Erika stared up at the ceiling, the strange weft and weave of stone and… bone was it? No maybe steel? Above her had drawn her eye. It formed great looping patterns, so different to the dotted ones on the walls, the dots seemed to tell mythology or at least were shaped like pictures from myth Erika could read the language, but the ceiling… the loops of metal and harsh geometric angles of stone formed abstract vistas, false sunsets and made up mountains, all trapped forever in the rock.

“Ok… if your alive sound off!”

Oh Bjorn made it, Erika thought slightly deliriously, I coulda sworn I saw his head chopped off.

A few cracked and whimpering voices sang out, a handful more robust ones as well, probably the real veterans if Erika was to make a guess.

“Eri… damn it! Has anyone seen the vitki! Did she survive?”

Erika sighed, a huge deep sigh that rattled her aching limbs but still couldn’t wash away her fatigue, before she forced herself to speak.

“…alive! Don’t wanna be but I am.”

“Oh thank Odin… Ranald, what about you?”

Silence

“Damn them all the way to the doors of Helheim… Solvor?”

“Alive!”

“Good… good…” The voice trailed off, Erika thought Bjorn sounded flustered and why wouldn’t he be, they’d lost! Oh sure some of them were still alive but the tide of Draugr had been overwhelming, even those with less galdr in their veins had the impossible durability of the unliving. The first ramp had fallen and they’d moved to the second, then it had fallen and they’d run for the third, by the fifth everyone had given up Erika saw a good dozen in all deserting, simply turning and running during the battle, heading for side passages and unlocked doors. Combined with the casualties… the shield walls had broken and champions had sallied forth to stem the tide leaving many valiant dead to be laid before the Valkyries, none of that helped the living though. In the end Bjorn had escaped with whoever he could, shouting for the retreat as Erika had covered the ground in acid hoping to burn off a few feet and slow the Draugr down at least, then they’d just run.

Dozens of corridors and hours of mad flight later they had successfully lost the Draugr and the route back as well, they were probably miles away from the rimed room and that strange central aperture filled with all those bizarre chains and the smell of distant smoke. Now they were sat in a grubby little broom cupboard freezing to death, whatever was keeping the Fimbulwinter chill outside apparently didn’t apply to the whole structure equally as they had run through spots of both hot and cold getting here.

“…Anyone seen the food?”

“I’ve got… a bit… like enough for stew I guess?”

“Better than nothing… please tell me someone took the water?”

“What kind of fumbling child you ya take me for? Of course, I grabbed the water!”

“Ok… so stew works right?”

Erika decided that dissociating on the floor wouldn’t work and reluctantly swung up into a sitting position, but nothing more than that. Every part of her ached, the expedition had been scatter, her lover was missing, most of the group she had been pseudo-leading were dead or lost… she didn’t feel very energetic.

Watching glumly as Bjorn swung an honest to the god’s cauldron down from his back and began to make stew Erika counted the survivors, the survivors of the survivors in fact as they didn’t know if anyone else from the expedition was still alive, anyway the count didn’t take much time. Eleven expeditionaries were all that was left, Bjorn and two of his rangers, Solvor and three of Silvermane’s agents, three of what used to be Ranald’s veteran delvers before he died and finally, Erika.

Erika watched as a fire was made, built from twigs and tinder kept in the rangers’ pockets apparently, strips of salted meat and root vegetables thrown in with the water and a handful of spices that Bjorn produced. Solvor came alive a bit as the smell permeated the room and began to pull pieces of twin and gears out of her backpack, a moment later and she started setting up… something around the doorway, Erika wasn't a veteran sure but she wasn't stupid, it was obviously some kind of alarm trap. Luckily the cupboard was jotun sized really, if it was a human one a fire and a trap wouldn’t be safe that close together, as it was the jotun cupboard was so large it could fit a house in it. Plenty of room for Erika to stretch out even with the ten other survivors, a roaring fire and all the taught ropes and… were those poisoned blades? Erika leant forwards slightly and watched as Solvor slotted in… yes poison blades, she could see the sticky purple residue on their edges, nasty.

Thankfully the fire lit up the room enough to see properly so Erika could do the only thing which promised to soothe her injured spirit, look at her loot. Reaching into one of the larger pockets in her cloak of office she pulled out the book she had taken from the warg gothi, any sort of divine power in wargs was rare, very rare, wargs only lived a maximum of twenty years so few even amongst the bringers of twilight, bothered to empower them.

The book was heavy, Erika had noticed before of course but still, this thing was heavy. She didn’t think it was just silver embossed anymore and opening the first page confirmed it. Erika smiled disbelievingly; it was made from silver! Pure silver! This thing in her hands could buy half a city! Even the pages were silver leaf, the front and back cover were pure silver plates and its spine was a solid silver bolt. Even in the weak light it shone, white and bright and pure… of course the Warg had ruined it, into the delicate silver wafer pages the warg had carved the Runes of Loki, sharp and jagged and dripping with poison and treachery, even still and dim they felt hateful.

Each rune took up an entire page and, despite the brutality of the runes themselves, Erika could acknowledge that the warg apparently did good detailed worked. The thin pages weren’t broken through but instantly just lightly traced. A good dozen pages had runes which felt… dead to Erika, blackened as if by fire without flame, they must have been the rune the Gothi used in their battle as well as the runes it had used to raise its fellow wargs from the dead into draugr.

But that wasn't all the book, the runes occupied only half of the pages, the rest were unmarred, the Warg obviously hadn't gotten around to carving them yet.

Written in the same strange dots as the wall art, tiny evenly spaced dots that formed pictures and words alike, it was… a galdraz!?

The story, the saga, the words, and thoughts that made up a spell! These were… rare… rarer than rare! Even in the new era, Helsdottir had founded the first and only school for vitki near the end of her life but even with that increase in the ranks of the vitki few of them could write a galdraz. It seemed impossible for normal people to understand that, just because you knew a spell didn’t mean you could write it down, most of magic was instinct and feeling after all.

A galdraz could only be made by a master, in the fifth circle at least, but this was a whole book of them?! Each page was covered in careful dots plotting the complex ideas and stories that formed the heart of Galdr.

Erika stared in awe, compared to the writing even the fact it was a lamb’s weight in pure silver was damn near worthless, forget buying a street… a galdraz compendium like this one, found in the wilderness, with spells that might not be recorded even in Helsdottirs hall?

There wasn’t enough gold in the world, this was the power to topple kingdoms in her hands, definitely enough power to lay some disquiet dead to rest.