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Mistress of the Iron Wood was a virtual representation of one of Eivor Varinsdottir's genetic memories, relived by Layla Hassan in 2020 through the Portable Animus HR-8.5, in which a vision of one of Odin's memories could be seen.
Description[]
Havi traveled to Jötunheimr to find Angrboða.
Dialogue[]
Eivor drank the new potion Valka made for her and lay down, slipping into dreams. A tunnel of clouds, darker than before, opened on a frozen landscape. A raven, one of Odin's two familiars, flew over hills of snow-covered pines. From the sky reached the branching roots of Yggdrasil. Havi stepped from the stone tower holding the gate into Jotunheim.
- Havi: Jotunheim... I have not set foot in this realm in some time. I must find the witch Angrboda. She knows all that happens here.
Havi left the tower and came upon Ægir's Hall. Inside he met Ægir's daughters, who told him their father was in Útgarðar trying to figure out what happened to a cauldron he had sent to Suttungr that never made it there. Before he left, he found a note.
A Warning to Travelers in the Iron Wood
- Take warning, you who would walk the Iron Wood. Near the place where the root of the mother-tree reaches from the sky. I saw the shadow of a house fall across my path. The shadow of no house I could see.
There I heard sounds I wish never to hear again. Screams of such terror as to bring ice to my soul.
Do not pass that way. The Mistress is there.
Havi left the hall and traveled through the forest toward the place where a large knot of Yggrasil's roots reached the ground.
- Havi: These woods whisper with Jotnar magic. Not everything is as it seems.
Havi reached the Heart of the Wood but found no house.
- Havi: Angrboda's home was right here when last I visited. It may still be.
Looking around the area, Havi eventually passed two trees with posts set before them. Between the trees, Angrboda's house could be seen build into the root.
- Havi: Illusions. But any obstacle can be overcome, if looked at the right way. The witch's house. There you are.
Ascending the stairs to the house, Havi could hear two people arguing.
- Angrboda: You are reckless Hyrrokin. Midgard is no crucible for your experiments.
- Hyrrokin: No, indeed. It is as a great barn, swollen with vermin, bulging at the gables.
- Angrboda: You underestimate the humans. You always did. When the end comes, they will outlive us.
- Hyrrokin: They are mindless ravagers, who will destroy us and inherit the Nine Realms. I cannot allow that.
- Angrboda: They are capable of more than you know, and I will not help you bring about their ruin.
- Hyrrokin: Then you are a fool!
Havi entered Angrboda's home, and she and another Jotun turned to look at him.
- Angrboda: Please, enter. Do not trouble to knock or announce yourself.
- Havi: Angrboda. I have traveled far to find you.
- Angrboda: And you are brave to darken my door alone. Where is my lover, the dark fox that slinks between my sheets?
- Havi: Loki has stayed in Asgard, to help rebuild the damage from a recent attack.
- Angrboda: How generous... and entirely unlike him. You used to be much better at lying.
- Havi: I am not Loki's keeper. I have come to understand Jotnar magic, your method for moving hugr (mind) from one body to another.
Angrboda and Havi watched Hyrrokin leave.
- Havi: Who was your visitor?
- Angrboda: She's powerful, and cruel, and none of your concern.
- Havi: The Mead she spoke of. Where can I find it?
Angrboda turned back to her cauldron.
- Havi: Do not play games with me, witch. You would sell any truth for the right price.
Angrboda smirked.
- Angrboda: If one had the means to pay it. There is a root called hag's claw. It grows at the bottom of a waterfall to the south, at the forest's edge. Bring me three roots from the place where the red moss thrives. Then we will speak of the Mead.
- Havi: I will hold you to it.
Havi left Angrboda's home and went to the area where the Leyna Falls was said to be. There he found a great stone circle upon the ground, half encircled by engraved pillars of rock.
- Havi: The waterfall should be nearby, but I see no sign of it. If I look about, I may yet find a way to see the unseen.
Havi went up the stairs to one side of the circle and approached the tallest of the pillars. On it, he found runes etched into the stone.
Ancient Engraving
- Yn ages past
This damned place did see
Chyldren thrice brought mewling, spitting to life
Wyrm's fang, Wolf's claw
The half-dead one, fayre and putrid yn equal part
One to strangle, one to swallow
One to keep the shamed
Turning around, Havi saw the waterfall appear through a stone gateway.
- Havi: This land hides its secrets well, but no secret is safe from me.
Havi went through the arch and dove into the waterfall hole, emerging at the entrance to a cave.
- Havi: Angrboda said to look where the red moss grows. A cavern beneath the lake. This land is savage, but full of marvels.
Havi made his way through the passage and squeezed through a crack into a large cavern. Yggdrasil's enormous roots grew through it.
- Havi: Thor's beard! Look at this place! Yggdrasil's great tendrils reach everywhere in this realm.
To one side of the cavern, he found a swath of red moss growing, and the root he was looking for.
- Havi: That must be the hag's claw Angrboda spoke of.
He harvested the plant.
- Havi: A pungent root. There should be more around. The air smells strange down here.
He found a second root.
- Havi: One more root should do it.
Havi went deeper into the cavern.
- Havi: Dank and drear. They say Hel is the same.
Havi found the third root.
- Havi: That will be enough for Angrboda. I should find my way out.
He made his way out of the cave and made his way back toward the Heart of the Wood.
- Havi: The reek from this root turns my stomach.
Havi entered Angrboda's home again.
- Havi: I have done as you asked. Now where is my wisdom?
Angrboda took the roots and put them in her cauldron.
- Angrboda: Give it a moment to brew.
While he waited, Havi looked around the house at the various plants gathered. Movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye, though when he looked there was nothing there. Angrboda poured a ladleful of potion into a bowl and handed it to Havi.
- Angrboda: There. An elixir to ready your spirit.
- Havi: How will this bring me the Mead?
- Angrboda: It will open your mind to the secrets of the world.
With a slightly incredulous look, Havi drank the elixir.
- Angrboda: While we wait, let us speak of Asgard. How fared your defenses after the last attack?
Havi's vision swam.
- Havi: We, uh... we have been weakened... by treachery. Without time to rebuild, we... we may not withstand another attack.
Havi turned from Angrboda and shook his head, confused.
- Havi: Wait, I... I did not mean to say that. I feel... strange.
- Angrboda: Hag's claw has a way of untying the tongue. Now, you have said you want the Mead, but how badly? How much would you sacrifice to be freed of fate's shackles? Would you give your tongue, your hand, your sight?
- Havi: I would... I would give all that... and more.
Suddenly, Loki emerged from behind a crate.
- Loki: I would like to see that.
- Havi: Loki! What trickery is this?
Havi's vision continued to sway, and Angrboda grabbed him from behind, holding a knife to his throat.
- Angrboda: I have sapped your strength, Havi. And I will take your life if your answers displease me.
- Loki: Did you think I would not come for you, after what you did to my son?
- Angrboda: Our son. Fenrir. A name I think you have heard before.
- Havi: Y-yes. In the final reckoning, the wolf Fenrir will be my doom.
- Loki: Now you know, now you can no longer deceive, tell me... what will you do with him?
("I will kill him.")
- Havi: I want to kill him! But I cannot. I swore an oath to you, Loki, and I will not break it. I will not take his life.
Loki and Angrboda shared a look, and Angrboda took the knife from Havi's neck, releasing him. Under the effects of the hag's claw, Havi struggled to stand on his own, stumbling.
- Havi: Fenrir will be imprisoned until the day of the prophecy, when we will meet upon the field of battle. As we are fated to.
- Loki: Then we will bind you until that day. As you mean to bind our son.
Havi's eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
- Angrboda: An eye for an eye.
Later, Havi awoke to find himself hanging high over the ground by a tendril of Yggdrasil's roots. With the root wrapped around his neck, he struggled to breath. On a ledge nearby, Hyrrokin studied him, grinning.
- Hyrrokin: I see she let you live. You must have done something right.
Hyrrokin laughed, Havi choked.
- Hyrrokin: Let me help you down from there.
She raised a hand and clenched her fist and a green glow spread along the roots, causing them to move. Realizing what was about to happen, Havi panicked.
- Havi: No! No! Wait! Wait!
The roots released Havi and he fell, sliding down the long, steep slope of a glacier until he reached the ground, where Hyrrokin waited.
- Havi: You could have let me down gently.
- Hyrrokin: That would presume I cared for your comfort.
- Havi: Then why release me at all?
- Hyrrokin: For the same reason you are in Jotunheim. You seek the Mead, and I can help you get it.
- Havi: I assume there is a price?
- Hyrrokin: I want a small sample for myself. The rest is yours. Fair?
- Havi: Do I have a choice?
- Hyrrokin: Of course you do not. The Mead is kept by Suttungr and his daughter Gunlodr in the vault at their home in Utgard. The vault is opened only on occasion of a great feast when Suttungr shares the bounty of his cellar.
- Havi: And it would be a poor host who did not throw a feast for a distinguished visitor... say, the High One of Asgard.
- Hyrrokin: You are not as ox-witted as I feared.
- Havi: Why do you want the Mead?
- Hyrrokin: My motives are not your business, as yours are not mine. All you need to do is get it.
- Havi: I must bring a mighty gift to Suttungr if I am to earn my welcome.
Havi nodded and began to walk away.
- Hyrrokin: You might also bring a gift for Gunlodr. There are treasures that would flatter her in Thrym's house by the lake near Utgard.
- Havi: I will bear that in mind.
- Hyrrokin: When you have the Mead, join me at the well of Mimir. There I will show you how to escape your doom at Ragnarok.
Hyrrokin left and Havi thought to himself.
- Havi: Should I search for the cauldron now or head for Thrym's hall?
Outcome[]
Havi met with Angrboða and gathered some hag's claw for her. Loki and Angrboða then imprisoned Havi, after which Hyrrokin freed him.
Behind the scenes[]
The root Angrboda asks for, hag's claw, resembles the mandrake root, which is hallucinogenic and narcotic and has long been associated with witchcraft.
The name of the memory is an indirect reference to a passage in Gylfaginning, the opening poem from Snorri Sturluson's 13th century text Prose Edda. In stanzas 12-14, it says that an unnamed witch raised Fenrir in Járnviðr, or the "Iron Woods", a forest east of Midgard populated by trolls, giants, and wolves.