Nifflheim

Trust in the Untrustworthy Pt. 2

Three daggers leave the hooded figures hand and lodge in the space between Bjorn's hand and where the hammer lays. The daggers fly at such speed that no one was has time to react before they have already hit their mark. Bjorn, still enraged, groans as he turns to face the group.

Iver shouts, now impatient. "We don't know if he was a deserter! He could have been captured by an enemy or some other explanation! Let's not jump to groundless conclusions. And seeing how you all woke up in the land of adulterers, liars, and murders, I wouldn't be so quick to judge. Now I don't care what you all did in your lives that got you here, but we need to work together if we want to escape from this place."

Everyone falls silent as the last word rolls off his tongue. Is there really a way out of here? Can we really escape from this place? Iver stands, now finished dressing my wounds. Everyone's eyes fixed on him like a pack of starving wolves, and he has dangled a slab of meat in front of us.

"I've heard stories of three keys lost somewhere in Nifflheim that can grant you access to its gates. We were on our way to that castle in hopes to find one when we stumbled across your group."

Bjorn scorns at his words. "What makes you such an expert? You put your belief on some story fed to you to make you behave? You expect me to fight with you on a foolish story!?"

"I didn't believe it at first. I wandered these shores for weeks looking for a way out, too afraid to venture into the castle on my own. I walked aimlessly. Losing all hope until I decided to put my faith into that story. That's when I encountered Frode and Bo."

His hand gestures to the hooded figure finally giving us a name to the hooded figure.

"Bo isn't his real name, if he is a man, but he hasn't talked since I found him, so I just gave him something off the top of my head." Iver laughs. A half-hearted smile replaces his previous gloomy expression.

I didn't know what to believe. I'm not the belief and faith kind of guy. Being asked to trust the ones deemed untrustworthy by the gods. Would it be foolish to give in to faith?

Haralda leans forward. "Let's say we believe you. All we need to do is just find these three keys and we can be freed from this place?"

"It is never going to be that simple. I don't even know where they are. The castle just seemed to be the only way forward." Iver replies.

"Well, there are four more people here. We can take the time to search. We can be certain that-" I say, trying to grasp even a sliver of hope from the situation, but Iver quickly interrupts.

"Unfortunately, time is a luxury we do not have. This isn't some peaceful journey away from the village. We are meant to suffer here. You will always be hungry, but never need to eat. You will feel pain, suffering, doubt, fear and every fiber of your body will ache as it slowly deteriorates."

Iver removes the armor and cloth covering his right leg. I assumed that in the armors place, a human leg would be revealed. Instead, I'm confronted by decaying flesh rampaging throughout his entire leg. His flesh turned different shades of black and green with pieces of bone visible in the more damaged areas. Everyone is stricken with shock as he rewraps his leg.

"I don't know how long we each have. It could be different for each of us, but all paths eventually lead to this. The cold helps a little though. I think it slows it down enough. The pain is mostly manageable." Iver reassures as he tightens the rags he has replaced on his leg, slightly grunting from the pain.

"What happens... if we die here? Aren't we already supposed to be dead?" Langley stammers, asking the question on all our minds.

"I honestly have no idea. My best guess is your soul gets taken to someplace worse or lost in the void, your body left to be fed on by the Nidhogg. That's probably what it was doing when you guys encountered it. Iver explains, his eyes staring ahead at the castle.