Chương 109: Chapter 106 - Backstory, Alric

Alric stood at the inn's bar for a little longer than necessary, finishing the simple act of pouring. The beer moved cleanly into the tankard, settling with a modest head that he watched out of habit rather than concern. He set it down in front of Stromni, his own he placed as he sat down.

The common room was quiet, not even the fire was lit, the table bore the faint marks of earlier use, and the air carried a mixture of wood, old ale, and the lingering trace of fermentation that had become, over time, less a smell and more of a permanent fixture. Stromni took the tankard without comment, turning it slightly in his hand as if checking for flaws that were not there. He took a small sip, closing his eyes for a moment he nodded at it.

This was one of the test batches they were trying, IPA's seemed to be less affected by the casks. He looked across at Alric, who had just sat, and said, in a tone that suggested he was not interested in ceremony, "Who's going first?" Alric considered that.

"You are," he said, though without conviction, as if testing whether that might still be true. Stromni snorted once, short and dismissive.

"Naw. I said I would, but ya been thinking about it too long." He nudged the tankard slightly with a thumb, then added, "Get it out." There was a pause, Alric took a sip of his own and frowned at it. There was nothing wrong with the beer though.

"There's no way for me to say this in a way you'll believe," he said at last, resting his elbows against the table, he stared up at the ceiling.

"So, do you want the truth or something believable?" Stromni's frowned, which in his case meant he became more focused.

"Truth," he said. Alric watched him for a moment, as if confirming that answer would hold under pressure, then nodded once.

"Alright," he said, drawing in a slow breath he did not entirely need.

"Well… I died." Stromni did not react in any visible way. He did not laugh, did not frown, did not interrupt. He simply lifted the tankard, took a measured sip, and then set it back down with care, as though placing it exactly where it ought to be might help with the rest of the conversation.

"Ya only smell like en undead. So…" He said making a small gesture with one hand to say continue.

"I'm not from here," he said.

"Not from this world. I was… somewhere else. I died there, and then I met…" He paused, before deciding to blurt it out.

"The closest thing I can call her is the goddess of creation. She spoke to me, and then she put me here." He watched Stromni as he said it. Stromni, for his part, had shifted slightly, leaning back just enough to suggest he was listening properly now.

"Remember the day I tried to sell you the armor?" Alric asked, "that was the day I arrived." Stromni's eyes narrowed a fraction, not in suspicion but in the way a craftsman examined a joint that had always looked slightly off and was now being explained.

"Ya arrived ere, then sold the armor from a goddess?" Stromni asked looking at him sideways.

"That's not a life I'd pick for myself, I needed coin more than it." Alric explained Stromni took another sip, slower this time, and made the same small gesture again.

"In my world," he continued, "I was forty-one. I had a trade, though it wouldn't make much sense here. Most of what I do now…" He gestured vaguely, encompassing the city, "That wasn't my work. It was something I did in my spare time. Brewing. As a hobby." He let that sit for a moment, aware that the word itself did not translate cleanly.

"That world was…" He searched for something that did not sound like exaggeration and settled on something that probably was anyway.

"More advanced than this one. In ways that are difficult to explain without it sounding like I'm making things up." Stromni tilted his head slightly.

"Try me." Alric huffed a quiet breath that might have been agreement, then shifted in his seat.

"Alright, we had massive metal things like birds that could fly but they would have people in them. They weren't alive the metal birds that is. Metal was everywhere, alloys, types for different things. There are buildings easily thirty times taller than the palace and they weren't particularly remarkable even so." He looked at Stromni as if challenging him. Stromni looked down at the table as if staring at a particular spot "Can ya do anything or teach me something from there?"

"Well the god I met gave me a power, I'll show you." Alric said stretching his shoulder slightly. He placed his hand on the table between them, palm up. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he closed his eyes, in concentration. Bread yeast or bakers yeast, it consumes.. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. The familiar flash appeared behind his eyes, subtle enough that it might have been imagined if not for the small, pale mass that appeared on the table in front of his hand.

It sat there, white and slightly uneven, with the soft, almost foamy texture. No yeasts he ever produced were dried as a powder. Alric opened his eyes, reached out, and touched it lightly, then brought his fingers up to his nose. He nodded to himself, as if confirming something expected.

"Bread yeast," he said. Stromni had leaned forward without realizing it. He did not reach for the substance immediately, instead studying it from an angle, as though expecting it to reveal a trick if he looked at it sideways long enough.

"That's not magic," he said after a moment. Alric glanced at him.

"No."

"Magic changes things," Stromni went on, still watching the yeast.

"It moves heat, shifts water and well…" he said waving a hand dismissively "does what's already there differently. It doesn't make something from nothing." Alric shrugged slightly.

"It's not magic. Not the kind you mean. I don't… cast anything. It's the power from that god, it's why the beer is not sour or affected by anything else." Stromni's gaze flicked up to him.

"So, this is a holy power?"

"Honestly, I don't know but I assume so." Alric said, aware as he said it that the explanation did not improve matters. Stromni sat back slowly, his expression settling into something that was not disbelief so much as dissatisfaction.

"That explains nothing," he said.

"I know," Alric replied. He withdrew his hand, leaving the yeast where it was, and leaned back slightly in his seat.

"In my world," he said, shifting approach, "we built things differently. We had things called cars that would go real fast, flat roads, so much metal now that I think about it, and used for things that would seem… excessive here." Stromni's brow furrowed, but he did not interrupt.

"We used steam," Alric continued, "and fuels. Heat, pressure, controlled systems. Machines that could move more goods in a day than this city could shift in a week. Some of them could fly. Others could pull an entire regions' worth of cargo across land without stopping." There was a pause after that, during which Stromni's expression settled into something more deliberate.

"Teach me something," he said at last.

"About metal. Something I don't know." Alric considered that, not because he doubted he knew something, but because he was aware that what counted as "something new" was not a simple question.

"Copper conducts heat better than iron," he said after a moment.

"It spreads faster. It also cools faster once the heat source is removed." Stromni nodded immediately.

"I know that."

"I figured," Alric said, slightly irritated.

"But here's the part that matters. If you work metal repeatedly, hammering or bending it, it becomes harder. But also more brittle." Stromni's gaze sharpened slightly.

"If you take a thin strip," Alric went on, "and bend it back and forth over and over, it will eventually snap. Not because it's weak, but because it's been… stressed too many times. We call it metal fatigue." Stromni nodded again, slower this time.

"Aye," he said.

"Overworking. You ruin the grain, it fails. I learned that fixing tools at my da's forge." He paused, then looked at Alric more directly.

"Still doesn't explain why you'd know it." Alric allowed himself a small, almost apologetic smile before he recalled something.

"The sword, I got that from the god too. Never sold it, I could sense that thing was dangerous somehow." Alric said tapping a foot. Stromni froze for a fraction of a second, then his eyes widened in a way that made it clear the connection had landed.

"That… aye" He let out a short breath.

"That makes sense." He leaned back, looking at Alric with a renewed kind of interest.

"The blade from a god?" he added.

"I didn't get enough time ta look at it properly, now I wanna." Alric nodded.

"It's in the box and sealed remember. We can figure something out someday though." There was a brief silence, the kind that came when one line of thought concluded and another had not yet fully formed. Stromni broke it first.

"If all that's true," he said, "Then why aren't ya chasin the lassies?" Alric blinked in surprise, not at the question itself but at the speed with which it had arrived.

"I am," he said, then corrected himself slightly.

"It's just so weird here Stromni, people send you a letter with a photo of a potential wife. I don't get it." Stromni's expression suggested this was not a real answer.

"In my world," Alric continued, "we had something called a divorce. It's what happens when a marriage ends." He paused briefly, then added, "Mine did. It wasn't clean." He rested his hands together on the table, not looking away, but not quite meeting Stromni's eyes either.

"It was my fault," he said.

"Or at least mostly. I got married young. My family pushed for it. I had just started working, and we… wanted different things. I worked too much. Didn't pay enough attention to what mattered at the time." Stromni listened without interrupting, his earlier curiosity replaced with something quieter.

"We would usually spend years with someone before marrying," Alric went on.

"Getting to know them properly. Making sure it worked. I skipped most of that. I don't intend to do that again." He exhaled slowly, as though that explanation had required more precision than expected.

"And I won't involve staff," he added. Stromni frowned slightly.

"Why?"

"A friend of mine," Alric said, "ended up in a situation where she depended entirely on her husband. Money, housing, everything. She couldn't leave, even when she wanted to. It took years. How could I do that to a staff member when they depend on me for everything?" He folded his arms across his chest before tapping his foot again.

"I won't build something like that here," he said. Stromni looked down at the table, his fingers resting against the wood as if feeling for something in it. There was a long moment of silence which Stromni eventually broke, "So ya weren't inventing things?" Alric shook his head.

"You were remembering them." Stromni asked to which Alric nodded.

"I still understand how a lot of it works but I didn't invent any of it." Alric said. Stromni let out a long breath, leaning back and closing his eyes briefly. Alric watched him, uncertain whether to interpret that as acceptance or rejection. After a moment, Stromni spoke again.

"Ya know," he said slowly, "I was thinkin I were following someone who was… special. A once-in-a-generation. A sage, maybe." He opened his eyes and looked across the table.

"This makes ya… simpler," he said. Alric raised an eyebrow.

"That's not how most people would frame it." Stromni shrugged slightly.

"It explains things. There's much ya jus don't see, things we all know." He tapped the table once.

"Blind spots." Alric considered that, then nodded.

"That's pretty true," he said. The silence that followed was different from the earlier ones. Not uncertain, not tense. Just… settled. Alric leaned back slightly, letting the moment hold for as long as it needed to.

"Ya need ta explain all this ta Seren ya know?" Stromni explained.

"Ah, I'll think about it. No promises." Alric said avoiding eye contact. Then he tilted his head toward Stromni.

"Your turn," he said.