Old Garen was hunched over the counter laughing so hard I thought he might actually collapse across it. His elbows were planted on the wood, shoulders shaking violently, head dipped low as he tried and completely failed to contain himself. He still had a mouthful of bagel he had not fully swallowed when the laughter started, and every time he opened his mouth to breathe, I could see half-chewed crumbs threatening to spill out onto the counter between us.

  We were tucked behind the counter in his shop working through the bagels like two conspirators hiding from responsibility. He leaned against the worn wood he had probably built himself decades ago, and I was perched on a heavy crate that smelled faintly of oil and iron filings. I had just finished giving him a high-level summary of the last few days, skipping nothing important but sparing him the minute-by-minute panic commentary.

  I told him about finding a quiet stretch of woods to practice without witnesses. I explained how I had booby-trapped the area with [Magic Mouth], setting up warnings so anything creeping too close would get magically shouted at before it got to me. I described how a [Rogue] still tested that perimeter anyway and how that encounter ended in a way that proved I was no longer the softest target in the forest.

  I walked him through making my way into town and actually performing as a proper [Bard] at the tavern using the guitar he had sold me. I told him about the crowd, the packed room, and how strange it felt to be that visible in one night. Then I got to the inn, the overpriced room, the slow window slide in the dark, and the Level 26 [Assassin] who thought he was about to collect easy experience.

  He nodded through most of it like it was mildly interesting at best. The woods did not faze him. The [Rogue] did not faze him. Even the break-in barely earned more than a grunt.

  Then I mentioned the bedpan.

  I told him how had grabbed the bedpan, and hurled it straight at the guy’s face. I described the deep metallic crack when it connected and the way the so-called professional killer stumbled backward because he just got taken out by portable toilet.

  That was when Old Garen lost it completely.

  His laughter came in loud waves, bouncing off the metal tools hanging along the walls. “You threw a bedpan at him?” he wheezed, trying to breathe through another fit. “You ambushed an [Assassin] with a bedpan?”

  I shrugged, trying to look dignified and failing. “It was within reach.”

  He wiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist, still grinning. “Just the image of you sitting in a closet waiting, then boom, launching a bedpan before going for the neck.” He shook his head slowly. “No one expects that.”

  I folded my arms and tried not to smile despite myself. “Yeah,” I muttered, “that seems to be becoming a theme.”

  He chuckled to himself and took another bite from the bagel in his hand, chewing slowly like he had all the time in the world. “Still,” he said after swallowing, “I’m impressed. I half expected you to be dead by now.”

  I glared at him and let out a deep breath that was halfway between annoyance and disbelief. “Thanks,” I said flatly.

  “Hey, sorry,” he replied with a grumpy old man tone that softened the edge just enough. “That’s just how this world works, whether I like it or not.”

  He shifted his weight against the counter and tore off another piece of bagel. “Unfortunately, no one really knows the exact numbers, and this place is vicious. It’s generally believed that around 90% of people who get transported here die within the first three months.”

  “Damn,” I said, my eyes widening despite myself. “That’s insane.”

  He shrugged like we were discussing weather patterns instead of mass death. “It isn’t when you think about it. A lot of people get classes that barely give them anything useful at first. Most skills only become practical after you level them or actually figure out what the hell you’re doing with them.”

  He pointed vaguely with his bagel. “The wilderness takes a lot of them in the first few days. Especially the ones who spawn somewhere isolated and panic. Classes like [Warrior] and [Mage] are typically the most immediately useful, so you see those types survive more often. The rest are hit or miss.”

  He took another bite and continued talking around it. “It’s not uncommon to be traveling and come across the body of someone who was just transported here. Sometimes they get taken out by something as stupid as a squirrel.”

  I instinctively reached up and touched my chest without thinking, making sure my nipple which had grown back was still.

  He went on like this was routine bookkeeping. “The numbers floating around say about a million people get transported here every year.”

  “Damn,” I said again. “That’s a lot.”

  “Take it for what you will,” he added. “That information supposedly comes from the gods, and they aren’t exactly the most reliable sources.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, raising an eyebrow before loading up another bite of my own bagel.

  This one had something like almonds baked onto the top. I did not hate it, but I definitely missed an everything bagel with proper seasoning. This thing also had an aggressive amount of butter and absolutely no cream cheese.

  I wondered briefly if anyone here had invented schmear yet.

  “Well,” he continued, wiping his fingers on a rag, “the gods are kind of all over the place. I’m sure you saw all the [Cleric]s coming into town.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “Well, the gods will talk with them. They talk through them,” he said, waving his bagel vaguely toward the street where the [Cleric]s had marched earlier. “Mostly, though, they show up themselves whenever they feel like it. No schedule. No warning. They are basically like people with too much power and not enough supervision. You have your good ones, your bad ones, and a whole lot in the middle pretending they are either depending on the day.”

  “Okay,” I said, giving a small shrug like that cleared things up.

  “That shrug tells me no one has explained this properly,” he muttered. “The problem is they say something, the [Cleric]s repeat it, and by the time it reaches normal people it sounds like prophecy carved in stone. Half the time it was probably sarcasm.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Has anyone actually told you about the gods in a way that made sense?”

  I raised my hand and wobbled it in a so-so motion.

  He let out a tired grunt. “Ephraim went into detail, right? Told you there are a hundred gods with a hundred classes each and all that neat little package of nonsense.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, we do not know all hundred gods,” he said sharply. “I have heard names for over two hundred in my lifetime, and that is just the ones people argue about in taverns. Gods change their names whenever they get bored. People change them for them when they do not like the branding. Some gods trade aspects. Some disappear for decades. Some pop back up claiming they were here the whole time.”

  He tore another piece of bagel off like it had personally offended him. “Some of them keep to themselves. Some run around fixing things. Some run around breaking things because they think it builds character. Most sit somewhere in between and call the chaos balance.”

  “I thought there were a hundred,” I said carefully.

  He snorted. “There probably is with their ten’s nonsense. There might be three hundred. There might be ten pretending to be a hundred because they enjoy the confusion.”

  He jabbed a finger at me for emphasis. “What matters is you do not need to know all of them. You need to know the Big Ten.”

  “I thought you said there were a hundred,” I repeated.

  “Of course there are a hundred,” he snapped in full grumpy old man form. “But you only need to know ten, and if you argue with me about it again I am charging you for another bagel.”

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  “…but I brought the bagels,” I trailed off, holding one up slightly like it was legal evidence in my defense.

  Old Garen stopped mid-chew and gave me a long, unimpressed look over the top of the counter. He swallowed slowly, wiped his fingers on the rag at his belt, and leaned forward just enough to loom without actually moving far.

  “And you are still alive to complain about it,” he said dryly. “That sounds like a fair trade to me.”

  I opened my mouth to argue further, then closed it again.

  Old Garen wiped his hands on the rag at his belt and gave me a look that said this was the last time he was explaining anything twice.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “You want the Big Ten, you get the quick version. No fluff, no arguing, and no stupid questions until I finish.”

  He held up one finger.

  “High Beacon White, the God of Light and Healing. [Cleric]s love him because he glows like a theatrical idiot and makes people feel hopeful whether they deserve it or not. Supposedly refuses to appear anywhere indoors. Too good for roofs, apparently.”

  Another finger went up.

  “Jora, the God of Sex. Not love. Do not mix those up unless you want a miserable life. Her devotees swear orgasms are twice as strong.”

  A third finger.

  “Sunset, the God of Love. The slow kind that sticks around and ruins you properly. He helps people find happiness, or at least helps them convince themselves they are, which is sometimes the same thing.”

  Fourth finger.

  “That Face, the God of Identity. Helps people understand their classes and settle into it. Followers say things start making more sense once they stop fighting what they are.”

  Fifth.

  “Malovar the Gatebound, the God of Thresholds. Doors, borders, lines in the sand. He dictates where the things that want to kill you are.”

  Sixth.

  “Byto, the God of Party. That one should be self-explanatory. Shrines to him are usually sticky.”

  Seventh.

  “Grom Hollowhand, the God of Loot. His people tend to find what they need more often than they should. Not always what they want, mind you. Just what they need.”

  Eighth.

  “The Auditor, the God of Numbers. Never appears. Never speaks. Their followers just… progress cleaner. Less waste. Less loss. Like someone is paying attention.”

  Ninth.

  “Knell, the God of Death. Her followers just fear it less, which honestly helps more than you would think.”

  Tenth.

  “Redmarket, the God of Violence. Nobody admits to worshiping him, but everyone who does advances faster than they ought to.”

  He dropped his hand and grunted.

  “There. That is all you need to know unless you plan on marrying one, and I strongly recommend against that.”

  The bell above the shop door jingled sharply.

  Old Garen’s head turned immediately.

  A man stepped inside wrapped in layered robes that seemed to breathe with their own weather. Thin clouds drifted around his shoulders and followed behind him in lazy spirals. Above his head floated the display.

  Mage {Level 68}

  Old Garen straightened slightly and shifted into business mode without another word.

  “And that,” he muttered under his breath as he moved away from me, “is someone who pretends he understands all of them.”

  The old [Enchanter] shot me a brief look that said stay quiet and do not embarrass either of us, then stepped forward to greet the storm in robes.

  He had just dumped a hell of a lot on me, and I sat there trying to process all of it without looking like my brain was buffering. The god thing alone felt bigger than he had let on, especially the way he talked about worship like it was less church and more contract signing. Could you just… pick one? Did they notice? Did they keep score? I had a dozen questions, not even taking their names into account.

  I stayed on the crate, chewing slowly, watching Old Garen shift from business mode to argument mode as he squared up with the Mage {Level 68}. They were talking about trees. At least, I thought they were talking about trees. Something about an enchantment that made the wood savory.

  That could not be right.

  I leaned slightly to the side and tried to listen without looking like I was listening. I distinctly heard the words “grain,” “seasoning,” and “structural integrity,” all used in the same sentence.

  You know what.

  Not my circus.

  The [Mage] left in a dramatic huff a few minutes later, his trailing clouds swirling irritably as the shop door slammed behind him. Old Garen came back around the counter, picked up a bagel, and took an aggressive bite out of it.

  “Anyway,” he muffled through bread, “if you’ve got a questions, ask them.”

  “Oh,” I said, a little surprised to be handed permission so directly. “Can you worship gods? What’s the deal with that?”

  He chewed, swallowed, then nodded once. “Yeah. You can worship them. It’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous how?”

  “You get their attention,” he said bluntly. “And once you’ve got it, you don’t get to pretend you don’t.”

  He tore another piece off the bagel. “You really only get one. If you try to switch, you lose whatever benefit you had. Supposedly worse things happen too.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what worse meant.

  “And it does not show on your status,” he added quickly. “No badge. No icon. It just… is. People who know, know.”

  “Right,” I muttered.

  “Anyway, enough about them,” he said firmly. “People avoid talking about gods unless they are a [Cleric]. Bad things tend to follow that kind of conversation.”

  He glanced up briefly at the ceiling, then back at me.

  “You attract the wrong attention.”

  “Oh,” I said slowly.

  Oh crap.

  That might explain why everyone at the tavern got more weirded out then expected when I brought up gods last night to dodge flirting.

  He wiped his hands again and shifted gears. “What we actually need to talk about is what you are doing next. Where you are staying.”

  “Oh, yeah. That,” I said, waving the remainder of my bagel vaguely in acknowledgement.

  “Do you have somewhere?”

  “Not currently. Got any recommendations?”

  “My barn.”

  “Your… barn?” I repeated carefully.

  “Yes. You can sleep in the hayloft.”

  “Oh,” I said, hesitating. “Thank you, but…”

  He sighed, but it was the tired kind, not the irritated kind. “Look. I like you enough not to want to see you dead in a ditch. My property is one of the safest places around. Everything is enchanted. More than you can see. I know exactly who steps on that land. I also allow whether they keep breathing.”

  I paused and took an experimental breath. Still breathing.

  He snorted faintly. “You’re fine. Just come back tonight when you’re ready to crash.”

  “Oh. Am I… going?” I asked, wondering if I was being gently ejected.

  “Yes,” he said bluntly. “People are starting to come in, and I cannot have you sitting around looking like a confused stray. It hurts business.”

  “That feels harsh.”

  He pointed toward the door with the end of a rag. “You are going back to that tavern.”

  “I was thinking about it,” I admitted.

  “It is not the worst idea,” he grumbled. “Probably the best venue for you in a town this size. And Prudence is… interesting.”

  “She is,” I said carefully. “What do you mean by interesting?”

  “She has been here five years,” he said flatly. “The old tavern owner disappeared and supposedly left her the place. A few people challenged that.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged once. “She killed them.”

  I blinked.

  “Well,” I said slowly, “that is one way to settle an ownership dispute.”

  “Yeah,” Old Garen muttered, scratching at his jaw with the edge of his thumb. “She has had a suspicious number of lucky breaks. Good trades. Timely buys. Always seems to draw in the right customers and quietly remove the wrong ones. She runs that place better than most people twice her age.”

  “Hm,” I said. “It is funny you say that.”

  I paused, deciding how much stupidity I was willing to admit out loud.

  “I think she used some kind of influence ability on me.”

  “Oh?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  “I felt something,” I continued. “Like a push. It did not take, but it was there. I leaned into it and pretended I was flirting, but it felt like I was being nudged toward romance whether I wanted to be or not.”

  He chewed that over with visible irritation.

  “[Mage]s do not usually get abilities that influence or seduce people,” he said finally. “What they get is obvious. Fire. Barriers. Weather tantrums. You saw the clouds around that one earlier. You cannot hide that kind of magic. Or Assholes.”

  He jerked his chin toward the door where the [Mage] had exited.

  “If she is influencing, it is either an item or something else entirely.”

  “Should I not go back?” I asked.

  He gave me a long look that suggested he was reconsidering my survival odds.

  “It is still the best stage for you here,” he said. “Influence abilities work best when you are ignorant. Once you know they are happening, they lose bite. Awareness is half the defense.”

  He huffed quietly. “It is like being in love with someone bad for you. The pull might be there, but you can still decide not to jump.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I stood up from the crate and slung my guitar back over my shoulder. I grabbed one more bagel from the bag and gave him a nod.

  “Thank you, Garen. It has been a… productive morning. I will see you later when I test your barn.”

  “Try not to die before then,” he replied, already turning back to polish something metal that probably cost more than my entire outfit.

  I stepped back into the street, chewing and scanning faces automatically. I could feel myself shifting back into that hyper-aware mode where every glance might mean trouble and every shadow had intent.

  I had some coin, but not enough to relax. What I really needed were more experence and more knowledge. My long-term goal was still north. Bigger cities. The Empire. Maybe even the Necrotic Kingdom, assuming I did not get stabbed in my sleep or eaten by the small living dagger in my belt.

  Ultimately, I just needed a place that was not actively trying to kill me.

  Which meant, for now, I was heading back to the tavern to navigate whatever dangers Prudence and that [Bladesinger] represented.

  By the time I made my way back toward the tavern, the crowds had not quite decided whether it existed yet. The street outside was awake but not busy, carts rolling past lazily and the occasional pair of townsfolk moving with no particular urgency. I paused at the door for half a second, adjusting the strap of my guitar and reminding myself that walking willingly into potential influence magic was a choice I was making.

  The door creaked open under my hand.

  Inside, the tavern was sparsely populated. A couple of tables were occupied by men hunched over plates and tankards, speaking in low voices. One pair of travelers sat near the window with packs at their feet, watching the room the way I probably did now without realizing it. The air smelled faintly of bread, ale, and wood smoke, but not yet of chaos.

  Behind the bar, Prudence was polishing a beer mug with slow, deliberate movements.

  She looked up the second I stepped inside.

  Our eyes locked.

  Just a steady look that lingered half a second longer than casual required. Her mouth curved faintly at one corner, not a full smile, just acknowledgment.

  She tilted her head slightly toward the stage.

  Just the smallest motion.

  Message received.

  I gave the room a quick scan out of habit and made my way toward the stage, boots thudding softly against the wooden floorboards. The few patrons glanced up as I climbed the small set of steps and settled onto the stool. The guitar rested comfortably against me now, familiar in a way that felt earned.

  I adjusted the tuning pegs out of reflex more than necessity.

  Then I strummed.

  “I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road…”