Usually it would just be Erik and Sigrun at his usual training spot. Right now there were six more people present. Sven, who had come along to watch, and five thralls Erik picked at random to ‘help’ in his experiment.

These outside thralls were emaciated and had dulled senses from their harsh living conditions and were even more docile than sheep. Sheep would at least feel something was off and try to run, futile as that might have been. But these thralls simply stood in place, waiting for an order.

Taking out his sword and comfortably balancing it over his shoulder, Erik positioned the first thrall. Upon seeing the completely lifeless eyes of the thrall, Erik for the final time confirmed he truly did not care that he was about to arbitrarily execute another human being.

‘Strange how ones environment and circumstances can skew your view on ethics and morality…’
–Was the thought that went through Erik’s mind as he placed both hands on his sword hilt and prepared to strike, fully intent on decapitating the thrall in one swing.

Feet apart and slightly turned to the side to create the best momentum and the greatest force, Erik raised his word. Before committing, he slowly traced the trajectory three times like a carpenter aiming for the nail.

“1… 2… 3… HRAAGH!”

With the blade perfectly aligned it whistled through the air before effortlessly cutting through the skin, muscle and bone of the thrall’s neck. A clean strike. A perfect cut.

~Bleep! – Player Erik earned Favour! Khorne, God of Blood, accepts your bloody sacrifice!
~Bleep! – Player Erik earned Favour! Slaanesh, God of Perfection, admires your perfect decapitation!
~Bleep! – Player Erik earned Favour! Nurgle, God of Death, enjoys your show of the finality of life!

~Bleep! – GAO notice: Suitable sacrifice performed! Proficiency gain doubled for 1 hour! 00:59:57

“Well, that worked out roughly as expected.” –Erik muttered softly as he stoically watched the corpse fall to the ground and the blood stained the white snow a deep crimson. Shifting his gaze, he continued in a louder voice.

“Okay, let’s see how it goes! You, stand over here!”

The next thrall also got his head chopped and again the notifications rang. This time the Proficiency buff remained at a double rate, but the time limit was extended by an additional hour.

Third thrall got chopped too and this time the Proficiency buff was tripled along with the extra hour, meaning Erik could now earn three times the Proficiency during a three hour period.

Excited, Erik had the remaining two thralls lined up and consequently took their heads of their shoulders. He again earned Favour for performing the sacrifice, but the only change to the buff was a reset of the timer to 03:00:00, so still three hours.

‘Damn, it would have been nice if it went on perpetually, but I guess that would be too much… Oh well, not like I can slaughter livestock for more than three hours a day anyway so it works out for the most part.’

Done experimenting, Erik concluded he would still need to maintain his old training regime of slaughtering the designated livestock in the morning and improving technique in the afternoon. He would just need to perform a triple sacrifice before starting the slaughter to obtain the extra benefits.

And triple Proficiency gain was still a huge bonus. It essentially meant Erik could jam 9 weeks of training in the 3 weeks between trials, rapidly increasing his progress. And the Favour earned from making sacrifices would also add up, making it even more worth it.

Sigrun and Sven were bemusedly watching Erik, not quite understanding what he was doing or why. But seeing a broad smile form on Erik’s face, they both realised that Erik might have gained something more from the killings than they could see.

All the same to them, thralls were nothing but expendable products to them. And not even valuable ones at that.

Sadly for Erik, it was well into the afternoon by then and there was no more livestock to be slaughtered that day. All he could do was start his regular exercise to reap the most benefits he could.

As Erik started performing his cuts, Sigrun and Sven continued to watch. At one point, perhaps because he was bored, Sven turned towards his sister and her attentively watching every move Erik made with bated breath. Surprised, Sven looked back at Erik.

‘Come to think of it, he really is handsome huh? And while he is perhaps a bit on the short side for a Norscan, it didn’t seem to matter when he faced off against Krir… Hey! They spent the last couple of weeks closely together too and Mother seemed to pay extra attention to this as well… Am I gonna get a big brother-in-law?’

Thinking carefully for once, Sven chose his next words carefully before nudging his older half-sister.

“Hey Sigrun, you wanna marry him or something?” –And the result of his shallow thinking was a direct and incredibly blunt approach.

Sigrun’s face went through a series of rapid changes. First was annoyance at being interrupted. Second, puzzlement. Thirdly her face heated up as she turned bright red before finally clasping her face in her hands in embarrassment.

“Heh? HEEEH?!” –Sven was at a loss for words. The ever cold and slightly detached Sigrun fell for a guy she’d only met for three weeks?

His scream was loud and sudden enough to disturb Erik, breaking his concentration mid swing. In turn, this caused him to lightly twist his hands wrong, causing pain to shoot from his bruised finger and distracting him again.

“Fuck, that hurts!”

In a rare stroke of genius, Sven decided to drop the topic for now. Internally however, he vowed to grill his sister for details later. Meanwhile, Sigrun had recomposed herself and seeing nothing was wrong, Erik continued fluidly swinging his Greatsword.

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Three weeks went by in a flash. In the mornings Erik performed his triple sacrifices before slaughtering livestock with efficient strokes of his blade and he rapidly increased his Two-handed weapon proficiency.

To the shock of both Sigrun and Sven, who persistently started tagging along after learning the full story between Erik and Sigrun, Erik had made another miraculous improvement.

 ~Bleep! – Player information displayed!

Player: Erik –
Affiliation: Chaos, Frost Wolf Tribe (Skaeling Confederacy)
Patron: Khorne; Slaanesh; Nurgle; Tzeentch

Player stats:
Strength (STR):                20
Dexterity (DEX):             10 (+2)
Constitution (CON):       12
Wisdom (WIS):                30
Charisma (CHAR):          12 (+2)

Player Favour:
Khorne:               76 (+26)
Slaanesh:            129 (+35)
Nurgle:                71 (+52)
Tzeentch:            25 (+3)

(Earn Favour by performing actions that either directly please your Patron or are in line with their commandments.)

Player weapon proficiencies:
Unarmed:          81
One-handed:    89
Two-handed:    200 (+25) (current MAX)
Polearms:           50
Archery:              50
Throwing:          50
Firearms:           50

Player armour proficiencies:
Unarmoured:                   60 (+30)
Medium armour:            30
Heavy armour:                60
Magic armour:                 (LOCKED)

Player magic proficiencies: (LOCKED)~

With the help of the daily sacrifices Erik had managed to max out his current Two-handed Proficiency level right before Second Trial. He did not know how to remove the roadblock but right now he wasn’t bothered by it. A 200 Proficiency level should be more than enough in tomorrow’s fight. And probably the third Trial too, freeing up his time to train up the proficiencies for the Winter Hunt.

Once again they would be fighting unarmoured, carrying only their weapons. This time however, Erik’s opponent was wielding a spear with a design similar to Sven’s hewing spear, a popular weapon amongst the Marauders.

And tomorrow’s opponent was another Marauder that vocally disapproved of Erik’s presence in the tribe. Having participated in three years of raids, this promised to be a more threatening opponent than Krir, but Erik was more confident this time.

The reason Erik struggled against Krir at the beginning of their fight was because Erik was nervous about fighting to the death for the first time and the difficulties of getting around the shield.

This time Erik had a (current) Maxed out proficiency and loads of experience in shedding blood. Including the first time when he slew five thralls, Erik had sacrificed a total of 65 thralls through decapitation in the past three weeks, thoroughly desensitizing him to blood and death.

 As for the large amounts of Favour he had earned, this just showed that the Chaos Gods loved nothing better than death, blood and souls shed and sacrificed in their Dark names.

Nurgle granted 1 Favour for nearly every thrall killed.
Khorne simply relished in the bloodshed.
Tzeentch liked Erik’s approach to grinding, but was not as generous as the other Gods.
And while Slaanesh certainly rewarded him for Perfect decapitations, the most Slaanesh Favour came from a different source. Although he had not slept with, the two pretty thralls taken from Krir had slept beside Erik at night as literal bedwarmers and also assisted him in bathing and clothing.

At multiple occasions they had quite directly provoked and invited Erik to enjoy them fully, but Erik had held back as best he could. By now, and after grilling Sven for extra information during the second week of sacrificial training, Erik was well aware that his affection for Sigrun was reciprocated. And he did not want to mess things up between them by behaving promiscuously.

Sven had also told him that while their father and Sigrun’s mother were not necessarily against them being together, it would have to wait until Erik officially joined the tribe to prevent extra drama.

Of course, Erik was aware of the Norscan tradition of polygamy but he still refused to lie with other women. At least he wouldn’t before he mustered up the courage to confirm their mutual feelings with Sigrun and obtain her consent to what Erik considered philandering.

If, or when, he received that consent he would most likely go wild gathering Slaanesh Favour. Especially since merely sleeping besides two women and having them wash and dress him had already given good returns.

And as Erik once again woke up looking at the now very familiar roof and feeling the warmth coming from both sides, he knew he was prepared to face his second Trial.

Macrendil-Ysmir

Damn, 12 chapters already. Would you mind if I asked you a couple questions?

First, what do you think about the story so far? Is it interesting?

Second, what about the pacing? Do you like the speed at which the story develops? Would you speed some things up or down?

And thirdly, do you have any other feedback for me?

Thank you very much for reading Chapter 12!