“Uh the same as not being one I assume?” said Erika rather wrong footed by the sudden topic change. “I mean most of us don’t even know we are a vitki till we’re nearly adults.”

“Wait really?” Reidar stopped and stared back at Erika. “I had no idea… how does that work?”

Erika scrambled through her memory for the speech her mother had given her, then shortened it. “Ok basically vitki are born with special souls that let us ignite one of the pieces of our soul, all people have the same pieces but a vitki can ignite them, as a vitki ages she gradually ignites one piece based on her personality and has to work to ignite the rest over the rest of her life time, so you’re basically a normal girl until one day when you… I don’t know, seal a wound with a touch or dream of the future.”

Kara seemed even more interested, as she prowled forwards hammer and shield raised, she kept her head half turned to look at Erika. “I always wondered about that, when I was little, I thought vitki just… turned up one day.”

Erika giggled. “that’s honestly not as rare to hear as you think, but you’d need to be a tier 10 to make a vitki and there are none in Midgard, not since Ragnarök.”

“Ok now that’s something else, I’ve heard lots of stuff like that… like Sigurn called you a tier 2 right? And a Life Shaper… what does all that mean?”

Erika giggled again, this was quite fun, probably just because she knew all the answers but still. “Ok that’s a bit more complicated but not too much … ok so there are 6 and 1 parts of the soul, the six parts are the Hamr which is your life, your Hugr which is your mind, the Hamingja which is your fortune, Fylgja which follows you through life, your Himneskr the space within and finally your Banvaenn your fated ending. The one is your Odium well or Seidhr, which is what makes a vitki a vitki and is more the shape of your soul than a part of it. When you ignite one of these you get access to a Pillar, which is the name for a type of spells that you can cast using that piece, if you ignite your Hamr you can cast spells of life, if you ignite your Himneskr you can cast spells of space and time stuff like that, someone who is really good at using one of the Pillars gets a title based on that pillar, for the two examples I gave you it would be Life Shaper and World Holder.”

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Kara stared goggle eyed. “Uh ok I didn’t think it was that Complicated.” She said lamely.

Reidar started patting his pockets and shook his head. “You want to borrow some of my charms? Seems hard to remember but bad if you forget, think I got a memory one around here somewhere… now where did I put it?”

Gunhilda was the only one nodding, Erika shot her a look and she just smiled. “Yeah I… I have some… problems with fighting but I paid lots of attention in lessons back at the church.”

Erika smiled at the general confusion and focus round her. “I know that all hard to remember but the Tiers is much simpler. Spells are more complex the more they do, to learn a spell you engrave it on the part of the soul its related to and if its two complex you cant do that, so tier 2 just means its 2’s worth of complex, there are 9 and 1 tiers just like the six and 1 of the soul, 9 totally normal tiers that are just more complex and more powerful spells having a higher number and finally 1 tier, the 10th tier, which is… different, nobody knows how or why except for tier 10’s but they don’t seem to ever run out of odium to cast with, people think that maybe tier 10 is achieved when you learn to control the odium outside you as easily as that within your well… also the tier 10 spells are insane, the most well known one is the [Strike away Malice] which was the spell that Eydis Helsdottir used to cripple Nidhogg.”

“I heard of that,” Kara said with a smile. “The Skalds sing of it often, the dawn after twilight, right?”

“That’s what they call it.” Said Erika trying not to seem two prideful.

“Uh sorry to interrupt…” Gunhilda was looking around the dark corridor with wide eyes, still nervously fidgeting with her charm. “I just… what are we looking for exactly? I mean I heard you say it was a plant but I don’t know which one?”