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The Price of Wisdom 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 met with Hyrrokin at the Well of Mímir to hand over Suttungr's mead.
Dialogue[]
Havi traveled to a place where a large knot of Yggdrasil's roots extended down to the weathered ruins of a great stone fortress and a large pool of water.
- Havi: The roots of the world-tree Yggdrasil feed from the Well of Mimir. I am close.
As Havi reached the pool, Loki stepped out from behind a root.
- Havi: I sorely underestimated the heft of your balls, oath-breaker. You dare show your face?
- Loki: Oath-breaker? I did to you what you did to my son. This is only fair.
- Havi: And Suttungr? What of him?
- Loki: Don't blame me for your own lack of character. You stole the Mead!
- Havi: For the safety of my people, Loki! For Æsir, for Vanir, for all Asgard!
Loki approached Havi angrily.
- Loki: But not for Jötnar. Not for me.
- Havi: You let the Jotnar into Asgard! So many dead, all so you could smuggle in your son.
- Loki: He was not safe here. They knew what he was and knew what he would become. Just as you do!
- Havi: I swore to you I would not harm him. That is the truth!
- Loki: That is the truth now. But how it will gnaw at you, knowing that to kill my son will undo your doom. Release him, Havi. Release Fenrir, or I swear I will kill you here and now.
- Havi: You are out of favors, trickster. And you are welcome to try.
A ring of large ice spikes surrounded the pool. Loki paced around the edge, occasionally teleporting from once place to another, until finally attacking Havi.
- Loki: You might be the strongest, but I was ever the quicker one!
- Havi: Curse you, Loki. We were like brothers once!
- Loki: I will feed your corpse to Fenrir!
- Havi: You meant to have me killed! I will never forgive that.
- Loki: Why wait till Ragnarök, when you can die now?
- Havi: No quarter this time, Loki! You have gone too far!
- Loki: When my son is loosed from his bondage, he will ravage all of Asgard!
- Havi: Let's see if you fight as well as you lie!
Havi defeated Loki, standing over him as the trickster lay in the pool, clutching his side and attempting to drag himself away by one arm.
- Havi: Are you finished?
- Loki: Curse you, Havi.
- Havi: Your own distrust has undone you. Now go, and do not show your face again.
- Loki: I cannot be other than who I am. All this was fated. All this will happen again.
- Havi: But you will not be here to see it.
Loki stood.
- Loki: Do not be so sure of that. The game is not over. The game is never over.
As Havi approached him again, Loki turned into a salmon, jumping into the pool and disappearing.
- Havi: Gone, to who knows what mischief. But I will not see him again soon.
Havi went up a flight of stairs to a gigantic doorway set beneath the branch of Yggdrasil's root. He went through it, following the rough stone corridor until it opened into a cavern. Tendrils of root reached down through it to a platform, at the center of which sat the Well. Mounted into the stone to one side was the head of Mimir. Hyrrokin called out to Havi from the platform.
- Hyrrokin: Bring the Mead. As soon as you can.
As Havi approached, Hyrrokin stood facing away from him, speaking softly to a glowing crystal ball.
- Hyrrokin: The probabilities lead us here. The calculations give us hope.
- Havi: Speaking with someone?
Hyrrokin tucked the ball away as she turned to face him.
- Hyrrokin: Do you have the Mead?
- Havi: I do. Must I drink it now?
Havi pulled out the flask he'd filled with the Mead. He gave Hyrrokin a second flask.
- Hyrrokin: Not yet. For once you drink, your hugr will take flight and be ever-fixed. Drink only when the hour of your death approaches.
- Havi: Then why are we here?
The head of Mimir spoke.
- Mimir: When Ragnarok has come and gone, this place will remain. Remain, and remember.
- Havi: Wise Mimir, keeper of the well. Give me your counsel.
- Mimir: You who seek immortality may find it within these waters. But there is a price.
- Havi: As always.
- Hyrrokin: The Mead is not magic alone. It requires the sacred waters of Mimir's well to ferment into its final state.
- Mimir: Before you take these waters, you must infuse them with the blood of the Aesir. To remember you, it must know you. Surrender a part of yourself to the waters that nourish the world-tree. Only then will you have that which you desire.
- Havi: You yourself have lost much for wisdom, beheaded by those who did not value your learning.
- Mimir: My hugr is here. That is all that matters. I have learned to live incomplete, as will you.
- Havi: And if I make this sacrifice? What then?
Havi looked back at Hyrrokin.
- Havi: Do you vouch for this strangeness?
- Hyrrokin: I must believe it, for there is one I love dearly who depends upon it.
- Havi: And there is no other way?
- Hyrrokin: None.
- Havi: It seems I have no choice.
- Hyrrokin: You never did.
As Havi stepped up to the well, he remembered the question Angrboda had posed to him after he drank the hag's claw elixir.
- Angrboda: How much would you sacrifice to be freed of fate's shackles? Would you give your tongue, your hand, your sight?
Kneeling to mix the Mead with the water of the well, Havi maintained eye contact with Hyrrokin as he answered aloud.
- Havi: I would give all that and more.
Havi raised a hand to his left eye. Images flashed, a green eye, and a view of the well and platform from above, the rings of both aligning. Finally, the eye was viewed whole, sclera bloodshot, held in Havi's fingers. Breath labored, Havi squeezed his eye in his hand. The remains poured into the well, lighting up the runes within and around it, extending through the cavern. Havi knelt again, refilling the flask with the mixture.
- Hyrrokin: It is done.
- Mimir: The sacrifice has been made. Whosoever drinks of the Mead, the world-tree will remember them.
Pained, Havi turned to Hyrrokin again.
- Havi: And you? What is your sacrifice?
- Hyrrokin: My liberty. Suttungr and Gunlodr will not forgive this trespass. They will hunt me now, to the edges of the nine worlds.
- Havi: What are they to you?
- Hyrrokin: We ruled together for a time, a noble triad. As Father, Mother, and the Sacred Voice. Six times we tried to blunt the fangs of Ragnarok, and six times we failed. The Mead was our seventh. But they feared how it might change the humans for the worse, so they locked it away and banished me from Utgard. By your efforts, you have returned to me what is mine. The ashes of my husband. He made his own sacrifice for knowledge. With a few changes to this Mead, I may undo old sorrows.
- Havi: Do as you will. I have had my fill of this cursed realm.
As Havi walked away, Hyrrokin spoke to the flask Havi had given her.
- Hyrrokin: Bright-mind, heart's-ease, beloved. I will not fail you again.
Havi left the cavern.
- Havi: My work here is done. Now to Asgard, to save my people.
He returned to the tower near Ægir's hall and used the gate to leave Jötunheimr.
Outcome[]
Havi defeated Loki in battle. He then met with Mimir and Hyrrokin, and sacrificed his left eye to the well.