Erika paused, raise a hand, lowered it, then thumped her head against a wall. “Of course, I forget to say, Hel damn it all.” She cursed. Before Gunhilda could apologise she pushed herself back and gestured with her fingers. “Rindr’s Respite is what we’re after, it’s a grey brown mushroom that looks a bit like a plate, it has powerful medicinal properties… since my magick isn't working Ammeris needs it for the injured.”

Erika found her spirits sinking again before an elbow interrupted her thoughts. “You were finished,” said Gunhilda with a smile. “What do all the pillars do?”

“Oh… oh right… uh… Hamr is life magic, flesh weaving and stuff like that and it’s linked to the element of water, acid and poison and like liquid, Hugr is mind magic and the element of lightning, Hamingja is fate magic and elemental earth and like solidity, Fylgja is the magic of stories and sagas and linked to the element of shadow, Banvaenn is the magic of death and ending and linked to flame and Himneskr is the magic of space and time linked to air.”

“So cool.” Whispered Gunhilda which made Erika preen a bit.

There conversation had lasted nearly half an hour at his point as they navigated the barrow, the dim light let in my barred slits in the roof barely enough to see by as they tramped down layer after layer of crypt. Kara explained that the nomads of the Great Clearing didn’t carry their dead with them but built these barrows to hold them, only recently had the wave of delver and caravaner casualties been added into them.

In the almost organic silence of the tunnels the air was cool but heavy and smelled of the almost brown smell of moulding trees after rain, even the echoes of Erika’s speech had faded away leaving the four in total stillness.

Until Kara came to a sudden stop, to sudden as Reidar then Erika slammed into her back causing her to stumble forwards and curse under her breath.

“Wh…”

“Shut up shut up.” She hissed grabbing Reidar’s mouth. “Erika, I think I can see some Rindr’s Respite.”

Erika craned her neck and tried to look over Kara and Reidar’s shoulders, they stood in what seemed to be a side passage leading into one of the various byways in the lowest layers of the barrow, runes of light gleamed dimly on the ceiling only serving to outline the darkness.

“Where? I can’t see it?”

“It’s growing in that burrow.”

The oddly emotionless tone told Erika just what type. “A burrow…”

“Yep.”

“Crude tents and a fire pit?”

“Yep.”

“Obsidian tools”

“Yep.”

“Lots of shed fur?”

“Yep.”

“It’s in a warg warren, isn't it?”

“Yep.”

“Damn.”

Sneaking a glance around Kara’s arm Erika saw the room properly, the coffins that one occupied it in rows had been broken and push aside forming crude walls and barricades, leather and hides thrown across them to divide the space into crude huts with bubbling pots and firepits strewn around the room, in the ceiling the ancient runes still glowed casting strange shadows around the room and illuminating the hole in the opposite wall. It was rough and unfinished, nothing but tumbled stone and loose earth as it sloped upwards but, in its depths, Erika could see a tiny gleam of dirty daylight.

Of course, all of that was secondary to seeing the wargs, they stood only half as tall as a man, their heads barely level with even Erika’s stomach, they were hunched creatures looking like little humans with tiny legs and to long arms, covered in mangy platted off-white fur their faces were the worst part, entirely inhuman they had the heads of leopards with two huge front fangs, each as long as a man’s forearm. They wore only crude leather cuirasses and carried obsidian studded clubs which dragged behind them one handed as they knuckle walked around.

“Damn.” Muttered Erika shrinking back into the shadows away from the nearly soulless gaze of the lokispawn as they stumbled to-and-fro in their primitive camp and in the very centre, around which three of the monsters danced and pranced, was a crude alter of the trickster himself made from a desecrated coffin, the statue of the warrior defaced and mutilated till it bore loki’s visage, growing around his head like a halo? A huge healthy fan of Rindr’s Respite, enough to fill a barrel, thick and lush it grew out of the gaps in the stone filling almost a cubit of space with overlapping plates of mushroom.

“… anyone got a plan?”