Halina sat on a bench, slowly drinking a healing potion her father had provided. They were in an armory that adjoined the arena that clearly served as a dual-purpose waiting and outfitting room. Swein was jabbering excitedly about her potential and his plans for her combat training. She had tuned him out fifteen minutes ago. Instead she pulled up her status, intent on distributing her newly acquired stats.

Name: Halina Berg

Race: Human

Age: 19

Level: 14(▲1)

Experience: 327(▲941)

Class: Shield

Profession: Adventurer

Stats: 0

STR 15(▲1) END 15(▲1) AGI 5 DEX 5 VIT 15(▲1) CON 15(▲1) INT 4 WIL 4(▲1) CHA 1 LUK 61

Skills: [Sentinel], [Rebound], [Shield Wall]

Equipment: [Tower Shield], [Broadsword], [Breastplate]

Achievements: [Dungeon Diver], [Tank], [Retribution], [Player Killer]

She glared at her most recent achievement for a moment. The man who’d killed Bjarke and tried to kill her had never respawned, and his name hadn’t been listed in the Valkyrie crystal when she’d gone to check. Halina wasn’t sure how he’d snuck out of the city, or managed to reach another Valkyrie crystal so quickly.

She was still angry with the man named Erland, but if he was enough of a coward to flee from her like that he wasn’t worth chasing down. Instead she redirected her anger to a more appropriate avenue.

“How long have you been watching from up here?” she asked quietly.

Swein lapsed into silence immediately. He had clearly been expecting something along these lines, but had no response prepared. They sat like that for long moments, a frozen tableau of a broken home.

“The whole time,” he told her eventually. “Most of the Einherjar keep track of their families. Lady Frigga encourages it, as her most vaunted chosen tend to produce powerful children. Some families have several generations of Einherjar in service.”

“You couldn’t send us a message?” Halina asked, fingernails digging into her palms. “Couldn’t send me a message, not even when they all left Bjarke and I one by one?”

“Messages are forbidden,” Swein responded, but a darkness had settled into his features now. “Your older brothers should consider that a blessing.”

“Why did she have to choose both of you?” Halina choked out, blood trickling from her palms now. “Why were we left with nothing, while the Aesir were allowed to take everything?”

Swein had no response for that. He simply walked over to Halina, enveloping her in a tight hug. She struggled at first, before flinging her arms around him and sobbing into his chest.

Aschild impatiently slapped at her leg with the slack of the reins, mentally urging the griffin to fly faster. She was already pulling in faster than protocol allowed, but the intense cocktail of emotions blasting through her wouldn’t allow her to worry about that.

Her daughter had been brought to Asgard.

The communicator dangling from her ear was blaring as flight control screamed at her to slow down. She continued to ignore it.

The griffin screamed a challenge at the ground as it swooped in for its landing. Wings flaring, the wind of its approach blasted the pair of low-level acolytes responsible for taking care of newly returned beasts off their feet. Aschild didn’t even bother tossing them the reins as she dismounted.

She took a moment to comfort and apologize to Astraeus before she left, however. If she didn’t the beast would sulk for weeks.

An enraged flight control Einherjar approached her, but she silenced him with a glare and small flex of her power. Even among the Einherjar, B-Tiers were not to be trifled with.

She sped off after that, not bothering with appearances. She had resigned herself to decades of waiting to meet with her daughter again. The extra minutes it would take to walk the distance to the training grounds now felt like an obstacle. The many looks of askance and glares of the jostled fell behind her like so much chaff.

Still, she was careful not to jostle them with more than the wind of her passage. A glancing blow from her would be enough to rip a C-Tier’s arm off. D-Tiers or lower would be lucky just to survive.

Less than a minute later, she’d traveled the half-mile to her destination, even with the traffic.

She froze in the doorway, seeing Swein hugging Halina. Tears came to her hazel eyes instantly. Her husband caught her gaze and gestured for her to join them. It took every ounce of Aschild’s not inconsiderable self-control not to crush her daughter in her arms.

“I’m so sorry, Lina,” she sobbed into the girl’s blonde hair. She looked so much more like Aschild now than she had as a child. “We should never have left you alone. I’m so so sorry.”

The three of them clung together for what felt like hours, regretting time lost and experiences missed. They quaked like rickety sheds in a tornado, eventually collapsing on a bench in the armory they occupied.

When their grief had been sent they traded small stories. Though her parents had been watching Halina through the Aesir’s viewer network, it was different to hear the stories from her. By unspoken agreement they stuck to lighter topics and successes.

Halina told them of her first dungeon delve, her first time leading a party, some of her accomplishments in adventuring. Her parents told her of their Tier progress, skirmishes with the other Realms, and their deeds in service to Frigga.

Hours later they were gathered around a dinner table in her parents home in Asgard. It was a spartan affair, as neither of them spent a large amount of time here. Halina thought wryly.

If she was truly honest with herself, she didn’t blame Frigga for taking them away from her. They had done that all by themselves.

“We’ll need to grab your new equipment first thing tomorrow morning,” Swein said, a light flashing from behind his eyepiece as he talked. “I’m plotting out your training menu now. We’ll be splitting your time evenly between combat training and education, since even the gathering quests may require you to defend yourself from the other champions.”

"I’ll be handling your education training,” Aschild interjected. “We’re starting off on a few powerleveling runs through some dungeons. We want to get you to the top of E-Tier by the qualifiers, then break you through as soon as the first round ends.”

“Right,” Swein followed up with a teasing grin. “I made sure to leave about four hours a night for sleep, so be sure to thank me when this is all over, kiddo.”

“Joy and rapture,” Halina snorted out with a smile of her own. She was surprised at how quickly they had settled in with each other. “Make sure I have time for meals in there too, Dad.”

“Nonsense!” he replied, his smile growing larger. “Eat the experience of your enemies! Drink the sweat and tears of their failures! We have no time for mundane concerns of sustenance and a well-balanced diet!”

Swein’s boisterous speech was cut short by a pinging notification and flash of light from his eyepiece. He’d lost the eye in a skirmish with the dwarves a few years back, and Frigga had commissioned the eyepiece as a replacement. He said it gave him some advantages, but was no replacement for true sight.

“They’ve finalized the selections for the qualifiers,” he said when he’d finished reading the report. “Loki was being difficult and refused to name his champions until the very last second of the deadline… huh. That’s an interesting development.”

“What?” Aschild queried, shooting him an interested look. “Did he manage to sway Viseti the Runemaster to his cause? All the other scouts would talk about was who would manage to recruit him.”

“No, he joined Odin’s team, as most expected he would,” Swein said, human eye still staring off into the distance as he focused on the list. “Here, clear the table, I’ll cast it.”

They gathered the few remaining plates, sweeping the table quickly. Halina didn’t expect to recognize any names from her Tier, but she wanted to see who she was up against regardless. Once they had emptied the space, Swein drew a few quick runes in the air. His eyepiece flashed and the list appeared on the surface of the table, red text on a green background.

It was organized by the sponsoring Aesir in the columns, and by the champion Tier in rows. The Top Tier and A-Tier selections were a literal who’s who of famous names on Midgard. Viseti’s name was the first on the list, as Odin’s Top Tier champion. She spotted Gazini’s name as Frigga’s choice, confirming that he had accepted the Aesir’s offer. She scanned those names quickly, recognizing nearly all of them.

By the time she had reached C-Tier, the number of names she had heard before had dwindled almost completely. Here there were a few rising stars, people pushing for greatness at young ages. It was considered a mark of talent for someone to achieve C-Tier before they turned forty, and several such people had made names for themselves by joining that esteemed company.

D-Tier and below held five names that Halina recognized.

Four of them ended with Berg.

Two of her older brothers, the twins Ingvald and Grimwald, were listed in D-Tier. Ingvald had been chosen by Thor, Grimwald by Heimdall. Seeing their names was a surprise, but perhaps more surprising was the lack of Hialti’s name on the list. He was the oldest, as well as the most accomplished of any of the Berg children.

Somewhat unsurprisingly she found Erland Grim’s name as Baldr’s chosen of F-Tier after that. She scowled when she found his name, but acknowledged that he was talented enough to have caught the eyes of an Aesir. She also looked forward to the opportunity to take out the rest of her anger on him in the guise of the competition.

The last name she recognized made her eyebrows shoot up so quickly it was a wonder they managed to stay on her face.

Bjarke Berg, chosen champion of the blind Aesir, Hodr.

She looked up from the table to her parents. A dark look adorned Swein’s features, and Aschild’s jaw gaped open. Her father’s gaze cleared so quickly that Halina wasn’t sure if it had simply been a passing shadow. Swein turned his gaze to Aschild, shaking his head in bemused consternation.

“Our children are truly wonders of the Nine Realms,” he said, breaking his wife from her stupor.