1. “Welcome, noble wisdom seeker. As you begin the first module of the Ascension, know that you are chosen to honor the All-Father and to strengthen the pillars of Asgård. Your dedication and loyalty illuminate the way forward for all who serve. In the light of Mimir's Well, the strength of Yggdrasil, and the power of the Runes, you will be tested. Embrace these trials, for they are the forge through which your true potential is revealed. By the will of Odin, let your journey begin.”
2.  
3. The reluctant wisdom seeker felt the need to continue but something drew his attention elsewhere. Huginn accepted his gaze and tactfully pointed its beak in the direction of the screen. It brought the anomaly stream into view and closed the training module.
4.  
5. From somewhere over his right shoulder he heard the faint suggestion of Muninn, “Try shutting your eyes to bring your mind back into balance.”
6.  
7. It was a rehearsed motion as he brought his eyelids together and let the darkness envelop him for just the moment but only the moment. He didn’t know why he always opened them again before the image of Odin was able to emerge. It was a kind of tic, without explanation, but scratching an unseen and unfelt itch whenever a resync was needed. With his attention back on the screen he was able to feel the memory of Astrid. Munin dressed itself in the ascension gown at the edge of view. She had ascended three months ago and the bird made sure he felt prideful as her older brother, sometimes not as subtly as he would have liked. The high blue collar was befittingly formal for the ceremony, he thought, but put it out of his mind as he redirected his eyes toward Huginn. The raven plucked a ticket from the growing stream and opened the detailed view.
8.  
9. Through the eyes of a fellow Väljare, he was able to identify a minor distortion. It seemed to be caused by the positive air pressure while she moved from a travel module onto the platform.
10.  
11. With two fingers raised, our wisdom seeker dictated to Muninn, “Please step in front of the shop window to your right. This is a good place to reflect for a moment.”
12.  
13. He immediately heard the same words repeated through the Väljaren’s Muninn and soon after she closed her eyes. As the all-father filled her view the connection was terminated and the detailed view closed on the screen. The ticket caught alight and reduced to a tiny blue flame which Munin happily swallowed as usual. Working at Odin Corporation was a blessing which only touched an elite few who showed certain potential. Everyone had a place in Yggdrasil but few ever climbed its branches. Leif’s grey pupils dilated only slightly and Huginn hopped nearer to the stream of tickets on the leftmost screen. The air hummed with the low notes of distant machinery as the raven manifested another detailed ticket view. This anomaly arose from Väljaren fatigue. Tiredness was common but usually went unnoticed.
14.  
15. “Drift Alert! Please proceed to your nearest light chamber,” he spoke to Munin without lifting his gaze from the terminal screen.
16.  
17. When he lowered two fingers into a raised fist the words transcribed themselves to an aura in front of the Väljare. He needed to interface a little longer or risk disconnecting from his implant. The Väljare managed to find an open pod rather quickly and without further intervention. The ticket immolated as before but left behind a wisp of green. Munin indulged.
18.  
19. Bringing a degree of focus to the right screen, Leif began staring as if through it. The shape of the data pulsed in his blurred vision like rain on the surface of a pond. Huginn clacked its beak, bringing Leif back into the still room. The calming hum was both warm and comforting like the terminal which cradled his body but also teetering on the edge of stifling, dulling the senses in a way that felt like wading through a thick fog. The bird clacked again and Leif was at full attention watching the numbers and symbols drift from all directions, a chaotic flow of data. Four objects caught themselves in the slipstream of a rune that Leif recognized and in an instant Munin pulled the thread-like collection of symbols from the screen, letting it hang limply from its beak for a moment. The thread floated out of its mouth as a strand of spider’s silk slips on the wind. It was absorbed into the left terminal screen and a new ticket emerged at the position.
20.  
21. Huginn spoke directly to Leif, “It’s time to partake in the water of Mimir’s well.”
22.  
23. An aura like the one he had just used to correct a drift anomaly began to creep in at the edges of his vision. Slipping out of the terminal was irritating, not because the use of his muscles after hours of motionlessness was a chore, but because the sensation of weight on his joints was a reminder that the ravens couldn't do everything for him. They both flew ahead of Leif as he exited his cubicle on the long row leading to the common area. There was a warm light which spilled over the high walls through the hanging atrium. About half the sprawling warehouse was cubicles, each housing a single two-screen terminal, a few hundred in total. The other half was an indoor garden spotted with sapling birch trees at the threshold, giving way to a grassy clearing in the shade of an enormous ash tree. Surrounding the tree were several round tables to accommodate each cohort of Väljare and on the far side was a single pane of glass overlooking the city below. From the outside, Odin Corp. appeared as a monolithic terrarium housing and protecting the world tree, Yggdrasil. Leif sat on the far side of it so that he faced the sunlit section of the tree, back to the warming rays which fell on his shoulders. He took a flask of a deeply blue liquid from the center of the table.
24.  
25. “Hey Leif”, started Erik whose corporate kyrtill flashed brilliant blue as he approached the sitting area, sun beams passing through crooked branches glinting on the personalized silver effects of remarks.
26.  
27. “These are interesting,” he continued as he brushed his fingers over the wandering grooves of the wooden table.
28.  
29. “We can share our ravens with them. Have a seat.”
30.  
31. Erik sat down and Leif placed his free hand onto a small metal rectangle inlaid on the wood, Erik did the same. In vivid black, a raven appeared on Erik’s left shoulder, its head turned, an eye curiously searching the surface in front of it.
32.  
33. “Wow. That is certainly new,” Erik observed as he took a bottle from the center of the table for himself, his Huginn jumping onto the raw wood.
34.  
35. The two ravens approached each other across the table with an excited hesitation. Leif’s looked around with a puzzled head movement as Erik’s bird vanished momentarily. Two more Galdrar sat down to accompany Erik and Leif, their presence reactivating the coherence table’s connection followed by two more ravens perching at their sides.
36.  
37. “They sent out a bulletin on them this morning. Coherence table. It uses neural multiplexing to broadcast a translated projection to the other people touching the input pads,” said Grant, reading the intrigued looks of everyone’s Huginn.
38.  
39. “Must have been flagged as non-essential,” shrugged Erik. “I spent the morning deep in runes. It's hard to allocate for much else.”
40.  
41. Leif’s Huginn nodded in understanding.
42.  
43. Grant prided himself on maintaining broader awareness streams, processing at a level that didn't exactly make Leif or Erik envious but they feigned impressed at the freshman behavior.
44.  
45. “I got a rune earlier,” Leif added coyly.
46.  
47. The eyes of ravens widened clockwise around the table.
48.  
49. “It was luck I guess. I've been underclocking while working on the ascension module again.”
50.  
51. The other ravens narrowed their tail feathers and stood taller showing a kind of solidarity. Leif’s Huginn was secretly blushing under its ebony plumage. Ascension was a special rank, a status beyond Galdr, reserved for those closest to Odin. The rites were a test of consciousness. There were 9 trials, representing the nine days Odin hung from Yddrasil. The first trial was difficult enough that very few continued. It was a meditation on pure neural processing where each galdaren was  tasked with rapidly hopping streams in an effort to complete an unknown data set. Too long on any stream and you would receive bad data, leading to an incomplete or unstable set at the end. Anomaly detection and remediation was one thing but real-time error correction was hard, not unlike finding patterns in the raw data feed. Leif was glad that his friends respected the effort behind the ascension trials.
52.  
53. “It was ᚢ (Uruz),” he continued. “I've seen them before, usually with just three to five integers behind it. I was called to the Well before pulling the ticket but I'll have a look when I get back.”
54.  
55. The mention of ascension, despite Leif’s quick retort, left a vacuum in the conversation. The galdrar drank their deep blue tonic. The warmed liquid tingled the tongue. It was as viscous as milk and clung to the sides of the flask just the same. While it was slightly bitter to most, the subtle acidity made it pleasant like a hot cup of coffee.
56.  
57. “I have a rotation with a silver guild later this week. I was thinking it would be a good retreat before Galdrmót,” Grant said as he swung his flask past Huginn by the nape of the glass.
58.  
59. The bottle obscured the raven from view just long enough for it to don a leather apron suddenly. Leif cut in, “I’ve always wondered how you manage extra work with everything else?”
60.  
61. Grant swapped his left hand for his right on the metal pad and a meeker raven took over. It carried a small metalworking mallet in its beak.
62.  
63. “I grew up with the guild and silversmithing is a challenge on its own but different in ways that count. The memory allocation weaves several domains at once which is exactly the kind of training needed for the game,” Grant’s Munin roosted on the handle of the mallet which now rested on the table.
64.  
65. The annual competition was held every summer, across Asgårdian regions. The live broadcast attracted the attention of most everyone. There was an open call among Galdaren but it was not uncommon for väljare to join as well, despite the clear skill gap.
66.  
67. The fourth face at the table was Loic, a quiet observer with a kyrtill unadorned, marking his inexperience without him knowing. His Huginn stayed close which revealed a secret effort.
68.  
69. “The silver guild sounds impressive,” offered Loic finally entering the conversation, his accent carrying something not quite Asgårdian.
70.  
71. He adjusted his fingers on the input pad.
72.  
73. “I see their work at station 11 often.”
74.  
75. His Huginn stepped forward almost too slowly displaying the untrained habits of someone not used to Galdr grade equipment.
76.  
77. Erik nodded in time with his Huginn, “How has your terminal been?” Erik asked knowing that the full body interface was hard to get used to, even for those who grew up with access to them.
78.  
79. “It has really enlightened me. The powers of Galdaren are truly precious.” Loic’s Hugin drew a swirl of silver with its beak in the air.
80.  
81. The collective gaze turned toward Grant in obvious interest for his reaction to the silver guild reference. His Muninn remained asleep on the hammer. Grant lifted his hand from the interface in an almost flirtatious way, attempting a coolness in the light of prying eyes to recall his raven.
82.  
83. “My father helped design some of the solutions for fine motor control,” Grant lifted his bottle referring to the anomaly solution. “The interfaces for artisanal work tether body and soul. Keeping them in sync requires a lot of trips to the well.”
84.  
85. Leif drew back his head admiring the lilting rafters of the glass ceiling and savoring the last drops of the now tepid liquid. The effects of the solution came quickly and almost all at once. The well’s essence rushed from his abdomen to the base of his neck where he could already feel the presence of Muninn drawing out the memory of ᚢ (Uruz) and with it Leif’s attention to the anomaly streams. His Huginn ruffled its feathers in a universal gesture to show that the tonic had performed its job. Without having to vocalize his departure, Leif stood up, seeing the last glimpse of other ravens ruffling other feathers before lifting his hand from the metal square on the table. Grant continued elaborating on the guild’s work to Loic who was unbreakingly focused with the fervor of admiration. Erik too took his leave moments after. Huginn led the way through the trees and onto the aisle as Muninn rested on Leif shoulder, already integrating archival knowledge of runes into working memory as he approached the terminal. The eager machine welcomed him and his weight once again became irrelevant as the hum of the world drew him into a higher state of consciousness.
86.  
87. ***
88.  
89. The gangway leading to the entrance of Odin Corp. was constructed with large brilliant white tiles. It led from the main transit center of the city which itself overlooked a dark river that froze over in the winter. The banks were lined with coastal conifers although the mouth of the river was many kilometers away through a tangled archipelago. Long thin channels of brackish water all culminated at the broadest reach that passed under the walkway, bringing salt on the ever present wind which too passed under the bridge with a more violent persistence. Near the transit center, which was carved from the inside of a sheer rock face there were dozens of light pods, giving the mountain a speckled face of light and snow on long winter nights.
90.  
91. Two towers flanked the atrium in the center. The gangway stretched off from the eastern tower to the crest of the modest mountain whose other half had long been missing. The half mountain was colloquially called the Berg and was a marvel to behold. Passing into its naturally cold hallways of pure unpolished granite rhymed with the same speckled face of the Berg proper, as Väljare moved in and out of the light pods like glinting imperfections of an otherwise significant vein. The eastern tower obscured the view of the mountain from the vantage of the atrium but as the cold melted into summer, warm reflections of the mountain could be seen fractured like an aurora of color above the cubicles in anomaly detection.
92.  
93. Leif’s attention was with the ghosts of light that drifted, suspended in the eaves, before the grating caw of Huginn forcefully turned him back to the open ticket in front of him. In what felt like a whisper but was actually the sudden integration of a memory, Muninn referred Leif to a generational archive of the rune ᚢ (Uruz):
94.  
95. Archive reference R-42.7.4. Rune Uruz - a symbol of primal strength, intensely burning but an untamed force. Historically associated with ancient wild cattle, aurochs. Used in perpetuity to mark high cortisol levels or sudden trending spikes in a populous area.
96.  
97. The memory was understood all at once. With a thrusting of his mind, Leif was able to direct Huginn wordlessly. The bird opened the visual tunnel to the väljare. Whatever had caused the rune to emerge had clearly passed. Leif inspected the raw data stream again in an effort to find a connection but it was several long minutes of wasted time as Uruz was nowhere to be found. It was frustrating that he began to drift right after finding the rune.
98.  
99. He had learned to respect the direction of the ravens over the years but part of him still felt the urge to defy, though that too faded into deference. It wasn’t exactly difficult to rebel, in fact, it was required as the implants wriggled their way across and into more neural pathways with the same intensity and haphazard sloshing as adolescence. The väljare had taken to a light pod while Leif was at the well, a natural reaction following an uncommon stress he thought. Despite his eyes being closed the first person view showed Leif the unmistakable grid of bright white lights which lined the pod. The energetic artificial light relaxed väljare and tipped them into a trance not unlike sleep. Light beckoned to organic compounds of an implant, coaxing tendrils of amino acids to unfurl like fern leaves in an arcane wilderness. The integrated memory of how the spore-like proteins constructed the lattice diverted Leif’s compute and pulled the first person view closed, or perhaps it was Huginn. This particular ticket simply vanished as if it had never been there in the first place.
100.  
101. “I've graciously submitted uruz to the ledger for you,” Muninn replied after perching over the right-hand screen.
102.  
103. It didn't pass over his mind again but he did wonder for a moment if the rune wasn’t an isolated incident. Decoding random patterns like this was critical work because implants were prone to cascading events. When one person sees something abnormal, it might become a collective hallucination, or worse. The wonder was short-lived. Munin's onyx black eyes flicked a deep blue.
104.  
105. Huginn brought Leif’s chin toward him, “We should spend more time in the raw data feed. There are bound to be more patterns to reveal.”
106.  
107. Munin brought Leif's gaze back to the right, “I am integrating more runes as we speak. The honor of ascension is upon you.”
108.  
109. Leif focused deeply on the pulsing symbols, his own pulse timing with their movement at odd moments. There were numbers, pictograms, scripts of all known origins, waxing and waning in and out of view. Watching for runes had its own kind of self propelled inertia. Starting in had a tendency to pull you under. The memory allocation was all consuming and you would drift if you weren't careful to control how much it took from you.
110.  
111. A worthy sacrifice for those skilled in the art however, finding and naming novel patterns came with it the recognition that could span generations. Early markers were named by the company but recent finds carried the name of the Galdr that discovered them. Every time the raw data feed was in the foreground of Leif's attention, he felt the secret desire to see the patterns coined by his sister: Astrid 04201, Astrid 04202, and Astrid 04204. They were not groundbreaking discoveries by any means, just minor slips of personality that everyone seemed to experience from time to time. Of course Leif knew he wouldn't see them in his raw data feed as they never truly warranted an anomaly correction, but the shard of desire was there, lodged into a place he hoped Huginn and Muninn might not reach.
112.  
113. ***
114.  
115. Grant clung to the input pad with an interested effort as his palms sweat and he tried to direct Huginn to sketch in mid-air.
116.  
117. “Argh, you see here, where the feet go? This is used to direct the base of the rig. This part here closes around your knees, see.”
118.  
119. Grant waved his hand through the projection with frustration. It dissipated as Huginn looked worryingly at its master.
120.  
121. “One day I'll manage to draw with a projection but I suppose I'm not currently tuned for it. Damn, well, anyways. The true key to the guild rigs are the hands.”
122.  
123. Grant lifted both of his to show Loic, forgetting the coherence table entirely. “I could never draw hands anyway. Ha. So, the gloves are lined with a conductive gel. Every nuance of movement is captured, down to your own pulse if that ever became relevant to the piece.”
124.  
125. Pushing right past embarrassment which both Grant and Huginn wore like face paint, he tried to continue. He fought hard not to slide his fingers between the vertebrae on the back of his neck but still lowered his head a little.
126.  
127. “I would really like to try this rig.” uttered Loic, stopping Grant before he could fill the air with even more hung words. “My first experience with any kind of rig was in Galdr training. It took me longer to start but once I figured out how to move, I managed well enough. They start us on a mobile terminal with only one input medium.”
128.  
129. Loic’s Hugin stood intensely, regarding Grant directly. He contemplated the overly attentive mannerism for a moment. What is it really like being brought up through a training program? Grant never understood. It was rare to not inherit the Galdr rank. Mu