Mythos: The Perpetual Knot

Mythos: The Perpetual Knot or Mythos II is the sequel to Mythos: The Sword of Echoes. As opposed to the the Greek myths present in the first Mythos, Mythos II takes a focus on Norse mythology.
==Characters==
Draid
Messenger
Hermes
Oracle
Zeus
Odin
Norns
Thor
Hela
Balder
Hermod
Tyr
Loki
Vali
Narfi
Fenrir
Surt
Skoll
Hati
Sol
Mani
Jormungand
Heimdall
Frigg
==Text==
A year after the events of Mythos: The Sword of Echoes, a messenger on horseback came to the village of Levkogrem and tells Draid to see the Oracle. Draid goes with the messenger to the Greatwood Shrine. There the Oracle says she felt a disturbance in the atmosphere, and tells Draid to check on the Sword of Echoes. Draid took an Aether gate, a portal built by the god of the upper air, to Crete.
The Swamp Ruins’ final chamber was not illuminated by the Sword as it should. Draid held up his flare boomerang for light, and found that the Sword of Echoes had lost its power. He pulled it from its pedestal and nothing happened. Its edges were dull and it felt as though it was made of wood. He took the powerless sword with him through the Aether gate back to the Shrine, and showed it to the Oracle.
Suddenly Hermes appeared and said Mt. Olympus is under attack. He took Draid there and saw the place being invaded by wraiths. None of Draid’s weapons, even his lightning arrows, did any damage to them. Out of nowhere the sound of cracking thunder from Zeus’ lightning rod made the wraiths retreat. In need of answers, the deities of Olympus advised Draid to visit the Gods of Asgard.
Draid stepped into the Olympus Aether gate to the Shining Citadel, the hall of a group of deities new to Draid, the Æsir. There he meets the chief god, Odin, who shows him the way to the Wyrd Sisters. Odin gave the hero a grappling hook and he set off.
On his way he came across an inhabited village, but a large monster had run right through the middle of it. While inspecting the giant footprints a goblin stole his grappling hook. Draid chased the goblin into Hoddmimir’s forest, where a Jotun appeared in the distance. Draid hid in a ditch as the frost giant passed by. Surprisingly the Jotun didn’t crush the goblin that was in his path, so Draid caught up to the goblin and threw his trident at it. The hero retrieved his hook and exited the woods.
He followed the footprints of the giant, which brought him back to the village, Ingvarheim. Inhabitants forewarned Draid of the Jotun, as well as the Wyrd sisters. The hero carried on with tracking down the frost giant, which led him down an expansive valley. At the bottom was the Jotun in front of an extremely large tree and a deep well. With the grappling hook Draid defeated the Jotun by scaling the giant, stabbing his back with his copper sword, and pulling his head off.
Out of the World Tree Yggdrasil, came the norns, or Wyrd sisters, who thanked Draid and showed him the Perpetual Knot, the blanket whose threads consist of all lives intertwining with other lives. The norns were shown the powerless sword and explained that the evil that possessed Hades was cast outside of the quilt, and was able to take the Sword’s power in that dimension. The Wyrd sisters would only further help if Draid retrieved the “Flower of Everlasting Life”, found in the “Land of Daybreak”, only reachable through the Well of Wyrd. Draid jumped into the well, but not before receiving a limited number of frost Mjolnirs, throwing axes that freeze upon contact.
He ended up on the other side of the well, in the Land of Daybreak, a realm of everlasting dawn. From atop a hill he looked down and saw what appeared to be a wounded angel lying on a narrow stream. Two people at the mouth of the stream noticed the angel, ran to it, and carried it to their house. Not far behind was a mob that lit the house on fire shortly after the two men took the angel inside.
The house burned down, but through the fire and the flames emerged a phoenix. A glowing red amaranth lay at the base of the house. Draid ran down the hill and reached for the flower before it caught on fire. He couldn’t escape from the phoenix, so he threw Mjolnirs at its wings, effectively cutting and freezing them. With the phoenix grounded, the hero finished it of with a lightning arrow to the heart. Draid then returned to the well.
Back at the foot of Yggdrasil, Draid gave the amaranth to the norns. Eating it rejuvenated them and gave them the power to finds Draid’s thread in the quilt of life, showing his wyrd, as well as the thread of the nearest person to the other dimension. That person thread crossed with Draid’s and the two are expected to cross paths in reality very soon. The Wyrd Sisters suggested Draid go “back up the tree” to Midgard, where the village of Ingvarheim lay.
Back in Midgard, Ingvarheim was being attacked by the same wraiths as the ones attacking Mt. Olympus. Still impervious, they were scared away by yet another crack of thunder. This time it wasn’t Zeus, but Thor, the Norse god of thunder. It was he whose thread Draid’s was next to see. Thor said the key to the other dimension resides in Hel, located in Niflheim. Thor gives the hero the Kvinneby amulet, which contains a runic inscription reading that Thor will protect with his hammer.
Thor took Draid to the third root of Yggdrasil, which led to Niflheim. The hero traveled down a dark tunnel, not yet knowing what the amulet is for. His flare boomerang lit the way. Inside were a series of messages and symbols engraved on the walls. The messages were in runic, and not readable to Draid. The symbols, however, portrayed goblins, wraiths, frost giants, and a master who ruled over them all.
Out of the tunnel Draid arrived in Niflheim. Literally meaning “abode to mist”, the place lives up to its name. Out of the mist came wraiths coming after the hero. Draid started to back up when the Kvinneby amulet started glowing. Electricity flowed through his hands. With the flick of a wrist he cast lightning, making the wraiths flee.
As he approached Hel, Garm appeared in his path. Similar to Cerberus, Garm is a dog who guards the gate to the underworld, this time with four eyes as opposed to three heads. Casting lightning blinded all four eyes at once, the grappling hook helped Draid get on top, and a frost Mjolnir to the head froze his brain. The hero entered the gate of Hel afterward.
In the center of Hel was Eljudnir, the hall of Hela, the ruler of Niflheim. Hela has close relations with Hades, and informs Draid that it was Loki who possessed him. From the other dimension Loki can do things to this one that no one but he can control; this includes the wraiths, which were Hel-dwelling souls turned under Loki’s command, but unlike the undead from Hades, these wraiths are invincible in this realm due to the dimension Loki is controlling them from.
Odin’s second son Balder stepped inside Eljudnir, explaining that he died by Loki tricking his blind brother Hod into shooting a mistletoe missile at him. Soon after, Hermod appeared on Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse, who warned Draid of the newest offspring of Loki and Angrboda and siblings of Hela, the World Serpent Jormungand and the wolf Fenrir.
	The hero went with Hermod on Sleipnir to Franang’s Falls, reportedly the birthplace of Loki’s new children. There Thor and Tyr had found Loki hiding at the base of Franang’s Falls in the form of a salmon, along with Loki’s two older sons, Vali and Narfi. Tyr, whose hand had been bit off by Fenrir, had turned Vali into a wolf that ripped Narfi’s body apart. Tyr then used Narfi’s entrails to bind Loki to three slabs of stone.
	A blizzard suddenly came in from all directions. Soon enough the snow made no grass visible. Fimbulwinter, three successive winters without summer had arrived. Tyr said he encountered Fenrir on the way to Franang’s Falls, and that he should be on the way to the Shining Citadel. With only one hand to use, Tyr gave Draid his shield. The hero went with Hermod again to the Shining Citadel, while Thor set off to hunt Jormungand.
When they arrived they were too late. Fenrir was devouring Odin. Watching was Surt, lord of the fire giants, while wielding his flaming sword. Surt cast a fireball which the hero deflected with Tyr’s shield. The fireball hit the wolf, which got his attention, but Odin was already dead. Hermod took on Fenrir, while Draid fought Surt.
With every swing of Surt’s sword was a great mass of flame. Through the Kvinneby amulet the hero struck the blade, infusing it with electricity. When using the shield to block a blow from the fire giant’s sword, lightning backfired and made Surt drop it. Surt’s molten hot body would melt Draid’s grappling hook, as well as any ice from a frost Mjolnir to latch onto with it. Similar to his fight with the hellbeast, Draid shot a lightning arrow at Surt’s head, making him temporarily lose body heat. He then threw frost Mjolnirs at him, and grappled using the ice. Once at the top the hero placed his hand on his head and cracked his skull with roaring thunder.
Both Surt and Fenrir were nearly dead, but so was Hermod. The fire giant threw one more fireball before death, which Draid again redirected to the wolf. Only Draid came out alive. He looked up at the sky and saw Fenrir’s sons, Skoll and Hati, devour Sol (the Sun) and Mani (the Moon) respectively. Only the stars provided light. Up in the air he noticed Thor fighting Jormungand, who poisoned the sky. Thor killed the serpent, but he himself died from the poison. The hero heard a mighty horn that was heard throughout all worlds. It was Heimdall sounding the Gjallarhorn, signifying the arrival of the Ragnarök.
	In the darkness of night Draid noticed something glowing behind him. It was the Sword of Echoes, which got its power back. The hero was confronted by Frigg, wife of Odin, who explained Loki had to return to their realm in order to trick Hod into killing Balder, and that he couldn’t return to the realm he was cast. When coming back to their realm, the Sword’s power was restored. The World Tree Yggdrasil was felt shaking violently. Frigg informs Draid the trembling of the Earth has set Loki free and that he should be sailing to Vigrid on a ship full of wraiths from Hel. There they will fight the einherjar, the souls of warriors who died bravely in battle, led by Heimdall. As Thor’s body fell to the ground, Draid took Sleipnir, who could run on water, to Vigrid.
	The hero arrived in Vigrid to the sight of Loki and his army or wraiths. With Loki in the same dimension as Draid, the wraiths were now vulnerable. With the Earth crumbling beneath his feet, a stomp from Draid’s Quake Boots opened up cracks that made wraiths fall into bottomless pits. The einherjar finished off the rest. The hero was witnessing the final battle of Heimdall versus Loki, who used his shapeshifting abilities and turned into a dragon and whipped out the einherjar. The fight was close, but Loki emerged victorious.
	With his last two frost Mjolnirs Draid hit the dragon’s two wings, lowering Loki’s flight. He cast his grappling hook on his left wing. As the hero scaled the dragon, he cut an opening in Loki’s chest with the Sword of Echoes. Loki shook in rage and Draid had to climb higher, shielding himself from the dragon’s flames as he went up. Once at the top, sending a shock wave down with the amulet down his spine paralyzed the dragon from shaking. He rappelled down to Loki’s chest and cut out his heart, effectively cutting circulation from the dragon and killing it.
	Even with the dragon flying lower, both Loki and Draid fell from a great height. The hero was still alive and conscience, but barely able to move. All he could do is look up at the sky as the fire giants of Muspelheim burned the Perpetual Knot. Everything and everyone, save for a few gods, were consumed in the fiery devastation. The land sank entirely into the sea.
Category:Mythos