Half of the flame created through the sacrificed bear flew up toward the sky while the other spilt over the altar and the armour pieces that lay on it. The flames burnt briefly, then went out as if someone blew out a candle. The seeker stepped closer to look at his equipment, finding that his armour changed slightly. The leather parts of his gear looked thicker and stronger while the metal pieces were far less crude and lacked any dents or scratch marks. The most noticeable change occurred to his mantle.

The originally black bear fur mantle was now ashen grey, a strange power wafting off of it. Einar could feel that the change was more than just what met the eye, so he silently thanked the All-father before donning his armour and mantle. Touching his world eater pouch let him feel that it was a few cubic feet bigger than before, maybe enough to put an extra barrel inside. Einar quickly donned his armour again, feeling its weight settle over his simple clothes. It was a welcome burden.

“That looks better,” Arvid noted with a smirk. “That ashen fur does make you easier to notice though.”

The warrior’s words soon dried up as the fur mantle lengthened into a full cloak that covered the giant’s entire body beneath his head. It then shrank back as the seeker was about to turn and leave.

“Einar,” the shieldmaiden cold after him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“The wolves,” she pointed at the pair of carcasses not too far from them. “How are we supposed to bring them down the mountain?”

“Oh, right. I’ll leave them at the foot of the mountain for you.” He hummed before heading over to shove the corpses back into his world eater pouch.

“By the way,” the seeker stopped for a moment.” Did you two manage to complete the second trial?”

“Oh now he’s interested,” Arvid replied with a mock indignation. “Of course, we did. I almost died to it too. Luckily your method worked.”

“That it did,” Rúna nodded in agreement. “But it seems I was right about the gods not wanting us to stick to a single method of passing the trial.”

“It no longer works then?” The giant turned back to look at the chequered proving ground that no one dared to challenge from those present.

“The people of the Falling Sun Empire arrived just about the time the third Viking after us was about to finish her trial,” the forgemaiden explained. “Since we had no more people here at the time, they went ahead and challenged the trial, hoping to conquer it with the same as we did.”

“You can imagine the surprise on their faces when the first man who tried our method fell into the pit.”

“Then the next one,” Rúna added. “And the next.”

“They were quite mad about that,” the warrior remarked. “They accused us of misleading them, not shutting up about it until more of our own arrived and one of them almost died from trying the same trick with the spears. Luckily the fool managed to grab onto a tile that didn’t crumble and reached the bronze boundary. Not many got further than the silver boundary ever since.”

“I doubt we’ll have any more of us who manage to reach the gold boundary either.” The forgemaiden sighed.

“Brynhildr will be mighty pissed about that,” Arvin chuckled. “She’s going to be raging about us not bringing her here first.”

“She can kiss my hammer for all I care, “the giant of a woman scoffed as she turned toward Einar again. “So, are you heading out to explore again?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I hadn’t even reached the ruins before getting my pouch filled and having to return.”

“Well, good luck out there,” Rúna said with a serious tone. “And try not to get yourself killed.”

“Will do.”

With their talk over, the giant walked up to the edge of the mountaintop and dropped down. turning into a raven and gliding down. Reaching the ground, he turned back into his true form and pulled the wolf carcasses out of his pouch. He then headed out once again toward the distant tower and ruins. Hours later when he finally arrived, the seeker found the remains of what could once have been a fortress of sorts.

Its large stone walls had crumbled with age and so did most of the buildings. Small houses and a ruined wall circled the fort, abandoned and overgrown. Einar landed on the outskirts of the ruins, unsheathing his sword before taking a single step forward. His caution paid out as barely a few steps in he was greeted by a dried-out draugr that shambled toward him with low growls. It wore mouldy clothes with decayed armour and held a rusted sword, hardly a threat to anyone any more. The seeker attacked the draugr, trying to will his blade’s new ability to activate.

Suddenly, the sword felt heavier in his hand as he swung downward, the blade splitting the walking corpse in two at its whole length. It fell on the ground lifeless, again. The giant quickly took the rusted blade and shoved it into his pouch before picking up a dried-out coin pouch from the carcass. Prying it open he found a small handful of aged silver jewel fragments inside. ‘Hacksilver?’ Einar recognised it. Hacksilver was a currency made out of pieces of jewellery or small items, quite common among the Vikings as a result of both their raiding and trade traditions.

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He poured it into his world eater pouch and tried to look for anything else of value on the split carcass, but found nothing of worth. Heading forward, several more such draugr shambled out from between the ruined buildings, all of them ending up in pieces. The seeker reached the entry of the fort soon enough, a pair of draugr archers shooting arrows at him from the top of the weathered gate.

‘How in Harald’s beard do those bows still work?’ He mused as he dodged the arrows and rushed beneath the gate before summoning his ice shield. Inside the fort, he found a set of stone stairs along the wall that let him reach the archers whom he dispatched with a few swings of his blade. A good handful of Hacksilver, a pair of ancient bows and some such later he began to search through the fort, fighting any draugr he found in the ruins. The main building of the fort proved to be a challenge to gain entry to as it had a pair of thick wooden doors that were reinforced with iron bars.

Walking around he found a window he could reach and leapt up to grab it. Einar climbed inside, finding himself in the main hall that was filled with the remains of a battle. ‘Infighting?’ He thought to himself while looking at the broken remains of the two sides. One side wore a faded red cloak while the other a withered blue one. It was common amongst the clans to have cloaks of a unified colour, often adorned with their symbol, making it clear that whatever happened here annihilated both sides. Einar heard tales from his father about schemes between the noble clans where an invitation to a feast ended in a massacre.

Either way, his thoughts were disrupted by the creaking sounds that came from the bodies on the ground. The age-old corpses began to move, slowly standing up between eerie firing their eyes. ‘Great. More draugr.’ The giant sighed as he unsheathed his sword and started swinging at the undead that turned their attention to him. Most of them went down easily but some of the larger ones put up quite the fight, earning Einar a few scratches on his armour and ice shield.

At some point, two heavily armoured and surprisingly large draugr shuffled forward, both wearing a different cloak. ‘The clan leaders?’ He asked from no one in particular as he staggered back from blocking a great axe that almost shattered his shield. The other oversized draugr swung a two-handed sword toward him that cut off the top of the already damaged shield, forcing him to take a few steps back. ‘Fighting against two at the same time won’t end well.’ Einar thought as he backed up further, hopping over an old, rotting long table.

The draugr with the sword rushed toward him, crashing into the table that creaked and broke apart. It bought him enough time to will his sword to grow into its full length which he used to split the undead from neck to waist with his empowered downward swing. The monster barely noticed the damage done to it as it stood back up, its torso splitting a few inches apart but nothing more. He watched in disgust as the split-apart draugr continued to shuffle toward him with a foul ooze pouring from its flesh. Meanwhile, the one with the axe was circling the table toward his right.

‘I have to finish one off while they’re separated.’ Einar decided as he rushed forward, stomping the split draugr in the waist, making it fall back from the force of the kick. He swung his blade in a horizontal line, splitting the creature’s head in half around the nose. Its half skull rolled on the ground once before the seeker stomped on it. Despite its head being destroyed the body still twitched on the ground unable to move properly without something to control it. The giant sank his blade into the draugr’s chest and twisted it with enough force to shatter its ancient ribs and rotten heart.

The body stilled and the youth let out a relieved breath before an axe swing knocked his blade to the side. His other opponent caught up with him, the axe barely missing his wrist with its strange arc. The large sword clamoured on the ground as the seeker staggered back more out of surprise than anything. His enemy tried to raise his axe up to the air once more, but Einar summoned a spear of fire which he stabbed straight into the draugr’s heart. The monster dropped the large axe as the flames in its eyes got snuffed out and it collapsed on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Silence filled the chamber once again, only the seeker’s heavy breaths resounding from time to time. With the threat finally gone, the young giant could finally have a better look around. The hall where he just fought was well-lit with several broken windows letting light inside. The large fireplace at the back of the hall and a dozen braziers along the stone pillars must have brought light and heat between the weathered walls once and the now rotten tables were filled with plates and tankards. Einar’s thoughts about a feast taking place before a fight broke out seemed to be more and more likely to be true.

He picked up his sword from the ground, checking it for any damage, but only found a groove beneath the hilt of the blade. It wasn’t anything serious and he figured that the next time he made an offer to the gods in hopes of strengthening his weapon, the damage would be gone too. Looking at his fallen enemies, the seeker stepped closer to the axe-wielding draugr to search its carcass for anything of use. Its weapon was dotted with rust, but otherwise fine, with a glowing rune and a tiny gemstone at the base of the axe head.

‘A fine weapon.’ Einar hummed as he put it away into his world eater pouch. It was followed by the enemy’s damaged armour that was made with steel and leather of high quality. The long-dead clan leader had a few pieces of silver and gold jewellery which were also pocketed along with a pouch full of coins. Turning his attention to the sword-wielding clan head, he found a weapon and armour of similar design and quality, except the chest piece which he ruined by splitting it in two. The rest of the warriors had little value besides a couple of old weapons, pieces of armour and a few handfuls of coins and Hacksilver.

Looking around he found several silver plates and pitchers between the wreckage of the long tables, a proof of the wealth of the keep’s former owner. There were a couple of doors he could choose from to continue his exploration, the large one on his right side leading to a hallway which held the door leading outside. It was bared with a large and sturdy-looking wooden beam, although he couldn’t figure out the reason why. ‘Were they expecting reinforcements to come to the aid of the clan they planned to slaughter?’ With no one to answer his questions, Einar decided to continue his search.

He found a ruined kitchen, storages and even rooms meant for thralls, stashing away anything of value along the way. The few draugr that crept up on him ended up dead once again and the seeker soon found his way up to the next floor of the keep. The second floor held several smaller rooms with ruined beds and chests inside them, making it the sleeping area of the keep. Einar found little of value besides some Hacksilver and a few baubles, even the small library coming up empty as most of the texts crumbled or faded beyond use.

A couple of weapons and shields were hung on the walls along with old hunting trophies, some finding their way into his pouch as he went about with his search. By the time he reached the top of the stairs that led up the tower, the sun was already hanging low, threatening to disappear behind the trees. ‘Looks like I’ll have to stay here tonight.’ He thought as he reached the top of the tower, finding it sparse with a brazier, a pair of crumbling chairs and a table. ‘They must have used it as a watchtower.’ The seeker mused as he looked out the holes in the wall that enabled him to check toward the four directions. Not wanting to spend the night down amongst the twice-dead, Einar decided to sleep in the tower.