Hel was a fairly prominent figure in Norse mythology. Born of Loki and later appointed to a realm that was named alongside her. Her name would later be bastardized into a realm of ultimate torment and punishment, but that was not her way. Hel itself was a peaceful if melancholy place, maintaining entire cities worth of old norse mansions that houses all the various souls of the old and sick. The rest would go onto Valhalla (assuming they died a glorious death in battle), and those vast armies later fueled Odin’s war against their fated end. Valhalla’s halls were pure white and gold, inspiring the Christian heavens as time went on. Hel in comparison was a bit more downcast and gloomy, as it was sometimes treated as a purgatory in its own right.

She did not mind. The woman herself, strong in build and was ever so anxious to prove that she could stand on the battlefield and hold her own. She wore armor that was as black as the void, and carried a darkly ornate glaive that acted as a spear or scythe when it was needed. She herself did not look much healthier than her worn garb, her skin almost dead in a subtle blue hue, her iris a gorgeous pure blue glow to them. Beyond that, she boasted smooth features beyond looking like an awakened corpse. A veritable goddess of death in her own right, her pale visage made all quake before her.

In reality, Hel was not an overtly aggressive woman. She was a bit withdrawn due to the countless centuries of her fellow immortals changing their routes upon her entrance. This wore her personality down into a hard stone, but she felt nothing but love for the souls she managed. Tried as she would, most friendships were short lived and her alliances were tense. Hel became a walking reminder of the fate nobody wanted - to be cast into a realm of death to be forgotten, useless to the God of War that is Odin.

To combat this creeping melancholy, she had to resort to visiting other pantheons of gods to find companionship. After some research and interrogation, she discovered a wandering band of immortals that held their own realm between the voids of space. It was effectively a spaceship, but not run on gas or fuel, but that of magic. It also utilized whites and golds in its design, which made Hel herself feel incredibly out of place.

She has heard of some technology before, and Valhalla took some steps to adopt various magic-technical techniques but for many immortals, the march of technology did not concern them. As was the case for Hel, having spent far too much time holed up in her Mansion to bother exploring beforehand.

She was greeted by Hephaestus, a god of Greek origin. A muscular man, from so many years of hammering away at the armor and equipment for his other gods. His hair was healthy and curly, and maintained an equally bushy beard that barely contained his thick lips and seemingly permanent, joyous smile.

“Welcome, welcome! Lokisdottr, did I say that right?” His voice was as friendly as his features implied.

“Mm, yes. Close enough,” Hel spoke, her voice deep and crackly, implying that she hadn’t spoken aloud very much.

“Please, please. Make yourself at home! There’s a cafeteria in the east wing, bunks to the west. The bridge is up and beyond, and the magic happens behind you,” his smile was almost infectious, Hel cracking one upon herself.

She joined him on a brief tour. It was a surprisingly lonely ship in its own way, each of the denizens more or less having their own section to work, but ultimately the halls were empty and the metallic footsteps were only heard on occasion.

“Please, Hel, you must meet my son Herakles!”

“Is that the…”

“No relation. Used it because I liked it, loved the legend. Sad he’s such a scrawny fuck though, but we’ll deal with that in time,” He had tried to put his hand on Hel’s shoulder in the universal ‘we are now friends’ maneuver, but she rejected it in short order. He had known him for… hours, at the time.He took her to another section of the workshop-ship, which was apparently much cleaner than before. There, she saw a being (indeed rather lithe) hunched over some tables while surrounded by models of various star systems. The walls were lined with notes and diagrams, reminding her of Freya’s home, which she did not see much of. It also had plenty of computers and screens, which Valhalla did not have much of.

He piped up at his father’s approach, halting his work and turning towards the two.

Herakles was very much different from his legendary namesake. He looked almost as a normal human, and could very well pass for one if he was so inclined. Short, shaven hair with some spectacles over his eyes that he occasionally adjusted. He shared his father’s complexion, if slightly darker. Good looking boy by most standards. He was also a demigod, that much Hel could tell as his aetherial connection seemed more subdued than the other immortals she had met.

He greeted them kindly, with a weak and worried smile, “Father, I... Hello, miss?”

“Hel Lokisdottr, Hel is fine.”

“Ah, I know the name. Good to meet you,” he responded respectfully.

Hephaestus piped up, “My boy here is quite the genius, taking my legend and pushing the boundaries beyond what I’ve done before. After making a ton of armor and shit, here this boy is building computers ten minutes after birth!” He let a gut busting boat of laughter echo in the chamber.

“A horrific exaggeration, father,” he said very simply. He soon added, “What brings you to our work, Hel?”

She was rather honest, “To be frank, boredom. My realm runs itself and while I will need to pop back in every so often…”

Hephaestus chimes in again, “Doable! The same warp-gate that the House of Ygg uses, we also use here. Can send you across several realms!”

Hel nodded, “Good, hearing that rumor helped this decision. I wanted to see what you all do here.”

Herakles saw his father open his mouth but gave a hand motion to shut him up, “Monitoring realms, largely. We look for spikes of energy, tech, or magic through various places of time and space. We do a lot of things, from stabilizing chaos to the more classic slaying of monsters. My father likes -”

“You’re fuckin’ right I do, my boy!” Hephaestus was likely doing to say that very thing and possibly imply that was the beginning and end of their complexity. He grabbed a nearby worker’s hammer, “Ah, like the days of old! When humans still wrote stories about our legend, yes? It was always about slaying a grand serpent or bashing in the skull of a warlord. Now it’s all just balls deep in computers. Where the fuck is the fun in all that?”

Herakles rolled his eyes, “They are incredibly useful.”

Hel had no comment, as her exposure to the types of technology that involves computation was comparatively recent to her. Again, she knew of it as most immortals do but had no reason or incentive to investigate or utilize any of it.

Hephaestus and his son bantered briefly about it. The age old debate of whether or not technology ruins or saves lives was at an impasse, and Hel was only barely listening.

Herakles did join the two in the tour, where Hel also met Fredja. A buff, dark-skinned warrior woman who was introduced as the muscle of the band of immortals. Also a demigod, but claimed no family on board. Hel took note of Fredja’s hair, which she admired. A dark black, woven into braids that she found familiar with her own people. Indeed, Fredja was incredibly excited to meet Hel.

“Hel herself, damn! I was a big fan of your people’s mythology… Hells, is that even the right word to use? Myth implies fake, right?”

“Not always, I think. Could just mean it was in the distant past. Some details get lost along the way, like how some mortals think half of my face is missing,” Hel corrected.

“Shit fair enough, girl. Still, I always loved the aesthetic. Even borrowed a name that sounds like some shit you’d use,” her excitement bubbled over. Once again, the general happiness of these people forced Hel into having a consistent smile of her own. She liked their energy.

“Mm, it reminds me of Freya, yes?”

“Aye, I liked reading about her. Think she’d step on me if I asked her to?”

Hel blinked several times, trying to figure out what Fredja was requesting. The sexual implication of the query evaded Hel entirely. As the saying goes, ‘went way above her head’.

Fredja waved her off, noticing that Hel didn’t get the joke. “Nevermind, don’t worry about it.”

The tour continued, but not many others were of note, or were otherwise unavailable. Between those three, they seemed to be the main core of what kept the crew in line. They were effectively the ‘field team’. Fredja was obviously the muscle, Herakles was the brain behind the operation though he did have a couple weapons in his chambers. He was lithe but still looked combat capable, the scrawny comment was just in comparison to his father who was a beast of a being. Of course, Hephaestus himself. Combat ready and a skilled engineer, not short of mind himself but just more playful and less focused than his son. Hel had no idea what role she might take on their field team, but she was clearly a combatant that assisted Fredja. Over all, Hel took a backseat on more of their adventures as she learned more about the multiverse that had always surrounded her but never had a reason to explore it.

She wasn’t with them for very long, but one day everyone was called to the Bridge for an emergency meeting. Herakles headed the briefing, with a tablet in hand and bringing various dossiers on a larger screen for all to see.

“We just got a massive magical distress call from one of the various branches of Yggdrasil. It took some digging but the source is apparently named ‘The Matriarch’.”

“And that is…?” Hel questioned first, having had time to become more comfortable to speak out at meetings like this.

“We’re not fully sure yet. Some kind of deity, but reclusive. We don’t have much on her.”

His father chimed in, “And why do we care, my boy?”

“Because there is an incredible amount of chaos energy involved, and it’s rotting the branch of Yggdrasil.”