I Was Reborn as a Daddy in Another World

Founders - Part 1

Val woke up late the next morning. The soft beds in the inn Katya had chosen put the hard tack mattresses, and they could only be called that generously, he'd been sleeping on since arriving in Al'Lachia to shame, and he'd taken to sleeping later and later in the day.

He pulled on his pants and boots from the night before, and a fresh shirt, and headed down to the first floor for breakfast.

The inn's bottom level was open to the public, and already busy. Val took a small table in the back and demolished a double order of sausage, eggs, some sort of wiry green vegetable fried in oil and three pieces of thick cut, heavily seeded bread. To his deep chagrin, they had not ever cultivated coffee in this world, but he was able to accompany his breakfast with a steaming mug of a dark, black herbal tisane that had a similarly stimulating effect.

The conversation with Katya the night before had left him exhausted, but it had helped him start to crawl out from under the feeling of helplessness that had plagued him since they'd returned from the labyrinth. Hearing that Katya was feeling similarly lost and aimless had, rather than compounding his own misery, given him the shock needed to shake him from his state of ennui.

They were in a tight spot, but it wasn't in Val's nature to do nothing, and he had languished in inactivity for too long. For now, he needed Katya's help to secure access to a guild, any guild really, and if that meant he had to put in some legwork to uncover the machinations of his skill then that was fine. Once he was done with his breakfast, he'd walk upstairs, wake Katya, and they'd work out what to do next.

The innkeeper, a burly man with thick, hairy forearms, walked up to his table and started collecting his plates into a noisy stack. Before he took them away, he reached into his stained apron's front pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, then placed it on the table in front of Val.

"What's this?" Val asked.

"Message," the innkeeper replied, his voice thickly accented to the point where it came out more like "myissij", but Val got the meaning.

"Thanks."

The innkeeper grunted and stomped away with the plates in hand.

Val unfolded the paper. The note was brief, bordering on curt.

'Parish district,
Across the road from the Coptic cathedral.
- K'

Val reread the note once more, not that it took very long. Al'Lachia didn't have a postal service, instead utilising personal couriers, so they didn't do addresses in the way he was used to.

Luckily, he knew the parish district well. A throwback to the days when the summoned were fêted and celebrated more aggressively by the royal family, and the populace in general. Block after block of churches, cathedrals, synagogues and temples built for, or in testament to, the old gods of the various Earth expatriates who had been brought to Al'Lachia over the centuries. While the religions themselves hadn't exactly captured the local populace, citizens often participated in the rituals, honouring the often well known adventurers who introduced them by proxy, unaware of their occasionally bizarre nature as half-remembered analogs of real ceremonies.

The buildings, some of them now centuries old, were in a constant state of ongoing repair, paid for by the patronage of guilds or funds set up by their long dead founders. Val had worked a number of refurbishment jobs in the district during his time in construction, and, despite not being a religious man himself, had taken some small comfort in the familiar architecture and religious pageantry of his own world.

He stood up, tossed a few coins on the table, and walked out into the city.

—

It only took Val about forty-five minutes to make it to the location he'd been given, even though he had to cut around a loud, raucous baptism that had spilled onto the streets outside one of the large Anglican churches, ducking under waves of water being sprayed on the crowd by a mage in a long, blue robe.