1.7.5 - Sacrifice

Tyr does not weigh the gift. He weighs the giving. And he asked each of you for something you could never have back.

The wolf crashed to the stone at last, the violence draining out of it, the chains pulling it back into place at the centre of the platform. Its eyes dimmed to a low, steady light. Still. Watching. Only with the fight over did you see the five reliefs that had been on the walls the whole time. A rich man offering a coin that cost him nothing, refused. A soldier giving up his spare sword while keeping the other, refused. A warrior placing his sword-hand willingly into the jaw and fighting on with a fist of chain. A figure laying down their last weapon to stand empty-handed, and the wolf's carved eyes brighter for them than for anyone. Tyr does not weigh the gift. He weighs the giving.

Then the wolf's jaw unlocked and opened wider than any throat, and inside, on a pedestal ringed with the corroded offerings of those who came before, lay the Rune of Tyr. Beneath it, a question. What do you give willingly, that cannot be returned? Brawn put his hand into the jaw, and it closed clean and opened again, and where his hand had been was living chain-link, pale silver and warm and his to command. Riven laid down Winter's Vigil, Etta's bow, the last thing he had of someone who died for him, and Tyr gave back a bow covered in runes worked into the grain as though they had grown there. A small grey scale, smooth and warm and permanent, marked the back of every hand that gave. Tyr had seen what they offered. Five of eight.

The way down continued past the Depth 3 landing, through an iron door sealed from below five hundred years ago and never reopened. Below it the stone changed. Confident elven cuts gave way to shorter, less certain strokes, then to raw wet cave. Old water. Iron. A pressure plate sprung long ago, its echo coming back from three directions. Circuit diagrams and danger markers scratched on every surface, one symbol repeating: a sealed door with something pressing hard against it from the far side. A workbench of tiny warm tools, recently used. And from the far passage something large and deliberate began to move, stone plates and metal fittings grinding, filling the corridor. It did not rush. It stopped. It waited.

Remember For Next Time

• Tyr's Mark: Brawn gave his hand and bears a living chain-link limb now. Riven gave Etta's bow and carries a rune-covered bow of Tyr in its place. Each who sacrificed wears a grey scale of Tyr on the back of the hand.
• Five of eight: the Rune of Tyr is claimed.
• Depth 4: below the elven work lies cruder, newer construction. Kobold tools, traps, and warnings, and one recurring sign of a door holding something back.
• Something waits: a large, maintained thing is moving in the dark ahead.

Where We Are

Down on Depth 4 for the first time, in kobold-built dark, something heavy waiting in the passage ahead.