In a small impersonal bedroom, an awkward meeting was taking place. Sitting on the bed, a beautiful woman, around 190 cm high but with a slender build. In front of her, on a rotating office chair, an uncomfortable Sarah slowly turning the chair with her foot. Both were grasping tea cups, and carefully avoiding each other gaze. After an undetermined time, Sarah took the initiative and spoke.

“So, who are you?”

The pale woman started blushing again, but managed to contain herself by biting her lip, drawing blood.

“My… my name is Hel. I’m the goddess of the dead and the Underworld. I… I’m also Loki’s daughter.”

“Well, you do look like him, in a taller, nicer way. Why did you came here?”

“You started to practice magic. Death and darkness. Both are my attributes, and you’re a growing valkyrie. It seemed logical to me that I was entitled to extend an invitation to you, in the form of a Divine quest.”

As she was talking, her words became more formal, and her posture changed. She went from slumped to an haughty pose, her voice no longer trembling, becoming both colder and deeper.

“But as it stands, my divine genitor went ahead of me, and managed to trick you into accepting his quest, hoping to bring you closer to him. I see he even left you a spell from his personal creation.”

The glint in her eyes went cold and murderous, but Sarah was pretty sure she saw a hint of sadness toward the end.

“Though I doubt you would be stupid enough to let yourself be taken by his traps, I strongly believe that my duty, both as a goddess and as his descendant, is to ensure you have every bit of information available to avoid that fate. I assume you don’t know why those Divine quests hold any kind of importance?”

“I don’t.”

“It was foolish of me to hope he would have explained anything, of course. Your bloodline as a Valkyrie will be awoken by several different things. Which us gods are not allowed to explain, as discovering them is part of the trial, and could shape your future. But I can speak about one of those. Around 10% of your potential needs to be unlocked by accomplishing Divine quests. You can of course unlock more of it through quests, but the first 10% are of the utmost importance, because they might make you a variant kind of Valkyrie. So if you decided to complete Loki’s quest first, you would probably be slightly drawn toward the ‘Valkyrie of the wheel’ variant. Thought alone it would never be enough, your personal inclinations, your magical affinities and other things would factor in, and as of now, this outcome is highly probable.”

“Wait, so he’s trying to make me his servant?”

“Not directly no. Even if you were to evolve into a variant typically associated with him, he would gain no power over you. But your instincts would probably draw you closer to him, and away from adversely aligned gods. Which is why I want to offer you a Divine quest of my own, that will probably be at least a bit more neutral than his. If you agree, I would like you to search for the remains of my brothers, and bring them back to me, so I can lower them into Gjöll. Of course, I will appropriately compensate you for your efforts, independently from any reward you would already have gotten at that point.”

Sarah stayed silent, as she considered the offer. It was honest, upfront, and far more advantageous than the last one she was offered. Plus she looked really desperate earlier. And she’s quite nice despite this sort of facade she put on.

“I agree. I’ll search for them. If I remember well, they… do not look human?”

Sarah waved away the blue window telling her of this newly accepted Divine quest.

“You can say the truth, they looked like monsters. Jormungandr was a serpent big enough to circle around Yggdrasil, and Fenrir was the king of all wolves. Though I will never contest what they looked like, I would however be pleased if you treated them with the same respect you’d treat me with. They probably died after our imprisonment, since their divine part was a lot weaker than mine.”

“I promise to treat their remains with the utmost care. I must say, even if I prefered your earlier way of being, you’re a lot easier to speak with than your father.”

Hel’s face instantly flushed red, and her cold and haughty demeanor broke into pieces in a manner of seconds.

“S-s-stop trying to make me weak! Y-you’re not nice!”

So adorable! Like a little girl! Sarah got up, to sit down by the goddess’s side, and started scratching her head while she was busy trying to hide herself. She felt Hel freeze, before slowly relaxing and letting her go. However, she was still hiding her face.

They stayed like this for half an hour, at which point Hel suddenly got up, and walked through the door without ever turning back. It took all of Sarah’s insane PER to hear the small ‘Thanks’ she whispered before disappearing in a shadow.