gold for my weaponcraft, so money didn’t seem to be an issue, but how much was that really worth here? The waitress slipped the gold into her apron, and I realized I hadn’t even asked how much the ale cost.

Back home, I knew how much a good beer set you back, and it definitely wasn’t measured in gold coins. In Lords of Chaos, everything was paid in gold, but the prices went up quite unrealistically as you progressed. In a level 70 zone, a mug of ale with some fancy high level name attached to it could easily top 1000. But this world, despite its many similarities with the game, clearly didn’t have level zone, so I was left wondering about what it was all worth. How expensive was a pint of ale?

“Hey,” I called out as she turned to leave. “How much does that cost?”

She paused, glancing over her shoulder. “The finest ale in the house is two silver pieces, sir. Thanks for the tip.”

I blinked. Two silver pieces? Didn’t sound like a lot, I thought, the wheels of my mind spinning up. But again, I didn’t have a real feel for what the silver was worth either.

“Can you stick around a bit?” I asked. “I’ve got some more questions. Money questions.”

She cocked her head and grinned, walking back over to me. “Strange questions from a strange being. I kinda like that. Listen, give me another gold and I’ll answer whatever it is that’s on your mind.” I flipped her another coin, and she caught it, giving it a bite and me a wink. “Ask away!”

“So, I’m from another world, and I need to learn what money is worth around here.”

The woman chuckled. “You don’t say? Figured you might be, with the horns and the size and all. Not that the Empire doesn’t hold all types. Well, it ain’t that hard but I do wanna be moving before the lady of the pub gets wind that I’m sitting on my arse. Basic rules is this: First thing you need to know is that most folk don’t deal with gold. Not unless you’re rich or looking to buy something big—land, a fine horse, a sword that really sings in battle. For us regular folk, it’s all silver and copper.” She flipped the gold coin in her hand casually. “This, right here, is a small fortune to most people. One gold could get you a whole month’s worth of food for a family if you spent it wisely. Thank ya very much, by the by.”

My mouth dropped open. A month’s worth of food? Even in the 1st level areas of LoC, a single gold coin was practically worthless.

“So, let’s break it down,” she continued. “One gold is equal to ten silver. And one silver is worth about a hundred copper coins. Most of what you’ll be buying—your food, drinks, simple gear—will be priced in copper or silver. Like I said, a good ale is two silver. Now, a plain pint? That’ll set you back a couple copper, no more.”

I scratched my head, trying to piece together how much Ike had spent on me. “Say I’ve got about a thousand gold. What would that get me?”

The waitress almost dropped the coin. Her grin widened, and she leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “A thousand gold? You could live like a nobleman for at least a year with that, assuming you’re a mindor dandy and not an adventurer type. You could buy yourself some land, build an estate, hire some servants. Wouldn’t be the grandest of places, but it’d make for good living. Most people’ll never see that kind of money in their lifetime.”

I suddenly felt afraid. I glanced down at the pouch of coins hanging by my side, thinking of how expensively I, a stranger, had already been gifted. “What does the average person make in a year?”

“Well,” she said, standing up straight and brushing a loose strand of hair from her face, “take a simple farmer or laborer—they might make thirty to fifty silver in a year. Artisans, people with a skill like blacksmiths or carpenters, they make a bit more—maybe a hundred, two hundred silver a year if they’re good. Merchants do better if they’re lucky. But for someone with no title, earning a gold coin is a big deal.”

I shook my head, still struggling to wrap my mind around the scale of things. “So, for most people, even a single gold is a lot of money?”

“More than a lot,” she said with a nod. “Which, bit of advice, be careful flashing it around. Folks might get the wrong idea. Though, with your size, might be take a bit before they move to do something about it.”

I nodded. “So what about the really rich? The big-time nobles? How much are they dealing with?”

She smiled. “Oh, they’ve got plenty, don’t worry. They deal in gold mostly, but they’ve also got access to rare goods and trade deals that make them even richer. They don’t just have gold lying around, though—they invest in land, military power, and magic. Some of the richer ones might pull in thousands or even tens of thousands of gold a year, but it’s all tied up in estates and influence.”

I nodded, taking it all in, a knot of fear weaving itself through my gut. “Alright, that helps. Thanks for the lesson. I’ll be careful.”

“No problem,” she said with a grin, pocketing the gold. “And if you need more help figuring out this world of ours, just holler. I’m always happy to chat with a big spender.” With a playful wink, she turned and went back to her duties, leaving me with a lot to think about.

“Right, keep the change,” I said, whispering to where she’d been a moment ago. I had things to think about. Things I needed to learn more about it.

But first, I’d go get drunk. It was too much for now. And not something I could act on in the moment.

Thinking of that, I took a table specially designed for us giant beings, a thick thing built of granite that was stuffed into the corner of the common room farthest from the drinks. I supposed the distance gave them time to figure out a battle strategy if one of us biggies got drunk and belligerent.

Sitting there, in a chair both surprisingly fit and sturdy, I soon found myself next to Jon, the centaur. He gave his order, a simple request for the same brew as mine, before sighing.

“The sooner we’re out of here, the happier I’ll be.” He peered furtively about, his eyes tracing the beams of the ceiling over to the start of the stairs upwards and ending at the doors through which we’d come. “If we were meant to spend our time frolicking indoors, the gods wouldn’t have given us hooves.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I suppose they wouldn’t have.”

He took a long draw from his mug. “Doesn’t matter what they want, not while Gharag rules these plains.”

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I matched him, drawing from my own drink while regarding him thoroughly. He was usually a quiet one, at least in my experience thus far. Well-muscled and tall, formidable through and through, but someone who didn’t flap their lips about whenever there was a moment of silence.

Setting the mug down, I leaned in. “Why does everyone tolerate Schustak?” I whispered. “He’s a goblin. How can he be trusted?”

“I don’t know what things are like where you are from, but power is complicated here,” Jon growled. “Schustak has... connections. Not just in the Empire, but in places you haven’t seen yet. He has power from the land.” The big man paused, casting his eye across the crowded room to light upon the goblin. “He and his aren’t draining power from the immortal Gharag, nor the growing cult of Balos and to be honest, in these times, that is good enough for me.”

A shiver ran down my spine, and a startled moment later I realized it came not from my mind, but from Jeldorain inside me. That didn’t bode well.

“These names, these beings, what are they exactly?”

Jon smirked. “The tales of the immortals, that’s what they are. Once upon a time a goblin arose in the great swamps of the south. He was born to great portents, and he was a prime member of their race. Took control of his tribe, then united the tribes, then united the rest of the dark things that lived on the fringes of civilized society.”

I fidgeted, grabbing another mug and the waitress came by. It wasn’t time for a thorough history lesson, but I needed to understand this world I was in better if I was going to find my way out of it.

“Was there a great empire?” I asked.

He stared at me, draining half a new mug. “The lands were for the beings of light. Humans, elves, dwarves, halflings. Centaurs, some of us. The rest of them, we kept them to the worst spots. The hardest places to live. Out of our way.”

I stared, thinking back to the games of my home world. Always the goblins and orcs were stuck in swamps, ruins, garbage heaps and real dumps. Sounded like here they got tired of it all and broke free.

“So then what happened?”

“The plains kingdoms were the mightiest the world had ever known. And all five of them had spent themselves fighting a big war to figure out which king was the greatest. When Gharag and his armies came, they took down the Merkia first. That was the closest to where they’d formed up. And the other kingdoms didn’t raise a finger to help. Then Gharag rode through and conquered the others. Then he came for the elves in their forests and the dwarves in their mountains. Not much he didn’t come after, or so the history says.”

Jon smiled and downed the rest of his mug, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm.

“The Goblin Empire is what it all comes down to. Gharag made it; he made the caste system, set the goblins up on top, then sat down with his scholars and found out how to become a god. Now his descendents sit upon the Fire Throne, and he watches over them and the nation from a flaming dimension of horror somewhere in the heavens.”

Inside of me, I could feel the cold essence of Jeldorain shrink away from the mention of the place. I glanced over at Schustak once more. “And he doesn’t follow that god? He’s all about worshipping trees and standing up giant stones?”

As if he could feel my eyes upon him, Schustak turned my way, locking his eyes to mine. He saluted me with a mug of his own, then turned and walked elsewhere.

“He’s a druid, so I guess. For us the druids of the forest circle tend to life and grow us food that we eat alongside the catch from the day’s hunt. Now, back to the gods, Gharag is strong and worse, he was mortal. That makes him a whole lot more cunning than any of the gods before him. Excepting maybe Balos.”

The Soul Eater Jeldorain burbled from within.

“Balos was the last of the human kings. He was an evil man, a mage king whose power could sweep whole ranks of life in the march of battle. When the forces of Gharag came to face him, they prevailed. But not before losing half their number. And the legends say that when Balos was near out of magic, he left for his chambers. From there a powerful bright light shone. And Balos was gone.”

“Sounds like very powerful teleportation,” I said, images of bright lights scouring an overcast sky writhing through my thoughts.

The centaur nodded. “Something like that. Whatever ritual he performed, it brought him into the heavens and made him into one of the immortals. But unlike Gharag, he had but a handful of followers left in this world to worship him. He needed a different means to sustain himself. There wasn’t enough faith to preserve him. So he granted to his followers the ability to drain life. And that life, those bits of soul, they pipe up to him and fill his plate if you know what I mean.”

My mind lit up, thinking about the games online, how it was always so easy to revive and come back. Just buy the right talisman, go to the local temple, have a cleric of the right level, and poof, back in business. Half of them you’d just respawn when you died. So what Jon was saying was a huge deal. In this gamelike world with its gamelike rules, there existed the means to kill permanently.

“What happens to those who die here if they still have their souls? Can they be brought back?!” I burst, unthinking.

Jon stared, then laughed hard into the ceiling.

“Waitress, we need meat over here,” his voice boomed. “Roast venison if you have it, chicken or pork if you don’t.” A woman bowed and disappeared to the back. “Listen, I don’t know what it is like where you come from, but I’m going to advise you not to die here. There are some powerful magics that can bring you back if you are lost, but there are so many ways to die that make that impossible. And not just soul-eating. Plus the odds that a god will give a piece of their essence away to bring any of us back from the land of the dead just aren’t that good.”

A tantalizing aroma wafted through the air, drawing both our attention. It was a platter of venison covered over with a heated brown grease that I assumed to be the local gravy. It didn’t look like something I’d buy back in the US of A, but here in the middle of Quaint Town, Goblin Empire, it shimmered in its splendor. My stomach growled at its approach.

“I’ll watch my back,” I said, listening to the wisp of the platter slide into the center of our table. I gave one more glance towards the crowd, scanning for Schustak, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Jon chuckled, carving a piece of the venison and taking a bite. The scent filled the space between us, a deep, smoky aroma mixed with a hint of sweet herbs. “Always a wise choice, especially in this land. I don’t know about where you came from, but here people change teams fast. The secret police see to that.”

Secret police. Seemed like such a modern thing for this world. I took a slice for myself, savoring the flavors as I pondered the information. But the tenderness of the meat and the richness of the gravy didn’t allow me to ponder for very long. They blended in my mouth, forming an exquisite delight that I’d never before imagined. A strong sensation rolled through my body, down my arms and through my legs to reach the very tips of my toes.

Meat. Hungry. More.

I felt the infernal inside me lapping up the juices as they entered me, and for a moment it felt as if he were physically inside my stomach, taking in the sustenance as a real material being rather than a passenger inside my soul.

A long strand of saliva escaped a corner of my mouth, slopping onto my broad chest and Jon stopped eating, staring at me.

“You should learn some manners. Learn how people around here work, and learn how to do things in public. Because that is really gross,” the centaur stated. I nodded and focused, trying to numb myself to the taste and smell.

More saliva escaped from my mouth and I turned away from my companion. “I think I need to head outside,” I murmured around the growing torrent from my maw. Ducking and hiding my face as much as a ten-foot-tall infernal can, I shoved my way through the crowded inn and out into the chillness of the night.

And inside of me, Jeldorain laughed. Did you think that being an infernal was going to be all fun and games? There are so many dark impulses that I hold, Ryan. So many things that I can’t help but desire.

A movement caught my eye, and I gazed out over the cobblestones to see a woman standing and gawking. She was a kobold, like Ike, and her reptilian face was contorted in horror as she watched me gob a flood of saliva onto the street.

“Go!” I bellowed once, new impulses pushing me to chase her down and tear her asunder. The woman turned and fled, a gold embroidered blue cape flipping in the wind behind her as she made her way elsewhere.

What do you care? You killed many kobolds in your world, in this place called ‘Online’. I get sensations and memories from you, Ryan. Bits at a time. I know that you killed many. Why not do so now?

I growled. Though my mouth had stopped watering, the homicidal impulses inside of me were increasing. Desperate, I imagined different times. My family and I together at the playground, playing with a set of foam bricks and building a castle wall from which to fight against the evil unknown. Instead of the playground, I imagined we were inside of me, and that opposite the wall was the malevolent spirit of Jeldorain.

He shuddered inside of me, screaming, his voice muffled more and more as I built the wall. Until, suddenly, he and his impulses were gone, sealed away and leaving me clear headed and sane.

I had no doubt that my solution was temporary. But I grinned up at the stars, satisfied that I’d found a way to control myself. Turning back to the inn, I made my way through to Jon and prepared myself for a hard night in this unique and terrible world.