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Lara looked over at Arnora as she let her figure out the way that they would be heading back down to their destination when she heard the barking. She blinked at that as she heard that bark resonated in her soul. She loved dogs but... Ratatoskr was no dog, and he was no normal squirrel. This was bad for them to be discovered on the World Tree so soon after they undertook their mission.

"Well then... I guess we need to climb faster." Lara muttered this to Arnora as she started to climb a bit faster at that point as she headed down the tree. Dear gods she did not want to fall down and die here. If she died here, she would die for real and that would not be a good thing for any of them. She focused on each step down, further and further down the tree as she followed Arnora's instructions as to where they were heading.

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Elizabeth left a sour taste in Runa's mouth, but at least she had been willing to give her an answer. If she fell, she would be devoured by a monstrous snake. And given her deathly fear of snakes, Runa had to coax her limbs slowly to continue to go through the motions and get ready for the climb. She wished that there was some sort of magic adhesive to let her stick to the tree like Spider-Man. Or a pill she could swallow in the event that she did fall so she could guarantee dying before hitting the bottom. But could they die twice? She wasn't sure. She paled at the idea that falling would always end up in survival and being conscious as a snake ate her, slowly being digested inside of the beast, aware the entire time...

She didn't know what Elizabeth's problem with her was and frankly, Runa didn't need to find a reason for it. She was used to people hating her and picking on her just because she existed. There had been tons of bullies in her school and even though Elizabeth was blind, it didn't mean she couldn't be cruel. Runa gave Nadia a slight nod, although she didn't say anything. She just made sure not to get too close to Elizabeth as she started to climb the tree, just so Elizabeth wouldn't have a chance to kick her off or anything.

The squirrel was definitely freaky too. It was massive, easily the size of a house.

Runa climbed a little faster.

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If Elizabeth wasn't already dead, Klara definitely would have killed her. Considering the fact that telling someone something that likely would be considered terrifying to just about everyone right before they were supposed to do some athletic activity was about the last thing you'd want to do. It was going to make them more likely to lose their grip or footing, causing them more likely to fall! She had been going to tell Runa later after the climbing activity, so that she didn't worry about it and then be better off that way. Elizabeth needed to learn to take a damn hint and not just say whatever the hell she wanted to.

"You'll do fine Runa, just think, we're getting out of Valhalla and back to Earth, not here, just back home to where we all used to live at one point. We've got this, we're going to be alright," she said to her with a smile. At the least she was trying to give some encouragement to Runa, "At least you don't have a cat who now has armor on your shoulders!" she added before she started the climb down as well. Before she started, she of course made sure that Betty was holding onto her shoulders tightly. It was probably a good thing that she had super strength, since it helped to make the rather large cat feel like she weighed practically nothing to her.

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"Hey guys be really careful with Ratatoskr, and avoid him as much as possible also if you have anything to plug your ears make sure you do it. His bark is far much worse than his bite." Arnora said she had seen the massive squirrel ocasionally whenever they were near some windows in Valhalla, and would avoid seeing him whenever she would sneak out of Valhalla as well to. "Lets keep going then." Nadia said as she started to follow shortly after everyone else and climbed down another branch that was much larger for the group to stand on. The barking was getting much more louder and frantic now as well before Ratatoskr was ontop of them and started to bark at all of them.

"You all are worthless, just jump off the branches and die!" Ratatoskr yelled as it would take a large swipe at Elizabeth, knocking her nearly off of the branch but would be able to get a small grip. Ratatoskr then focused on Runa it's beady eyes staring her down and started to insult her the most.

"You are the weakest link, you will fail finding your father and are worthless!" Ratatoskr said, as Nadia ran forward drawing her sword out, flames rising off of the blade. It would take on an element according to the season, and it was summer now on Midgard, she looked down seeing a smaller branch. "Dont listen to it, theres another branch below us." Nadia told Runa as she went to grab her hand and jumped and landed safely.

Arnora continued to move forward looking over at Runa and Nadia as they got down to a lower branch, and motioned for the others to follow Arnora reached down to try and grab Elizabeth's hand. "Here grab my hand." Arnora said offering to help the girl back up to her feet again, with each insult the massive squirrel said everyone would feel their morale drop.

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Walking up to the tree, Elizabeth rested her hands on the tree, and began to climb her way up. She wasn't gonna sugar coat things for the kid, Runa deserved a straight answer. Shrugging at the silence, she didn't actually hate climbing. There was only one direction to go, locked into a 2d plane, traveling up, rather than three directions for her to get lost in. The only thing she had to worry about was the squirrel, and how bad could that really be? She had that thought, as her body was knocked around like a rag doll by Ratatoskr, nearly kicking her off the tree.

Trying to keep her breath steady, she barely held on, finding her hand grabbed by a familiar touch. She gripped it hard, but didn't pull herself forward yet. She called over to the Squirrel, and called out, saying, "Leave us be Ratatoskr, you have better things to be doing." She tried, hoping to appeal to the monster's nature, "We'd rather not be fighting you, and we promise, the mission we're on is one you want completed." She proffered. It was a good point, if they failed this, Ratatoskr would probably end up dead, "Save us the trouble this time, and I'll get you back for it later, you have my word."

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"Elizabeth!" Lara couldn't help herself from crying out as she saw the other woman get knocked out of the branches at that point by Ratatoskr. Honestly, the words he was saying were ringing a bit true. She was worthless, wasn't she? She had failed to find Levi... she didn't know if she had rescued him. However, she looked at the group around her and knew that letting herself drown in those deep waters of regrets were not going to help them.

"Ratatoskr, we have been tasked by the Allfather on this quest, to find the lost god. Go back and carry out your mission and leave us to ours!" Pitiful words, at best, from Lara, even as she climbed down the branches. She was trying to focus now on the fact that she had done good. She was not worthless, she was one of the chosen! One of those that got to eat at the feast for the fallen. She had done good in her life. "Follow my voice Elizabeth, and I'll help you get down the tree."

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Runa nodded meekly at Klara's words of encouragement. She reminded her a bit of the guidance counselors at school - idealistic and chatty. She was waiting for Klara to start talking to her about transcripts and personal essays and what universities she was interested in applying to and what she was intending to study. Runa never really was interested in higher education - she wanted to just do her own thing off by herself. Maybe she would have opened up a metaphysical shop on Etsy, as she wouldn't need to see anyone ever and she could just spend her time off in the woods. That wasn't really in the cards anymore as she was dead and on a hopeless quest to save some supposedly dead god that she had never met before.

As she continued to climb, she braced herself as the squirrel barked at her - apparently bark was another English word for insult, she noted. She blinked and then smiled slightly. "Det er det? Det har ikke vært en dag jeg ikke har ønsket å drepe meg selv i årevis. Jeg hater hver centimeter av meg selv. Jeg føler meg som et spøkelse som har et lik. Du kan ikke få meg til å hate meg selv mer enn jeg allerede gjør," she whispered to the squirrel.

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"Ugh, he just needs to learn how to shut up!" Klara snapped with a bit of an eye roll to go along with it. The squirrel really needed to learn how to just shut up and not talk to anyone. But clearly he didn't have better things to do, but who really knew what squirrels did in their free time. It wasn't typically a question that she had ever thought to ask herself until that moment right there. There was no point in trying to respond to the squirrel, they were better off just ignoring him all together, but that was just her opinion.

Of course, Elizabeth (seeing as she almost fell off) decided to talk to the squirrel and more or less threaten it. Yeah, like that was going to end well. Then again, no one said anything about Elizabeth ever being considered smart. Actually she was pretty sure the girl was almost completely useless because of her attitude alone, Klara at the least didn't want anything to do with her and she wondered if anyone actually would want to work with her. Oh well, at least she was on a different assigned team to go off on this thing, so Klara could happily ignore her entirely, and at least she had no problems staying on the tree and she easily climbed to the next branch.

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Nadia was a little bit worried about Runa as Ratatoskr had insulted her, and just about everyone else as well to. "No one even loves you child of Baldur. And you have no friends child of Loki!" Ratatoskr yelled as Nadia looked down and noticed a shimmering portal on one of the branches. They needed to get there as soon as possible she wasnt even sure where it would lead, she did hope that it would be able to get them all back to Midgard as quickly as possible.

"I see a portal you guys." Nadia said, as Ratatoskr took another swipe but it was aimed at Nadia, cutting her back rather badly as she stumbled forward wincing in pain. "Trying to reason with Ratatoskr will not do anything which will make it pointless Elizabeth." Arnora called out to her, Ratatoskr was more focused on giving Veðrfölnir the hawk on top of Yggdrasil lies and insults as well as spreading rumors and doing the same to Níðhöggr at the bottom of the world tree.

Nadia stumbled through the portal, as well as Arnora jumped through the portal as well to as they both started to look around seeing that they were in some kind of alleyway. Nadia walked forward seeing a few cars driving by and noticed a newspaper on the ground from the Boston Harold letting out a slight sigh that they were where they needed to be right now as she turned around waiting for the others to get through the portal as well.

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"Through the portal then!" Lara scrambled over the branches and then sighed at that as she looked at the large squirrel once more. Thankfully it was not slinging insults at her, thought honestly the squirrel could easily hit some of her sore spots with his words. She soon reached the portal and lept through it with ease.

She landed in what some might call the super hero landing, on both knees and one hands, before she picked herself up and dusted herself off at that point. She looked around and then looked to Nadia and Arnora and nodded a bit. They were in Midgard, that she knew. Boston, if she remembered correctly, of course she was proven correct when she saw the Boston Harold newspaper on the ground. "Well then... we're in Midgard. Where do we go from here? Also... wait. Oh shoot." She realized her error in jumping through the portal with the others. "We were headed to Helheim..."

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If Elizabeth still had them, she would have rolled her eyes at the monster. The words would have hurt her maybe, if she didn't know she was trying to be hurt. She'd learned a long time ago that the pain of indifference was fundamentally worse than a pain of intent, and she wasn't about to grant anything to the rodent that was indifferent to the end of all creations. Creatures that revealed in misery were of little interest to her, so she had no trouble brushing its words aside. "Your life is a worship of suffering, pity to you." She spat towards the creature, before righting herself on the tree.

Focusing as moment, she got her bearings, and rested her fingers on the bark. Solid enough for her blindfold to give her a sense of the landscape around her, she plotted a route. Getting to the portal was of course, the number one priority, and she'd be making sure she reached it without running into anybody. Putting on hand in front of the other, she scaled the tree, making a beeline for the exit, looking forward to at least being on solid ground again soon. With a last pause as she reached it, she thought briefly of saying one last thing to Ratatoskr, but decided against it, and went through the portal.

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Ratatoskr's words hit their mark this time, deflating Runa's self esteem in record time. Her chin wobbled first and her breath hitched. She tried to avoid the inevitable, but she couldn't. He was right - no one loved her. She didn't even love herself, so how could she blame them? Her life hadn't meant anything and her death was just a cosmic joke. She wasn't capable like the others here - they had superpowers and what could she do? Nothing. Tears spilled from her eyes and blurred her vision. She couldn't force herself to climb, just wanting to dissolve into nothingness and die - again. She wished for an afterlife where she didn't exist, one where she didn't have to feel this pain. There was one thing she knew she could do to make the pain stop - her fingers itched for a razor. It felt like she had been clinging to the tree, crying her eyes out in misery for hours before she could make herself move again, before she could continue her descent.

She struggled with the idea of just jumping into the portal and hoping her head would be bashed in against the pavement. Each movement of her arms and legs felt completely impossible. When she passed through the portal and hit the ground, it didn't feel real - it all felt like it was happening to someone else. Her head was spinning and all she could do was cry, unable to even breathe naturally. She was having a complete breakdown, not even aware of her surroundings. She could have been in Paris for all she knew.

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She was starting to get somewhat worried about what was potentially going through Runa's head. Klara knew, despite not knowing Runa for very long, that it seemed like she didn't seem very confident in herself to begin with. The giant rodent clearly wasn't helping with that, but she knew better then to try and fight with him or argue. He couldn't be reasoned with, and always seemed to think that he was right. Though she felt like he was right in what he said to Elizabeth, that just seemed like he was stating a fact, at least in her opinion, more then just insulting her.

Klara jumped through the portal, following after the others as she went in, and through to the other side, hitting the ground and once more making sure that her cat was still sitting on her shoulder comfortably. Her mind started racing when she saw Runa have a bit of a breakdown and started crying, and she wasn't sure if it was from stress, the glorified rodent, or a random combination of both. She had no idea, but the one thing she did know was that she felt horrible for her. "Hey Runa? Are you okay?" Klara asked her quietly, looking at her unsure of what else to say.

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Nadia winced slightly as she reached behind her back feeling that she was bleeding a bit when Ratatoskr had hit her, she turned her head seeing the others quickly joining her. She was glad that everyone was able to make it, but her attention turned towards Runa seeing her breaking down she started to make her way over towards her. "Hey, it's okay Ratatoskr is a real old and crusty asshole just ignore anything that he says his insults were really lame to." Nadia said trying to cheer her up somewhat. "You guys can go ahead, we can catch up." Nadia said, hoping that the others would be able to leave the three of them and give them some space.

Arnora looked at Runa for a moment as she walked over towards her and knelt down gently gave her a hug, feeling like she did really need one. Knowing Ratatoskr he had managed to hit a nerve with her looking at both Elizabeth and Lara before standing up she nodded in agreement she didnt want to overwhelm Runa at all right now. "Lets go ahead and see what we can find." Arnora suggested while looking at the three of them. "Just catch up when you can we'll find a way to get to where we both need to be." Arnora said as she turned around and started to leave the alleyway that they were dropped in and onto the sidewalk. She eventually found the docks a few minutes later and started to search for one boat in particular.

"The docks shouldnt be to far." Arnora said looking around still admiring how times had really changed before she became an Einherjar, and started to head down the sidewalk, hopefully the others would be able to catch up as soon as possible.

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Rolling into Boston, Elizabeth felt her feet, and hands, hit the pavement. "Where are we, can anybody tell?" she asked. It'd been a while since she was last on Midgard, and she didn't exactly keep up with what civilizations had or hadn't fallen since she left. She knew America was big right now, she'd picked up on that from the new kids that had shown up. That being said, even if she had, she didn't expect to be able to tell where she was just buy the ground in front of her, but she hoped she'd hear a name she roughly knew about. Either way, she needed a moment to breath.

She picked up on the fact that Runa was less than happy, and normally she might try to say something to make her happy, or at least provide insight, but she knew that that just wouldn't be welcome from her. So instead, she just kept her mouth shut, if only to keep a mental breakdown of one of her team members from further endangering the mission. She got it, in a way, the words of Ratatoskr could be cutting, especially to somebody who just moved onto the hotel. It was too much, and if Runa could make it through this in one piece, it'd be a miracle.

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Lara stood herself up at that point and offered her help to others up and then looked around at that point. Boston... Midgard. She had been here before, and thankfully the city didn't seem to be that much different from the last time she had been here. She liked Boston for that reason. Of course, it was the same as her hometown of Amsterdam. She missed it so much... but she knew that she couldn't go back anytime soon.

"So to the harbor then? I'm guessing we'll be looking for a boat to take us to where we need to go?" Lara made sure that she didn't leave Elizabeth behind as she caught up to Arnora. She knew that mortals would be staring at them but then they'd look away and forget that the girls had been there. Thankfully that was how things worked with mortals, with them trying to ignore the obvious that was right in front of them.

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Runa slowly regained awareness of her surroundings, but the crushing black cloud of depression and anxiety did not lift. The storm continued in her mind, leaving Runa's spirit scrambling for shelter against the elements. She felt ashamed to be breaking down like this in front of Klara and the others. It probably made them hate her, wishing that they had someone who didn't cry so much with them on this. They'd probably be better off if they left her behind and just did this quest themselves. The universe would be better off. Everything she touched was just going to rot, it was probably a mistake and her parent was actually the god of decay or something, not Baldur.

She flinched at Arnora's embrace. Runa was very much a person who needed personal space. She didn't like people going up to her and just hugging her, but she understood that Arnora was just trying to be kind and helpful. It only made Runa feel more ashamed that she'd react like that to someone's kindness. Yeah, the others definitely didn't want her around, she was sure of that. "I'm okay," Runa said weakly. She knew that it didn't sound convincing, but usually people just accepted it when she said stuff like that. They were usually just relieved they didn't have to have someone sad and depressing around anymore.

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Personally Klara had no intentions of telling Elizabeth where the hell they had ended up. She was still annoyed with everything that she had done not all too long ago, so she still didn't want to talk to her. Right now though, she was more concerned with how Runa was doing as she had seemingly had a mental breakdown of some sort. Klara was relatively glad when Runa ended up speaking up and saying something, even if it was more or less just her trying to reassure them that she was alright. She was glad to hear the words out of her mouth, so at least Runa seemed to be calming down slightly.

"It'll be alright Runa... Do you want to take another minute to catch your breath before we go after the others? Or do you want to head after them right now?" she asked her softly, giving her a smile. If Runa wanted to wait a little while first, that was totally understandable. They had a little bit of time before they really needed to get moving, so she gave Runa the option to head off or to wait another moment. Rushing someone who clearly was still having a hard time processing everything, at least in her mind, was a majorly bad idea.

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"We are in Boston right now." Nadia answered Elizabeth, as much as she was annoyed by her attitude earlier she still had a right to know anyway, she turned to look at Runa and nodded towards her slightly as she stood up holding a hand out to Runa so she could stand up. She had watched Arnora heading out of the alleyway and looked at Runa. "If you ever want to talk, feel free to anytime." Nadia said to her, hoping that she would take up on the offer. "Lets get going." Nadia said as she turned around and started to follow shortly behind Arnora, until they were at the docks and looked around. "So what are we looking for exactly?" Nadia asked Arnora.

"We are looking for a ship, we'll need one to find the Naglfar somewhere in Niflheim." Arnora said as she looked around before spotting two dwarves on a nearby dock, they were counting money on the table while talking amongst themselves. Arnora closed her eyes for a moment as she looked around the area and then pointed over towards a nearby bar. "Nadia, Runa and Klara I think you'll find where you three need to go through there." Arnora said looking at the three of them. "We will be going our sperate ways now, so good luck." Arnora said to the three of them before motioning for Lara and Elizabeth to follow her.

"Thank you, and good luck." Nadia said as she watched Arnora turning to go and talk to the two dwarves before looking over at Klara and Runa. "Alright lets get going then." Nadia said as she started to walk forward, she eventually made it to the building that Arnora mentioned and opened it inside was a rather spacious looking bar. There were a lot of people who looked slightly shorter than an average person, Klara would recognize them as Dwarves rather quickly.

Arnora stood in front of the two dwarves before her looking down at them as they stopped and then looked up at the three of them. "What can we do for you ladies?" One of them asked. "We'd like to borrow your boat for awhile if it is possible?" Arnora asked as the two dwarves talked amongst each other, one of them grinned slightly and nodded. "Sure thing, just follow us." He said as he got up and made his way over towards their boat.

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As people continued to ignore her, Elizabeth exhaled. She was used to being disliked, but this bordered on idiocy to her. Hold her accountable for her actions, sure, chew her out when they were back at the hotel even, but deliberately withholding information for no other reason than to spite her? What was with that? There were stakes to this mission that literally the entire world would feel the consequences of, and most of them were happy to let their emotions get in the way of that. It was juvenile, dangerous, and just all around irresponsible.

Nodding in the direction of Nadia's voice, she said, "Thanks Nadia, I appreciate it." Quite frankly, she didn't mind splitting up the group a bit, less people hating her at once would at least be easier to process, and hopefully Amora and Lara would be generally more pleasant towards her. Getting some distance between her and Runa would ultimately, she thought, be in the best interest of the mission. That was where the greatest tension was, and if they could get that out of the forefront of all their minds, then they might have a chance on concentrating on what's important. Elizabeth followed after Amora, focusing on not getting lost in the city despite her blindness.