The Hunt is On!

Einmánuðr 12, fifth year into the rule of Chieftain Erik.

On this day, the Vagoths met the Ljósálfr warriors in battle and emerged victorious. It did not come without a cost, however. Here lie 186 warriors whose souls will surely sing together in harmony within the halls of Valhalla.

We shall journey forward and show the Ljósálfr that our brothers’ and sisters’ sacrifices were not in vain. May Odin guide us in the coming war.

“So John, does it say anything about where the barrow is?”

John slowly stood up, wiping his glasses off with his shirt. “Well, it says we have one hundred and eighty six dead people in front of us right now, and if my calculations are right, we’re actually standing in front of one hundred an eighty seven tombs! We just have to find the one that doesn’t belong.”

Talia shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked out at the field, which was absolutely covered in standing stones and other decorative grave markings. “Wonderful. So it’s going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Not true.” He slid his glasses back on, his vision returning to its newfound clarity. “A haystack has probably a few thousand pieces of straw. Our haystack only has one hundred and eighty six.”

“Yeah, but at least in a haystack I can tell the difference between a needle and a piece of hay. I have no idea what the difference is between ‘dead Viking grave’ and ‘secret entrance to Viking barrow grave.’”

“Okay, so maybe yours is finding a needle in a haystack… while blindfolded. I’m sure eventually you’d prick your finger on it.”

Talia gave John a solid smack on the back of the head as he chuckled at her misfortune.

“Hey, keep that up and I won’t bother to teach you swordplay,” John joked, chuckling as she put on an adorable pout. Earlier, when they were making their way to the graveyard, John had gotten a chance to take a look at his new skill.

Swordsmanship (One Handed)
Lvl 1
Increase damage done with one handed swords by 5%
0/800 xp

It was decent, especially for having just got the skill this morning. He didn’t see anyway of teaching swordsmanship directly to Talia, but he figured if she watched what he did and tried to do similar moves maybe she would learn. Or maybe if he tried to teach her he would get a skill to do so. Either way, he was going to keep his promise to teach her swordplay.

Not that she knew that. And it was fun to keep that over her head.

“Well…” she said after a moment or two, “if you don’t teach me swordplay, then I won’t teach you how flexible a young elf can be.”

‘Touché.’

Just as he was about to retaliate, Frida emerged from behind a larger standing stone. “Alright, so as far as I can tell, there’s about two hundred or so of these stones. I think the fastest way to figure this out would be to divide it into thirds.” She gestured for Talia and John to follow her deeper into the graveyard. As they walked alongside her, she explained, “This valley is roughly in the shape of a circle, so I took some rope and divided the graveyard up into three sections. I’ll be taking the northwestern area. Talia, I want you to take the northeastern area, which will leave John the southern area. Take one of these-” she held out her hand with three large pieces of charcoal, “-and put a big ‘X’ on every single one you search that doesn’t result in the barrow. Also, be very cautious of what you touch. I rested my hand earlier on one of the tombs and activated an old rune, which nearly set my hand on fire. The Vikings were clearly keen on protecting this barrow at all costs, so who knows what we’ll find.”

Both Talia and John nodded, and after a quick kiss on the cheek from Talia, John took his piece of charcoal and walked off into his third, eager to begin his search. He could still feel the energy from the medication Talia gave him rushing through him as he quickened his pace. In fact, he was so energetic that there was no doubt in his mind that it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to find the barrow’s secret entrance.

“Grave number forty two… anotherrrrrr dud… Hitchhiker’s Guide, you’ve failed me once again…” John slumped back against a gravestone before slowly sliding down and taking a seat on the ground. Turns out that while he was correct in there being 186 gravestones, the Vikings had also included other stones to help save information about the various fallen. Some of them included ship names, villages that warriors came from, shrines to gods so that their souls may be blessed, and even a few that were just there as traps to deter any possible graverobbers. In fact, number 36 that he had found was a standing stone that had literally read: ‘This stone is covered in lightning runes. To people who can understand this: DO NOT TOUCH.’ It made sense that, when your opponent can’t read your writing, you could just make your traps that fucking obvious.

To John, however, it had just become an annoying test of his patience. Sure, that joke would’ve been funny as maybe the sixth stone, or hell, maybe even the tenth, but forty two stones in, he was getting really tired of reading various dead Viking names intermingled with random tidbits and information about said centuries-old dead guys. If it weren’t for the fact that he could clearly read how dangerous some of these stones were, he would be tempted to just run through and slap as many as he could, hoping that something would activate.

But no, in an effort to stay alive, he would have to carefully read each individual stone to see if there were any words out of place or any possibility at all that it could be leading to Beowulf’s barrow - which was driving his energy-increased brain insane. He ran his fingers through his hair, softly grumbling to himself. If he was having such a bad time at this, he couldn’t imagine how poor of a time Talia or Frida were having. After all, he had the advantage of actually being able to read the stones - they would have to just guess and hope they wouldn’t get blown up by some hidden trap runes.

Speaking of the trap runes, while they were made with the sole intent of harm, he had been able to get a small advantage out of them: learning a brand new rune. It was only one, as all the trap stones he had found used the same rune, but it was still something. Hidden on the very top of the trap stones, drawn sideways to make it look less like a rune and more like decoration, was the rune Thurisaz: Lightning Form. It was another basic destruction spell like his Kenaz, but at least this one was from Thor as opposed to the flaming giant of **** and destruction.

Slowly, he rose to his feet and walked over to the next grave. However, as he was about to start reading it, he noticed something. In the very top left corner was a small symbol. It looked like a bow and arrow, but it was slightly off. The arrow was missing the feathers on the end, and unlike the other symbols on the stone, his glasses were not translating it to mean anything. He quickly walked over to one of the previous stones, taking a look at the same area. Just like the other stone, it had an untranslated bow and arrow symbol, but this one was missing the bow string. In addition, the arrow was also pointing in a different direction. “Some kind of… weird status symbol, maybe? Or…” John started walking past each stone, his eyes focusing on the top left corner of each one. Each grave stone had the same symbol, with most of them having a missing part - however, he noticed that a few of them had a complete bow and arrow. And, after a minute or two, John realized that each one with a complete set was pointing to another one with a complete symbol, forming a jagged line through the array of stones. John’s pace began to quicken as he followed the trail the arrows were leading him on. As he moved quicker and quicker, he also realized another thing was changing about the bows: each one was pulled back a tiny bit farther, as if some invisible man was drawing it, ready to fire. He moved faster and faster, breaking from a brisk walk into a run, as he was **** to find out where these arrows were leading him - and just like that, the trail stopped.

The most recent stone led him here, to a stone with a bow that was not drawn, and was missing its arrow.

He looked around, trying to see if he perhaps missed one, but no. Every single one of the stones nearby had arrows, but bows that were missing parts. This was where the trail led him: to a bow with no arrow.

John thought for a moment, before a grin broke out across his face. He placed his cheek up against the stone and closed one eye, trying to see where the bow was aiming. After all, if the bows were continually being drawn and this one was missing its arrow, then the only logical conclusion was that the arrow had been shot somewhere.

Sure enough, he could see that the bow was pointing directly at a stone about twenty feet away from him, nestled in between two larger ones. He slowly stood up and walked over to it, anticipation growing as he got close enough to read what was on it. On this stone’s top left corner was not a bow and arrow, but simply the arrow, which had found its mark in the center of a target.

“Bullseye.”

Just as John was about to read the text, Talia and Frida made their way over to him. He looked over to them with a sly smile on his face. “Did you guys follow the arrows too?”

Talia looked surprised for a moment before smiling. “Well, I guess you beat me in solving the puzzle. So is this it? Is this our secret entrance?”

John nodded. “I think so. I was about to read it when you guys walked over.”

Frida motioned for him to go on. “Well, don’t leave us in suspense! Tell us what it says.”

John turned his attention to the humble-looking stone and began to read aloud, “O flowers of warriors, beware of that trap. Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part, eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride. For a brief while your strength is in bloom but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow illness or the sword to lay you low, or a sudden fire or surge of water or jabbing blade or javelin from the air or repellant age. Your piercing eye will dim and darken; and **** will arrive, dear warrior, to sweep you away.”

“Catchy,” Talia said, crossing her arms. “Pretty poetic for Vikings, though.”

John shrugged. “It is from Beowulf. It’s a passage from right after he kills Grendel’s mother.”

“How do you know that?”

“One of my classes. We read Beowulf in the beginning of the semester.” John contemplated on which class it was he’d read it in. “Actually… it was Enkleman’s. Man, this is the second time he’s indirectly helped me out. Damn, now I feel bad about falling asleep in his class.”

Talia’s mother leaned over, and John’s eyes wavered as his attention was drawn from the passage from Beowulf to the valley of cleavage that was displayed before him. ‘Damn, if Talia has her mother’s genetics, then she is on the path to get some… favorable assets…’

“My guess would be-” Frida said, knocking John out of his daydream about Talia with bigger boobs, “-that we have to touch one of the runes to activate it. It would probably show us where the barrow is if we do so.”

“Well then, it’s obvious which one it is,” Talia interjected. “It’s gotta be the part about eternal rewards. Easy.”

John gave a dismissive wave. “No no, it can’t be that. It’s not talking about rewards as in treasure or anything, it’s talking about the afterlife.”

“Say... what now?”

“The passage is about…” John let out a frustrated sigh, trying to recall what Enkleman had taught him. “It’s about… Beowulf remembering what’s important. See, this part is after he defeated the big monster, right? So he’s feeling all strong and struttin’ his stuff, waving his dick around, when one of his friends tells him, hey, cut that shit out. Sure, you’re strong now, but one day you’re gonna grow old and you’re gonna fucking die. So remember, the important thing - the eternal rewards - going to the afterlife, the, uh… Valhalla, or, Heaven, or whatnot…”

“Oh. So the eternal reward would probably send us to our eternal reward. Got it. So maybe don’t touch that one.”

John took a look back at the passage, rubbing his chin in thought. He thought to use Observe to just find the correct one, but he realized he would have to Observe each rune individually, which would take too much time and mana to do. After re-reading the passage a couple of times though, an idea struck him. “Hey Talia, we’re looking for his barrow, correct?”

“Yeah, duh?”

“And the barrow would have his dead body in there, right?”

“Yeah. It’s like a fancy grave.”

“Then maybe…” His finger hovered over a few of the runes. “Maybe we’re looking for a part that references Beowulf himself dying, instead of just warriors in general.”

Talia thought for a moment before quickly grabbing John’s wrist. “John, are you about to touch the runes that say ‘**** will arrive?’ Don’t you think that’s a worse idea than mine?”

“Hear me out, Talia. The eternal rewards are the final thing, and I feel like it’s too easy of an answer. After all, this puzzle would’ve had to protect both from Elvish and Norse grave robbers. They’d probably take a look at the rune for rewards, touch it, and die. Problem solved. But if you read the passage and think about it, you realize it’s talking about how no matter what - no matter how strong you are - **** will come either way. And **** did come for Beowulf. So maybe, to find Beowulf’s grave, we need to have **** come as well. Well, not for us, but the rune.”

“Okay… but if you’re wrong, John, you could kill all three of us.”

John’s fingers twitched for a moment before curling into a fist. “Alright, then both of you back up and get out of its range.”

Talia’s eyes went wide as she pulled back John’s hand. “John! You’re not going to fucking sacrifice yourself if you’re wrong!”

“Talia, what choice do I have? Either I’m right and we find our way in or I’m wrong and get blown to smithereens - or I don’t try at all and I get executed by the council in a couple of days.” He turned back to the stone. “At least this way I’m taking my fate into my own hands. Literally.”

Talia was about to protest when Frida clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her back. She gave a nod to John as she backed up from the stone, dragging a frightened Talia along with her.

John took a deep breath, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead as his hand slowly reached out - and with two fingers, he pushed down on his chosen runes.

At first, nothing. And then, with the sound of creaking wood and stone sliding against itself, the two large pillars beside him slowly moved back, revealing beneath them two sets of stairs descending into the ground. John let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the Elven family, both of which had looks of astonishment on their faces.

“Ladies and… well, I guess just ladies. I present to you, the lost barrow of Beowulf.”