The gathered demigods followed the last vestiges of the divine compulsion that remained within them, and separate, and yet in unison, they entered [b]Runes and Things[/b]. Inside of the shop, was a plethora of various Scandinavian themed keepsakes, from fake swords, to plastic Viking helmets with horns, and glass cases holding little bits of costume and real but cheap jewellery. Adorning one of the walls is a clothing section, with various t-shirts of dark colour with a single bold rune, or circle of them at the chest.

In the far back, is a counter, made of apparently rather aged wood, and standing behind it is an elderly looking woman. Her skin is creased and wrinkled from age, and her eyes seem to be closed, as if she were asleep, but her movements behind, the motions of her arms as she cleans a shelf, to her side indicate otherwise. Her skin has a few liver spots, and her hair is white, and not necessarily well kept. She’s wearing a dress that seems vintage of the 1950s, with short sleeves, perhaps when she would have been a younger girl?

Gavriil is the first to realize that this wasn’t just some elderly woman. This was a witch, a blind seeress. Before he could speak, the weight of the world seemed to rock over his shoulders as her empty eyes, covered by skin, turn towards him. Then the others, Each feeling it in turn.

She takes a cane, and with a tapping on the counter she was behind, the door the shop suddenly and sharply closes, the blinds draw, and the sign that hung on the door switches to indicate that the store was now closed. 

“Don’t want company. Is this all of you?” Nary a moment passed before, “Bah, doesn’t matter.” The can hits the ground and she slowly walks to the small hinged door at the counter, the hinge groaning as the door swings to make way for her frail seeming steps. Her body was overtly decrepit, but there was powerful magic in the old woman.

First she walked up to the one who noticed her true nature, Gavriil, and held out her hand. “Payment.” Her words carried the same strong authority that drew them here in the first place, and he was quick to comply, offering the sack of gold coin over. It was the only reason he had it in the first place, after all.

She peered into the bag, the folds of skin covering her eye opening revealing a gaping hole behind them. No milky eye, simply the chasm into her head. She pulled the coins out, one at a time, counting them. When she had gotten them all, she held a hand out towards the wall. On it, was a strange looking, obviously novelty, rifle.

It flew into her hand and the illusion that had been woven over it faded. The plastic that once made the rifle melted away, revealing a frozen icy interior. The gun looked to be a Mosin-Nagant M/28, a weapon that Gavriil knew of. Besides the ice, the weapon seemed to be made of bone, instead of metal.

“This one’s yours.” She held it out for Gavriil. In his hands, it felt cool, not cold as the ice would allude to it being. Carved into the ice around it were many small runes that he could not truly understand. The woman spoke again, “The White Death’s bones, and ice from Niflheim. You have no need of ammunition.”

She slowly moved over to the next of the group, Soraya. Her silence was not out of the ordinary, but it was nonetheless compelled, comfortably. Again, the old woman held out her hand, and demanded payment, and again the sack of gold was given. Once more, she opened her eye sockets and counted. Satisfied once more, she held her hand out, this time towards the wall with the shirts. A particularly plain one, lacking even a runic symbol upon it, flew into her hand this time.

As before, the illusion cast over it faded, and the shirt began to look more and more like older hide garb. Specifically, it began to look like hide armour made from a wolf pelt. “The pelt of a werewolf, bound by silver shackles and skinned alive. It’ll serve you well and keep you safe,” she pauses for a moment, “Except from silver.”

Offering it over, Soraya can feel the texture of the hide, the coarse roughness of the fur, the hood made from the head and snout. It was an incredibly sturdy material. The witch, took this time to move on to the next, Dann. Once more she took the payment, and counted and held her hand out. An obvious pattern emerging. With all the payment in hand, and pocketed, she doesn’t this time hold her hand out to the wall. Instead, she makes a simple gesture, and a flicker of light forms in-between her hands, slowly expanding to form what looks like a scroll.

“A map,” she said, offering the scroll over to Dann, “An illusion made manifest, and ever changing as your environment. May you never get lost without it.” With it in his hands, Dann unfurled the scroll, looking it over. The blank parchment shifted and changed in colour, until a basic map of the surrounding area, a mile out from where he stood, began to form on it. He took a testing step backwards, and the entire map shifted and shimmered ever so slightly, adjusting to his new vantage point.

The woman moved on to the next of them, Jacob. She took his gold as she did the others, and having counted it, held her hand to the wall that had the fake swords upon it, one of them flying into her grasp. The novelty vanished revealing a sword made, not of metal or stone, but, “A sword, carved from the antlers of mighty jotun beast. Strong as steel, and sharper still.” Carefully, she laid the sword out as an offering to Jacob. The handle was wooden, carved with intricate designs, but the rest of the hilt was bone. It was light, and well balanced as Jacob felt it in his hand.

Then she turned and walked to Eshna, the ritual repeating as she took her payment, and held her hand out to one of the walls, where a fanny pack with runic designs embroidered on it. Casting the illusion from the pack, the acrylics that it once was made out of, gave way to old, thick leather. The leather was discoloured, and a bit ragged around the edges where the pack had formed a simple sack, a rope going through to tie it shut. She opened it, and stuck two fingers in, pulling out a mix of herbs that had already been made into a paste. She slowly grinds it between her fingers, before closing the sack once more and handing it over, "The sack is little special, but it contains a replenishing supply of herbal poultice. Ancient medicine," she clarified.

To the next, Jagred, she took and counted his coin. Instead of holding a hand out for an item to launch at it, she turned to the jewellery case, and fished a simple looking bracelet out of it. Costume jewellery, so it would seem, but as with many things within, it was far more powerful after the disguise was removed. The cheap plastic gave way to a bronze cord, adorned with wolf’s teeth, each of them sharp. Back to Jagred, she offered the bracelet, giving it a bit of a pull to show that it seems capable of stretching comfortably to be a necklace, before letting it contract back to bracelet size. “The cord is simple enchanted bronze, but the teeth are each dislodged from the maws of some of the many dangerous spawn of Fenrir. Wear it how you like.” She gave this last item to Jagred, and turned her attentions at last, to the final among them present.

Now while there was indeed a divine compulsion driving each of them to behave in a certain way, the last of them had received slightly different service. In his hands while the others offered their gold, he had stolen a single piece of it, from the bag, hiding it in his left hand. Lucky, was testing his luck. When the old woman demanded the gold, he offered the less than filled bag. The blind seeress opened it, and when she opened the gaping hole in her face to peer in blindly, she counted, as normal.

It would seem many things about her form would betray her. Faster than any of those gathered could see, Lucky’s right hand was pulled out, and there was a dagger now deeply embedded in it. Blood dripped from the blade, and onto the floor as the crone hissed at him, “It’s not in this hand,” with a jerk upward, she ripped the dagger out and grabbed his other hand, thrusting it down into the palm as well. The blade of the knife struck through the coin that was held here, and came out the back of his hand as well as before. “I will not be cheated, and now you’ve ruined my price. For you, I have nothing.”

With another sharp pull, she tore the dagger back out of Lucky’s hand, letting the coin that was there fall to the ground, coated in his blood. There was a look of incredible pain on Lucky’s face, but he had no word, no sound that could come out. The witch dropped the rest of his coin and bag upon the ground, before quietly cleaning the dagger of blood on a cloth, and hiding them both away again. “The taint of the Liesmith is upon the scoundrel,” and her tone softened, and became more ponderous, “And yet, he is not your father. Pity, you serve him well.”

She stuck her hand out, and gripped Lucky’s right hand in her own, shaking it hard, as her fingers press into the wound, “It’s a pleasure to meet you anyway, child.” Pulling back, she dismissed the compulsion of silence upon them with a wave of her hand. She turned and walked, still relying upon her cane to get back behind the counter, “Speak now, all of you, I’m sure you have questions. I would like them done, with haste, if you could.” She turned to Eshna, "And you, I think your friend needs some of your poultice."