“So… is it gold?”

Erika sighed and leaned back on her haunches, first her nap had been interrupted, then her and Bjorn had been called up to the front of the convoy, now the expedition was hiding in a dip in the landscape whilst she was poking a dead body… not her idea of a fun afternoon.

She understood why Alvis was cautious but sometimes weird things did just happen, like a human corpse with a gold dagger in its back in the middle of nowhere.

Ok that was strange Erika could admit but still, did they have to wake her up?

“The scouts have checked the area, no one hiding… at least not using mundane methods.” He looked at her and Erika just shrugged, she couldn’t use [Magic Eye] yet, that was 4th tier magic.

“So… is it gold then?”

Erika managed to smile at Bjorn and shook her head. “Probably not, gold can’t hold an edge… I'm not a scholar but I’ve heard of a few things you can mix into iron to make it look gold, this edge is smooth though… totally smooth, like glass… might be magic?”

“Someone made gold?” Bjorn was still stuck on that it seems; Erika goggled at him for a moment then shook her head. “No of course not, the laws of magic cant be broken, nothing can change the Truth of something, even Helsdottir couldn’t turn something into gold… and it’s not gold!”

“So, what did do this?” Asked Alvis expertly redirecting the topic.

Erika huffed. “Most likely is it’s a totally normal dagger that’s been sharpened with magic… maybe a rune which rubbed off or if it’s a vitki then the spell would have stopped the moment they stopped focusing on it… but obviously vitki are rarer than rare, probably more likely is maybe a rune sheath? That automatically sharpened the dagger in it but over time smoothed it like a mirror. Either that or a divine art I don’t know, maybe that’s what made it look golden?”

“As for me…” Bjorn began pointing at the corpse. “I’d guess he was… hmmm… mid-thirties? Working man so probably of the Karl caste, he’s got burns on his finger like a thunderarm user and his boots are damn good, double layered… probably a guard? Bodyguard? Yeah bodyguard… he died tired, been running for a long while, can you see these stains and this tearing? But its these tracks that are most interesting.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As he spoke Bjorn wriggled his way across the ground in a sort of strange sideways squat. “This here? These claw marks look like an ogre.”

Alvis sighed and thumbed the bridge of his nose. “Wonderful… close enough we need to deal with it?”

“Nope, must have been on the move, didn’t even nibble on him.”

“The ogre didn’t kill him?”

“Never known an ogre to use a dagger, big clubs and rocks sure but not a dagger.”

Alvis shook his head. “Perfect… anything you can think of that could do this?”

“… people Alvis, literally any person, bandits, raiders, slavers who went too far, maybe a nomad tribe that fell on hard times, it’s a weird knife sure but it’s not been used weird, go down any ally in a city and you’ll find twenty people who could do this.”

Erika ignored the bickering going on around her and instead focused on sliding the knife out of the mans back, she examined the shining blade then gently laid it on the corpses chest and wrapped his hands around it. That done she dusted herself off and stood up “Find joy in Valhalla or peace in Folkvangr.” She spoke.

A moment passed and the three delvers walked away from the corpse. Alvis vanished into the expedition and began kicking resting delvers back into activity, Bjorn meanwhile stuck close to Erika as she found her way back to her caravan.

“Are ogres as nasty as I’ve read about.”

Bjorn seemed surprised she spoke at first then nodded, this time he wasn't smiling. “Yup, big rubbery things, size of a steam-engine and got that power to… most dangerous though? They are fast, like so fast, an ogre can clear a half league quicker than a galloping horse, of course that means they need to be eating all the damn time.”

“Great.” Muttered Erika as she pulled herself back up into her caravan, nodding to Helga on the way by.

“It’s odd though, I thought they were the worst around here.”

Erika turned back to Bjorn who was staring off into space hand on his chin.

“What do you mean Bjorn?”

“Oh, sorry just thinking out loud… its… well… the ogre didn’t eat him right? They eat everything…. Unless they can’t risk slowing down… so it wasn't just running, something was chasing it.”

Erika glared at him. “Do you just enjoy scaring me or something?”

Bjorn broke out of his stupor and laughed. “No no a thousand apologise lady vitki truly, it’s nothing to worry about though I promise, only one more day before we reach out stop over point! Elkhorned, one of the living cities of the nomad tribes, hundreds live in each one and they patrol all around to keep the peace, we’ll be safe there.”

As Bjorn wandered off Erika glared at his back, the Wyrd might have frayed with the twilight of the gods but there was still such a thing as tempting fate.