Mischief of Pantheons

He is dead. He knows that much, in this strange void. Even though all he can see is blackness, there is a deep and pervasive certainty in his mind, somehow, that he is… dead. It’s like the sky being blue, or grass being green. Not one to simply accept things as they were, he thinks back to the last thing he remembered before this void… Ah. So he did die. Assuming his memories were trustworthy, anyway.

The young man tries to move and finds that he’s hanging, weightlessly, in this lightless space. He can move his arms and legs but finds no surface for his limbs to gain purchase on. He struggles for a few moments before he suddenly freezes, feeling something change in the space around him. Then there is... a presence. A gateway, welcoming him onwards. He looks into the light shining through, and he can feel himself being drawn closer.

It is sunlight, and yet, it is different from the kiss of the sun he had known all his life. He could feel the breeze wafting through the portal, tingling with... with magic, with possibility. This was it, he realizes. Whatever lay beyond that portal would be another world entirely. Why they want his soul he doesn't know, but this would be his hereaft-

Something clamps onto his feet with an iron grip.

"I don't know who you think you are, but this soul is one of ours, you rotten scamp!"

He looks behind him, and sees a man in a midnight black robe grasping him by the foot, a scythe resting on his shoulder. Another figure appears, suddenly, sitting astride a winged horse, bearing a long spear, that they level at the reaper.

"Well, Thanatos, you were always one to reach beyond your means. This soul belongs to Valhalla, not Elysium, and CERTAINLY not whoever the FUCK is behind that portal."

A pair of men in white and black robes huff as they emerge into the void, glaring daggers at the Valkyrie and Thanatos.

"This soul is under the jurisdiction of the Celestial Bureaucracy, you damnable barbarians."

More psychopomps emerge from the mists, arguing ferociously with one another over his soul. Some he recognized from his errant studies on mythology, others he had no idea of at all. The argument flows back and forth, before a voice issues from the portal...

"I-I'm sorry, b-but we really need this summoned hero, so could you please... just give him up?"

A disorderly silence falls over the gathering as they glare at the portal in unison, unwilling to give up a soul to some johnny-come-lately.

“Pardon me, but don’t you have your own demigods?”

A skeletal man chuckles, shaking his skull while adjusting the top hat over his bleached skull. The cigar in between his teeth rattles along, producing a wisp of smoke that drifted off into the aether. A pair of dark sunglasses rest over a nonexistent nose, hollow eye sockets staring at the portal over the rim.

“Surely whatever world you came from has enough divine bastards running around. You yourself could have fucked some into existence, no? Plenty of little heroes running about then.”

“W-what??? T-that’s… Awawa...”

The voice beyond the portal warbles in embarrassment as the unearthly figure laughs at the voice’s reaction.

“It’s like dealing with a century-old pup of a god. So easy to tease.”

“W-what? How did you know?”

The laugh comes to a cacophonous stop as they stare at the portal in shock. Thanatos’s surprise at the sheer youth of the being on the other end of the portal causes him to let go of the soul, and the young man starts speeding towards the portal as the voice seizes the opportunity, reeling him in like a caught fish.

They come very close to succeeding.

It’s Anubis who reacts first, the dog-headed god reaching out with a hand as hieroglyphics flash into a wordless command. He grunts with the exertion, sweat beading his canine brow as he strains to even slow the speed with which the soul is moving.

The twin gods of the Celestial Bureaucracy do not move, instead gesturing with their hand fans to bring forth two hulking beings, their bodies emerging out of a shimmering mist. Oxhead and Horseface. The enforcers of the Yama King himself. They grab onto his legs before the twin deities find themselves being pulled along as well.

Thanatos and the Valkyrie gesture, power crackling from their hands to settle around the soul and pull it back, the remaining Psychopomps joining in the great match of tug-of-war. He finds his soul caught between their clashing energies, his very essence straining. Through the pain, he hears arguing amongst the psychopomps, something about ‘facing a Creator Deity’ and ‘above our paygrade’, but the words are indistinct and foggy, and quickly whited out through the agony. For the first time, the soul speaks into the void, letting loose an agonized scream as it feels itself stretch beyond the point of sanity.

Both sides freeze as they are suddenly reminded of what they’re fighting over. Even through the haze of pain, the soul can feel the sudden shift. A roiling stormfront, the caw of ravens, and more titanic presences emerge into that dark void, each one a mountain at the edge of his awareness. The soul doesn’t bother to take any detailed note of them, for he slips peacefully into unconsciousness.

Time passes.

Solomon Dawn awakens to the sound of a horn, blaring a clarion call into the depths of his mind. He looks about with a groggy expression, as he wakes up, shuffling off the soft downy sheets over his body. Where… was he? He casts his gaze about him, finding himself to be in some sort of simple hotel room. Soft light streams between the blinds, as he opens them to see outside-

Then there’s a sudden crash, and Solomon barely manages to duck the axe flying over his head, embedding itself into the door on the other side of the room. The young man peeks up over the edge of the windowsill fearfully, where he spies chaos in a wide courtyard. An armored knight battles against a renaissance fencer, sparks flying as their blades clash. A hoplite battles a warrior-monk, shield and spear against a three-section staff. He spots the source of the errant throwing axe, a one-eyed red-haired giant of a man, clad in furs who seemed to be slinging axes at a woman bearing a long naginata. The giant of a man spots him, even as he tries to hide, and laughs out loud.

“Oi! Lookit who woke up! It’s that little kid the Allfather told us about!”

The fighting comes to a chaotic stop as the various fighters in the courtyard turn to face the window. After they spot the young man, hiding as he is, they cheer and salute, a raucous cry coming from a hundred throats.

“WELCOME TO VALHALLA!”

 

The boisterous giant of a man introduces himself as Harald, as he escorts Solomon through the grounds. Everywhere they went there was the crush of combat, weapons flashing through the air as the Einherjar threw themselves at each other. Solomon found himself dodging an errant blow more than once, stumbling out of the reach of a spear-thrust or sword-swing. The warrior guides him through the press of combat into a nearby hall, the area stocked full of ancient weapons of every description.

“Y’started out with all the newcomers in what we call the Proving Grounds. T’get to where you need to be though, we’re gonna have to get through the Yards. The stuff out here’s mostly just skirmishes but o’er there things get a bit more intense. Gettin’ through that festival’s a newcomer’s rite of passage for their first day.”

Harald picks through the weapons, a pensive look on his rough, scarred face. Solomon figured that he was probably trying to figure out what to give him, Valhalla wasn’t exactly the best place to go about unarmed, after all. The young man turns his gaze to the armory. He was a pretty good amateur fencer, he thinks, as he looks at a rapier resting on a rack. But with what he’d seen, he’d probably have to deal with more than one enemy, and he’d only trained to fight one. It seemed like it’d be more a hindrance than a boon.

He was stumped there. Luckily, Harald makes the decision for him, picking out a strange shield and strangely short spear. The shield looked like something he’d seen in movies about the ancient Greeks, while the spear…

“A bronze dipylon shield and an iklwa,” Harald explains after seeing the confused expression on Solomon’s face, “since we’re traveling through the Yards with a new face, a lot of people will think you’re just an ordinary newcomer and take a shot at ya. It’s just tradition, giving the new boys a bit of a hard time.”

He shows Solomon how to wield them together, the very basics of using the two weapons in a defensive style. Just enough for him to be comfortable holding the things. The shield was a rather heavy thing, but it felt sturdy. It was comforting in a way, to have it to hide behind.

“But you’re not an ordinary newcomer, so we don’t have time for the usual hazing. I’ll clear the way, you just use those weapons to keep yourself hale and hearty. Poke at someone if they get too close and block whatever’s comin’ at ya.”

Harald straps two swords to his back, even though he already bears twin axes himself. Solomon raises an eyebrow at that action but brushes this relatively small oddity off.

“Ordinarily, y’wouldn’t have to worry ‘bout that, this being Valhalla. You’d just be able to get back up without a fuss. This place heals all wounds. Normally. But you’re… You still feel sore, don’t you?”

Solomon nods slowly. He hadn’t thought about it at first, but… there was a persistent ache in his body, like he’d run a marathon. He’d been too overwhelmed by the chaos of Valhalla to notice, but now he could feel it keenly.

“Valhalla doesn’t work well with injured souls. It’d take more time to heal and you’d be in some nasty pain the whole way. No way to go about your first day. Y’ready to go?”

He sits on a nearby crate of daggers, watching the young man with a keen eye. Harald wonders about them. Most newcomers took some time to acclimate to their ordeal. When Odin had explained the young man’s circumstances to the people in the courtyard, he’d assigned the task of escorting the kid to Harald. Odin taking a personal interest was one thing. Odin showing up in person, to deliver a task? It was mystifying. Though that was to be expected, Harald admitted. He’d never been able to understand what that old man was scheming…

Solomon holds a spear and shield in his hands, as he stands there in the armory. He lifts them up, feeling their weight for one last time. When he walked out there… He’d walk into a warzone. He’d read Valhalla’s legends. It was a land of heroes, where the honored dead fought forever. A perpetual bloody battlefield. And once Solomon walked out onto that field, he’d join them, wouldn’t he? He might be the one to fall.

But Solomon had never asked about where Harald was leading him. He could remember all of it, that time in the void after his death when his very soul was being fought over. He remembered that voice from the portal. Someone, somewhere, with power so great even those gathered gods had to call for aid, had called for a hero. And there were those gods waiting for him beyond the Yards, weren’t there, who had all fought over his soul.

They’d all wanted him, and standing here, Solomon finds that he wanted nothing else but to know why.

The young man meets Harald’s gaze and nods firmly. Harald nods, his ever-present smile turning into a full grin. He twirls his axes before kicking open the door with a whoop.

“Come on then, lad! Let’s get moving!”

Harald practically saunters into the chaos, entering the whirling spear-din as if he’d lived it all his life. Solomon hesitates for a heartbeat, before he follows the Einherjar. He steps into legend.

 

The Yards were big. Really fucking big. The moment Solomon sees them, the breath catches in his throat as he freezes. It was less of a ‘training ground’ and more of a landscape. He could see craggy cliffs, burning deserts, brackish marshes, and dense jungles just from the entryway. He gulps, sweating as he realizes the magnitude of the task before him.

“Harald, uh, how are we supposed to get across all that?”

The older man leads him down a trail, leading through a meadow. Up ahead, Solomon can see two warbands at each other’s throats, weapons clashing. Off to the sides, he could see people re-attaching severed limbs and even their own heads, laughing it off before they re-entered the fray. They’d have to go through that, Solomon realizes, and in response his grip tightens around his weapons.

“After Odin decided to open up Valhalla to a warrior o’ any culture that died in battle and choose this afterlife, our numbers got a bit crazy, and the new Einherjar weren’t just happy with the old fields either.”

The moment the Warband spots them, a general alarm ring out, a horn resounding in the vale. Solomon hears them calling out the appearance of “Fresh Blood”, and his blood chills. Some of the skirmishers turn to face the duo, launching a volley of projectiles, the whistle of their flight promising death. On instinct, Solomon lifts his shield, almost hiding behind it, before the steady thud-thud of arrows resounds on his defense. In the corner of his eye, he sees Harald batting the arrows aside with twirls of his axes, continuing to speak casually.

“So Odin expanded the old fields to the Yards, and set up Waystones. They’ll let us warp between connected ‘Stones, but it’ll take a few jumps before we get to the main halls. Odin didn’t want to make it too easy.”

Solomon grunts as a sling bullet slams into his shield, causing him to stumble from the sheer force of it. He takes a look at the shield and realizes the hit left a visible dent in the metal, and shudders. If that had hit his face, it wouldn’t be pretty. He looks to Harald for reassurance, and gawks as Harald casually cuts the head off of an archer with a single lazy throw of an axe. Harald traces a glowing rune into the air and the axe flies back to him, his hand catching the handle in a smooth, casual motion.

“I didn’t lose this eye in life, y’know. Gave it up like Odin did for Runes, though it was a good deal less dramatic than what he went through.”

The older man grins at him as he tilts his head, a barbed javelin sailing through where his face had been a moment before. He smiles and nods in a fatherly manner, clapping the young man on the back.

“Doing good for yer first time! We’re almost upon them, so just follow behind me and let ol’ Harald sort this out!” He says, turning his eye to the foes before him with a distinct sense of relish.

There’s a thicket of spears in front of them, a shield-wall of a dozen different warriors from a dozen different eras. Solomon recognizes the patterns of their armor, and he can’t help but think of how long these people must have been fighting here in Valhalla. There, a man whose skin is patterned in woad, bare-chested, with a feral snarl on his face. There, a woman in the armor of a Rajput, stone-faced as she levels her spear over her shield. Warriors from across history, forming a single unbreakable line.

Then Harald meets their line, and Solomon watches in awe as the spears shatter against his chest, and the enemy scatters before his fury like loose straw before the wind. His axes sweep out, severing limbs and heads from bodies, as the older man laughs and laughs and laughs.

“Come on, you veslingr! You’re outnumbered two to a hundred!”

The woman tosses aside her broken spear, the only remaining warrior standing of the shieldwall, and draws forth a mace. Recognition dawns in her eyes, and a name issues from her lips.

“Wartooth.”

She rushes at Harald, her furious swing cutting only empty air as Harald side-steps her blow. A kick sends the woman into Solomon, her body smashing into his shield with a crack. The young man pushes her back, and the warrior turns to face him, twirling her mace as she backs up, sizing her new opponent up with a hunter’s gaze. For a moment, he is at a loss for what to do. He’d never been a warrior, after all.

Then she charges him, and instincts take over.

The moments pass like molasses as Solomon takes her attack in, his body formulating an answer. A swing coming in from the left, her shield held low to protect her hand. His own shield comes up, stopping the mace in its tracks with a dong, and his iklwa thrusts out, impulsively. Solomon watches with shock as it just punches right through her throat, surprised that he… actually did that. He’d just killed someone.

The woman grunts, dropping her mace to clutch at her throat, nodding at him with begrudging approval, and only then does he remember. This was Valhalla. He pulls his spear free, flicking the blood off of it, before he nods back at her respectfully. She rolls her eyes, staggering off towards the treeline, and Solomon turns back to Harald only to stare in disbelief.

Breaking a battle-line of a dozen men? Incredible. Shattering spears against his chest? Ridiculous.

Battling thirty men all at once, laughing as you do so, while completely surrounded?

It left him without words.

Solomon could only watch in stunned silence as Harald battles them like a force of nature, a living storm of death and war. With each movement, he shows Solomon an impossible new way of defeating an opponent, from splattering a head into the ground with an axe kick, bisecting a man in a Landschneckt uniform cleanly with a single axe-swing, to catching a hammer’s wooden handle between his teeth to bite it in two. Harald spits out the splinters, before turning back to Solomon, smiling proudly.

“First victory, eh? You never forget it. Oh, watch out for-”

He turns, and his eyes catch something coming at him in a blur of motion. Solomon throws himself out of the way, but even so he feels the projectile graze the side of his body. His face slams into the ground and he tastes the dirt. What the fuck? What the fuck was that? A quick review of his memories tells Solomon that it was a sling-stone. It was that sniper who’d put the dent in his shield.

He attempts to rise, but the sharp pang of pain from the bruise on the side of his body tells him all he needs to know about how dangerous the slinger is, if a mere touch from their attacks could do this much. He rolls onto his back, bringing up his shield just in time to block another stone, the impact jarring their body.

His arm braces against the ground, his feet scrambling for stable footing under the bombardment. Solomon delivers a panicked glance towards the proud figure of Harald, currently breaking a man’s spine in half with a people’s elbow- Wait, what? No, nevermind that, he had bigger things to deal with.

“Harald! The slinger!”

“On it, lad! Watch my back!”

He watches as Harald flings his axes off into the distance, the sound of metal clashing with stone ringing off in the distance. Wait, metal on stone? No. No fucking way. Solomon gets to his feet in time to gawk as Harald and the unnamed slinger engage in a duel, sling-stones skipping off the ground only to be batted away by the flat of an axe-blade, the viking’s own steel retorts slamming into the stones shot to deflect them away.

There’s the fwip of weapons flourishing as new challengers emerge, and Solomon tears his attention away from the deadly duel as he scrambles into position to cover Harald’s back, facing off against a trio of warriors, all of them clad in hauberks, wielding long spears. They look at each other, exchanging glances, before one of them steps forward, nodding at the others.

“I’ll take the new brother first.”

They enter a stance, leveling the spear at Solomon’s face. Solomon replies by bringing up his shield, careful not to block his own vision of the enemy. He could hear the battle raging behind him, as Harald battled. All he had to do was stand his ground.

Then his enemy advances and Solomon curses his own foolish thoughts for jinxing himself. It’s like fighting a hurricane, he thinks, spear-thrusts weaving their way around the shield as he frantically maneuvers to block or dodge attacks. The iklwa in his grasps finds its own use as a tool to help block incoming strikes, the enemy using the blade of the spear to slash at Solomon’s exposed legs and face as often as he attempts to thrust into his chest.

To his credit, Solomon puts up quite the fight. Driven by a desperate fury, the shield flashes from position to position, the steady beat of the spear resounding as it strikes the metal shield echoing through the vale. But that is all it is, a defense that is slowly faltering. The ache in Solomon’s side is getting worse, the bruise smarting more and more as he exerts himself in holding off the spearman’s assault.

Then he realizes it. The way his opponent’s spear hesitates every time he pulls it back, giving him just enough of a chance to prepare for the next blow. The contemptuous ease with which his opponent is backing him into a corner.

He’s being toyed with.

Something feral and primal wells up in Solomon. An atavistic fury at the thought, welling up deep inside him. It doesn’t make sense, a distant part of him thinks. He shouldn’t be vain enough to think he could fight on an even level with someone who must have been fighting all their life.

But something in him disagrees. It speaks in an old tongue, a tongue of clashing swords and monsters slain, of ancient sagas written when the world was young. It tells him that he is an heir to divine glories and eternal splendor. How can he describe its words? It is asking him whether he is King or Peasant, and pressing upon him the choice. It is roiling hot in his blood, burning in his will, and he feels like if he ever lets it out fully it’ll burn away the world.

His heart is singing to him, in a melody older than the written word. Yes, that’s it. But what is it saying?

Solomon lets that strange feeling into his mind, his body surging forward to catch the spearman off guard. It comes naturally to him now, the rhythm, as he finally lets himself feel the song that can’t be heard. It’s a question, and Solomon closes his eyes to let himself understand it. The spearman finds the situation reversed, as Solomon finally goes on the attack. This bastard, this piece of shit wants to toy with him? The song tells him to play, and so he does.

A stab there. A feint here. It’s halting at first, as he starts to become accustomed to the motions. Block your enemy’s panicked stab, use the chance to bash your shield into his face. It’s like the steps to a dance he’d learned so long ago, and he was only remembering them now. His opponent furrows their brow in confusion. This newcomer, this boy, really, just a few seconds ago, had been at his mercy. And now, suddenly he feels like he never had a chance of defeating the kid at all. And, he realizes, sweat beginning to bead his brow, the boy was doing this… with his eyes closed.

Solomon finally gets it. The song’s a question, and suddenly he knows the answer. His movements grow smoother until it’s like he’s been fighting all his life. He finally opens his eyes as he understands the truth that feeling has been trying to tell him all along.

Under Heaven and Earth, he alone is the honored one.

His body expresses that answer with a single decisive motion. Then there is an awed silence in the vale, interrupted only by the sound of a body hitting the ground.

 

The rush of heat in his heart ends, and all that is left is a sense of dull fatigue. He pulls, and finds the spear stuck in his opponent’s body. He fumbles awkwardly. His opponent reaches up to help him, pushing on the shaft with their hands, but it’s not easy. Solomon has to brace himself, pushing with his foot on their stomach before it finally comes free. Even then, he ends up falling to the ground in an undignified heap.

“Are you good?”

Solomon asks awkwardly, as his erstwhile opponent stumbles off. They give him a thumbs-up, and he sighs, before he looks at the two remaining opponents, trying to look as confident as possible.

“Do you guys want to have a go or…”

They look at their friend walking away with a hole in their stomach, and in a display of wisdom, decline. The young man sighs with relief as he gets up. He’s just in time to watch Harald finally defeat the slinger, his axe thunk-ing home into his enemy’s head, off in the distance.

“Harald, what was that?”

He’d just defeated a warrior who must have been training for… centuries, now, in Valhalla, and he’d never even held a spear before. His body was screaming things at him which, on reflection, sounded a bit like the crazed ramblings of a madman who’d snorted PCP and inhaled the ash of a heroic epic for the high.

The older man laughs as he claps Solomon on the back, taking him along the trail, the remaining warriors giving them a wide berth.

“The Greeks called it Arete, the Polynesians called it Mana. Us Norsemen just referred to it as Heroism. It’s that peculiar quality that turns a man into a legend.”

“That’s very unhelpful,” Solomon scowls.

“To use more modern terms, you’re… what do they call it these days… ‘built different’, you see.”

He chokes.

“A ‘chad’, if you will.”

He’s wheezing. Harald doesn’t seem to notice the young man’s predicament, because he continues on explaining in his own long-winded way.

“It’s tough to explain beyond that. I’m no storyteller. I was a warrior-king, when I had to get fancy with words it was all about delivering pithy insults. It’s this force that runs in things that get told about in myth and legend. Monsters, gods, heroes, magic artifacts, they all have it. You remember me breaking weapons on my skin, yes?”

Solomon nods his head, raising an eyebrow as he starts to see where this is going.

“That was my Heroism being expressed. No iron can wound me! It wasn’t just me being ‘swole’, haha.”

He resists the urge to beg the man never to use modern slang again.

“Odin himself had to hit me over the head with a club when it came to my turn to die in battle, y’know! You… Hm, I don’t take you for a life-long warrior who gained a name as a great hero.”

“No,” Solomon admitted quietly, “I was a student.”

“You look the type. All weedy. You should eat more, get some meat on those bones.”

Harald prattles on a bit, and Solomon increasingly feels like he’s talking with his grandmother. Time to change the subject.

“So, Heroism?”

“Ah, right, where was I… Heroism can express itself like that, yeah, big ol’ bursts of martial skill and power. For your first time using it you did damn well. As for where y’got it from… if I had to guess, you’d be a demigod… They tend to inherit a bunch.”

Solomon flashes back, thinking of his family. Of his parents. Fond childhood memories flash in front of his eyes, and then he shakes his head firmly. No way.

“No? Eh. No doubt the Gods know the exact reason why. It’d explain why they’d be fightin’ over ye.”

The thought of being a toy in their grasp rankles him and he can feel the song start up again. Then he clamps down on it, taking a series of deep breaths.

“A young man like you doesn’t come along very often these days! Last time I remember someone like you popping up, Ukko and Thor had a great big spat... Ah, now we’re here… Hm.”

The trail they had traveled along had led through a lightly wooded forest, and here it stopped in front of a large rectangular monolith. It looked as though it had been embedded into the ground with a single mighty blow, large cracks stretching through the ground around the base. The runes upon the stone glowed a bright blue, and Harald seems to inspect it quietly. The hairs on the back of Solomon’s neck stand to attention.

Something was wrong.

“Valhalla’s big but not that big. There should be people comin’ out of here… Ah, to hell with it, it looks to be working anyhow.”

He’s about to protest. The words are just about to escape his mouth in a concerned outburst, when the old hero grabs Solomon’s shoulder and slaps a palm against the Waystone. Then, all becomes a blinding white.

Somehow, Solomon knows to duck the moment he arrives, as the something smashes into the wall above his head. It doesn’t save him, the body of a fully armored knight bouncing off the wall and falling onto his shoulders, knocking Solomon to the floor. He scrambles to his feet a bit afterwards, his back smarting, and sees… more bodies, draped over the benches and tables of the large feast-hall they find themselves in. All unconscious.

There, on the other side of the room, are two men, lounging on chairs across from each other as they drink. No. Not… just men. The moment Solomon sees the regalia on one of the figures, their furry face, and the signature staff he keeps by his side, he freezes. He can’t even think of fighting.

Because that was the Monkey King, Sun Wukong.

Harald doesn’t seem to recognize him. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. Either way, he happily waves at the pair, as if he was meeting an old friend. The Monkey King looks over, and smirks.

“Hey, did you hear about how Thor died of Ligma?”

The old hero looks confused, stroking his beard as he begins to say the ensuing dreadful words. Time slows to a crawl, and Solomon finally moves.

“What’s-”

He finds a hand clamping over his mouth, as Solomon answers for him. He refused to let Harald fall into a trap this obvious. There’s a moment of silence, and Solomon decides to run with it. If they wanted to get through here, they’d have to play the Monkey King’s game.

“I thought it was Joe?”

Wukong raises an eyebrow as he takes another swig.

“Joe?”

“Joe mama.”

The Monkey King chuckles, slamming his mug of mead onto the table.

“Ah, a modern kid, huh? You’d be surprised how many people here just don’t get it. It’s a good place for drinks but man,” He gestures around the heaps of unconscious Einharjar, “it’s not a great place to find people who get your jokes.”

The other man speaks up, and Solomon finally drags his attention away from the terrifying being in front of him to notice them. He’s rather short, really, his wiry frame muscled and tattooed in patterns that he… thinks is Polynesian. He was no expert.

“I mean what did you expect, Sunny? They do nothing but fight up here. Why did you even bother challenging them to ‘Get the Joke or get Bonked’ anyhow?”

Sunny snorts.

“What, not like those guys had much of a chance in the next fight anyway, with that big lunk keeping the bridge.”

“With who keeping the bridge?”

The shorter man brings out a length of string, something small and ivory attached to the end. He idly throws one end up, and the… fishhook? Yes, a fishhook. It digs into a section of the feast hall’s walls, and then the man pulls. It’s not a particularly strenuous motion, Solomon can see him barely exerting himself from where he lounges in the hall.

But still, the walls shake. The wood starts to splinter. Solomon’s breath is caught in his throat as he can only stare. The entire wall is torn away, forming an impromptu window. Beyond the gap is a great stone bridge, leading off towards a Waystone on an island far in the distance. And in front of the bridge is an obstacle that makes Solomon suspect his quest with Harald is doomed.

It is a giant, standing taller than a house. He is clad in nothing but a pair of trousers, with muscles that look like they can replicate Harald’s own durability by sheer hardness alone. From his shoulders emerge eight arms, each pair being assigned to a different massive greatsword. His face is craggy and scarred, his hair done up in dreadlocks. The monster of a man has the absolute audacity to spot Harald and Solomon beyond the gap in the wall, and make a gesture with one of his many hands.

Even across centuries, some gestures remained universal.

Come at me, the giant dares, and Solomon’s earlier defiance and fury suddenly seems very distant.