Ragnar was walking outside of Oak city several hours outside, looking around for some food as he didn't want to spend the money in the city for their food. Ragnar was never super good, even with a bow but now he just has his ax so he would have to be much better then he really is.

Thinking about how he is most likely going to have to spend money to get food back in the city he heard something that he didn't think he would hear. The sound of a cart and the sound of horses running over the sound of worked stone. Ragnar was out in the middle of the forest, and there was no worked stone for miles, so he knew instantly that something wasn't right as he grabbed his ax with both hands and started to run as fast as he could in the direction of the noise.

As he jumped over and weaved between trees, he wondered what kind of fight he was about to get into but he looked forward to a new enemy, and maybe a new skull for his collection. It took two minutes of running before he managed to reach what appeared to be an old road, one that Ragnar knew wasn't on any map, or at least not the one that he had. As he looked up and down the road he saw something slowly coming towards him in the distance. It was the source of the sounds, and Ragnar noticed something odd about the chariot. It had no driver.

As he took a step back, waiting for the horse-drawn carriage to stop, it instead slowed to a stop and stopped right in front of him. Ragnar looked and noticed the whip where the driver would be that was empty, but as he made this thought the back door to the chariot opened up. Ragnar, ever fearless, stepped into the chariot. The moment he was fully in, the doors shut behind him and the horses began their run.

Ragnar sat in the chariot as he looked out the window of the chariot, and as he moved he watched as the trees of Oak started to turn barer and barer as the slowly started to die and become less living. Ragnar moved slightly, his ax hitting the top of the chariot but even with his strength he noticed that this did not seem to damage the wood. Ragnar thought back and wondered why this was happening before he thought about the old woman and then looked down at the pouch on his hip. He reached in an pulled out the tarot card he pulled, and the card was slowly starting to fade even though mere minutes before it was perfectly readable.

As he looked out over the space he started to hear the sounds of wolves in the distance, but this was very loud compared to normal and very close. He looked out the front and the horses with no driver seemed to be fine with this development, as it seems they had no issues with wolves. " Battle Horses? " Ragnar said to himself as he tried to figure out why the horses didn't react. He then realized that these were more than likely magical or abnormal horses at the very least so they most likely don't follow the same logic or rules as a normal horse.

Ragnar watched out the window as he noticed something very odd in the distance, and he leaned against the window of the chariot to look out to see a pack of rather large wolves running alongside the cart. There appeared to be three of them, and as Ragnar looked over to the other side of the chariot he noticed another two.

Well it looks like the wolves want some food and we might be the food.

309/300

The horses slowed as it appears the horses saw the pack of wolves to either side of them before long they slowed to a crawl and finally stopped completely. Once they stopped completely Ragnar looked around before eventually getting out of the chariot. Ragnar watched as the wolves approached from either side and he realized that if these wolves were going to attack he would have to kill the two coming towards him before the rest got here. From behind him, he heard something, but it sounded like someone has whispered it into his ear and it sounded almost like the wind itself Prove yourself worthy

Ragnar heard this but didn't have time to look around for where that sound came from before the first wolf was already on top of him. Luckily Ragnar had his full armor and helmet on, and as the wolves bit into the arm he was unable to get a grip of any of his flesh as Ragnar lifted the arm that the wolf was holding onto and whipped it to get the wolf off him. The wolves' teeth scratched against the metal as it went flying away from Ragnar. Ragnar put his ax up against the second wolf as it bit down on the half of the ax, stopping it from going for Ragnar's throat as it attempted to wrestle the massive man to the ground. Ragnar reached out with his right hand and grabbed the wolf by the throat and squeezed hard enough to cause the wolf to let go. Once it did, Ragnar took his ax and sent it straight down into the wolf's back, separating the spine from its body as it fell over dead. Ragnar turned this attention to the second one that had just gotten up and was still coming. Ragnar could hear the other three coming from behind him.

Ragnar would have to work quickly if he was going to have to try and beat four more wolves before they simply outnumbered him and dragged out this fight until he was exhausted and drained of all energy to fight. Ragnar watched as the second wolf snapped at Ragnar, only to catch a foot into the chest. The snap of ribs was heard as knew that this wolf, even if he did kill him today, was most likely not going to live long afterwards as it fell over to the side and lay there.

Ragnar turned around as he focused his attention back on the three other wolves that were supposed to be coming for him before he realized something very odd. He stopped hearing them coming for him and the dead forest around him sounded empty of all life. Ragnar slowly turned the corner, axe at the ready just in case, as he looked around the corner of the chariot where they should be coming from.

Not a single wolf could be seen out there. As Ragnar looked around and started to investigate he walked out into the forest, still being careful as he wasn't sure if these wolves were as smart as humans because clearly animals are different here. Ragnar looked around the chariot for several minutes as he looked for signs that the wolves had ran off or did something else or was setting up an ambush for him in some way.

Ragnar could find no sign of the wolves as he turned back around towards the chariot, pulling out his knife as he knew the skins of those wolves could be worth something. As he turned the corner he saw something that made his skin crawl. The wolf bodies were gone. What the hell is going on here!

Ragnar again looked around, trying to find if the wolves had somehow gotten up and simply ran off or if something else was going on here. As he walked fully around the chariot he could not locate any sign or evidence that the chariot was even attacked or threatened by wolves. Looking at his axe, he saw there was still blood on the axe head but there was clearly nobody to be found and not even blood on the ground where the body was cut.

Ragnar was starting to get upset and angry as he felt like he was getting fucked with as he screamed into the forest. WHERE ARE YOU!!! SHOW YOURSELF TO ME COWARD!!! As he yelled this into the distance, there was not even an echo, it was as if he was yelling this into an empty void but Ragnar did not notice that in his rage as he continued to search around attempting to find the signs of this wolf attack such as wolf prints or other signs.

After several more minutes of looking around, including looking around to see if there was someone watching, he realized that there was nothing here. Could he have been seeing this? was this even really an attack? Ragnar grumbled loudly as he got back into the Chariot, only to have it take back off again as if nothing had happened and nothing had changed.

Ragnar sat there as he then wondered who the voice that whispered to him was. Was that simply another figment of his imagination, like the wolves apparently, or was it really someone that was fucking with him. Ragnar watched out the windows as he wondered this question, his mind racing with the possibilities of what this human or being could be and what that would mean for him.

Ragnar watched as the world around him slowly started to get rocky and the climbs starting to get steeper. As he looked out he saw that it had started snowing to and it was coming down hard before he really noticed too much. Ragnar was fine with this, it just reminded him of home and he started to drift back into his past as he realized that none of the people he has seen really understood what it was like to live in that kind of place, or at least not with his specific clan in question.

He was from a clan who had a history of worshipping what would be considered odd gods by the normal people of Icebergian. He felt a calling to the Lord of Brass and Skulls, a being said to sit ontop a mountain of the skulls of the worthy warriors and the slew by his warriors and was a master of the forge of weapons and armor in order to continue the path of war against all those who would stop him. His former clan had a habit of what was known to him as " The Taking". This was where you would go around to the defeated clans or even great beasts and take the skulls from the beings and put them into a special box that another clan's shaman had made and sold to his clan in exchange for removing another clan from existence. This box did something that was very simple when a skull was placed into it, no matter the size, and the door on it was closed. By the next day, the skull would be completely cleaned and was whiter than the snow of his homeland. These skulls were taken to the major village and placed around a throne of brass in an attempt to please their Lord of Brass.

(311/300)

Ragnar came out of his thoughts and saw that they were much higher up than normal, as he could feel himself having a hard time breathing, much like at the higher peaks of his home. As he looked forward he saw a large what appeared to be a castle, but it seemed to be in ruins from a battle that happened long ago and he could feel something very.... wrong but right about the place. As the chariot brought him closer to the ruins of this castle he started to smell copper and other metal in the air, and he knew that smell instantly. This was the smell of blood and a lot of it.

As they entered the main gate he started to feel the eyes of something on his body. As he looked outside he saw that the ruins of this castle seem to be abandoned but he could still feel the eyes on him. That was when the chariot came to a stop slowly in the middle of the courtyard and Ragnar stood up and walked out of the chariot and the horses then took off down the path where they came.

Come to the Throne and meet your fate! Don't disappoint me!. the voice that surrounded him nearly brought him to his knees in the weight, and he could almost feel his bones moan as he kept standing against everything that made him want to kneel.

Ragnar growled loudly and lashed out in the air, trying to locate the person or thing that said that to him but all he got was the same feeling of being watched and judged by hundreds if not thousands of eyes that he could not see.

With a growl and flex, he put his axe into his hands and started to walk towards the place where he assumed the throne room was.

As Ragnar started to walk towards the throne room he realized that something was very wrong, as with every step he realized that he was getting hotter and hotter, and his armor was starting to get so hot that he could feel it starting to burn his skin.

Ragnar growled at the magic that was happening in this place as he ripped off his gauntlets onto the ground as he started to take off the rest of his armor, throwing it into a pile in the corner ending up only the clothes he wears under his armor to protect his skin from rashes. Grabbing the handle of his axe, and noticing it was still ice cold from outside as he started to keep walking.

In what felt like miles of walking in the heat that only seemed to grow hotter and hotter, at this point feeling like he had stepped directly next to the heat of a forge used to forge weapons. When he finally reached the doors to the place he imagined the throne room was, it was nothing like he imagined it would be.

It was covered in a brass colored metal, something that clearly wasn't brass by the fact that it was being used to hold what looked like massive skulls on the door, some larger then Ragnar and they looked heavier than him in his armor. What being this came from Ragnar did not know, but he did notice what looked to be thousands of skulls ranging from human to elf to a race that had smaller but wider heads and oddly still had beards on them.

Ragnar started to get a feeling that he had seen this door before in his dreams in the past but he could not be 100% sure of that as he walked up to the door, which despite their massive size with ease as he walked in. He finally found the beings that he felt watching him.

Ragnar had walked into an arena, or what appeared to be an arena-based solely on the fact that he could hear hundreds of thousands of voices screaming in rage and anger at him along with happiness that the next round of bloodshed was about to start. As he walked forward he noticed the stone floor he was formerly walking on had been changed to a series of interlinked metal rods, maybe half an inch apart from each other and going parallel and perpendicular from each other making small squares of space between them. It was enough room to stand on but enough room for any blood to be spilled to fall into the pit below them.

As Ragnar looked around, taking in his surroundings, he noticed several things. One of them was the fact that there were eight what appeared to be waterfalls of a crimson liquid pouring out of holes in the wall, falling through the grate into what appeared to be a pit filled with the same liquid but it never seemed to raise or lower in size. He also felt something odd coming from below his feet but he put that to the side as he looked over and saw someone that was in similar garb to him but using a sword and shield. He was smaller then Ragnar in nearly every way, height weight and muscle mass but he did appear to be a warrior based on his appearance. He did not appear to be from any place that Ragnar knew instantly but none of that mattered as he heard a voice come over the air in a language that Ragnar did not understand but he knew what it meant.

Fight

Ragnar had no time to react as the man came at him with a ferocity and anger that he had rarely seen by anyone outside of the warriors of his clan. As he parried the sword strike, he was caught across the face with the shield edge, it breaking his nose and Ragnar falling back. Ragnar's fight for his life was not starting well.

Ragnar lashed out with a level of anger and rage, which felt to come as easily to him as breathing in this place, that surprised him as he reached out towards the face of the man, who seemed to be surprised that he was still standing at this point. Once Ragnar had his face in his hand, he used his weight advantage over the man to throw him on the metal wires at his feet.

Once the man was on the ground, he recovered very quickly and rolled with speed away from him with a practiced grace that only came from someone who knew how to fight. This gave Ragnar time to wipe his eyes clean of the tears and blood as he could focus on his opponent as the wave of clarity came over it. Life was simple for Ragnar in these moments. MAIM!!! KILL!! BURN!!! Ragnar screamed into the arena's air, which seemed to cause the crowd's energy to reach a level that it could almost be tasted on the air.

He ran forward, abandoning all sense of reason and fear of death towards the man, who seemed to be prepared for this kind of reaction as he put his shield up in order to block the blow that was coming in at him. Ragnar gave the man what he wanted as he took a single swing with his axe, using it two-handed as he slammed it into the shield which shattered into pieces.

This clearly surprised the formerly shielded fighter as the ax bit into his flesh very lightly, but he was basically uninjured to any real degree. Ragnar then completed his gambit now that he was this close, he released his ax from his grip and reached out with his bare hands and grabbed the man by the throat and dragged him down with the sheer weight of his attack and him being off balance.

Once he was on the ground Ragnar had an advantage, even if it was minor for a moment as he pulled one of his hands away and slammed an elbow into the eye socket of the man. As he felt the orbital bone crack under his flesh, Ragnar noticed a mild hot pain in his side at first that grew into a level of pain that he had never felt before.

He glanced down and saw the man whose eye was now hanging out of its socket had stabbed his blade into his ribs. He could feel the blood start to fill his lungs and he realized that he didn't have a lot of time left before he would pass out and most likely die, so he would have to finish this fight here and now.

Ragnar reached down and grabbed the sword hand of the man, pinning the other warrior's hand under his knee so he could not stop what was to come. Ragnar pulled the blade out of his side, knowing this would mean that he was most likely to die but that did not matter to him right now, only that blood was spilled, whose did not matter.

Using both of his hands, placing his other hand on the blade but the bottom of his palm resting against the guard, he moved the blade over towards the man. He could feel the man start to struggle under him, but he was much bigger and heavier then him and he was clearly not trained to ground fighting as he was with sword fighting.

Ragnar moved the blade right over the man's throat and then pushed his entire body weight down onto the blade as it went cleanly through the man's neck and spine. The fight was now officially over.

In victory, Ragnar reached down and grabbed the head with the hand that could still function due to it being nearly cut off by pushing against a sword blade, as dull as that part of the blade would be, and pulled the it above his head in victory over his opponents dead body.

As the warm blood ran down his face from his opponent and his own from his side and hands he felt at one with himself and the universe as his eyes closed for the final time as he knew this would be the end of him. As he thought about this, he simply smiled at the thought of maybe his skull would be lucky enough to be in one of the many warriors of his God.

As he faded to blackness, he shot up out in the freezing court yard of the ruined castle. He looked down and saw that his clothes had a stain in them from his blood and the blood of his enemy but all was left was a new set of scars on his hand and ribs. His full set of armor was laying off to the side of him as he looked around to see what had happened.

Had he imagined that entire thing? Did he pass out here in the courtyard and hit his head or something? No. He would not have the blood on him and he would still be in his armor if he had done that.

Ragnar thought more about this as he started to put back on his armor, and as he lifted up the breastplate to put on him he saw something that made him sure he didn't imagine it. A single snow-white human skull with a branded stylized symbol of his god on the front of the forehead with a note under it, written in red ink.

Look in the stable for your reward, hopefully, it doesn't kill you, if it does then you never deserved his gifts to begin with.

K

Ragnar had no idea who K was, but once he put on his armor he made his way towards the stable. Throwing open the doors he looked at his prize.