Ivaldi was a brilliant dwarf, a genius of alchemy. Many winters ago, driven by an insatiable thirst to improve his techniques, he traveled to Niflheim, built his workshop, and spent years there studying and experimenting with theories, each one more innovative and dangerous than the last. Until he stumbled upon his greatest discovery...
No one knows when, much less how, but Ivaldi discovered a way to control and shape the frigid energy of the primordial realm of Niflheim. With it, he created grand innovations never seen before, innovations that shocked both mortals and gods, reaching the point of rivaling even the divine.
Odin, envious and vile as he was, did not like the idea that someone, especially a mundane dwarf from Svartalfheim, could become more powerful than him. Thus, the All-Father retaliated.
Ivaldi, of course, was furious and struck back, creating lethal contraptions from the primordial cold. Until, amid his desperation, he began interfering with forces he never should have involved himself with.
His uncontrollable experiments cursed the mists of Niflheim, turning them into poisonous fog that, for ages, made the surface of the primordial realm of cold a deadly place for any life... including his own. And so, Ivaldi, the genius alchemist, met his end, killed by the consequences of his own creations.
That was how Sinmara summarized Ivaldi's story, with no pride, no admiration, and no apparent sorrow — only with the coldness of someone narrating a tragedy too ancient to still bleed.
"But I walked through the mist for hours and I'm fine," Tryg pointed out, still staring at the complex labyrinth.
"With Fimbulwinter," Sinmara replied, also gazing at the complex of misty corridors, "the mist of Niflheim returned to its original state. And I am not going to explain why, before you ask."
Fimbulwinter... So Midgard's endless winter also affected the other realms too, just in different ways.
"Right..." He looked at her and took another bite of the Idun Fruit. His hunger was already sated, but it would still take a little longer for the more severe wounds to heal completely. "So it's safe to walk through the labyrinth now?"
The queen shrugged. "Perhaps safer than it was in the past. But no, walking through the labyrinth is still dangerous. It... changed with Fimbulwinter as well. Before, it was smaller and more predictable. Now, however, the number of corridors has grown considerably, and its shifting nature has become far more... insidious."
Tryg frowned. "You mean the paths are always changing?"
She nodded. "Yes. There must be a pattern to the changes, of course, but, as you can imagine, I never had any reason to discover it. But that is not even the most complicated part. Inside the labyrinth, there are chambers with several enemies, each more dangerous than the last. Not to mention the mist."
"Didn't you just say the poisonous fog doesn't exist anymore?"
Sinmara nodded again. "Yes. But just as I can feel the naturalness of the mists outside the labyrinth, I can also feel a certain strangeness in those that fill it. I would be careful, if I were you. Perhaps their effects are not as explicitly harmful as the fog, but they can still be dangerous in some way."
"Couldn't you just, like... take it out of there?"
"No," she replied dryly. "I could not."
Tryg stared at the structure again, apprehensive. "So, to summarize: I need to navigate the labyrinth and figure out how its corridors organize themselves so I can find the Workshop, while also trying not to get lost and surviving encounters with deadly monsters and the effects of the mysterious mist, all of that without even knowing if there's actually anything inside that can help me get back to Midgard."
He looked back at the cold queen. "Did I miss anything?"
"No," she answered. Then she turned in the opposite direction and, still with her hands crossed behind her back, began to walk away. "Good luck."
Although worry tightened his heart, Tryg watched Sinmara leave with a grateful look. After all, even grieving, even having nothing to do with his problems, and even hating part of what he was, she had still been willing to help him.
"Lady Sinmara," he called, and the woman stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, her gaze a mixture of melancholy and coldness. "Thank you for your help," he concluded, nodding earnestly.
Sinmara stared at the ground for an instant and did not answer. Tryg turned his back to her and, while stretching, examined his wounds. Now, he was completely healed, sated, and energized; he could not be more ready to face his next challenge than he already was.
"Why are you doing this?" the queen suddenly asked.
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Tryg turned back to her, a little surprised. He smiled and answered, afraid, but also determined: "Because I promised my mother I'd come back."
Sinmara stared at him from the side for a moment, then sighed, making the air nearby grow colder.
"Wait," she asked, making him raise an eyebrow.
She opened her palm. Mist and snow swirled around her crystalline body, fluttering her dress, climbing up her arm until they gathered above her hand and gradually formed what looked like a light-blue topaz — fragile and circular, not much larger than her thumb.
When her clothing settled back into place and the magic was finally complete, Sinmara grunted for a moment, but soon breathed deeply and recovered her composure. She looked at Tryg and pushed the jewel toward him, forming a small whirlwind that carried it through the air to his fingers.
He stood there, examining what he had received with raised eyebrows, not understanding. "What is this?"
"This is for when you are in trouble," she answered, her voice slightly weak. "Just break it."
Sinmara turned her back to him one last time. The mist began to wrap around her, finally transporting her far away, carrying her off.
"Good luck, young one."
"Hey, wait!" Tryg exclaimed, but the queen had already vanished in a swirl of clouds.
He studied the jewel again and, noticing the glittering misty winds swirling tempestuously inside the crystalline structure, wondered what in Hel it would do when broken.
After a deep breath, Tryg safely stored the jewel in his bag and turned back to the labyrinth. He drew his daggers, gripping them so tightly that his knuckles turned white... and descended into the first misty corridor, following his shadow and feeling his heart hammer repeatedly against his throat.
***
The weak sun of Niflheim still shone in the sky, but it crossed the heavens faster than the ball of fire that lit Midgard's days. Studying it, Tryg could not even get an idea of how much time had passed, how many hours. And the fact that everything seemed the same inside the labyrinth only worsened his situation.
The walls were uniform — straight, perfectly carved from gray stone, adorned with circular golden details, but also with ice and snow. The floor was mostly a white carpet, with some rocks, plants, and pale roots with ethereal golden foliage sprouting here and there. Little to almost nothing changed from one place to another... except the traps in the corridors.
They came in several kinds. Massive metal blocks were periodically hurled against the walls, crushing anyone who dared stand in their way; golden circular saws spun without stopping, sometimes forward and backward, sometimes from one side to the other, cutting through everything in their path; long bladed spikes occasionally burst violently from the floor or the walls, as if yearning to be bathed in blood.
Fortunately, however, the dangers of the corridors were manageable, avoidable, since the traps followed certain activation patterns, based only on time. As long as Tryg stopped and analyzed their rhythm, there would be no problem passing through them. And there was not. His greatest difficulty, in truth, lay in the square chambers that came after the passages.
Some of them, the larger ones, presented the deadliest challenge of all. In them, a horde of monstrous enemies appeared out of nowhere from inside the mist or sprouted from the snowy grass itself. Some of them Tryg already knew and had dealt with in the past while protecting Jorg's goats — Draugrs and Gulons, for example.
Others, however, were new... and insidious. Undead that used icy or poisonous magic; felines with serpentine aspects that dug through the earth and attacked with poison or electricity; floating eyes that fired all kinds of concentrated magical beams.
They always appeared in groups, which made survival a thousand times more difficult. Even so, using both the predictions of his own shadow and the anticipated movements of his enemies, Tryg found a way to survive the battles — but not without wounds. If not for the Idun Fruits, he would undoubtedly have reached his limit long ago.
But there was a second type of chamber that was worse. Smaller and harmless, in a way, but still worse. For these were not made merely to frighten or hurt him. They were made to ensure that all the other dangers of the labyrinth, sooner or later, would catch up to him.
These smaller ones served the sole purpose of confusing him. That was because, as soon as he entered them, the massive doors of the corridors closed for a few minutes, and heavy sounds of stone being dragged echoed in his ears, as if something enormous were being moved. And, in fact, it was...
The labyrinth itself.
During his explorations, Tryg studied the construction carefully, trying to understand it, memorizing patterns and other characteristics. The first thing he did as soon as he entered the initial chamber, thinking of that and of not getting lost, was pick up a stone, carve a single deep mark into it, and leave it in a visible place at the center of the grass. Then he followed the corridor on the right. After avoiding the traps and defeating the enemies in the next area, he picked up another stone and, this time, carved two marks into it before leaving it behind.
Tryg continued this process until he reached his sixth chamber. It was then that the corridor doors closed rapidly for the first time, producing a thunderous boom that shook the floor, trapping him.
No! he thought, frowning, and ran to one of the doors. He tried to open it, break it, and climb it, but the structure was too smooth, too massive. So he merely sat down and waited.
Tryg was worried about being trapped, just as he was worried about what he was hearing — the intense sounds of enormous stones being dragged. Even so, he did not sit idle; he used that time to rest and review what he had seen from the beginning — paths, traps, enemies — while satisfying his hunger and thirst and healing a little more of his wounds. Two of them were too deep for the fruits to deal with quickly, but at least they managed the pain.
At least the mist seems harmless so far...
Feeling the delicious taste of regeneration radiating through his body, Tryg did not relax until the heavy dragging sounds stopped. The doors opened, slowly this time. Although he had not recovered what he wanted of his vitality, he quickly stored his things and cautiously passed through the corridor he had come from, avoiding the spinning saws. Upon returning to the previous chamber, anxious, he searched for the stone he had left there, on the ground... but, just as he had feared, it vanished.
Damn, he thought, grinding his teeth. He also considered returning through the next corridor, since it was still early and the paths he had taken were still fresh in his memory. But the position of the entrances and exits had changed as well. Staring at the uniform walls, yet finding nothing that sparked his memory, an electric chill ran through him from head to toe. His chest tightened.
Now, Tryg was truly and completely lost.