“Hey Doc, I think I leveled up,” Shakewell announced between pulls of ‘strong mead’. Comparing his own touchdown in Nine Mountains experience, Shakewell explained to Doc that he had gone through a similar selection process upon arrival. From the Rogue class menu, Shakewell had chosen the Fire element to draw the Assassin specialization. Just as Doc felt drawn to the Healer specialization from the Shaman class, Shakewell felt an affinity towards selection—not surprising considering his role as team sniper.

Mjuulborn had passed his hide flask to Shakewell as a congratulatory gesture and the Marine was busy “wielding” it, along with his new weapon: the ylgr-slaying crossbow now unfortunately dubbed Asspiercer. Shakewell admired the weapon and proclaimed, “Asspiercer is this assassin’s weapon of choice.”

Mjuulborn, meanwhile, had produced a hunting knife and was busy skinning the freshly slain ylgr. To Doc, it looked like he was severing the dead beasts front paws at the joints. Doc seemed to have ‘leveled up’ as well, based on a flashing prompt from his UI. He pulled up his stat sheet and noted some changes—notably, Doc had progressed to Level 2 in the simulation, which was encouraging.

Name: Doc

Race: First human

Level: 2

Class: Shaman

Element: Sun

Specialization: Healer

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Strength: 50

Dexterity: 50

Health: 60

Acuity: 55

Mana: 65

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Armor: N/A

Primary weapon: N/A

Language/Old Norse: 65

Skill/Herbalism: 60

Cast: Light of laeknir (Shaman, Sun)

Cast: Vioblindi (Shaman, Sun)

Rune: Fenja’s grindstone (Shaman, Plinth)

Doc’s scores in Acuity, Mana and Old Norse had each improved by five. He had also acquired a ‘rune’ called Fenja’s grindstone. While, light of laeknir was the healing spell that he had used on Mjuulborn in their initial encounter, he still hadn’t figured out what Vioblindi was. While exploring different features of his UI, he asked Shakewell if he had ever heard the word.

“Yeah I think so,” Shakewell replied. “I’m pretty sure it’s Latin for wine blindness. It happened to Janissary in Tijuana one time, it was bad, be careful.” Swishing mead in his mouth, he then shouted over to Mjuulborn, who was still busy with ylgr corpse. “Guess this won’t be one of those ‘kicking the booze’ types of simulations. Hey Mjuul, what do you make this mead stuff out of anyway?”

“Honey, from the hives of the cliff-dwelling angel wasps!” Mjuulborn replied.

Shakewell asked, “Don’t call me honey, but it’s not bad my man, those wasps got venom too?”

“Oh yes, yes. Makes you lose your mind with fever and visions. Only the mead will cure it! You’d like those wasps, honey…haha.” Mjuulborn said confidently as he labored with his taxidermal tasks. Doc and Shakewell each shared a surprised glance when they both noted that the ‘dwarf’ in their simulation appeared to catch Shakewell’s play on words.

“Ah ha!” Mjuulborn showed off a roughly severed ylgr paw, with four badger-like claws extending from a furry stump.

Thinking of Fenja’s grindstone, Doc recalled the tall, flat rock which stood out from the gravel like a large tombstone, near the entrance to the chamber where he had met Mjuulborn. Shakewell had concealed himself behind the stone as part of the plot to kill the ylgr wolf-beast. Mjuulborn had referred to it as ‘Fenja’s plinth’. Doc walked to the stone and examined it. As Shakewell had noted from his early reconnaissance, it was carved with some sort of ancient writing. Most of the etchings looked stick figures to Doc, with some appearing similar to letters, others perhaps pictograms for sun, star, moon, mountain and the like. He wished that Cowcatcher, the Squad Durnir linguist, was with them—the guy would have been all over this. On thinking of his close friend Cowcatcher, Doc checked his map function in his UI. Currently, only himself, Shakewell and Mjuulborn were displayed on the grey, nondescript terrain.

Turning back to the plinth, Doc noticed that his UI had illuminated a series of three rune carvings on the stone’s surface and a new hotkey had appeared on his virtual menu tab, embossed with a white stick-figure icon. He used tongue commands to select it and accompanying text appeared:

Rune: Fenja’s grindstone (Shaman, Plinth)

“Let’s check it out,” Doc said to himself and selected it. A miniature glowing stone appeared at his feet, like a domino, but with the approximate height and width of a shoebox. Pixie-like shimmering images danced around the stone like minnows in a silvery stream. There were two of them and Doc thought that their forms were somehow feminine. And there was a singing, humming sound, like song sung to labor away a servant’s tribulations. It wasn’t a tombstone, in fact, it was more like a washboard. The pixies scrubbed and scrubbed against the little stone slab and would then suddenly dart around the area, delivering a cleansing, healing touch to Doc, Shakewell and Mjuulborn in a rapid flurry of motions. Doc felt revitalized. Mjuulborn arose from his butchery to check his wounds and smiled. Shakewell at first tried to brush the flickering spirits away, but then grinned and gave Doc a thumbs-up gesture.

“The mountain spirits, they are fond of you, healer.“ Mjuulborn said to Doc, walking towards him. “But they don’t act wholly out of kindness. They hope that one day you will slay their former captors and avenge them. Those tiny spirits were once great warriors, but were conquered and bought into slavery.”

Mjuulborn held out both hands towards Doc, in a gesture that seemed sincere and formal. “This is for you my friend.” Mjuulborn had fashioned the clawed ylgr paw, along with strips of tendon, into a grisly, bloody necklace. “It will serve you, much as the mountain spirits do.” Upon receiving the gift, Doc’s UI flashed a message:

Mana: 65 (+5)

Doc draped it around his neck. It didn’t smell clean but the plus-five bonus seemed to affect his key stat for shamanistic activity. He also noted that using the rune—Fenja’s grindstone—didn’t appear to drain his mana the way casting light of laeknir did.

Doc gave a wave to Shakewell, who joined them, crossbow resting on his shoulder. “Hey Mjuulborn, so who was it that enslaved those little spirit girls who dance around the grindstone.”

Mjuulborn grabbed his flask back from Shakewell, who drank it dry. “Jotnar.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Shakewell said, all levity gone from his expression.

Doc motioned for Mjuulborn to continue and the dwarf spoke haltingly: “What, you don’t know? You’ve never?” Mjuulborn shook his head and was silent for a moment. “We never see the Gods. Our ancestors did. We all know the stories. We can feel their presence, their influence. You, for example, the shaman-kind,” Mjuulborn gestured to Doc and Shakewell raised an eyebrow, “you remind us that the Gods are real and that they still watch over us. But we only see them—the Jotnar. The demon kind that walk the Nine Mountains, half-gods, false heroes, vain and unworthy leeches. The ones that prey on us, like the ylgr, the elves, the giants—they all answer to the Jotnar, they do their bidding, lick the Jotnar’s heels. Because they fear them. The Jotnar, their kind are the lords of beasts and devils, the enemies of dwarves and men. And as to their might, their power—it’s sickening. One Jotnar could kill a dozen of the strongest dwarves. And no two of them are alike! We fight them and their vassals for territory. But the dwarves, we are now match and can only retreat deeper into our mountain fortresses, into land so barren we have to feed upon the droppings of wasps!” He threw his flask to the ground with a beleaguered moan.

Shakewell put a hand on Mjuulborn’s shoulder, steadying him, and then said to Doc: “great, now we know who to kill. No more fucking around with your magic shit Doc, we need to find the rest of Squad Durnir and get a move on.”