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[sub]Morning///A Certain Third-Story Flat[/sub]
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Daylight had yet to break through the thin curtains of the room, but Varanense was already awake. Free as he may have been, the adventurer was still a slave to habit, and no matter how late he stayed up the night before, it was always like this: waking up an hour before sunrise, Nemesis cuddled up against him. Never for pleasure, but always for warmth. He smiled sleepily, brushing a silver strand out of her eyes, before pulling himself away…and almost fell over from the sudden brutal headache that struck him right in the top of the cranium. Stumbling a couple of steps before converting into a not-so graceful sitting position on the ground, he nursed a surprisingly acute hangover. What even happened last night? His mouth tasted funny too, filled with a strange flavor that he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the origin of. Was it a wild night? Or was it a bad night? His brow furrowed as he tried to recall, but all Varanense could come up with was…nothing.

A suspicious amount of nothing. It had been Little Valhalla, after all. Knowing himself, he wouldn’t have gotten blackout drunk by choice, because this would have been an experience actually worth remembering. He pulled himself up again, before hearing an equally suspicious crinkling coming from his pocket. Extracting it, Varanense narrowed his eyes at the mysterious glyphs, his D+ intelligence trying in vain to decipher the alien text before he came to the realization that it was all just bad writing. Bad writing and a goddamn debt. A goddamn debt of 825000 vallis. No interest, because Odin wasn’t a gangster, but still, Varanense wouldn’t be able to make that much money even after selling his kidneys.

A sigh escaped him. So that was their collar. So much for a relaxing slow life with an exhibitionist goddess. He let out another sigh, wondering if he at least got one of the Valkyrie’s numbers after all this. But no, disappointment and failure persisted there too. 

What a life.

Varanense sulked around the flat until someone’s big black cock (referring to the male adult chicken) crowed in the distance and an alcohol-infused Nemesis began half-heartedly prodding him in the head with her feet, complaining about the lack of breakfast. Then, he promptly leapt up, and restarted his morning routine, humming a happier rendition of a song about tossing gods under the grindstone of a mill and making bread out of them.

At least his porridge making skills remained on point.

[sub]Late Morning///Entrance to the Dungeon[/sub]
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11AM was hella late by Varanense’s standards. Clock in early, clock out early was his motto for the easy breezy adventuring life, but considering his terrible no good very bad start in the morning, it was a miracle that he showed up at all. Well, if the insidious threat of Odin’s edicts served as a miracle at all. In the same clothing that he went into the tavern with, then partied with, then slept in, Varanense nodded at the new face, a cutesy little Pallum that shoulda aimed for the hollow Dahlia’s knee if she hoped to actually do anything. Always weird to see Pallum supporters, honestly. There had to be some sort of witchcraft happening there, when children carried packs thrice their weight, but somehow ended up not toppling backwards whenever they walked on an incline.

[b]“Varanense,”[/b] he introduced himself, offering the Pallum a handshake. Then, his eyes flickered back to Dahlia, a tinge of caution in his eyes. [b]“And just in case it’s actually the case, even though it’s probably not the case at all…Odin doesn’t have some sort of hellish training regime waiting for us tomorrow, yeah? Really can’t picture anyone managing to get to level 2 within a year n all.”[/b]

Most didn’t even make it to level 2 in their entire life, after all. The dark-skinned archer readjusted his quiver as he waited for an answer, wondering if others shared the same opinion as himself. No matter how you cut it, unless they were going to be thrown at Minotaurs or forced through similarly satanic trials, there was no way they were going to level up before they had to cough up 100,000 vallis. What a hellzone.