As the door closes Yrsa let's out a sigh of relief and takes off her cloak hanging it up.

"I'm going to get Revna her pokemon to play with and than fetch you some new clothes. Make yourself at home." She says with a forced smile.

As Yrsa goes to another area of the building, Wesley looks around the grand hall she leaves him in. Their home is very long inside with no enclosed rooms. There are two corners with sleeping areas separated by furs. In the middle of their long house there is a large Fire ring for cooking and heat. Near it is a table with four chairs on each side and one chair at the end.

As wesley looks around Yrsa and Revna return to the hall with a cute little eevee.

"Ivar, come sit with us I want to show you the eggy Eevee and I found." Revna says

At first wesley was confused by being called Ivar but quickly recovered remembering Thorkell called him that.

While Yrsa goes to one of the sleeping areas to find Wesley new clothes, Wesley follows Revna by the fire ring where they have a Pokémon egg sitting on the floor right next to the fire. Wesley's eyes widen to see the egg so close to the flame.

"This is eggy" Revna says picking the egg up off the floor. She holds it up for Wesley to look at. As Wesley takes the egg in his hands he can feel how warm the egg is.

"This is a really nice egg Revna" Wesley says "Do you know what kind of pokemon is going to hatch from it?"

"No, I pretend it's a princess pokemon egg." Revna says very happily.

"Well you never know, you might be right." Wesley says with a smile." My father gave me a Pokémon egg like this one and I couldn't wait for it to hatch."

"You had a Pokémon egg too?" Revna say

"Yup, and when it hatched, the Pokémon inside zapped a kid that was picking on me." Wesley says

"Really!" Revna says "Can i see it?"

Wesley smiles and pulls out his pokeball. "Come on out buddy." he says. Elekid pops out of the pokeball very proud and stands close to Wesley." Wesley rubs Elekid's head "If you take good care of an egg the pokemon will know who you are before it even hatches. That's what building a bond is about." Elekid gives Wesley a big hug.

"I didn't know it was that impo-tinant. I thought we just had to keep it by the fire" Revna says as she reaches out to touch Elekid.

Wesley smiles "Important. Yes Pokémon eggs take just as much care as the Pokémon inside them."

Revna pets Elekid "it's so soft." She says "but.."

Wesley smiles "But what Revna?"

"What is it?" She asks a little embarrassed.

It dawns on Wesley that Elekid and its evolutions may not have even been discovered in this time yet.

"It's an Elekid sweety." Yrsa says as she steps out with clothes for Wesley. "This is the Pokémon the girl with the Geodude was talking about."

Wesley perks up at the mention of Delsey's Geodude.

"How about you take Eevee and Elekid into to other hall and play." Yrsa directs Revna. "I'm sure Ivar will be happy to watch your egg while you play. I'm sure he has a lot of questions so we need to talk for a little bit."

Revna puts the egg in Wesley's lap.

"Cmon Elekid, Cmon Eevee, let's go play battle." Revna says very excited

As Revna leaves the grand hall, Yrsa hands wesley the clothes.

"Your welcome to change now if you'd like." Yrsa says

"You know where delsey is?" Wesley unintentionally cuts off Yrsa

"Oh, you mean Embla." Yrsa smiles "Tomorrow is Thorsday so she should be back here in the morning, she has been here three times to face the gym leaders. Always been out the same amount of time. Magnus and Hilda have been giving her a lot of trouble. She just can't seem to get past their gym."

"She's doing gym battles?" Wait, why has she come here for gym battles more than once? Once she wins her gym badge why does she keep coming back for another?"

Yrsa smiles "Get dressed Ivar. I'll make us some tea and I'll explain the gym system here."

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Wesley rushes to the sleep area and changes behind the fur dividers. When he comes out he is wearing brown pants, leg wraps that are too loose, a red linen shirt a long belt tied around his waist and his backpack hanging from his shoulder. Yrsa is standing at the fire making tea in an iron pot.

"You look much better Ivar." She says with a smile

"Thanks, my name is Wesley by the way." He says.

"Just trust me." Yrsa says "Here it's Ivar." She says stirring the tea. "I suppose there are a lot of things you need to know so before we get into to Pokémon and gyms I want you to know Embla is fine. I know your looking for her and I'm sure tomorrow she'll be back. Shes the only trainer here trying to run through gyms by herself. Maybe with you here she will be able to continue further."

"But why is she doing gym battles instead of trying to get home?" Wesley asks

"She can't return home unless she compleates the gyms." Yersa explains "Embla told us of her struggle. She spent her first couple days here trying to find a way home. On her third night the gods spoke to her in a dream. They heard her cries and spoke of a way home that would come at the final stage of a Vahallan Pokémon journey. As she understood it a way home would present itself if she compleated the gym system and defeated the Vahallan Pokémon Champion. Her story was far fetched and quite unbelievable but now with you here I belive she was telling the truth. Personally I hope it is because it may restore order here in Vahalla."

Wesley sits quietly processing everything Yrsa is saying. Vloodreagle mentioned a way home after helping protect this place from a great darknrss and the gods of this place spoke to Delsey of a way home when completing a Pokémon journey. The two must be tied together.

"So how does she compleate the journey and win against the champion?" He asks

"We have always been a teamwork oriented place." Yrsa says. "So gym battles involve two trainers and two gym leaders, its always been a difficult task but ever since Hela became queen, the gym system here has become a bit complicated. There are five armrings that need to be collected before trainers can challenge the champion. The Valknut ring, the Vegvísir ring, Web of Wyrd ring, Helm of Awe ring and the Berserker ring. They must be collected in that order and Hela added the ruling that if trainers lose their gym battle, they lose the arm rings that they won from previous gyms and have to return here to Valknrock and start over. As if that wasnt difficult enough if one gym challengers Pokémon is unable to continue the battle or raided the gym challengers team loses but both gym leaders pokemon must be defeated or raided in order for trainers to win."

"That's not fair." Wesley says "how is anyone going defeat all five gyms without losing a single pokemon?"

"Some of is belive, that's the point. The Pokémon champion is also our queen who created the ruling." Yrsa says disappintedly.

"Unbelievable, how can she get away with that? Why didn't anyone question the ruling?" Wesley asks

"It was passed when Hela was already scheduled to face the previous champion. Hela convinced everyone that the system was too easy to be recognized as any kind of challenge. She made people belive if there wasn't more challenges created that trainers would lose interest in battling and any kind of pokemon championship would fade away. You see Ivar, many traders and merchants rely on the pokemon championship system. Before it began raiding was a way of life. It was the only source of income for many and it caused many wars but after the Pokémon championship system many trainers come and bring buisness to many here, so if people lost interest we could fall back into the need for raiding and possibly bringing back wars, just for survival."

"That is a convincing argument." Wesley admits "But there are more to Pokémon than just battling and the system is unfair. You keep saying raids and if a pokemon is raided. What does that mean?"

Yrsa smiles and walks over to one of the shelves in the hall. When she returns she hands Wesley a strange looking pokeball. It's red with steel strips wrapped around. There are strange symbols around the center and gold horns on the sides.

"This is a raid ball." Yrsa says "With this you are able to capture your opponents pokemon and claim them as your own. It is outlawed to use outside of Pokémon gym battles. When it first was created there were to many fights started over Pokémon being raided all the time. One good thing that Hela did was outlaw the use and make them exclusive to gym battles."

After examining the raidball wesley tries to hand it back to Yrsa but she shakes her head

"Your going to need it." She says with a smile "Hold on to it."

"I prefer to not capture Pokémon. It doesn't seem right to take a Pokémon from their home. Especially if that Pokémon already has a trainer." Wesley says

"That is noble of you Ivar." She says "But remember, you wouldn't be taking a Pokémon from a caring trainer. Trainers here use Pokémon for battle and push them to fight. Before Embla and you arrived there where only four trainers in Vahalla that I know of to speak of a bond between Pokémon and trainer. Thyra and Aric the gym leaders of the Vegneiry trading post than Thorkell and I. Everyone else we've met just push Pokémon, so you see you wouldn't be taking them from a caring trainer, you would be saving them from constant abuse. That is one reason. Why Thorkell and run raid rules in our gym."

"Wait." Wesley says "You and Thorkell are the gym leaders here?"

Yrsa lowers her head "Unfortunatly, yes."

"Unfortunatly? Isn't being a gym leader a big honor?"

"It is, but the way the system is we have twenty to thirty teams wanting to battle every day. Our pokemon can't handle the constant battles. Nor can we. Thorkell spends every day battling and when he isn't battling he is in the iron shop crafting armbands." Yrsa explains.

"That's what he was making when I was in the Iron shop wasn't it?"

Yrsa nods "Yes, he will make seven or eight a day and tomorrow they would all be gone. We have always been great Pokémon gym leaders but because of the ware of long days and little sleep our battling has struggled. We use raid rules not just to try and help the pokemon from being abused by their trainers but also to try and lower the number of trainers. If we can take some of their most prized Pokémon we hope they will give up and stop trying."

"Can't you get help? Another team to help lead the gym so its not just you two having to take on every team." Wesley suggests

Yrsa smiles as she pours two small horns of tea. "We've tried. At one time we sent weekly letters expressing our troubles, but our request have come back denied by Hela. You see when she was working to be champion Thorkell and I gave her some trouble. It took four battles before she won her Valkanut armband.

But that's enough for now. I'm going to begin preping our dinner, thorkell should be home soon. If you'd like you can go do some training with revna. Hopefully she hasn't over played Eevee and Elekid." She smiles and sips her tea.