Halina felt her nerves jangling as she waited for the call for her first trial to begin. She also seethed slightly. Her ‘teammates’ had made it clear that they didn’t expect anything from her. Once they had learned that she was from the ‘barbaric north’ they had outright dismissed her.

she thought. She tried to distract herself with her anger, but her mind kept turning back to what was expected of her.

Her thoughts were derailed by words flashing in front of her eyes.

‘Prepare for transport to challenge space.

3…

2…

1…’

The world went white and Halina found herself somewhere else. She couldn’t tell where. She was too busy cursing and rubbing her blinded eyes.

When her vision eventually cleared it revealed a dim and sprawling ancient forest. The trees around her were gnarled and spindly, yet they still blanketed the sky with a dense canopy of dark gray leaves. Fog swirled, obscuring everything beyond twenty paces.

‘Challenge Number One:

Consecrate the Holy Grounds.

Round One.

You must find and consecrate the holy temples scattered through this forest. Each temple successfully consecrated will earn you five points. One point will be awarded for each temple guardian defeated. After all the holy temples have been consecrated, the round will end.’

Halina set off immediately, looking for some sign of civilization in the silent forest surrounding her. It didn’t take her as long as she thought it might. Just a few hundred feet from her starting point, the fog parted to reveal a cracked and overgrown cobblestone path. She followed it for a ways, eventually stumbling onto the first temple.

Two pristine statues of Yggdrasil stood on either side of the crumbling entrance. The walls were mostly missing. At the far end, she could barely make out an altar through the swirling fog. She entered cautiously.

As soon as her foot crossed the entranceway, the temple came to life. White runes erupted out from her foot running to four identical stone golems in the corners of the room. They animated and began charging her immediately. Their rapid advance would quickly have her surrounded if she fully entered the temple. She summoned her [Tower Shield] and her new [Longsword], before taking a step back to funnel them through the entrance.

Instead, the runes at her feet guttered out. The statues shuddered at the sudden power loss, before returning to the corners of the room. Halina huffed in annoyance.

She sprinted into the room this time, running towards the golem in the right corner closest to the door.

When she closed with the animated statue it threw an almost comically exaggerated haymaker at her. She dipped under the golems long arm, her much shorter height making her a tough target. Her shield barreled into the chest of the guardian, driving it back a few paces. She quickly pivoted and chopped down on the golem’s leg, putting the deteriorating wall at her back.

Surprisingly the two other closest golems had already closed most of the distance, with the fourth not too far behind. Halina growled and went to work. She made a fighting retreat of it, not allowing herself to be hemmed in on three sides before she reached the corner. As she reached the edge of the temple she almost let out a sigh of relief.

Now came the hard part.

A sword is not the best tool for fighting enemies made of stone. Her shield was going to be her main source of damage in this fight. If she could survive the blows from the golems. They threw nothing but haymakers, wound so far back that she would have to be an idiot to take one.

The strength behind the blows was also frankly disgusting. When one of them missed her and punched the wall at her back, the stone vaporized under the force. Halina grimaced at that, but was thankful that at least there was no shrapnel shredding her back.

She bashed her shield into the same statue. It drove the guardian back a step allowing one of the two golems in the rear two throw another blow at her. She easily avoided that as well, starting to fall into a rhythm. The fight continued for perhaps another minute like that, the four of them crowding around her in the corner while she slowly whittled away at them.

Then the runes on the ground rippled and changed, shifting from white to a light blue. They blurred as they changed, and a voice split the air. The golems froze in place. Their forms rippled and shifted into much more defined statues of women.

“Temple consecrated in the name of Fjorgyn,” it said. “Five points awarded to Ashlynn Beard!”

“What?!” Halina burst out in indignation.

“Next time, maybe you should be more mindful of your true objectives,” said the woman standing at the altar across the temple.

She was tall and willowy, and Halina knew for a fact that she hadn’t seen her crossing the room. Her parents had drilled her awareness above all else in their dungeon runs.

she cursed internally.

The two golems closest to her were riddled with cracks from her protracted battle with them. She raised her shield horizontally and slammed into the midsection of the one on her left. With a screech of metal on stone it broke in half.

“What are you doing?” the woman at the alter asked in alarm.

Halina ignored her, shattering the second already damaged golem as well, and the voice split the air again.

“One poin— Two points awarded to Halina Berg—” it said, its voice hitching slightly as she destroyed the second golem. “—For the destruction of two guardians of Fjorgyn!”

“What?!” the woman shrieked. “Why aren’t they doing anything! Defend yourselves!”

By the time the woman had finished her call to action, Halina had already broken one of the two remaining golems. Once, twice, three times she struck it in the midsection before it joined the others in two pieces on the ground. The final golem sprung to life right as Halina whirled to face it, obeying its command.

Instead of throwing powerful, mindless punches, it now raised its arms defensively. When Halina jabbed at its leading leg, the statue stepped over the blow and launched a counter. Halina activated [Sentinel] immediately. Her shield swiveled into the path of the blow. The clang echoed through the temple and the surrounding forest, visibly blowing back the fog all around her.

Before her parents powerleveling session, it would have blown her arm off at the shoulder. Now, she didn’t even slide backwards. She was still getting adjusted to the massive difference in her stats. She hadn’t realized that blows that could literally pulverize stone were within her reach now.

With a shout she activated [Rebound] and slammed into the golem just as she had when she entered the room. Its entire torso turned to dust before her, launching shrapnel all the way over to the woman at the altar. The pieces had lost the force to cause damage by that point, but she flinched at the unexpected assault.

“‘Next time, you should be more mindful of your true objectives,’ you said?” Halina shot at the woman. “Thanks for the easy four points.”

The woman flushed scarlet, tossing her auburn hair over her shoulder and turning invisible. Halina allowed herself a small smile. She remained alert and wary for a few minutes before deciding the woman had probably left. Now that the element of surprise was gone, she had decided to leave.

Halina did the same. She couldn’t afford to waste time here. There was no way to know how many points the other competitors had earned. She simply had to earn as many as possible before the end of the round.

She walked over to the altar before she left, just to check. When she received no prompt to consecrate the grounds in the name of Frigga she let out a resigned sigh and moved on.

When she arrived at the second temple, obvious combat noises echoed from the interior of the temple. She steeled herself and entered the ruined building. Inside a man was fighting against three of the guardians, with the fourth lying in a ruined heap a short distance away. He was in the center of the floor, surrounded in a triangle formation.

Neither he nor the guardians noticed at first when she entered. She quickly weighed her options before cautiously proceeding to the altar.

Halina thought to herself.

The last was a clear attempt to assuage her guilty conscience for employing the same tactics the rogue had against her. It failed.

Surprisingly she reached the altar without any attention being drawn to her presence. When she did, a prompt appeared from her Player interface.

‘Would you like to consecrate this temple in the name of Frigga?’

“Yes,” she said aloud.

The same disembodied voice from before announced her point gain. The man in the center of the temple spun with a loud and violent string of expletives. When he spotted Halina, he hurled invectives at her as well.

“We all have to learn things the hard way,” Halina said. “Guardians, defend the temple.”

The stone statues that now resembled the willowy and ethereal Frigga burst into motion once more. The man hurled more insults at Halina, who was already striding out of the room.

“Fuck you too,” she said.