DEATH CONSIDERED PREFERABLE TO CURRENT SENSATION IN HEAD

Even if his captors did not have the common human decency to cut his throat, they have rested him on his side and provided a bucket by his mattress. He vomits with the speed and enthusiasm of a seasoned alcoholic. It helps remarkably little.

He moans ghoulishly, wishing he were an Odinite so he could pray to one of their funny little men about this. He hears Thor is popular for this situation.

Taharqi hears the ghoulish sounds and, a few seconds later, opens the door only wide enough to slip in before closing it behind himself again. "Hey, buddy. How're you feeling?"

"Okay, dumb question," he agrees, speaking in a low murmur. "But on the bright side we killed the thing and survived! ...kind of survived! Annika asked me to kill her so we're waiting on that."

"What?!" Arik tries to sit upright. Then he makes a noise that isn't really even sound, just air whistling out of his body - and then he clenches his teeth and gets out of bed, hissing. "Where is she?"

"...back at the nearest Kafra headquarters, probably? Lie down, you're going to pull something."

"She - she - they can treat her, there? She didn't... okay?"

"...I think there may be a bigger disconnect here than I thought."

Arik collapses back onto the bed. "She... you said. Asked you to kill her. Thought she was... worse than dead."

He still kind of feels like there must be some disconnect, but. "I'm... not sure, exactly, how she was feeling? She was just screaming very much and unable to offer any helpful suggestions and the only suggestion I gave that she seemed to accept was killing her, so I did, and the hopeful expectation is that Kafra will be able to help her be in better shape faster than if she just waited it out."

"Killed... help..."

He scowls at himself and clenches his hands together.

"People... die. You... don't?"

...ah. Okay.

This guy has in fact lived under a rock his whole life.

That'd make some sense of some things.

He pokes his tongue out then lifts it up to point at a little piece of metal pierced into its underside. "This," he says, tongue back where it should be, "has an enchantment that, when it detects that my heart has stopped, casts a stasis spell on me and teleports me to the nearest Kafra Corps headquarters. Once there, if I actually died someone is immediately called to resurrect me before my soul is unreachable. Then, I stay in stasis until someone can get to me, figure out what was wrong with me, fix it, and pull me out of stasis. It's one-use only, and if I pay more when I buy one I get bumped up the priority queue. Annika is going to need to buy a new one there, but on the bright side probably the reward for what we just did will be a lot more than enough to cover it."

"Oh."

Arik leaves it at that, for a moment.

"I'd heard stories," he says, when his head feels stationary again. "But... you hear stories. Thought it was... more on the Beowulf side. You know?"

"Your reaction is, I will be honest with you, making me wonder what rock you have lived under. And, ah, I don't want to pry, you don't need to tell me if you don't want to, we've just met. But. People will be curious."

Arik laughs, then very visibly regrets it.

"More of an ice-hut than a rock. There was a witch involved. Also, a campaign of deliberate misinformation. By the witch. Still... sorting that out."

"...that sounds rough, buddy. Should I get you an adventuring 101 book, is there even such a book, actually did the witch teach you how to read—wait. You're fucking with me."

"No, I was very much raised to adolescence by a woman with powerful dark magic and a really concerning personal relationship to the goddess Hel. She did teach me to read, though. And fight."

"And she also gave you the... necklace and bangles" and literally nothing else "that presumably were pulling most of the weight of keeping you alive there?"

"No, uh - I went down the mountain for festivals sometimes, and there was an old man in the village, Father Nikos, and I wasn't supposed to talk to him, so eventually I talked to him, and he told me that she was... how'd he put it, it wasn't wicked but it was something kind of odd and out of place like that? And he gave me the necklace and a little bell, and told me to sleep with the bell in my hand. And I did, and a few weeks later it woke me up while she was sneaking into my room with a dagger. And we fought. But she wasn't expecting me to be any kind of a real fight, and she distracted herself ranting, and I got in close and gutted her."

He fingers the necklace as he speaks. It's an unassuming little silver pendant with an embossed snowflake, and a tiny bead of a sapphire at the center.

"The bangles I just kind of picked up. Not all of them are even magic."

See, Taharqi would usually reckon he's really, really good at catching lies, and Arik really doesn't look like he's lying.

"...you know, I have a friend that I'd like to introduce you to, I bet he'd have a much easier time figuring all of that out than I would. If nothing else I think he'd be delighted to walk you through the basics of adventuring, and I am feeling out of my depth here."

"Is he hot?"

"Oh, incredibly. He's also a fan of being naked, men, and naked men, so something tells me you'll get along famously."

"Fantastic. Lead the way."

Arik sits up again. He takes it slower, this time, and his head has been hurting less and less through the whole conversation anyway; he makes it to his feet only wobbling a bit.

"Did you happen to rescue my pecopeco, by the by? If not we may have to stop by the entrance of that cave again, or he'll chew himself loose and wreak absolute havoc."

"Yeah, he's tied outside. But I shouldn't, actually, lead the way right now, because I should still wait for Annika to be back alive and also I didn't just spend several hours passed out and will need some sleep myself. ...also do you have any money." And if so, where do you store it, he doesn't ask. "I'll be happy to cover your teleportation to Geffen to meet my friend and I'll share your share of the bounty with you but you might want to think about that."

"-right, you're just visiting... ugh. I guess it's a situation where teleporting makes sense. How much does it cost?"