God of War (2018) - Entry 19: Creating a Path
We made our way to the mysterious sealed door on the outer perimeter of Tyr’s Temple and used the key crafted by Brok and Sindri. The door groaned open, revealing a corridor choked with overgrown roots, damp with moisture and barnacles from years of being submerged in the Lake of Nine.
The path led to a mysterious chamber directly beneath the realm travel room. As we stepped inside, Atreus noticed it immediately. “It’s upside down,” he whispered. And he was right. This mirrored reflection of the realm travel chamber was inverted, and in front of the Jotunheim door, a glowing orb of protective magic.
Before we could inspect further, two small doors creaked open, revealing a new chamber. We stepped through into a circular corridor lined with aged tapestries.
At the chamber’s center stood a sand bowl, with two towering stone giants on either side, each one holding massive chains connecting to the Jötunheim door. Beyond them, inscribed into the stone, was the travel rune to Jötunheim.
Looking at the room’s structure, I recognized the design immediately. The entire temple was constructed on an immense axle. It could flipped. But when I tried to move it, I found resistance. The axle was locked in place by two massive chains.
Atreus approached the sand bowl and read the runes engraved upon the statues aloud. As he did, the lift beneath us shuddered and began to descend, carrying us deep into the hidden foundation of the temple.
We stepped off the lift and found ourselves in a vast, subterranean hall. Two heavy doors stood on either side of us, each guarding the chain mechanisms that locked the axle in place.
We chose the first and opened it, revealing a long, narrow hallway filled with spinning blade traps. The air was filled with the hiss of metal on stone and the low hum of ancient machinery. Timing our movements, we navigated the corridor carefully by dodging blades, shielding each other, and using quick reflexes to pass unharmed.
At the hall’s end, we found the first anchor chain. I gripped the thick metal and, with all my strength, pulled it apart. But we had no time to celebrate.
As the chain snapped, two realm tears suddenly burst open and a massive fire-spitting mechanism rose from the stone. Dragur poured out from the tears accompanied by a raging ogre that charged without hesitation.
Fighting side by side once again, Atreus and I coordinated our attacks. He picked off threats from a distance while I engaged the ogre, using my Ax to counter its brutal swings. Flames surged from the central mechanism, threatening to consume us both, but we managed to disable it between waves of enemies.
We turned to face the second door, knowing what waited behind it could be even worse.
The second door groaned open, revealing a hallway lined with jagged, spike-covered blocks hanging from the ceiling. As we stepped inside, the rhythmic thud of stone smashing against stone echoed through the corridor. Each block slammed down with a deafening crash, threatening to crush anything beneath it.
At the end of the hallway after carefully navigating through the traps, the final chain waited.
I gripped the anchor and tore it from its housing. The moment it snapped loose, the air split open with two realm tears erupting before us. From them stepped two travelers, massive, silent, and relentless.
They charged, their blades searing through the air. Atreus loosed shock arrows to stagger them while I traded blows with my ax and blades until they both fell. We pressed back through the trap-laden hall, dispatching a group of Hel walkers that appeared. When we finally reached the lift, I pulled the lever, and we ascended once more to the heart of the temple.
The chamber with the twin statues waited, quiet now, but brimming with potential.
I stepped to the platform’s edge, braced myself, and began to lift.
Without the chains anchoring it, the inner chamber groaned and shifted, the massive axle creaking as I strained against it. My muscles burned, the weight of destiny, pressing back. But slowly, the great ring began to turn.
With a final heave, the entire inner temple flipped, rotating to realign with the proper realm orientation. The mirrored chamber had become the new realm travel room, the one connected to the Jötunheim gate.
We began the climb toward it, the path now accessible.
As we moved, Atreus broke the silence.
“It was us, working together, that made all this possible,” he said. “Tyr designed these trials to test unity. Like Freya and Mimir, or Brok and Sindri. They don’t always agree... but they balance each other. Just like we do.”
I looked at him, not the boy who once disobeyed, but the young warrior who now sought meaning in our journey. There was understanding in his voice. Wisdom.
“Aye! The boy has found his equilibrium!” Mimir exclaimed.
“You speak wisely." I said in agreement.
Atreus smiled, and I felt something stir. Not pride for a son who mirrored me, but for a boy who was beginning to find his own path who could, one day, become more than I ever was.
The gateway to Jötunheim beginning to feel within our reach.
Back in the realm travel room, the World Tree now flipped upside down, we approach the strange object that was protected by a magical barrier. Atreus steps forward, his hand tightening around his knife. Without hesitation, he stabs the blade into the enchanted face mask that anchors the magic, the barrier disintegrates. What remains beneath is a stone unlike any I’ve seen.
I pick it up. Noting to be some sort of key stone.
Mimir gasps as his eyes widen in recognition. “By the gods… that’s the Unity Stone. I wasn’t sure it truly existed.”
He leans forward in awe, speaking quickly now. “Tyr must have used this. It’s probably how he walked between lands, how he connected distant realms without using the traditional gates. It allowed him to create his own paths.”
I look at the Unity Stone in my hand, remembering the triptych we found in Tyr’s vault where Tyr was depicted stepping off the branches of the World Tree itself.
That is when the idea strikes.“
If Tyr walked his own path…” I mutter aloud. “So can we.”
I take us to the mystic gateway by Brock's shop to enter the realm between realms.
We step to the edge of the World Tree's path, the ethereal void just one footstep away. I take the Unity Stone from my satchel, “This should save us,” I say. Atreus looks at me, uncertain.
“Should?” he repeats, raising an eyebrow.
I do not answer.
Instead, he climbs onto my back without protest, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. We exchange a glance and leap.
We fall.
Through light and shadow. Through time, perhaps. Through nothingness.
Atreus lets out a breathless laugh, exhilarated by the descent. I remain silent, focused, hand still clenched tightly around the Unity Stone. Just when it seems the fall will never end, the world bends and we land.
If it can be called that.
We stand in a place that defies logic—the branches of Yggdrasil twist in front of us creating a path within a realm that is not a realm. In the distance stands the lost Jötunheim tower, impossibly present.
Atreus gasps. “It’s really here…”
Mimir, his voice lowered with reverence, says, “Hiding a thing that exists in all realms in no realm. Ingenious. Tyr’s genius never ceases to impress even me.”
He pauses. “But keep your guard up, lads. Tyr’s puzzles are never what they seem.”
I grunt. “I’ve noticed.”
We step into the tower, the air still and hollow, as if it has held its breath for centuries. There is nothing, only a lone keystone pillar in the center of the chamber, its surface engraved with patterns that echo those on the Unity Stone.
Without a word, I approach and place the Unity Stone into the pillar. It sinks in with a deep, resonant hum. The tower shudders as if awakening from a long slumber.
“Brace yourselves,” Mimir warns.
We draw our weapons just as all four doors of the tower burst open.
From each, a swarm of Broods floods in. I call on the full reach of my Blades of Chaos, the chains singing as I sweep through the swarm, fire dancing in wide arcs. Atreus looses arrows with deadly precision, his confidence growing with each shot. Together, we wipe them out.
As the last creature falls, the doors slam shut. The tower lurches and then begins to shift, moving again.
It stops.
The doors open again and light bleeds into the chamber.
Alfheim.
Two dark elf lords, wings unfurled and glowing blades drawn, hover in the threshold. They strike with speed and ferocity, but I meet them with unwavering power, parrying their strikes with the Leviathan Axe while Atreus distracts and flanks. They fall, leaving only silence behind.
The tower groans again. Another shift.
Helheim.
The cold bites instantly, and frozen Hel Walkers stagger in, their hollow eyes glowing faintly. Two Vikens crash through the rear doors, massive axes swinging. The battle is brutal. I tear through them with the fury of flame, Atreus supporting with arrows.
Again, the tower shifts.
Muspelheim.
Heat surges through the stone. A fire-blooded Ogre bellows and charges, followed closely by a stone-skinned Troll. Their size dwarfs us, but not our resolve. I meet the Ogre head-on, my fists and blades pummeling him into the ground. Atreus distracts the Troll until I turn the axe on it, splitting its thick hide with a roar. The flames die down.
One last jolt, this one stronger than the rest.
The tower settles.
We step outside.
Midgard.
The tower itself has returned, standing once again in its rightful place.
Atreus looks around, amazed. “We brought it back…”
We are nearly there. The path to Jötunheim is close.
With the Jötunheim tower restored, we waste no time. We step into the realm travel room, anticipation building. Atreus aligns the tower, I inscribe the travel rune, and we prepare to initiate the final journey.
But just as the mechanism hums to life, Mimir speaks up.
“Wait… lads, we’re missing something. The travel crystal.”
Before we can even ask what he means, the travel attempt fails. The room dims, the portal refusing to open.
Mimir sighs. “Of course. Tyr had a gift from the giants—the gift of sight. He didn’t need a crystal because his eyes served as one. And unfortunately, I only have the one left… the other was taken by Odin.”
Atreus groans. “So we need to find your eye?”
Mimir nods. “Aye. When Odin took it, the dwarves were skulking around quite a bit. If anyone knows where it could have ended up, it’s them.”
We exit the realm travel room and make our way to the Huldra brothers’ shop. As we approach, Sindri greets us until he hears why we’ve come. The moment Mimir mentions his missing eye, Sindri turns pale.
“Odin… showed me the eye once. Said he needed something to contain it…” He stammers, covers his mouth, and bolts to the side to vomit.
Brok grunts. “Hmph. Odin asked me, too. Wanted the thing sealed inside some fancy statue. But it wasn't a weapon, so I passed.”
“Do you know which statue?” I ask.
Brok scratches his chin. “One of Thor. Holding his hammer aloft, all grand-like. But someone else must’ve finished it. Odin wasn’t the type to let things sit.”
Atreus’s eyes widen. “The statue the World Serpent ate—back when we first talked to him?”
Brok shrugs. “Could be. Odin had it set up near the Lake. Wouldn’t be surprised.”
I clench my fists. The path to Jötunheim blocked once again by Odin’s schemes.
But now we know where to look. We must talk to the World Serpent.
We leave the dwarves and make our way to the great horn near Tyr’s Temple. Mimir blows into it, and the deep call rolls across the Lake of Nine. The World Serpent heeds our call.
I hold up Mimir so he can speak and he explains our predicament in the ancient tongue. The World Serpent listens, then rumbles a response we do not fully understand but Mimir translates.
“He says… aye, he remembers the statue. It’s still in his belly. And he’s willing to let us search for it.”
Atreus turns to me, hesitation in his voice. “Is this safe?”
I answer truthfully. “I do not know.
”But with little choice, we make our way to a boat.
