https://youtu.be/5OU_A4-48zE

Svafrlami was the first to land, looking at the five entrances to the temple with a small smirk and a chuckle. This happiness didn't last, as Oz came along very quickly afterwards, landing next to him in a three-point stance, releasing the lightning with a loud crackling noise and standing up, dusting off his robes.

"Wow, this temple really is...ruined."

"An excellent observation. Would you next like to explain where gold gets its name from?"

The hunters were quick to follow, arriving almost thirty seconds later and emerging behind the two of them, as they watched them, observing the difference in their attitudes. The blond, shorter and evidently younger, was much more excited to explore this place, moving with a pep in his step. The brown-haired commander was much more experienced, and approached this with more dignity and stoicism.

Oz examined the area closely, trying to ignore the fact that the surrounding town was blatantly dead. Completely gone - even more ruined than the temple, which he now focused his gaze on. Its walls made from battered stone and seemingly close to breaking, the whole temple with its five dark entrances made it look more like a weird, eldritch cave than the holy house it once was. Fascinating, thought Oz, as he and Svafrlami turned to address the rest of the party.

With the eyes of an eagle, Svafrlami scanned over his minions, making sure none of them had gotten lost, and found there were three people missing compared to the start of the journey. Sighing in disappointment, he crossed his arms and looked down at Oz. "Well, this is annoying." he said, looking at everyone and clearing his throat. "Knights of Odin, as you can see, there are five entrances to this temple! We do not know which one the witch used, so we will be splitting up into five groups!"

"Oh my gosh, five?"

"That's one more than four, you know!"

"Hooray!"

As Svafrlami looked over his men, he rolled his eyes, taking a deep breath to compose himself. Oz, observing all this, chuckled a little, and watched as Svafrlami stepped forth, preparing to divide his men to infiltrate the ruins once and for all.

.........

After a while, there were four groups, titled "One", "Two", "Three" and "Four". Their enthusiasm meant it was relatively easy to herd them into groups, and as Svafrlami entered the group "Four" himself, Oz - who was standing off to the side of the groups - couldn't help but notice something was amiss.

"Uh, Svafrlami...pardon me if my maths is off..." he said, as Svafrlami gave him an innocent look. "But there only seems to be four groups."

Svafrlami remained silent, allowing the knights to chatter amongst themselves for a little while as he and Oz maintained eye contact. Eventually, he gave him that damned smirk and pointed at the younger angel. "Five."

"...you want me to go in there by myself?" Oz chuckled nervously, raising his hands defensively and backing away. "But, Svafrlami, won't it be dangerous?"

Svafrlami gave him a displeased stare as he looked at him, lowering his armoured hand. "You're absolutely right." he told him. "But tell me, 'hero', did Thor ever back away from a task because it was 'dangerous'?"

Remembering the context of his last conversation with Thor, Oz lowered his head. "...no."

"Then frankly, I don't see the issue." Svafrlami shrugged flippantly. "It would certainly be a shame if you were to ruin his name by acting like a coward, wouldn't you agree?"

"I suppose..." Oz murmured, nodding slowly and looking towards the fifth entrance.

"Woah, what was that all about?"

"So, what, is he gonna do this all alone? I thought the commander said he was only a peon."

"Is he, like, a mini-Thor or something? Is that why his eyes are green?"

"Mini-Thor! Mini-Thor!"

"...no wonder he's so grumpy all the time." Oz thought, listening to all the chatter and finding himself feeling more than a little annoyed. Keeping his mask on, he forced a smile beneath it and stood up straight. "Well, then, shall we get going?"

"We shall." Svafrlami said, stepping forth as his men followed, heading towards their respective entrances, each man having ten times the enthusiasm of their ice-cold commander. Oz moved to the fifth, finding it looked incredibly dark even from up-close. Not that he feared the dark or anything, but from inside he could hear creatures walking, breathing and...squealing and mewing? How strange.

Forming a dagger with the Forge, Oz allowed its illumination to guide him as he entered the fifth entrance. Svafrlami entered the fourth, with his squadron in tow, and the remaining hunters entered their respective tunnels. This was a rather unique temple, indeed, and Oz was curious to know just why it was the way it was.

.........

Not too long after everyone had entered, a figure in a black robe, having navigated his way to the town, came up to the entrances, crossing his arms as he gazed into them - but his eyes could not pierce through the darkness, much to his chagrin.

"So, these are the ruins, huh?" he murmured, shaking his head. "Who needs five entrances? Talk about shitty interior design."

He placed a hand on his hip and sighed, observing the destroyed state of this place. "Whoever did this must've really hated Freya, huh?" he commented. "Welp, if the witch is in here, then I've got no time to waste. Here's hoping I beat those knights here."

Stepping into entrance 1, he remained calm, snapping his fingers as a set of identical daggers appeared, floating around his body.

.........

https://youtu.be/juxWvCoIoKA

With a radiant dagger in hand, Oz guided his own way through the entrance, looking around at his surroundings. The floors covered in cracked marble, seemingly-ancient rubble and sheer dust, it was clearly in horrible condition, and Oz counted his lucky stars that he didn't have hayfever. Though the animalistic sounds were still nearby.

On the walls looked like a series of runic carvings, though he could hardly make out what they meant because they were slashed through to the point of unrecognizability. Even as he had tried to interpret them, the slashes made it clear that whoever did this didn't want them to be interpreted, much to his curiosity.

If only he could use the Warzone Scan, but he needed Thor for that; though he had been trying to learn the move himself, to no avail thus far. But, alas, he wasn't here to solve this mystery. Looking around, he saw, littered across the ground, what was unmistakably a set of torn cloaks and cleaved boar statues like the one on the roof - all symbols of Freya, and all destroyed. Theorising that whoever did this must have really hated the goddess, he stepped forth, intensifying the light from his dagger.

And there, he saw where all the squealing and oinking was coming from. His surroundings made it clear he was in a vast hall, with paintings and stone statues depicting the goddess all around him - all rent asunder, of course, with some of them surrounded in piles of ash. And directly in front of him, there seemed to be a long path, littered with monstrous creatures. Some of them were fairly large boars, with silver-coloured bristles on their backs and hairs all over their bodies, alongside mighty pink tusks and hot-pink eyes that gazed at Oz suspiciously. The rest were seemingly regular housecats, albeit with the same silver fur and pink eyes, and a sly look on their faces as they examined the einherjar quizzically.

Boars and pigs...now that was odd. Their shared colour scheme, and the fact that they had appeared in the ruins, had led Oz to believe that they were summoned by the witch herself - presumably to defend herself while she squatted in this temple. Concluding that she had probably foreseen their arrival, he decided to remain cautious, but with all the animals watching him, he decided to try and avoid confrontation.

So he removed his mask, and the hammers of the Forge worked their magic once again, and at once Oz's dagger transformed into a long, crooked staff, which he held in one hand as he stepped closer to the monsters, his other hand extended as a sign of peace. "Dwellers of the Lufe Ruins, be not afraid!" he exclaimed, hoping they could understand him. "I come in peace!"

The animals remained silent, and Oz looked around, taking a glance at all the tarnished objects of worship, before clearing his throat and pressing his hand to his heart. "All I ask is to see the witch who dwells here! Surely you won't deny me such a simple-"

Before he could say anything further, the biggest boar of the bunch charged forth, its tusks glowing a bright pink as it glared at Oz. Quickly, he watched its movements, readying himself to defend as it attempted to gore him, which he quickly parried.

Oz remained rooted to his spot, using all his strength to avoid getting skewered by the boar as it struggled against his staff. "Please, hear me out! I know you mean well-"

As he spoke, he saw two of the cats approaching him from either side, and as they leapt into him, he teleported backwards, causing them to just narrowly miss him. "-and I don't want to have to hurt any of you!"

As more cats joined the fray, quickly sprinting across the once-hallowed halls to try and slash Oz, he, ever the light of foot, focused and waited for them to come before swiftly dancing around their attacks. It wasn't easy, to say the least, as the cats were like ninjas, and it was difficult to see where they were coming from, but having a light source that was also a weapon made things a lot easier. He defended himself from most of their blows, but couldn't avoid them all, feeling their bladelike claws raking his skin and shaking it off.

After a while of this, the head boar charged at him once again, and he raised his hand, firing a bolt of lightning at its feet to startle it and stop it in its tracks. Walking towards it, staff in hand, he gave it a small smile and began to pat its head.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you." he said, unsure if his attack had actually connected, but casting a healing spell just in case. The boars and cats kept their eyes on him, ceasing their attack to see what he would do next, and to their surprise, he didn't make any kind of sneaky attack, instead walking past the boar and leaving the animals be, sighing slightly. "It appears you don't want to be disturbed, which is inconvenient for me, but understandable. I'll take what I'm here for and be on my way."

He left, frequently looking at them to make sure they weren't about to sneakily attack him, and continued to head through the hall, surprisingly undisturbed. Relieved that they seemed to be letting him through now, he continued to walk, holding his staff out in front of him and using its light to see his surroundings - which were more of the same. More desecrated instruments of worship, more signs of obvious heresy against the goddess. He sighed, deciding to move quickly - and though he encountered more cats and boars along the way, these ones seemed more cooperative. Figuring that might change in a heartbeat if he did anything to hurt them, he was careful to treat them with care and kindness.

And at the end came a wall - seemingly a dead end. Formed from a pale pink stone that was obviously uncared for and dirty, there was a strange runic incantation carved on it, and it looked rather unlike anything he'd ever seen;

"Lᛟᚹᛖ ᛖᛗᛈᛟᚹᛖᚱᛋ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᛟᚢᛚ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛗᛟᛏᛁᚹᚨᛏᛖᛋ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚱᛁᚷᚺᛏᛖᛟᚢᛋ"

"Ah...must be Elder Futhark..." he mentally whined, holding his staff up to it to get a better read of it. He could read Younger Futhark any day of the week, but Elder was a lot more challenging for him. Very few people knew how to interpret the language, but Oz had taken lessons to learn how to do so - mostly because Svafrlami had mocked him once for not knowing it.

Not to mention, the words didn't make any sense in the language - he'd never seen this combination of runic characters before, but as he began translating each letter individually, he read the first word out loud;

"Love."

So it had been translated directly into the Futhark language without changing it into a romanization first. That was odd. Figuring this was the right thing to do, though, he took a few minutes to translate each individual word, finding it formed a sentence and reading aloud when he was finished.

"Love empowers the soul...and motivates the righteous."

Before he could finish mentally snickering at how cheesy the phrase was, the runes began to glow a bright pink, much to his surprise, and as he stepped back, a giant pink hole seemingly appeared out of nowhere, emerging in the air in front of him. Oz was momentarily confused, wondering where this portal was meant to lead, but no matter. A quick look around the place was all it took for him to realise that this was the only way forward, since he was otherwise at a dead end.

So, deciding to take this chance, he stepped into the dimensional door, hoping to advance to the other side, and maybe find the witch, the rest of the group, or something - anything - to answer his questions.