These Puzzles are “Top Tyr”

(Disclaimer: I do not apologize for the title.)

The decision which room to go into first had ended with no debate; all three of them had agreed that it was probably best to start off with Tyr. They had reasoned that, since he was the god of justice, his puzzles would probably be the most fair, and hopefully the easier of the two to solve. Thor’s were more likely to require some sort of brute **** or lightning, and they’d rather deal with that last.

As they entered the room, John took a look up at the statue of the one-handed god, his mind desperately trying to grasp at what little knowledge he had of the Norse deity. He knew Tyr was a battle god, much like Thor; however, he was more importantly the Norse god of justice. He’d lost his hand in the incident with the binding of Fenrir, and… that’s all he could recall. One hand, justice, probably could kick his ass. Not much to go on, but hopefully the puzzle would prove to be a bit on the easier side.

The room itself was rather dark, with only three torches to try and illuminate it: two nearby the door they’d just come through and a single one on the far wall, placed directly above a lever. The room seemed to be just as long as the one they’d just left, albeit only half as tall. “Not really much of a puzzle,” John said, taking a few steps into the room. “Looks like we walk in and pull the lever.”

“Hold on, John,” Talia said, placing a hand upon his shoulder. “It could be a trap.”

“I doubt it. Tyr wasn’t known for trickery, that was Loki’s thing. He was just. Maybe it’s only just that after getting through this much of the barrow, we get a nice, easy puzzle.”

“Or,” Frida said, crossing her arms over her well-endowed chest, “the lever could be the start to the actual puzzle - in which case, we’d probably want to keep someone here by the door, in case we need a quick escape.”

Talia nodded in agreement with her mother. “Fair enough, Mom. Since you’re the strongest of the three of us, maybe you should go pull the lever. John and I will stay back here.”

This statement gave John pause as his paranoid mind began to interpret it. Why would Talia be so eager to separate Frida from herself and John? While John was fairly certain that Talia was not in on it with Frida, he could not be sure and thus had to consider it a possibility. So then the question remained of why? Could the lever be something other than a door opener? Could it perhaps be the lever to a trap door, one to separate Frida from the group for some nefarious purpose? John looked to the two of them as his mind continued to race. Maybe they did plan to betray him somehow, but feared doing it out in the open. John was almost as strong as Talia, and they all knew that. Maybe Frida wanted to be separated so she could betray John without getting Talia in the line of fire.

Well, maybe that was far fetched. There was still a part of John that understood his conspiracy about Frida and Talia could be completely wrong, that he was just being driven to **** thoughts out of fear and maybe even that **** he took this morning. But if he had a way to keep himself 100% safe, he would definitely take that route. And right now, that route seemed to be to pull the lever himself.

“No no no, you two stay back here. I’ll take this one.” John confidently walked forward, past Frida and Talia, making a beeline straight for the lever.

“John, wait, you need to be careful!” Frida called out.

“I’m fine, Frida. What could possibly happen-” As John took another step, about three quarters of the way into the room, a loud clicking noise could be heard. Instantly, a chain shot out of the ground like a viper, latching onto his leg and keeping him from moving any further. Torches that were shrouded in darkness before suddenly blazed to life, revealing the hidden complexity that lay inside this room. And, to make matters worse, behind John, two walls began to quickly close in, separating him from Frida and Talia.

The two women dashed forward, desperately trying to reach John before the walls crashed together, and John in turn attempted to run towards them. However, the chain on his leg held fast, restricting his movement. Before they could make it even halfway into the room, the walls had already slammed shut, locking John away from the two people that just this morning had been his saviors.

What was Beowulf’s tomb before now seemed to become John’s as well.

John reached down to the chain, tugging on it and trying to slip it off his ankle. His struggles to free himself had the opposite effect, as with each squirm the binding began to grip tighter and tighter and its length became shorter and shorter. He almost cast Kenaz on the chain thinking he could maybe melt it off - but then he remembered he was stuck to it, and molten metal would not be very good for his hitpoints. John looked around at his now lit corner of the room, seeing if there was anything that could be his salvation.

It was then that John noticed something chilling: littering the walls and floor of this room were skeletons, each one of them with a chain binding similar to his locked around their ankles. Some of them were clearly quite old, with bones and armor that looked so fragile that he wagered a simple touch would shatter them instantly. Some, on the other hand, were much fresher, with bits of flesh still clinging to the bones and rats chewing away to expose the tender marrow. Some of the rats had grown quite fat feasting on foolish adventurers who were unable to escape the puzzle, and they turned to John with a hungry gaze. A couple of the braver ones slowly clambered off their skeletal perches and started making their way towards him.

John quickly drew his sword, and without a second thought ignited one of his Kenaz runes, causing the sword to be engulfed in flames. The smaller rats were clearly frightened, as the moment his sword began to glow, they scrambled away as far as they could get from the enchanted blade. The larger ones were not so easily scared, but were wary of the still living human. They simply sat and waited, knowing that John’s defiance couldn’t last forever, and eventually they would close in on him and rip into his flesh.

John sighed. “Rats… why’d it have to be rats…” He figured it was best to get an idea of what he was facing, so he decided to fire a quick Observe onto the three types of rats he could see.

Tomb Rat
Level 3, Beast
HP: 10/10
MP: 0/0
A basic kind of rat found within most tombs. These guys live off a diet consisting of dead bodies, linen wrappings, and other rats.

Dire Tomb Rat
Level 4, Beast
HP: 20/20
MP: 0/0
The more powerful Tomb Rats. These guys are usually the ones who get the tastiest of the dead bodies, the freshest of the linens, and the fattest of the other rats.

Observe Level Up!
Observe now has a chance to reveal a single skill of a target.

Alpha Tomb Rat
Level 6, Beast
HP: 35/35
MP: 5/5
Skill: Infected Bite, 1 MP to use. Upon biting a target, they are inflicted with the Diseased effect.
The king of the rats, at least of the nearby floors. This rat enjoys the luxurious lifestyle of feasting upon tasty adventurers and fucking as many female rats as he can. It is more than likely that most of the rats in this very room are his children… including the females.

‘Oh, wonderful,’ John thought as he read the description. ‘Not only am I outleveled by a giant-ass rat, but he also has more sex than I do. What a way to go.’

“John! You okay in there?” John whipped his head around towards the closed walls, Talia’s faint voice penetrating the thick stone between them.

“Talia? Yeah, I’m here! What’s going on over there?”

“It seems we’ve got the puzzle part of this. What’s going on where you are?”

“A shit-ton of hungry rats are wanting to make me their next meal.” John turned around, trying to keep an eye on the rats to make sure none of them moved any closer to him. “Hey, it’s really hard to hear you guys. Do you have any ideas on how to open these walls up, or-”

Just then, John heard the sound of stone grinding against stone, and upon turning to see what it was, he was greeted by the sight of Talia’s eyes. “‘Sup, dork? You manage to actually look good with that sword. Kudos.”

John rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and the big one’s keen on making me his dinner. Mind figuring out the puzzle so I don’t have to be trapped with Hungry McFuckFace over there?”

“That’s what we’re trying to do, genius. Figured we’d see if we could talk to you so you could help us with it.”

John turned back to the rats, swiping his sword through the air and causing them to scuttle back a little bit. “Alright, well, what’re you looking at?”

“So, after the walls slammed in on you, three big wolf heads slid into place on the wall. Each one of them looks like they’re bound in some sort of chain… rope… thing? I can’t really tell, they’re pretty faded. But they all have their jaws wide open. We were able to take a look with our flashlights, and we could see that in the back of the throat of each wolf head is some sort of lever that looks like it can be pulled forward several notches.”

“Is there any sort of text anywhere? There has to be some indication of what we’re trying to solve here.”

“Nothing on our side, but we figured there might be something on yours?” Talia suggested.

“I’ll try and take a look. Here, try to keep your flashlights on the rats. I’d prefer to have someone watching my back,” John said, forgetting for a moment that he was paranoid about her. Right now he was more focused on getting out of this trap with as few rat bites on him as possible. ‘Have I had my rabies shots? I should really get my rabies shots.’

“Got it,” Talia responded, reaching through the small hole with her flashlight and shining the beam on as many rats as she could. The rats seemed to be more scared of this than John’s flaming sword, as the moment the light touched them they shrieked and scrambled deeper into the darkness. With that, John was able to turn and take a look at the wall that had shut behind him.

He held his sword aloft, trying to give himself some reading light. After a small bit of inspection, he could see that there were three words etched into the stone, written in Futhark runes.

ᛚᚨᛖᛞᛁᚾᚷ
ᚷᛚᛖᛁᛈᚾᛁᚱ
ᛞᚱᛟᛗᛁ

“Well, you’re in luck,” John called out to the two women. “I got three words over here, and I’m gonna guess that the three of them correspond to your three wolf heads.”

“Alright, so, what are the words?” Frida called back.

John pushed his glasses up further on his nose, their magical lenses translating the runes before his very eyes.

Laeding
Gleipnir
Dromi

John read them off, and Frida repeated them back to him. “I must admit, those word’s meanings escape me. Do they mean anything to you, John?”

“They sound familiar, although I can’t really place what they were…” He paused for a moment in thought, until something struck him. “Wait, you said the wolf heads were bound in something, right? Like chains?”

“Yes, the three heads have criss-crossing rope-like things.”

“This must be an allusion to the most famous myth involving Tyr, the one where he lost his hand!”

This time it was Talia who spoke up. “I remember that one! I remember reading about it at some point during school!”

“Care to fill me in on it then, Talia?” Frida said, sounding proud of her daughter.

John could see Talia give a nod as she began to tell the story. “Well, the gods had decided that they needed to bind Fenrir, the great wolf. He was growing way too big, and he was foretold to one day kill Odin. To do this, they offered him a challenge. They told him that if he was able to break out of the chains he was bound in, he’d receive praise and fame for being so strong. Fenrir accepted the first two times, as they were chains and clearly looked very strong, but neither of them were strong enough to hold him, seeing as he broke out of both of them. The gods then ended up going to the Dwarves, who instead of giving them chains or rope gave them a ribbon that was crafted out of impossible things.”

“Impossible things?” Frida interjected.

“Yeah, like, um… like the breath of a fish, or the roots of a mountain. Things that just shouldn’t exist, at least in terms of what was understood when the myth was first formed. In class they said it was more likely that the rope was just made out of quantum particles or something, and that was the Norse way of dealing with quantum mechanics.”

“Fair enough. Continue.”

“Well, they took the ribbon to Fenrir and told him that despite its looks, it was much stronger than either of the previous chains, and they offered him the same challenge. He argued that breaking out of a ribbon didn’t seem nearly as impressive as breaking out of chains, and that he would receive no fame from it, even if it really was stronger. So the gods offered him another deal: they’d bind him up in the ribbon, and if he broke out, he’d clearly be too strong for the gods to deal with. However, if he couldn’t break out, this would show that he was no menace to the gods, and he would be allowed to go free. Fenrir still wanted some form of collateral in this deal, so he told them that as long as a god placed a hand in his jaws, he would agree to the terms. That way, if they were lying, he could just bite the hand off. Originally, no god would do this, as they clearly weren’t going to just let him out if he couldn’t break out. However, Tyr, the god of justice, who had actually raised Fenrir as a pup, decided he’d do it, and he placed his hand inside of Fenrir’s mouth. When Fenrir tried to break out, the ribbon just grew tighter and tighter, and no matter what, he couldn’t escape. He told him that he couldn’t, the gods were super pleased, and they laughed when he asked if he could be released. At that point, Fenrir mustered up all of his strength and tried one last time to break free - but the ribbon grew so tight that it caused him great pain, and he accidentally snapped his jaws shut, biting off Tyr’s hand. And that’s the story of how Tyr lost his hand, and how Fenrir got ribbon danced into bondage.”

“Cute story. But how does it help us out here?”

“Well, the three names John said are probably the names of the three bindings. We probably just have to choose the correct one: the one that Fenrir couldn’t break.”

Frida grimaced. “Alright, but which one? There’s three names, and two of them will probably bite your hand off.”

“Well, which one is the one covered in ribbons? Let’s see… this one!”

John watched as she left his vision, walking toward the head on John’s left, Talia’s right. She was about to pull the lever when John called out, “Hold on, wait! It can’t be that simple.”

“The first puzzle was. Why not this one? We have the knowledge of the myth, so we should be able to move on.”

“Because that’s not the right one. Talia, correct me if I’m wrong, but the name of the ribbon was Gleipnir, was it not?”

“Uh, yeah. The ribbon Gleipnir, used to bind up Fenrir. Why?”

“Because on my side, you’re about to pull the lever labeled Laeding.”

Talia let out a curse, quickly letting go of the lever and backing away from it. She then gave a small chuckle. “Clever puzzle. Makes sense, though. Tyr was the god of justice, so he’d want you to hear out both sides. Both sides of the wall, both sides of the puzzle. Alright, Mr. Gamer, where am I going to find Gleipnir?”

“Middle head,” John called out before turning his attention back to the rats. Without Talia’s flashlight, they had grown bolder, and they were slowly creeping their way towards John.

As Talia pulled on the lever, John could hear a loud clicking sound echoing through the chamber. It wasn’t until the third click that Frida yelled out for Talia to stop. “Pull your hand back, Talia! I don’t think John is right on this one!”

“Why not?” John asked.

“With each pull of the lever, the wolf closes its jaw more and more. One more click, and the wolf will bite her hand off!” There was genuine fear in Frida’s voice. “Don’t pull it again, Talia!”

John turned back to look at the wall, and noticed Talia had returned to the viewing slot. Her eyes met his, and they seemed to have a brief, wordless conversation. She went back to the wolf’s head, wrapping her fingers once again around the wooden lever.

At that moment, a rat made a jump towards John, and he was barely able to make a swing in time to cleave it in half.

12 DMG!
Tomb Rat Killed. 10XP

“Any time now, Talia!” John cried out, the rats starting to get more and more ambitious with each passing moment. They were close enough that John could see the drool dripping from their diseased maws, the blood splattered on their fur, and the look of hunger and savagery in their eyes. John knew that, unless the chain was removed from his leg any time soon, he would have to fight off a few dozen giant hungry rats with limited mobility. And deep down, despite his runic powers and sword fighting ability, he knew that fight would end with him joining the bones littering the floor.

Frida turned to her daughter and spoke in a hushed tone that John could barely hear over the chittering of the rats. “Talia, what if he’s wrong? He’s been treating us oddly all day, he might not have your best interest at heart.”

Talia spoke up, and in a strong and noble voice, she said, “I trust him, Mother. Even if he’s been acting odd all morning, I will still put my life into his hands.”