1.3.1 - Of the blood

Brelka was dead and avenged, and then Gunnar reached up to take the ring off and learned that Loki does not give his gifts back.

Brelka lay shattered against the stone of Loki's temple. The vengeance was done, Varka's and yours both, and what came next for the Hand was anyone's guess. You spat on her corpse and caught the gleam of the ring on your finger, the one that had fallen from hers. It clung now like it belonged. Gunnar reached to pull it off, and pain swallowed him whole: Loki's warm embrace, a hand on his face, lips meeting the god's, a tongue winding around his own. Every tug felt like tearing his own tongue out by the root. The ring stays. Whatever it is, Gunnar wears it now.

You went back through the traps you had skipped, half of them already disabled without your noticing, and climbed up out of Loki's temple. A spiral stair led to a chamber of stone doors marked with eyes. Inside waited goblins and a Barghest grown fat on elven dead, and you cut them all down, but not for free. Something in that fight left Riven with a wound that will not close. Ordinary care tears open again within moments; only magic holds the rot at bay, and each dawn he gets one more chance to throw it off. All around lay elves, torn apart and heaped in the dark.

Remember For Next Time

• Loki's Kiss is permanent: Gunnar cannot remove the ring. Trying brings a vision of Loki and real agony. He is bound to the trickster now.
• Riven's wound: a curse from the Barghest. It will not close on its own and resists all but magical healing.
• The eyed doors: a chamber above Loki's temple, marked with eyes, full of slaughtered elves.

Where We Are

Climbing up through the catacombs past the eyed doors, Gunnar ringed to a god and Riven carrying a wound that will not heal.