“Not enjoying your popularity?” Sigurn asked with that grating tone used by unfunny practical jokers and used car salesmen. Despite the words and the voice, she had been helpful so Erika refrained from throwing a ball of blood at her, it wouldn’t hurt but that stuff stained like nobody’s business.

Erika was cowering in one corner of Sigurn’s caravan, Sigurn’s section of the expedition had kept their caravans of course since they hadn’t been overrun by draugr and as a result they’d been able to hall them down the corridors and into the shanty town at the heart of the tower of knowledge forming a new neighbourhood, for want of a better word, in the chaos.

The shanty town was called “Losthope” by the by, Erika had only found that out a few minutes ago, what an evocative name… Erika already hated it, this place and everyone in it.

“Please just a moment of… ah!”

The desperate shout cut off into a pained whimper as one of the Silvermane guards slapped a pushy beggar back into the crowd, even though Losthopes neighbourhood tended to be somewhat self-contained and independent nearly half the town’s population was now swarming the Silvermane section, kept at bay only by regular and severe violence inflicted by the heavily armoured delvers.

“…my husband…”

“…Please my son, my only son I….”

“…Get us out of…”

Erika tried not the listen as the desperate screams rang out, luckily no one was pounding on the wagons wall but that was only because of the guards and their spears keeping them back. Her mother had warned her about this, she’d seen a little of it on the journey here, once or twice, but not much and not this bad. Some people thought vitki could do anything, thought they were like little gods, limitless in power… and explanation of the pillars or laws of galdr or the limits of the Sal and the well would all be ignored, they wanted all their problems fixed and they wanted them fixed with a snap of her fingers, instant and painless and without any effort on their part.

Erika was sure most people would feel all sad about the crying and the wailing echoing through the wall but Erika found it just annoyed her.

“How much longer before they leave!” Kara hissed, she was being adorably protective which would usually make Erika swoon and sigh but she was currently busy corner cowering.

“Probably a few more hours about when they start getting hungry, they’ll be back of course but soon enough the other leaders will be here, they’ll move their people back and keep the crowd at bay and try to get to talk to you as their payment for doing so.”

“SCREW THEM!” Yelled Erika from her corner as she tried to worm her way further under the furniture, after a moment she yelped again as Sigurn pulled her up into the air and held her at eye level.

“Look it will be fine Erika, we’ll keep you safe I promise, even if I didn’t like you, we still need a vitki to get the treasure for Silverman, the scryers were definite on that, it can’t be accessed without a vitki.”

Erika hung in the air for a long moment then nodded. “… fine, fine, I just don’t deal well with new people… also I know more about the human body than you do and this is impossible… like totally impossible, you are holding my full body weight at the end of your arm and your… yeah you aren’t even straining, human bodies don’t work like that!”

Sigurn grinned. “You don’t get to Silver rank without paying a life smith to give you a full suite of improvements, I didn’t need any of the survivability ones what with being a chosen so I had her just give me strength, lots and lots of strength.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Erika squinted and then tapped the muscles in Sigurn’s arm, her knuckles nearly bruised. “That’s like iron!”

“She said I'm partially a… lito trophy?”

“Lithotroph” Corrected Erika her mind racing. “She managed that?... ok not important now but when we get back to civilisation you need to introduce me to her, making a human have iron bolstered muscles… that’s… genius.”

“She is very skilled.” Said Sigurn dropped Erika back onto the floor and grinning a knowing grin at Kara who looked relieved, Erika tried to prevent she didn’t realise she’d just been handled expertly by someone who realised her curiosity outweighed her fear, but she didn’t really mind all that much, after all it was nice that Sigurn paid attention to her.

“I’ll protect you, Erika.” Said Kara smiling down at her, Erika tried not to smile but she failed.

“And on top of her I’ll assign a few agents and rangers to keep an eye on you Erika, you’re probably the most valuable person in this place, the only healer certainly and… can you make food?”

Erika thought for a moment then rocked a hand back and forth. “Sort of, I can probably turn a corpse into a kind of meat tree which would keep growing if it was given enough water.”

Sigurn laughed. “Yeah, you are the single most valuable person here, nobody has much food only the rations they brought in with them or any small game they hunted inside the Tower, Losthope is called that because they noticed how low their food supplies were getting and thought it was the end.”

“Who’s they?” Erika asked uncoiling slightly and leaning back on Kara. “You keep saying they and them when you talk about this little shanty camp but does it have a leader?”

Sigurn shrugged. “Sort of, it’s more a council style thing… the long explanation is that everyone here is someone who the Temple snatched with its weird flying grabbing thing…

“Which I’ll need to disable before we can leave?” Hazarded Erika.

Sigurn smiled and shook her head. “Oh no not at all, runes are what we have Gothi for, no you’ll be the one who grabbed the treasure for Silvermane, apparently it doesn’t like being touched by mundane humans… don’t know why.”

“Likes… we’re after something alive?” Erika half shouted with surprise, slightly sheepishly Sigurn shook her head again. “No no that’s just how it was explained to me… look Erika I don’t even know if what we are looking for is really here and I don’t want to say what it is just in case it isn't, some people go mad thinking about what could have been…”

The fact that it didn’t seem to be a trust issue mollified Erika who found herself nodding glumly along. “Ok ok fine… but we’ve gotten side tracked, who’s in this council then?”

“It’s basically just the leadership of the groups that made Losthope… I'm on it obviously since I'm in charge of the Silvermane forces and you saw Ragvald who was leading a merchant caravan which got sucked in like we did, he seems to be focused on raiding the place for loot. You saw Bors he’s a great clearing nomad whose tribe was on some sort of trading raiding trip when they got grabbed, he brough the most Gothi but the least people overall. That little man was Hakon, he’s a delver as a matter of fact, was leading a refugee caravan that was commanded by a few third sons and daughters of jarls in the north as a way for them to get some cheap glory, they lost their maps and wandering into the edge of the Fimbulwinter. The last lot aren’t on the council but also don’t really answer to it, a whole troop of Vracians, two dozen of them in that weird armour they wear lead by a legate-alchemist, Hakon’s the only person here who speaks Vracian and the tongue of the seven cities so he’s kinda stuck being the go between, nobody knows why they turned up here… I’ve never heard of Vracians leaving their conquered hegemony.”

“Of course they don’t all of the great kingdoms are still at war with them, they’ll be killed on sight!”

“How did Vracians get here? We’re on the opposite side of Midgard.” Erika asked, she understood the distances involved and she’d read enough history books to vaguely understand supply chains and logistics, moving soldiers this far was incredibly difficult.

“I'm more worried with how we are getting out.” Said Kara absentmindedly stroking the handle of her axe. “…Is there a way out?”

“The other group leaders say they found a door two levels down but it’s surrounded by wargs, they fought through them and managed to get out for a while, but then they got sucked up into the sky again and ended up back here.”

Kara and Erika grimaced. “That’s why I said why we need you Erika, it won’t be quick for our Gothi to find the runes that are doing that or for them to disable them when they do. Until then you might be our best chance at not starving to death.”

“I only said I might be able to make food, not that I could.”

“Then we’ll eat moss.” Sigurn said seriously. “Anything works as long as we get Silvermane’s treasure, smash the towers runes and it’s a straight shot back home and into the history books.”

“Heh…” Erika grinned a little at that. “Fine.”