The Pilgrimage of the Eight

An old elven rite through eight temples buried beneath the Shallows.

Veylith Lorarion named it at the council: eight shrines that once bound an ancient evil with the power of the gods themselves, and a vast sealed door beneath Hammerfall with eight runes for its lock. Grukk One-Tusk brought the first two, found while he was securing the catacombs and still faintly glowing. The rest had to be taken one temple at a time, and after the Speaker's death there were five nights to do it in.

The Temples

• Frigg: family and fate. A mystral orb opened the temple's glorious past, and in its present the Weaver, the spider the elves had loved and then abandoned, guarded the third rune.
• Njord: drowned and stagnant, and it rewarded reverence over force. The fourth rune, and Njord's blessing with it.
• Tyr: the Hall of Measured Wrongs, the Twin Scales and the chained wolf of Tyr's Judgment. Tyr weighed the giving: Brawn gave his hand and Riven gave Etta's bow. The fifth rune.
• Odin: a sanctum beneath a kobold settlement five centuries old. The sixth rune, and four rune-scrolls.
• Thor: a flooded storm-trial, where Hanzt's crossbow came back rebuilt as Storm's Essence. The seventh rune.
• Freya: Galanthas, the Flower Gate, beneath the Hollow Coin in Richeri. Paired trials, a silver cord and a rainbow bridge. The eighth rune, and a bow that revealed itself as Tyr's Measure on the way out.

The Door

The eight runes went into the door, and the door drank eight gods' worth of power. It was never a lock against the ritual. The power that opened it was the power Hannah's rising needed, and opening it completed it. Beyond it the sanctuary was already desecrated, and Hannah was rising.