Memories of the fight flashed in my mind. Exchanging blows with Vidar midair before putting him beneath me. Shifting worlds at will, the split second of being someplace in-between and actually seeing it. The colorful yet indescribable void. Then being above the merky swamp water and seeing a strange building on the shore before impact with the water. Dragging Vidar's unconscious body into land before throwing up and passing out as a mysterious figure approached me. Vidar and my bodies completely vulnerable and at the mercy of whomever found us. Then, in my mind, I found myself alone in a blank room of blackness.

"Well hello there Hunter, already more than a third of the way there." A strange yet familiar voice bellowed from the black.

"Who... What are you?"

"Just the echoes of a long dead old man, no need to be concerned. Though you could consider me like a second father, for it is my power and strength you have inherited. I am the one responsible for you being dragged from place to place."

"Why me? Out of everyone on Earth, the eight billion people on Midgard, why choose me?"

The voice let out a bellowing laugh. "Oh my lost little lamb, that's the best part. I didn't."

My eyes shot open as I awoke. My ears rang, my entire body ached, the room felt like it was spinning. I turned to my side with a sharp pain to throw up into what I assume was a wood bucket someone pushed into place. My vision was blurry, I couldn't really make out much of my surroundings. All I could manage was a groan.

"Don't move too much, you're in rough shape." A gentle female voice spoke from somewhere in the room. No translation filter, she was speaking English. There was an accent but I could more than understand her.

I looked at the black blob in my vision, blinking hard as I tried to focus my eyes. Eventually I could see properly.

The woman in front of me could most easily be described as 'hauntingly beautiful'. She had flowing black hair decorated in a bone crown adorned in black jewels, eyes that were glowing a Halloween green, her skin was pale but had a glimmer to it almost like the moon, her face was half covered in a mask.

She wore a dress that in its own way had a morbid beauty to it. It was black with a blood red bone like spine that split into three for the frill up top behind her head and split to five going down the skirt with even spacing for both. The frill and skirt were translucent red that transitioned to a sickly green to the end and reminded me of the devil's finger fungus. I knew with one look who this person was; the Lady of the Realm, the Queen of the Damned, Mother of the Forsaken and Goddess of the underground, the esteemed Hel herself.

"Ah, Hel." I managed to say with a groan. Even talking hurt.

"I see I need no introduction, as for you Midgardian..." She left a pause clearly expecting me to introduce myself.

"Hunter Ericsson." I managed to grunt out.

Hel passed me a wooden mug. "This has medicine in it to help you heal, alcohol to dull the pain."

I sat up with some difficulty and took the mug with shaking hands. Cupping it with both I started practically chugging the liquid. It was... Mead? Honied mead, mixed with medicine that was as bitter sweet as the liquor and a metallic after taste. It.... Wasn't great. "Bleck, ugh. I expected it to be bad because of the medicine but that's awful."

"The only honey here comes from Hræsvelgr [corpse swallower] bees. Named for the legendary giant bird that feeds on the dead here."

"You... You mean Vulture Wasps? You made this using the blood honey from Vulture Wasps. That's... Disgusting. I think I might throw up again." I heaved but managed not to throw up. I set down the mug and started to feel around the bed I was in.

It was surprisingly soft, the lavender colored blanket and sheets must have been silk, satin, or velvet. It was hard to enjoy the cloud soft bed with all the pain. Then I noticed something. I was completely naked. "Uhh Hel, where are my clothes?"

"You were drenched to the bone and covered in filth. I did my best to clean and patch you up. Don't worry, I was gentle~"

"You uhhh.... Didn't do anything weird to me while I was out did you?"

"Odin no" Hel then put her finger by her mouth and smiled, giving me a look that was somehow both seductive and intimidating. "I was tempted though." She let out a light sigh as she took a more sexual pose speaking in a tone both sensual and threatening. "It gets awfully lonely here~"

I wasn't sure whether to be scared or aroused and my body chose for me.

It chose both. This gesture activated my fight or flight response and I was in no condition to do either. Every muscle in my body tensed painfully as I did my best to gain some amount of distance. "I'm... Flattered but... I'm not exactly the type to have casual sex with strangers."

"Oh honey, I don't have

casual sex. I play to win."

My instincts practically screamed at me to run. It was as if she was just as likely to kill and eat me as she was to have sex with me and I really didn't want to risk finding out which. She backed off a bit and chuckled. "I'm just messing around with you. ... Mostly."

"Could... Could you not do that? My body is in enough pain without every muscle in my body tightening."

She chuckled "Alright then, but I won't apologize. You are the first exciting thing to happen here in fifty centuries, so excuse me for trying to milk a little extra fun out of it"

I looked around the room a bit, it was a very large bedroom decorated in a morbid recreation of a fancy noble's room. Bone chandelier, furniture made of bone or ash wood, jewels in various sickly and sinister colors. "Where's Vidar... And how are you speaking English anyway? I'm guessing the gift of language."

She nodded "Inherited from my father, yeah. You... Talked a lot in your sleep. Took me a really long time to get a hand of it. Vidar is downstairs drinking at the bar with the various bandits and vagabonds."

I rubbed the back of my head "How... How long have-"

"You've been out cold for about three days. Vidar was getting rather impatient for you to wake up and get him home but you are hardly in the condition to travel out of this room let alone to another world."

"Even without the injuries it usually takes me a while to recharge. This was the first time I've made a controlled jump, I've been simply along for the ride before now."

"Vidar gave a very colorful account of your battle, but I'd like to hear your side and maybe start from the beginning." She sat down in a chair "I could use a good story."

"So starting about a year ago now I started jumping to other realms. No control over when, where, or for how long. My first trip was to a place I named Rust but later learned was Jotunheim. I spent part of a day there but wasn't at all prepared so when I was close to death my body jumped back home. Then a while later I jumped to a place I called the Shroomlands but learned was Vanahiem. I spent a few days there talking to people and even got translator goggles. Then I went to a place I called Ironwood that I learned was Alfhiem. I spent like a full week there getting to know the locals in a mixed culture village. Later on while on vacation from my job I traveled to another place in my world away from home where it was, a capital to a now dead culture. The people that saw the Asgardians as gods. They moved on from those beliefs and changed overtime. Many cultures have that old world in their roots. Anyway, while there I shifted to Asgard, or rather where it used to be. I met Vidar who is for some reason convinced he's the Emperor of the fifteen realms because his dad conquered the known worlds five thousand years ago despite not being able to go to them. He decided that I was a risk and wanted me executed. I demanded a trial by combat."

"Giving me the short version so far I see. Vidar told me you used some sort of combat magic to go toe to toe with him. Is that true?"

"I'm... Not sure what that was. When we were fighting at first it was a stalemate. None of my hits did much but I stayed quick enough to avoid his. Until I decided to kick him in the balls and pressed my advantage from the attack to get in as many cheap shots as I could. My life was on the line. I had been taunting him to throw him off throughout the fight so he was rightfully pissed. He must not have even realized he activated his boots in the fight but he sent my ass into a wall and I was basically done for. I was a crumpled mess in a pile of debris thinking about how he was going to stomp my skull in with his oversized clown boots if I didn't do something and I managed to summon some sort of strength from deep inside me."

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"Vidar said something about how before that he hit you with a decent force relative to a human's strength and it did nothing like your bones were made of metal."

"Yeah, I've always had an absurdly durable body. A friend once told me I had bones of steel. Bit of a gift of mine but I didn't expect it to be of use on someone with godlike strength."

Hel chuckled a bit "So it's true you were able to go toe to toe with him before taking a leap here."

"Yeah. Honestly I think it was a bit of a fluke. I've never made a controlled jump before and I've never fought quite like that before. Honestly if he hadn't underestimated me so much I probably would have never stood a chance. I also don't think he's had a good brawl since the war. His fighting felt rusty."

"It'll probably be there more days before you are physically fit enough to leave so I'd suggest you rest up. As soon as you are ready I want Vidar gone, just as badly as he does."

I sat silent for a bit before asking "Can I get some food and more blood mead? I literally haven't eaten in days."

Hel nodded. "Feel free to enjoy the comfort of my room while you are stuck here. I don't mind visitors as long as they're not Asgardian."

I nodded and laid back down with a groan. It felt like i had broken a majority of the bones in my body. Between the fight and the trip she probably wasn't wrong about the recovery time. I sighed as once again most of my vacation was ruined.

I waited a while before Hel returned with what looked like a pulled pork sandwich with sauce on it, some fruit and veggies, and five more pints of blood mead. I could smell the meat and it definitely smelled good, but I was still hesitant to take a bite. The taste of the meat resembled the flavor of reptile, similar to alligator. The sauce was a spiced honey glaze. I practically inhaled the food and washed it down with some blood mead. "Should I... Should I even ask where that meat came from?"

Hel chuckled "It's Dreki, they are huge lizards and the swamp is just infested with these things. It's a bit dry like turkey but with the right cook it's not bad."

"It tastes like alligator, a large swamp dwelling reptile that lives in some areas of Midgard. They get as big as a person."

"Dreki get as big as longboats. Just one Dreki can feed an entire boat of people for a week."

"This place definitely wasn't what I expected. I was expecting..."

"A prison, yes, as it very much is. Yet even prisoners deserve to be treated like human beings. If you get what I mean because they aren't all humans. Besides some of the older giants the majority of the people here were born here. It's a prison colony for all those Odin wanted discarded. The wicked, the wretched, the unwanted, and any who failed the idunn trial."

"The... What?"

Before she could answer Vidar busted into the door and started shouting at Hel while gesturing. I unfortunately could not understand anything the two were saying as they argued back and forth. Body language and signal clues told me that whatever it was I was a part of it. Eventually Hel sighed and looked at me.

"Okay so there is a way to have you in top shape today but it's risky."

"Walk me through it."

"Are you familiar with the Valkyrie?"

"Yeah, warrior women led by Frya on Odin's behalf. They were said to take the souls of those that died in battle to Valhalla where they would fight, feed, and fornicate until called upon for Ragnarok. The Einherjar. But I'm guessing Valhalla wasn't exactly an afterlife similar to here."

"Right. The Valkyries would grab warriors close to death to bring to Odin. They would then be given an idunn apple. Those that were worthy would be healed and be given apples regularly to keep them young much as the royal family did for themselves. However not everyone brought to Valhalla was worthy."

"And what happened to those that weren't?"

Hel avoided my gaze. She had mentioned an idunn trial and that those that failed were sent to Helhiem. "I..."

I had already figured it out. "They weren't human anymore, were they"

She avoided my gaze even harder as her body tensed up. She simply shook her head "It wasn't pretty. I only saw the aftermath but I assume it was an unpleasant experience during the transition."

I let out a sigh. "Alright, I'll do it. I'll take the idunn apple trial or whatever. I've taken on a dark elven head warrior and the current king of Idavoll where Asguard once stood. I'm stubborn as it gets and tougher than I look."

She nodded then spoke to Vidar before fetching me a golden apple.

I looked at it, it felt metallic in my hand. I looked at Hel and asked "So I don't have to eat the core do I?"

"No, this isn't an all or nothing situation. Just eat it how you would normally."

I hesitantly bit into it, a mixture of sour and sweet, it was like eating a regular yellow apple wrapped in gold leaf. I crunched it down and sat there for a minute. "How long does it normally take?"

Hel shrugged and said something to Vidar who spoke back. Then Hel responded to my question. "Vidar says it usually takes a while. About the same amount of time as it takes for a medicine to take effect."

"Oh, great. So it'll be almost a half an hour before it even hits me. Cool." I sighed.

"Maybe you could go over how you measure time while we wait. I'm not sure what you mean by half an hour."

"Oh well the smallest measure of time that matters is the second." I tap my fingers on the table. "Each tap of my fingers is about a second. Sixty of these is one minute, sixty minutes is an hour. There are about twenty four hours in a day. There are seven days a week like you use. However there are twelve months in a year and they don't divide evenly and three hundred and sixty five days or so a year."

"Okay, a bit odd but I guess it works."

I tapped lightly and awkwardly at my legs while I waited out the rest of the time. It took about twenty minutes for it to finally hit me.

I started to feel warm on the inside, but that warmth turned into a raging fire as every muscle in my body tensed up painfully. I began to writhe in pain, unable to keep my voice in, groaning as if I was being tortured. The physical pain was not all I had to contend with, as I started to feel as if a bunch of hands were reaching out and trying to drag me down. Looking to drag me into the darkness the voices from the hands muttered incoherently. I felt Hel place her hand on my forehead, it's ice old skin contrasting the heat of my body. She said something to Vidar but even if it was English I doubt I would have understood what she was saying as the ringing in my ears drowned out all other sounds. When she tried to pull her hand off I grabbed it and forced it back on my forehead. "C-cold hand... Need" was all I managed to utter before talking became too painful.

Hel seemed to get what I was going for as she shouted something at Vidar who ran to get something. Meanwhile Hel moved to put the side of her face that wasn't covered in a mask on my chest and her other hand on my belly. The cold felt nice considering I felt like I was on fire. Vidar soon ran in with bags of what I assume was ice since it was just as cold. He placed them on me the best he could. After what felt like an eternity of agony and struggling not to be pulled into the darkness the pain faded and the heat passed. I let go of Hel and curled up, breathing heavily.

"Are you... Still with us?"

I barely managed to talk. Groaning out a "that sucked''. I then grabbed the tray of blood mead and downed the rest like I was dying of dehydration before curling up again. "I think I'm healed but I'll probably need a bit to recover from whatever the Helhiem that was."

"What do you mean?" Asked Hel "Was there something more than just the healing? I'm unfamiliar with how the trial works exactly myself since I didn't spend much time on Asgard before being sent here."

"Well the pain of being rapidly healed was a part of it, there was a mental aspect. It's like I was in two places at once. While my body was here, a part of my mind was elsewhere. I was standing in thick murky water when a bunch of slimy hands started trying to drag me in and drown me, whispering incoherently. I couldn't make out anything they said with all the voices overlapping."

"That sounds.... Unpleasant."

"Yeah, just give me a bit to recover and get dressed. I'll be ready to taxi Vidar home in like an hour or so."

Hel translated what I said then fetched my cleaned clothes. "Here."

"I... Would rather not have an audience while I dressed."

Hel nodded and sent Vidar away.

"That means you too Lady Hel."

"Why? I've already seen you naked."

"I said out." I spoke more firmly.

"Alright alright, I'm going."

I sat for a few minutes before getting up and getting dressed. I stretched out a bit feeling better than I did before I even left for my vacation. "I guess that wasn't all bad. Probably going to have nightmares for a while though." I then made my leave of the room and walked to the main hall of the mead house downstairs.

"Okay, I think I'm ready to try shifting again. I'll be taking a barrel of blood mead as a souvenir though. I'm going to get some people I know to try it."

Hel nods and has a person bring me a barrel. I lift it onto my foot and grab onto Vidar. "I guess I'll see you later."

"Feel free to come by anytime, just without the straggler. It's a shame though."

"What is?"

She then took her sensual but dangerous tone. "I had a naked man in my bed and I didn't even get a chance to enjoy him for myself~"

"I clearly asked you not to talk like that. I know you are only doing it to mess with me for fun. Laters."

"Bye~" Hel waved as I concentrated on going to Asgard.

With some effort I managed to make the trip. I felt extremely dizzy and nauseated but managed not to throw up. "Fffffuck double jumps. Never again."

Vidar led me to my stuff and gave it back to me before speaking again. "Get yourself some rest I guess since you need time between jumps. I'll prepare a room. Make sure you come talk to me before you go. I'm not going to have you killed or anything, you won your freedom. I noticed you like souvenirs so I'll make sure you get one from here too."

"That's.... Nice of you. I'll see you later then." I was later taken to a small shack with a bed. It was made of garbage compared to my own bed let alone Hel's. I put my bedroll on it and went to sleep.

I woke up and crawled out of bed and packed my bedroll. First thing after my sleep I went to the throne room. Vidar was already on his throne with a woman sitting on the throne next to him.

"I see you are well rested, or as well rested as possible given the limited arrangements. This is my queen, Vali." He gestures to the woman. She had brown hair and eyes, her hair was tied up into a ponytail and her outfit was about what I expected for a noble. Her face was lightly freckled and she looked quite a bit younger than Vidar did.

I however knew they were closer in age then they looked and this was most likely the result of the idunn apples being rationed. My best guess being the tree wasn't at its full capacity likely due to having to be replanted. I bow lightly. "Nice to meet you."

She nodded back at me without a word. Vidar then addressed me again. "I'll ask you a quick question. What is your opinion on fate and destiny?"

"I feel that there is no such thing, we forge our own paths. I know it may be easier to fall into determinism because of the Nornir, but I don't think they see the future. Possible futures, maybe. It's more likely the reason the cycle repeats partly because of them. It's easy to predict the future when it's also the past. It's more likely they manipulate events to maintain a cycle to appear more powerful than even the gods then it is for them to actually see a singular future. If everything is already written then what would be the point? Also if you could one hundred percent see a singular future that's already written then you wouldn't have to be so vague all the time with predictions."

Vidar nodded and gestured to someone who went to go fetch something. "I find myself agreeing with you, and before he died Odin started to feel similar. In fact he became a little paranoid because of it. That's why he did the entire well of knowledge and the hanging. To see for himself the truth. Unfortunately I think it drove him a bit mad. Anyway, I'll wish you the best of luck in future travels."

After a bit the man came back with what looked like a sword in a sheath. The handle and guard were golden and the leather sheath had glowing runes on it. "This sword once belonged to the Vanier royal Freyr, he traded it in exchange for the hand of a Jotun in marriage. Not having it led to his death during Ragnarok. It was recovered from the treasury after the war, though I'm not exactly sure how it got there."

"Wait, you mean the legendary sword of Freyr that can fight on its own? That's a legendary weapon, I couldn't possibly accept it."

Vidar grabbed the sword and walked it over to me. "It's dangerous to go alone, take this."

I felt I had no choice but to take it. It made a warbling sound as I gripped it, the blade tied down into the sheath so it doesn't go off until you need it. "Why help me? You considered me a threat just the other day."

"I need you alive if I'm going to get a rematch. Now don't go getting killed, my pride depends on you coming back to fight again."

I couldn't help but chuckle as I bowed before saying my goodbyes and walking to the spot I teleported in at. Once there I shifted back to "Midgard" and enjoyed the rest of my vacation before going home. I know this is far from over, but it might be a while before I make any new updates. Till then, I'll see you out there, somewhere, among the branches and roots of Yggdrasil.