EV B2 Chapter 36:

We went over Alana's spells, and for the most part, they did what was expected—three control spells, a minor damage spell, and a minor healing spell. It wasn't enough for her to be a dedicated healer, and she apparently wasn't very good at it. Still, she said it had helped her out a few times, and self-casting was possible.

I was pretty happy. If Astrid could stay with us, we'd have three people capable of self-healing and two who could heal others to some extent. It would be an interesting party composition. But with Astrid's bow and magical effects and Alana's straight ability to control people, well, if I could deal damage, everything should be pretty convincing.

One other thing I noticed was that her blessing was Loki's Boon, not my favor. It gave significantly different benefits—mostly just shop access and poise. I knew, though, that the blessing could change and improve as one did more for Loki.

We spent the rest of the morning in the room, just catching up and talking. Alana had endless amounts of questions, many of which I didn't know the answer to or had never bothered to think about myself. Questions about Valhalla, why everyone behaved so weirdly, and why they were still behaving weirdly but slightly less so. I explained that I knew about the brain fog, and that only spawned more questions to which I didn't have answers.

I had a slight fear that she might go down a path of exploring mind magic, but she said she had no intentions of taking her possible skills in that direction. I was rather grateful, as I didn't think that would go over well with anyone else.

All this time, I was grateful that Loki had not bothered to stop in and check on me through the token. We had talked a few times through it, but if he could see me, he could determine this was for me. Though we'd have to have a conversation with all three of us, probably tonight.

But today, I wanted to take Astrid through the new challenge and experience it for myself. Once Astrid was here, we'd make an honest attempt at getting that 20% threshold. But I still had a couple of errands to run, finishing up a few requests for the priests of Týr.

I was struggling to figure out how my plan would still work with Alana tagging along. I might have to find someone I could trust her with so that she would have someone to watch her back while I did some things by myself. She was still only level one, after all.

Eventually, dawn broke. And with it, so did Alana's resolve. Her stomach let out an almost vicious-sounding growl, and when I tried to meet her gaze, she looked down and blushed, covering her face with her hands.

Standing up, I held out my hand and pulled her to her feet. "It's okay," I said and ruffled her hair slightly. She pushed past my hand and buried her face in my chest.

She sighed. "I know, but it's embarrassing."

"We all need to eat."

"Uh-uh," she said. "I'll meet you downstairs in a moment."

I shrugged and headed out of the room. When I got down, I ordered breakfast for both of us. I remembered her preferences and hoped they hadn't changed too much. A few minutes later, Alana came down with brushed hair, looking generally more put together than if she had just woken up and spent hours talking while sitting on the floor. She met my gaze with a radiant smile—far too chipper for this early in the morning. But the breakfast waiting for her seemed to be more than enough reason for her excitement.

We ate, and as I did, I noticed more attention on us than I would have expected. It wasn't just because the two of us looked like a couple—Astrid had often eaten breakfast with me—but no, there was something else. The second we finished eating, I paid, and we left before anything could come of it. Were they looking for me? Or was it Alana? Or something else entirely? I wasn't sure.

I ran through the list of things I needed to do in my head but then looked down at Alana and realized, "Oh, shoot, you don't have any weapons, do you? Just what's on you?"

She nodded.

I only had one magically assisted storage item, so I couldn't give her one of those, but I wanted to take her through the challenge. Without a weapon... well, she could cast, but—

"You had a staff proficiency, right?"

"I'm not any good with it, but yes."

"Okay," I said, running through the list of stores I knew that sold acceptable weapons. "I won't take you through the challenge today and find out what it is, but we need to get you geared up first."

After the challenge, I had intended to take her to Loki and maybe get an update on Astrid's progress. Depending on how that went—well, I didn't extend my time horizon past the next day. There was still a lot up in the air.

"Come on, follow me," I said, and Alana slipped her arm around mine as I pulled her into the stream of people. We went along at a sedate pace, as Alana wouldn't be able to keep up with my speed. That might have to be something I fixed. I considered giving her a piggyback ride, but that seemed slightly undignified.

About twenty minutes of casual walking and idle conversation later, we arrived at a shop I had marked as reasonable. Inside, we found her a staff with a hardened metal knob at the end that could be used as a long mace but also assisted in her spell casting. It wasn't anything too fancy—not giving stats, as nothing a level one could wield would allow that—but it was supposed to help with concentration. She claimed it worked, but I wasn't so sure we weren't just getting scammed.

After that, we got her some basic leather armor and a helmet, which she didn't particularly like wearing, but I insisted on it. For now, I carried it in my storage bag. When we saw combat, though... well, she had talked me out of getting one with a faceguard, as apparently, that would interfere with her spells, but it would still help keep her in one piece.

By the time I finished paying, I realized I was starting to run low on coins. The missions I had done for the Priests of Týr had offered some benefits but nothing immediate. Between that and my own upgrades to spells, the winnings from the tournament and killing the wyvern weren't as amazing as I had hoped. Still, I made sure I had enough for the entry fee to the challenge and a room and meals for the next night.

Other than that, I splurged, ensuring Alana had the gear that would help her keep up with me as best as she could. I was planning on carrying her for the most part, but I wanted her to gain experience and levels, too. And well, it wasn't like the coin was too hard to come by in the first place.

When we walked up to the challenge building, I quickly checked the rewards and noticed there was just a number and a coin symbol—no loot tables or anything like that. It told me a little bit about what kind of challenge it was. It was nice not to have to butcher monsters after fights, though.

We walked in and paid the raven, Alana showing her token. She seemed interested, but the raven didn't seem to care about her, simply using its beak to point toward the portal. The place was relatively empty. I wasn't sure if it was just the time of day or this particular area. Still, people didn't seem particularly interested in running this challenge. Maybe it was really easy to complete, or maybe it just took a long time, and there were already people inside.

My idle thoughts vanished as we stepped out into an eerily flat grass landscape, white-green under a bright blue sky with no sun or clouds visible above us. The field seemed to stretch on to infinity in every direction.

As Alana and I looked around, we stood back to back, watching. A red circle, a hundred feet across, appeared in the grass, clearly visible. Then, an announcer's voice called out:

"Round one!"

And things began to appear on the horizon.