~Bleep! – Player Erik earned Favour! Slaanesh greatly approves your feasting and overconsumption of alcohol!
~Bleep! – Player Erik earned Favour! Slaanesh is amused at your taking small advantages of others!
~Bleep! – Player Erik earned Favour! Slaanesh is pleased you were the centrepiece of attention, attracting men and women to your display of skill and looks!

A series of different notifications waited for Erik to open his eyes. Which he promptly shut due to the bright blue light burning his eyes.

‘Ugh, fuck. That was… overboard.’ “Display Player Favour!”

Player Favour:
Khorne:               50 (+22)
Slaanesh:            94 (+61)
Nurgle:                17 (+11)
Tzeentch:           22 (+5)

‘Damn, 1 party earned me a similar amount of Slaanesh Favour as weeks of grinding for Khorne Favour!’

Then, looking more carefully at the messages, some things came back to him while others remained as fuzzy images.

He could indeed recall grazing his hand past a servant girl’s bosom as he ‘accidentally’ overreached the offered platter of mugs. Repeatedly. The same went for ‘stumbling’ close to another servant girl bending over a bit too deeply, on purpose or not, while taking away empty plates.

He did not recall anything about the mentioned ‘maiden in love’ though? Nor did he remember how he got home, but still. Right now, he just wished his headache stopped trying to split his skull in two.

‘Maybe I can spend some Favour for hangover removal?’ – A thought came up, but he quickly dismissed it. It would be weak, which his patrons did not appreciate. And it would be a huge waste of a rare resource.

‘The fight went well, but if I want to beat all the Trials, I’ll need to get stronger. I should get started on the thrall-experiment and find a time to spend the Favour for stats… and deal with the aftermath.’

Seeing his Favour piling up and fearing they might get deducted later in the future made Erik feel a bit of pressure. He had previously spent 50 Khorne Favour for 5 STR points and entered a berserk state. He now had 50 points again, would he still experience that? What would happen when he spent the other Favour?

He decided to inquire after a place where he could safely go through any changes. Safe for himself and his surroundings. This was also why he hadn’t experimented by buying single stat points, he didn’t want to accidentally wreck his cosy cabin.

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After freshening up and doing some light exercise in the cold winter air outside, Erik felt the headache reduce by a lot. He had only been here for a couple of weeks but late autumn had already turned into winter.

There had been no blizzards yet, but they would start soon. And the Norscan blizzards were a true calamity of nature. Temperatures low enough to freeze the blood in your veins, hail the size of fists smashing down from the sky and a wind blowing like a hurricane, ripping anything in its path apart.

This was also why Norscan settlements were built against tall mountain cliffs or right at the sea. The blizzards lost most of their power in these areas, either through the mountain taking the brunt of it or the sea winds blowing against the blizzards.

And as Erik took note of the changing season, he was called into the Great Hall for breakfast. Unusual, since normally Sigrun would bring breakfast to him. But Erik felt like Jarl Ingolf had wanted to talk to him last night but didn’t seem to get a chance to. So he just shrugged and made his way over.

Once inside the Hall, Erik noticed one table was set for breakfast. 7 chairs stood at the table. Puzzled, Erik did not need to wait long for the Jarl’s family to come out.

Erik, the Jarl and Sigrun took up three of the chairs while the remaining four were taken by three young men, all with the same red hair as their sire, and a beautiful mature woman that to Erik’s mind simply screamed: ‘MILF!’.

Seriously, she was a bombshell. Wide hips, large breasts, symmetrical face marred only by a single mole under her left eye and her long, bright blond hair was tied in a single braid draped over her left shoulder. And Erik swore that not only was she gorgeous, she also seemed to be glowing in a way only people showered with affection could.

Of course, these were Helles, Sigrun’s mother, and Sigrun’s three most favoured brothers. They may not share the same mother, evident by the disparity in their looks, but the characteristic red hair proved their brotherhood.

Perhaps she noticed him staring, but Helles seemed to look straight at Erik. And her daughter at her side upon seeing Erik turned beet red, quite unlike what Eric was used to seeing from the usually upbeat, open-minded and intelligent Sigrun.

‘Yes, I think that pop-up may have alluded to this…’ –Erik was self-aware enough that he had most likely ‘offended’ Sigrun in some way while inebriated. Did his lips suddenly taste like cherry? Erik thought he tasted something for a moment, but dismissed it as foolishness. If he had indeed kissed Sigrun last night, why would the taste still be there after sleeping, washing, exercising and washing again?

They all took their seats at the table and started eating. At first, no one said a word but before long the brothers started joking around with each other. Erik, Ingolf, Sigrun and Helles mostly just watched the banter and ate.

During this time, Erik learned that the youngest of the brothers, Sven, would also participate in the Winter Hunt this time, together with him. He was Sigrun’s younger half-brother and probably the most boisterous out of them too.

Despite the publicly announced ban he kept asking Erik for a spar, to the great annoyance of Jarl Ingolf who repeatedly reminded him of the Gods’ decree.

Of course, Erik did not agree either. Just exchanging some verbal pointers and opinions. Sven’s primary weapon was a spear. But not just a pole with a pointy tip, but a proper spear with a tip like a shortsword at the end, designed to both thrust and hack. An excellent weapon for hunting large beasts or as a second ranker in a shieldwall.

Erik and Sven hit it off quite well and agreed that, while they couldn’t spar, they would watch the other practice and try to help each other. They also decided to act together when the Winter Hunt began, forming the initial core of their hunting group.

For the Winter Hunt, the participants would all travel together to an inland location in the middle of the icy wastes. Without a mountain to protect them from blizzards and no encampment to keep out wild beasts and worse, the young men would have to work together to survive.

Building their camp, hunting for food and surviving the unforgiving elements provided ample challenge, but it wasn’t some hardcore survival camp, it was a Hunt. And the quarry of this Hunt was not the regular prey they would hunt for food, nor dangerous wild beasts like bears or wolves that competed with them. No, they would need to hunt the monsters that inhabited the Norscan heartlands.

Trolls, giants, giant Ice Wolves, manticores and other abominations roamed freely across Norsca, killing everything in their path or cowering from those rare things that hunted them.

The challenge of the Winter Hunt was to hunt these monsters and turn them into trophies. There was no competition between participants, but they would split up into groups to hunt together with.

When he learned more details of the Winter Hunt he would be attending, Erik had another realisation. He was wholly unprepared for it!

His Greatsword could easily carry him through the next two Trials which were more 1-on-1 duels, but a Greatsword would have limited use when facing against large monsters.

Norscans loathed the use of bows and firearms popularised in the Empire and beyond, but throwing axes and javelins made for decent substitutes. And together with long and heavy polearms, these weapons would be the key to hunting during the Winter Hunt.

Erik now realised he would have to train for the duels while simultaneously preparing for the Hunt. Javelins and a sturdy polearm would be key to this, neither of which he currently owned or new how to acquire.

Luckily at this point Sigrun interrupted, drawing the attention of everyone at the table as they finished off the last of the food.

“Have you looked at Krir’s former belongings yet? There might be useful stuff in there?”

Macrendil-Ysmir

Sadly no snu-snu for Erik x Sigrun yet. I felt like they needed a bit more development before that.

As always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!