[Some of you may have seen this large, bearded red head around Asgard recently. He looks fairly thoughtful as he addresses his bracelet for what turns out to be the first time to make a post of his own. Rider has been talking to a few people, Equius among them, who have pointed out their part in this ongoing war.

And Rider has been thinking about it. Which is either a very good thing, or a very bad thing.]

I have been discussing this matter with a few others, but we all seem to be at an impasse. So I have come to you, the general populace, for an answer to this question.

Where would we be able to acquire a number of horses?

[When the gear turns on you can see the bitty standing in the middle of the snow with an excited grin on his face. ]

Hello everyone! I think some of you might have noticed the odd thing that happened in the sky, a few weeks ago. Don’t worry it wasn’t an omen of the end; it was just part of a project my guild and a few other were working on to woke up the runic magic in the city. I want to thank all guild members and the kind people that helped as prepare for it. The magic is certainly up and running again.

To thank you all, Grimoire’s Sigil will be hosting a big party to celebrate. I’m not just inviting the people who helped; I’m inviting everybody that would like to come. Oh yes, I ask anyone have completed their arrays to demonstrate them at the party. How else can you celebrate a form of magic but to show what it can do.

To give you a taste of what you might see I’m going to show you something I’ve made with runes.

[In his hand is a long wooden stick with runes etched into its side. On the very top is a quartz crystal]

This is a gift to my friend, Regina. [He give it a little wave] It’s a sparkle wand; it does exactly what the name implies and a little bit more. Runes work just like our bracelets all you need normally to do is focus on making it work.

[It only takes him a second to focus on the item. The runes on the side begin to glow, slowly peeling away from the surface. They slowly float upward until and begin circle around the gem. The gem in question begins to glow softly.]

So the runes are active, time for the fun part!

[He waves the wand around in a large arch, this time small colorful sparkles come out. The sparkles landed on the snowy ground and onto of Aladdin.]

This wand makes sparkles of light and harmless to the skin and you can make as many as you like. You can make them any sort of colors you want. At this size it takes about a day for them to fade away or when want them too. The bigger you make them the less time they last. When you make it really big you can do something like this.

[He focus again this time gem glow blindingly, then he makes a sudden rising motion with his wand arm. A huge spark about the size of a watermelon, it shots from the gem straight into the sky before exploding into smaller sparkles. They briefly formed the shape of a cartoony lion face before slowly fall to the ground.]

This wand is just one of the things that can be done using runes, they are thousands of different arrays out there that wildly differ from this one. If you want to see more you have to come to the party.

I’ll be at the guild if you need me, bye!

[the feeds shuts off.]

Long time, no see, Asgard. The snow is very nice, isn't it?

[And here's a face which hasn't appeared in a while. Jacob stares at the camera with those bright blue eyes of his, voice ever so calm.]

You know, I know that we're still going over what to do about the Freya situation, and whether Freryr can or cannot be saved. It is a difficult decision, and I'll let that topic rest for now, as I know all of you have differing opinions on what should be done.

No, the topic I want to talk about is sacrifice.

[And he sits a little straighter in his seat- it's been a while since he's made such a post.]

Sacrifice that is instigated by yourself is generally considered a noble thing, for it means giving up something that is dear to you in order to do something or allow something to happen that never would occur before. Of course, sacrifice is not an easy thing to do, in practice. You may say you can sacrifice that precious something when the time occurs, but when it gets down to the wire, not many people have the courage to give it up.

So, when somebody goes and does something like sacrifice their life, well...it's rather tragic, it is. For one wonders if there might have been any possible way to avoid it, or if things had been different in circumstance, the person would still be alive...it's not an easy decision for he person to make, but at the same time it's hard for the people around them to witness such a thing.

But really, what I've always wondered is this- how do they know for sure that their own death will bring an end to the problems plaguing them and their beloved ones? Letting yourself die is effectively putting an end to what you can do, and even if you somehow come back as a ghost or spirit, you can only watch to see if what you did was the correct decision. That is why sacrifice is a very touchy thing, because while noble in nature, it could go very easily wrong if you decide its time to let it happen.

[A pause.]

So, is sacrifice worth it? Would you go and sacrifice your own life for your friends or beloved ones, knowing the risks that come with it? Or is it better left as a method of last resort?

What do you think?