Touching the first figurine made the familiar words glow up on the stone wall behind the altar.

{Name: Einar Arnessen}

{Title: none}

{Ancestry: dragon/human/giant}

{Age: 18}

{Valour: 2390}

{Calling: Seeker}

{Renown: known by a few}

{Attributes}

• Charm:13

• Deftness: 20

• Divinity: 5

• Grit: 15

• Heart; 25

• Luck: 11

• Might: 29

• Mind: 15

• Soul: 20

Vigour/Spirit/Fortitude

71/85/66

‘That’s a lot.’ Einar mused as he looked at the changes. The first thing that caught his eye was the increase in his valour points. It seemed that reaching the Torn Serpent first and defeating those draugrs earned him some recognition. Regarding his renown, he also became ‘known by a few’ although he had no idea what that would change. There was a stark increase in his attributes as well with his divinity and soul both strengthened by two and his heart and mind each gaining one. Out of curiosity, he decided to check his skills as well finding that one of them reached an important stage.

{Swimming}{Specialization to be chosen}

{A warrior must know how to swim fast and far if they want to survive on the dangerous waters. Every fifth level will increase your fortitude by 2 and your vigour by 1. Every tenth rank increases your deftness by 1 and grants a minor perk. Every twenty-fifth rank allows you to choose a specialization.}

{Rank: 25 (beginner)}

{Rank progression: 30/30}

{Fortitude increase: 10}

{Deftness increase: 2}

{Vigour increase: 5}

{Perks: firm pace, breath control}

{Relentless swimmer}

{The long hours of training made you relentless in your effort to reach your goal. A relentless swimmer can push through tiredness as their fortitude decreases half as fast as that of others.

{Agile swimmer}

{Pushing the boundaries of what you are capable of made you reach new heights of speed when it comes to swimming. You are at least one-fourth faster than others of your rank.}

While swimming somewhat faster sounded good at first, the young giant knew from experience that having the fortitude to last through a long swim was invaluable. It didn’t matter that you were a bit faster than others if you drowned after losing all of your strength. With the choice made, Einar looked at his other skills but found nothing noteworthy. As he wanted to reach for the next of the four figurines to look for other changes, he noticed something shining on the far right side of the altar.

It was a pearl that looked just like the one he found in the ruined village. When he picked it up, he heard a chipping sound coming from the stone slab behind the altar. A round hole appeared on the right side of it that was just big enough to hold the pearl. Einar reached forward to place it inside the hole and watched as it lit up while a drawing got carved into the stone which depicted a figure holding the pearl up with both hands. Glowing words appeared on the wall in front of him.

{Gift of the deep}

{Lesser Divine Relic}

{The power of this once worshipped treasure which was found in a glowing clam now belongs to you. It will help you master any water-related skills or spells one-tenth faster than others while also permanently increasing your divinity and luck by one.}

‘A divine relic?’ The young giant mused as he looked at the fading words and the still-glowing pearl that was now embedded in the stone slab. Touching the first figurine once more he noticed that his divinity indeed rose to six while his luck turned twelve. ‘Thank you for your gift, Harald.’ He said a silent prayer in his mind before checking the rest of the figurines, only finding a slight change in the chronicle part that now had a Sea-touched Draugr in it.

{Sea-touched Draugr fisherman}

Charm:2-3

Deftness: 6-9

Divinity: 1

Grit: 6-7

Heart; 7-8

Luck: 3-5

Might: 4-7

Mind: 2-4

Soul: 2-3

The last change he noticed was to one of his feats. Where draconic pride felt incomplete before, it now showed a full description that answered quite a few of his questions.

{Draconic pride}

{Dragons are naturally prideful beasts, seeing themselves as the strongest creatures in the world. Those who challenge their pride shall raise their ire, stoking the flames of rage that will soon become their undoing. When enraged, both your heart and might attributes will temporarily increase by two, burning away your fortitude and vigour to fuel your carnage. Draconic pride lasts for two minutes. After it ends, you will be weakened for half an hour.}

It wasn’t a skill he could actively train, but as he recalled his fight with the netherworld wretches back in Wolfhold, he now understood why he felt that surge of rage and power. ‘Another weapon to use against my enemies.’ He thought as he stepped away from the altar. With nothing else to do there, the young giant returned from his inner world through meditation, opening his eyes to find Arvid sitting beside him with a fish skewer in hand.

“Took you long enough,” the warrior remarked. “I had to ask the others to bring me a fish while waiting for you.”

“Sorry about that,” Einar said with no remorse at all. “There was... a lot to process.”

“Good things I presume, Harald’s chosen?”

“I didn’t receive any such titles if that’s what you’re asking,” the giant sighed as he reached inside his world-eater pouch, finding no trace of the pearl.” Anyway, did anyone leave the shore while I was... occupied?”

“No one,” Arvid shook his head. “They’re still trying to see what can be salvaged from the local buildings before they start chopping down the nearby trees for wood.”

“Alright,” Einar nodded as he stood up. “Time for me to get going.”

“I’ll stay here for a while,” the warrior pointed at his still-cooking food. “I need some energy for all the exploring.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Sure,” the giant shrugged before turning toward the forest line. “I’ll try to come back before nightfall.”

The first few trees of the forest seemed ordinary with some oak, birch and the like dotting the place, thick undershrub making it hard to traverse the land. Einar followed an overgrown path that was leading him inland, his right hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. He walked for over an hour before the first sign of danger showed itself, a pack of beasts running by not far ahead of him. ‘Are those...wolves?’ The giant thought to himself in surprise as he watched the beasts run by, each nearly the size of the bear he fought back home.

The wolves stopped for a moment to look at him, only to snarl and continue their journey through the dense bushes. Not knowing whether the beasts would return or not, the giant drew his sword and willed it to shrink into a one-handed blade’s size before continuing with his journey. Soon he reached the end of the trail that led him to a valley of broken stones. On the other side of the valley was a rocky hill the shape of a large fang, ash trees surrounding it and the ruins beneath the hill

Einar couldn’t stop himself from letting out a sigh of wonder as he looked at the valley. It felt… serene. A feeling that was overturned the moment an arrow drilled itself into the tree beside him.

“Halt!” A voice commanded and its source turned out to be an older man with two others standing beside him.

The men wore strange attires, an armour likely distinct to their homeland that the young giant didn’t recognize. Their skin was pale and their eyes were of a different shape than he was used to. Einar looked at them warily for a moment before shrugging and continuing his way down the path.

“I said halt!” the man yelled again, his next arrow striking the ground in front of the youth’s feet. “No barbarians are allowed into this valley before the noble...”

“If you try to kill me,” Einar spoke as he kept walking. “You will earn the wrath of the gods for breaking their agreement. Instead of trying to stall me, you should have brought your people here if you wanted to make sure they got here first.”

“You..” One of the men stuttered in anger as he fired an arrow, its tip cutting the giant’s cheek.

The moment the first drop of blood fell on the floor. all hell broke loose. As if to prove Einar’s words, a crimson lightning struck from the cloudless sky, striking the offender and turning him into a charred mist of ash in an instant. The other two didn’t get away unscathed either as small arcs of the red lightning spewed out toward them, throwing the two back a few yards. Einar wanted to continue down toward the ruins, but he caught sight of something sparkling where the lightning struck.

He walked closer, only to find tiny red sparks jumping around something that seemed to be stuck in the ground. The youth crouched down and dug into the charred dirt with his fingers, pulling free a fist-sized piece of what he thought to be glass. It had a twisted shape but more importantly, this cloudy glass seemed to have some of the red lightning sealed within it.

‘A treasure? Could it be a relic like the pearl before?’ He thought to himself as he put the strange glass into his pouch before continuing his way down to the ruins. The broken and overgrown stones that circled the clearing could have been the edge of a shrine once. The seeker saw an altar-like structure at the end of the clearing just beneath the claw-shaped rocky hill. As Einar walked closer, he felt the air shift around him as a humming sound filled it.

The overgrown stone pieces began to reverberate as they shook free of the weeds and dirt, floating into the air one by one. Each of them flew with a purpose as they cleared away, forming strange pillars in a circular shape. Einar realised that he now stood in the middle of a makeshift arena, the pillars glowing up with ancient symbols before trapping him inside with a wall of light. ‘This looks familiar’. He remarked in his mind as he looked toward the altar that began to smoke, the dry branches and weeds burning off from its surface. Once everything burned off, a voice whispered into his mind.

“Through Aeons past, those who washed ashore on these lands would make their way here to prove themselves worthy. Step forward, challenger! The trial of deftness awaits you.”

As the voice went silent for a moment, Einar noticed a glow appear atop the pillars around him. It was as if a fist-sized sun appeared above the stone columns, each turning dark green. At the same time, a faintly glowing circle appeared on the ground in the middle of the arena.

“The task ahead of you is both simple yet difficult,” the voice returned. “Survive for a minute under the rain of attacks aimed at you. Dodge, deflect, roll. Do whatever it takes to make it through. A gift will be bestowed for each challenge, three rounds in total. Know, that stepping into the circle means surrendering what you’ve earned, but will allow you to keep your life. Let the challenge begin!”

The voice went silent once again, but Einar had little time to ponder about what he heard as a glowing green arrow-like thing flew by him. One by one, each of the glowing orbs that floated above the pillars began to spit out such arrows of light at him. At first, they came one at a time but after half a minute or so, there were two coming at him at once. A low horn sound made him look toward the altar for a moment, noticing a glow appear on it.

‘One minu...damn!’ He cursed on the inside as his momentary distraction made one of the light bolts strike his arm. It left a burn mark as if he was stabbed by a red-hot iron poker. The number of light arrows increased to three and then four at the same time, forcing Einar to run around, sometimes dodging, other times rolling on the ground to evade the searing projectiles.

“Stop right there, barbarian,” he heard someone yelling from outside the arena. “The glory of the first trial belongs to the Falling Sun Empire!”

Those words almost made Einar stop, but the bolt that flew by his neck made him duck and roll instead.

“Did you not hear what young lord Takeshi said? Get out of there you barbarian mongrel!” Another voice yelled before an arrow came from above, drilling itself into the ground near the giant.

A split second later a pained scream cut through the air and Einar could see from the corner of his eye that one of the glowing balls atop the pillar sent a bolt at the stranger who shot an arrow above the barrier. The youth got struck in the head somewhere around his eyes and the giant could only shudder as he remembered the searing pain the glowing bolts could cause. A few seconds later another horn resounded as the second minute passed, the number of green bolts suddenly increasing to six instead of five.

At that point, Einar had to summon his frost shield, the thick piece of ice slowly chipping and melting away under the hits it blocked. Then, the six bolts grew to eight, more and more hitting him, leaving scorched marks on his armour and body. When the final horn resounded, the lights above the pillars flickered out and a path opened in the barrier that led toward the altar. He could see five strangely dressed youths standing on the other side of the mystical wall, glaring daggers at him as he made his way up to the altar.

One of them had a more regal-looking armour than the others, making him the leader in Einar’s opinion. The young man was gritting his teeth as he watched the giant reach the top of the stairs, his followers menacingly gripping their weapons. Einar threw the thought to the back of his head, turning toward the altar.