“You’re quite good at making friends,” Arvid remarked as he held the empty wineskin with a mournful expression. “If they didn’t hate you before, they sure do now. Stubborn bastard. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you are as arrogant as they come but I can tell you just hate being bossed around.”

“She irks me,” Einar admitted as his gaze drifted toward the many groups in the distance. “Haftor and Ingrid were the children of the local Jarl, both God-marked and entitled brats who looked down on others like they were nothing but servants or even roadside shit. I thought that after becoming a God-marked, things would change. That people would at least treat me as anything beyond a dumb brute, but it seems I was wrong. They still think that I will bow my head and follow their whims like an obedient dog.”

“Have you ever?” Arvid asked back playfully, earning a head shake from the young giant. “Good. One needs ambitions to get ahead in life and a strong spine to hold one firm in their beliefs. But anyway, what did you see in the forest? Did you find anything good?”

“You mean beside a pack of giant wolves that tried to eat me?”

“Besides that,” the warrior nodded. “Though that must have been a good fight.”

“It was,” he sighed. “The pack leader was bigger than a horse. And angrier too. It...”

“What did I miss?” A familiar voice cut into the seeker’s tale as Rúna appeared beside them. “I heard you came back and mediately passed off Brynhildr’s lapdogs, so I came to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine.” Einar claimed while Arvid pointed towards the free space on the log the two were sitting on.

“Sit down,” he hummed. “Einar was just about to tell me of his fight with the wolves.”

“Wolves?”

“Indeed. One of them was the size of a horse.”

“I was following the path through the forest and found a small stone bridge leaning over a stream. I barely crossed it when three wolves appeared in front of me. It seemed that they were still trying to decide if it was worth attacking me or not, but it turned out to be a ruse. Their leader sneaked behind me and tried to tackle me.”

“Sneaky bastard,” Arvid remarked. “Wolves were already smart back home but to think they would have the mind to plan an ambush like that is troublesome.”

“It is.” The seeker agreed before continuing with his tale, telling them how he fought and defeated the wolf, keeping its corpse.

“You stored the carcass in... that?” Rúna asked baffled as she looked at the world eater pouch on Einar’s belt.

“That’s a handy thing to have around,” the warrior noted from the side. “Hopefully, I’ll get myself one soon enough. This place is said to be full of treasures and I won’t be dragging all that around with me all the time.”

“That’s true for all of us.” Rúna added.

The young giant continued with his tale, reaching the point where he decided to climb the small mountain. When he told them what he found on the mountaintop, the others couldn’t help but shake their heads.

“Most people haven’t even left the village and you’ve already found the second trial,” the forgemaiden scoffed. “If it goes like this you will be done with it in the first week.”

“I doubt that,” Einar argued. “I’ve seen the landscape from the mountaintop and it’s enormous. There were two other mountains in the distance, the furthest one reaching up to the clouds. Even the second mountain would take a good week to reach on foot. I could also make out several ruins between the first and the second mountains. Too many to house the trials.”

“They could be old settlements or maybe places for lesser trials.” Arvid shared his thoughts on the matter.

“How long do you think it will take for the other kingdoms’ God-marked to find the second proving ground?” Rúna asked with a serious tone after a while.

“A day or so at best if they have good climbers,” The seeker claimed. “It’s straight on the path so they can’t miss it.”

“I’ll talk with the others tomorrow morning,” Arvid stated. “The sooner we get them to finish the first trial the sooner we can head over to the second one. Most of the people from the other kingdoms had likely already conquered the first trial while the princess and her followers were cowering in the village. We can’t afford to lag behind.”

“We should hear what the second trial is about before rushing over to get ourselves killed.” Rúna stated.

“It can’t be that bad,” the warrior argued. “The first one was quite easy.”

“For you perhaps, but not everyone is as small and slippery as you are. Others will find it hard to get through the trial...”

“It’s far deadlier than the first one,” Einar cut into their argument. “It was called the trial of luck but I don’t think it has much to do with luck. At least, I didn’t feel like it did.”

“What was it about?” The shieldmaiden interrogated him relentlessly and Einar went on to tell them about the falling floor tiles and the spiked hole beneath.

“Damn the gods!” Rúna cursed after hearing the whole story. “Do they want to kill us that much? If there’s no rhyme or reason to which tile crumbles and which one stays, it’s just a twisted game of luck.”

“Only if you go in unprepared,” Arvid said. “Now that we know what’s it like, we can go in with two spears and follow Einar’s way of passing it. We just have to move faster than he did, since they seem to be expecting us to finish it in a certain time.”

“Unless it changes now that he passed the trial,” Rúna argued. “There’s no assurance that it will be the same for us. After all, it’s the trial of luck. Even that voice told him that warriors can make their own luck. Who’s to say that two can make their luck the same way?”

“These trials must have been here for centuries. I doubt that our friend here is the only one who came up with such a way to pass it. And if not, then we’ll just have to let someone forward to see if Einar’s way of passing it is still possible.”

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“Or you could just run across the trial ground,” Rúna chuckled. “You might be fast enough to pass before the tiles break.”

The young giant stood up while the other two were bickering and began to pull out the parts of his tent, knocking the pair of treated wooden poles into the ground before stretching a length of rope across them which he covered with a grease-treated tarp. By the time the others noticed his absence, Einar had already laid down his bedroll.

“What the... when did you have the time to build a tent?” Arvid asked surprised.

“While the two of you were bickering like a married couple.” The giant jabbed back at him before pulling out the giant wolf’s corpse from his world eater pouch.

“Damn, that thing is huge!” The forgemaiden cursed as she watched the giant wolf corpse fall to the ground. “And it even has a rune-mark.”

“Rune-mark?” Einar asked back as he heard the unfamiliar words.

“My father said that if a beast lives near a place of power for a long time, they will absorb said power and form their own boon or natural blessing. It’s similar to the bloodline or ritual tattoos people can get.”

“Is there a way to know what this wolf’s power was or to harvest it somehow?”

“It’s not hard to do it,” the forgemaiden claimed as she rummaged through her knapsack, pulling out three pouches. “That rune stone you got before likely held the power of such a boon, given how natural those lines were. I brought along a couple of blank stones which I bought from Lady Hrefna so that I could harvest any rune marks I find or make new ones once I gained the power to do so. I’m not sure how powerful this one is though.”

She then pulled out a stone from each pouch, one bright sand coloured, one somewhat dark and grey while the last one seemed to be a flat piece of obsidian.”

“If the rune-mark reacts to the sandstone then it’s just some weak and ordinary boon. If it fits the granite then it’s an unordinary one and could hold some decent power,” she sighed as she looked at the black glass-like stone in her hand. “If it only answers the call of the obsidian, then you got Harald on your side today.”

The forgemaiden held the sandstone piece close to the glowing patch of fur while quietly murmuring something, but nothing happened. When she repeated it with the granite piece, the strange lines on the wolf’s hide began to pulse with power before motes of light broke free, flowing into the stone. A small symbol formed on the thumb-sized stone, earning a sigh from Rúna.

“Not bad for your first true battle on the island,” she said as she kept staring at the rune. “This one can cause the enemy you cut with your weapon to bleed out faster than they would. The wolf likely formed this boon to help it with its hunts.”

“Sounds like something that would do good for any weapon.” The seeker remarked as he unsheathed his sword to hand it over.

Rúna put the blade down on the log she was sitting on and placed the rune on its blade just below the hilt. She then summoned her fiery hammer and swung it down three times on the rune. It melted into the weapon, leaving a symbol that reminded Einar of a crudely drawn bleeding gash.

“There you go,” the forgemaiden handed the sword back. “It’s not much, but it will grow along with your blade when you get it further strengthened later on.”

“Thank you. I also have something else that might be a rune of sorts.”

“Of sorts,” the woman looked at him puzzled. You don’t sound too sure. Let me see.”

The seeker took out the crystal clover and handed it over to the forgemaiden, earning a low whistle from her.

“Bloody hell,” she said as she switched looking at the stone and then the giant. “Where the hell did you get this?”

“It was one of the prizes for surviving the trial,” Einar claimed. “Is it anything good?”

“Is it good? Are you jesting with me? This is amazing. This is a multifold protection rune,” she explained with clear excitement. “It’s man-made but it’s not from our folks. To think you’d get a treasure like this.”

“Alright,” Arvid rolled his eyes. “Stop gushing over it and tell us what it can do.”

“As I told you before it is a multifold protection rune. Which means that it protects against several things. Four to be precise. I’ve only seen a rune that could protect against two things before and even that was worth a fortune. This one offers protection against divine, fire, frost and lightning elemental attacks. It’s weak, but it can still resist five points of elemental harm.”

“How come you always get stuff like this?” the young warrior asked the giant. “You got that hastening rune from the first trial and now this from the second one. Is this because of the whole Harald’s chosen thing?”

“I don’t think so,” Rúna argued. “I think it’s more likely because he’s the first one to find and complete the trials.”

“In other words, you can get one for being the first? Damn. That would make sense. No wonder everyone is so crazy about finding the proving grounds first.”

“Everyone except our people.” The seeker remarked.

“True,” Arvid agreed. “Listen, I don’t want to put more weight on your shoulders, but you better find the rest of the trials first. I’d rather you have these rewards than our enemies.”

“Sounds like a worthy challenge,” the young giant nodded. “I’ll try to beat them to as many of the challenges as I can.”

“Give me your breastplate,” Rúna cut into their talk, the woman looking at him expectantly. “That’s the best armour piece to use this rune on.”

Einar gave her a slight nod before stripping his armour off and handing it over. She placed the breastplate on the log and put the rune on it before swinging her fiery hammer at them. After the third strike, her hammer dissipated and the armour now had the image of the same clover glowing on the right side of the chest area.

“Here. May it protect you as intended by the gods.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” she argued. “I’ll take the wolf’s hide as payment. It seems to be tough enough to be a good material for refining my gear.”

“Fine by me,” Einar nodded. “There seems to be plenty more where that came from. Do you know someone who can skin it for you?”

“I do,” she said with a smile while running her fingers across the soft yet strong fur of the carcass. “Some of the formal thralls worked for craft folks so they could skin and butcher it. There’s plenty of meat on it to feed a lot of people.”

“Just make sure that we get some as well”, Arvid said from the side. “I’m starting to get bored of roasted fish.”

“Sure.” The forgemaiden replied as she grabbed the hind legs of the carcass and dragged it away like it was some wheat sack.

“Damn,” the warrior spoke after Rúna was out of hearing distance. “She’s as strong as an ox. Anyway, what are you planning to do now? You won’t stay in the village besides getting some sleep, that I know for sure.”

“I plan on heading further inland,” Einar stated. “I’ve seen plenty of ruins in the distance from the mountaintop and I want to find out if they have anything worth taking.”

“A treasure hunt, eh? Sounds good. Don’t forget to come back sometimes and tell us if you find anything noteworthy.”

“That was the plan. What about you?”

“I will help Rúna lead the others to the first and then to the second trial. That should keep most of us busy tomorrow. After that, a few friends want to form a hunting party with me.”

“You, hunting?” The giant looked at him surprised.

“You’re not the only one who wants to get stronger or richer. Most of us came here for the same reason. Glory and riches. Even if we can’t become gods, we plan to retire rich from this place.”