The boy picks out a watch and runs off back home to tell his friends about the basically free merchandise. In another hour the area is crawling with people, some of them seeking healing and many of them offering stories for free stuff. The men talk about battles they fought in and disputes that were resolved and bad harvests and good ones. The women talk about their husbands and their children (or the husbands and children of their friends). Some people talk about the ways the gods have answered their prayers. There's a very old woman who comes by wanting to pick things out for all of her grandchildren. She starts out talking about a feud that began when a man killed another man's slave and refused to pay restitution for it, so the feud went on a long time until the chief stepped in and executed the man who wouldn't pay, then paid the price for both the man and the slave himself. Eventually she runs out of feud-related stories and decides that she's going to impart all of her cooking-related knowledge and see if that gets her anywhere.

They will take feud-related stories and cooking-related stories and harvest-related stories and everything else. In addition to mirrors and jewelry and singing boxes and timepieces and compasses, they now have eyeglasses and pain medications and vitamins. The singing boxes are labeled; some help with crops, some with restful sleep. Some heat your home and some keep you healthy. 

People are interested in all of these things! Some people call it a scam, but it's hard to see what sort of scam you don't try to make any money on, so most of them take the boxes, too.

Some people stay far away from the tent and head out into the countryside to visit relatives for a week, but the view from the tent suggests that the people are in general pretty happy about all of this.

After about six hours Mark leaves with Xekede and returns five minutes later with someone else, who he introduces as Matyas; a few hours later he leaves with Araw and Caroline, and returns with Jejemi and Cseze. If anyone goes to substantial effort to follow him they'll notice he's ducking out of sight and then outright disappearing.

One of their guides will, and will report it to the gydja. She adds it to a report of everything they have witnessed thus far. She prefers the king to the emperor, but the emperor happens to be closer, only a fortnight away for an expert rider. She entrusts her report to the hands of a messenger, and sends the messenger off to Akershus. 

She returns to preparing for the funeral ceremony.

All of the mysterious strangers rotate out over the course of the night. They bring more trinkets with them, based on what seems to be popular and what is going quickly.

The singing boxes that promise to heat a room work, very noticeably so overnight; the effects of the other singing boxes aren't clear as quickly. 

All of the boxes become more popular at this discovery, though the room-heating ones in particular are now in very high demand. The townspeople aren't so obsessed with the strangers that they forget about the funeral, though. They invite their guests to take part in the festivities.

They have sewn new clothes for the dead chief, who has been laid out on a bed within a boat that lies on the shore of the nearby lake. He is surrounded with fruit and flowers and alcohol. The townspeople have pitched tents on the shore, one or two for each family, and have brought animals to slaughter for the feast.

The strangers come to watch. 

Animals are slaughtered and roasted over fires and eaten. Wine is consumed. Songs are sung and stories are told. The sacrifice, a teenage girl who is the daughter of one of the dead chief's slaves, travels from tent to tent, sometimes exiting in various states of dishevelment or undress.

In the afternoon they lift her up in front of a structure that looks like a massive door frame, and the girl calls out what she sees. She tells them that she sees the land of the dead, and the land of those who are not yet born, and finally her master in paradise. She announces that her master calls her to join him. There are shouts of triumph. The townspeople give her a lamb, which she beheads and places in the boat. There is more feasting; they make sure the girl has plenty more wine. 

The strangers observe and take notes and offer more trinkets.

At sunset the gydja leads the girl onto the ship, outside the tent that stretches over the dead chief. The girl sings for a while, mostly incoherently. Eventually she is urged into the tent, and she obediently goes. Six men follow her in.

The men on the shore begin beating on their shields with sticks, but it's not quite loud enough to drown out the girl's screams.

Shortly after that she vanishes.

All of the strangers on this shift are still watching quite peaceably on the shore.

The townspeople are pretty sure that they know who around here has the power to make people vanish at will. Some of the men grab their spears; the gydja stops them with a gesture.

"Do you object to the passage of the chief's soul?" asks the gydja.

"Not at all," say the strangers, "but it will have to take the time it naturally would, as we object to the torment and killing of all persons." Also animals but they don't typically pick that fight right away.

"It cannot be helped," says the gydja to the men on the shore, though some of them shout in anger at her. "Do you object to the deaths of those who choose to die?"

"Not always."

"Then let this be," says the gydja, before cutting her own throat.

The strangers nod solemnly and look around to see whether there's going to be trouble now.

The townspeople are surprised, but accept this as a suitable replacement, and hope the gods will as well. They carry the gydja's body to the bed and lay her out beside the dead chief. A man walks up to the boat and sets it ablaze, and then other men push the boat into the lake, where it burns.

The gydja wakes up in the body of her only living daughter, a married woman living in Akershus who has just inherited rulership of the temple of Örebro. She sighs, mildly disappointed at not getting to go on to paradise just yet.

Ignorant of this, the strangers return to their elaborate tents to give out more presents as desired.

(Elsewhere, a no-longer-sacrifice finds herself lying in a meadow of soft grass, uninjured and now sober.)

The people return to feasting, then pack up their tents and return to their homes. Another messenger rides off to alert the temple's heir that the previous gydja has died.

Emissaries of a very similar sort approach the Emperor of Scandanavia a week later, after first contact has gone off with a normal number of difficulties in every city in his realm. They come bearing gifts - chests full of fabrics and spices, a television - and ask for permission to set up near the temples and offer their healing and their goods.

The emperor is informed of the invasion only through the woman who was previously Gydja Thora (who believes that the wizards moved her from her own body into that of her daughter, though she can't imagine what their purpose could have been). From her description it sounds as if the wizards are capable of disappearing and reappearing at will, perhaps crossing vast distances or visiting the other worlds they speak of in the mean time, rather than merely rendering themselves invisible. It's unclear whether the wizards can be killed, but there are many of them and they can evidently disappear any attackers at range, and their healing powers will leave them fine unless they're killed with a single clean blow anyway. He's definitely outgunned here. He's not about to allow this to threaten his hold on Scandinavia.

He receives the emissaries as welcome guests and prepares a feast in their honor.

The emissaries appreciate the feast in total ignorance that he knows any more of their capabilities than the illusions and healing they've demonstrated. They're terribly curious about Scandanavia's traditions and history and recent conquests. The lead emissary, the one with the ability to do illusions, introduces herself as Sofia.

He will of course be delighted to regale them with tales of his rule and recent wars. He's gathered from Thora that the strangers quite dislike both war and unnecessary killing, and therefore positions himself as an enlightened ruler who fights to defend his people from the encroaching armies of the muslims, as well as to free other peoples from tyrannical despots who lack Scandinavia's level of wealth or respect for life. His vassals will notice the unusual emphasis but will hardly be inclined to contradict him.

He hates talking history (it's hard to be the correct amount of wrong about it), so he tells his guests that they had better hear the accounts of his ancestors from his court poet, who will do a much better job of narrativizing than he will.