Life Hacks/Xandergod-Stable(Rosemance)/No more questions
"No," you say, "I think that covers everything. Thanks for all the help."
"Anytime," says Loki, "I'll take you back to your Victorian Sex Doll cum Mana Engine."
You both laugh a bit, then fly back to Loki's house.
As you enter the hall, away from the roar of the falls, you see all the statues of the Norse gods, and it gets you thinking. "Hey Loki," you say, "I've never really asked about the other gods. Are any of them still around?"
"A few here and there," he says. "This one really cool Norse god logs in all the time. I think his name is Loki?" Loki laughs a bit. "But seriously, I see Freya and Freyr on occasion (total incest fetishists by the way). Let's see . . . Idunna pops up from time to time. And then there's Thor, he's still around."
"I wouldn't mind meeting them sometime," you say.
"Well," replies Loki, "that's really on you. I'm not on the best of terms with them. But speaking of Thor . . . So one night, Thor wants to step out on his wife Sif with a mortal woman . . . any mortal woman. So he goes to the smartest, and the most handsome of all of the gods, a fellow know as Loki, who happens to be the greatest of all the gods at changing shape, and he asks him for help. Loki shows him how to shift his form so he won't get recognized, and he goes down to Midgard to woo a barmaid . . . without so much as a thank you I might add. Anyway, he gets really drunk and ends up sleeping with the barmaid. In the morning he wakes up to find that he has reverted to his normal form. He is so distressed that he sits bolt-upright, waking up the barmaid who asks, 'Who are you?' Thor strikes a heroic pose and proudly declares, 'I am Thor!' The barmaid looks at him with a strange expression and says, "You're thore? I'm tho thore I can hardly pith."
Did Loki just . . . tell a joke? And a pretty funny one. You both start laughing as you walk into his rooms. Cora sees you coming and stands up with a smile on her face. The laughter fades, and you go to Cora.
"Well," you say, "I guess I'm out of here."
"Oh, one more thing," says Loki. "If you ever want to make your own hacks, you're going to need to learn Q-ball. So if you ever want my help with that just pop by."
"Cueball?" you say. "That's a strange thing to call a programming language."
"Well, it's actually the letter Q followed by the degree symbol. It evolved from Q-Sharp (Q#), which evolved from Q-plus (Q+), which evolved from Q, which evolved from the original quantum language . . . well Quantum. It's actual recognized pronunciation is Q-degree, but most programmers call it Q-ball. Unfortunately the skills you've maxed out here still puts you about 300 years behind my world. You'll need to learn the intervening advancements in quantum science before you can even start to learn a quantum computing language. That means you need help. I'm willing to help, but maybe you'd rather have your girlfriend Sam help you?"
"Oh," you say, "that makes sense."
What do you do?
Infinity Pocket, Black Hack, Others?
Xander controls the local area.
