Female complications, day 34 Travelling in dimmensions.

It feels a bit abrupt that the ship left for Borgarsandr early in the morning, but again I didn't have to go, and I'm quite happy to not spend a day on a ship in cold winter weather, and there will be another day travelling back. Iselin brought her parents to show them her farm outside Borgarsandr, and Borgheim and the royal castle, and just spend time with her parents. Kari came along even though Kari would have preferred to stay here and take advantage of Iselin being away for a couple of nights, but she have things to do there. Once again Kari seems very motivated to not let others see what she has bought-ordered. Ciara, Jane and Caecilia are not sorry about her decision, because they have stayed here.

Elvira, Ida, Elin, Soma, Hillevi and Raneigh joined them. Raneigh was brought along to make it clear that she now works for us, which she appreciates. Hillevi was so keen to go to Borgarsandr, so she for the first time could really see the town she has lived quite a lot of years in, and truly see the archipelago along the way. Walking, horse riding or boat trips probably doesn't matter, because Hillevi wants to truly see the surroundings and the country for the first time without it being blurry. There is no doubt that she loves her glasses.

Hillevi is hardly alone with pretty severe vision problems so we should start mass-producing glasses by setting up our own craftsman and opticians shop here just for that, but for now I've just tasked Iselin with getting a lot more glass of the best optical clarity, and preferably yellow or clear, and get glass for arc lamps and other things. It feels damn good that Iselin understands what I mean when I say something like that, and how to test the glass. She's brought a good magnifying lens along to inspect and find the best glass for glasses, even though we're going to try to re-melt it where it's been liquid for a long time, and we might try making a partial vacuum to really draw out air bubbles. Of course, a part of Iselin's motivation is to get better glass and lenses for a telescope.

It's still too early and the sun hasn't risen yet, but Jane is a morning person and likes to torment me with morning exercising. Or at least the forenoon. And the weather is good and looks like staying that way for the day. Pedr and his workers are preparing to open up the roof and start building on the attic, so it will be a somewhat noisy day. When we walk outside we see Ryla and Agnes getting ready, so they join us while we jog. They have probably been waiting for us hoping we would jog, and Ryla has probably been the driving force behind that decision. Ryla and Agnes seem to have a bit of the same dynamic as Alith and Bodil, where Ryla, like Alith, is the driving force and more forward and engaging, while Agnes, like Bodil, is the more quiet one who follows along and is in the background. For example, it was mainly Ryla who made them leave Forsheim and travel here.

The bodyguards have noticed that Ryla seems to be trying to copy Alith with throwing spikes, knives, tomahawk and borrow other practise throwing weapons like shuriken and chakram too, probably because Alith is almost always with me, and Ryla hopes to be too. Ryla is also trying to learn from Caecilia for what her personal servant service means, and skills and knowledge she needs, and is really trying to learn reading-writing-counting, Laitje, Norse and the like. Which frankly has made it more likely that Ryla will be a secret bodyguard given how dedicated and skilful Ryla is or is becoming, and according to Jane, Ryla has quickly absorbed elements of Krav Maga and combined it with her existing fighting techniques, acrobatics and dance like moves.

There are short breaks while we jog as we more permanently mark out the exercise trails for the future, and of course we talk as usual about a lot of things. There is a subject I need to bring up with her, so might as well do it, and English works well as a secret language. Plus Jane is still not fluent enough in Norse. And she thinks if feels more Midgård when we talk in English.

"Jane, you really shouldn't get any hopes up, and what I've said when we moved here still applies. We are never going back. But I have been thinking about it, and I will always wonder about my theories, so I should try to gather data."

"About going back to Midgård?"

"Yeah. I still don't think we will be able, and it will take many years or decades to maybe have some information. It might all be futile, but then future generations will know that it didn't work. A possible test in the future would take place far in the north where Auroras are more common in the winter, and where there shouldn't be any changed ground either here or in Midgård. A small hydrogen balloon is tethered with a long thin copper wire to a block of metal just resting on the ground, that is aloft in the right weather to try and direct lightning strikes down. If there is a lightning strike while an Aurora happens, someone nearby will be sent to check the test site out, but not stay there. The balloon and wire will be gone if lightning have struck, but if there isn't any sign of the grounding block, that ground might be from another world. That person will then take soil and tree samples so a lab can try and find chemical signatures that doesn't match, or plastic scrap that shouldn't be here. The person leave with the samples and periodically return to see if the grounding block returns, preferably from a distance with a telescope. To increase the chance of something happening, there need to be a few of these test sites, and at least a couple of them should be where we arrived here on Hardangervidda. I can find the exact spot I was in, and I have located on a map and written down where your GPS track ended."

"You really have thought about this."

"Yeah. But there's plenty of problems, and the biggest is the balloon. Hydrogen is easy to make, but horrible to store and it will leak out of pretty much everything eventually, and even static electricity might set it off. Hydrogen is the smallest atom so trying to make any material contain it is hard, and I think only Helium is harder to contain since two hydrogen atoms probably binds together, while Helium is a noble gas. The atoms of every material is larger than hydrogen, and no mating surfaces or seal is perfect on the atomic scale. Also hydrogen reacts with a lot. I don't expect to reach those extremely low temperatures were hydrogen is liquid. So those balloons will leak, and won't stay airborne for long. If during my lifetime I manage to make any form of balloon stay airborne for a couple of days, I will be quite pleased. There is also the problem of hydrogen embrittlement. Storing hydrogen in pressurised metal tanks makes them brittle. I don't know enough about this, only that it is a really bad idea to store hydrogen in normal steel tanks for too long. They have a lifespan, and if they stay pressurised they might suddenly explode like a big bomb. And the metals here is as it is. Every high pressure tank will be regularly inspected and tested, even the small ones I'm experimenting with for different purposes.

But those are manageable problems that I can work around even if that takes a couple of years, especially for sites like up on Hardangervidda that is hard to reach. Imagine spending the nordic winter testing this, especially up on Hardangervidda where the winter last for 7 months, and if the weather seem to be heading for a storm to head out and send up the balloons. It will be harsh for that person, but it is doable, and I can make sure the house is warm, with more than enough nutritious food and good equipment, and preferably with two or more people doing one or two week shifts. Early arctic explorers and people living in the far north will have it far worse. Just reading about the Shackelton expedition is eye opening, and the misery they and other polar explorers endured is mind boggling. I have an idea about building a training station up on Hardangervidda for winter training and equipment testing, that should be manned around the year. The test site could be part of it, but a couple of kilometers away, and the training station will be where we know there are buildings in Midgård, like Hadlarskard and other smaller cabins. The more technological Alfheimr become, the more options opens up. I've basically already made everything I need for a simple mechanical automatic low power radio beacon with all Alfheimr tech. A few of the test site could include a radio beacon going beep for 10 seconds or so every half hour, and the person managing the sites could listen on a receiver. If the beacon doesn't beep, you know it stopped working, or it is no longer in this world."

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"Okay, you really really have thought about this."

"Yeah. A far in the future upgrade I'll be to improve these sites, and include a much better and more automated radio unit. It listens for a signal sent from a managing site every 15 minutes, and answers with a special beep. If there is a storm approaching the whole site might be remote controlled and a balloon automatically sent up by that radio unit, or most likely remotely triggered by another signal on a different frequency. I can probably do something like that in the near future with spark gaps and mechanical timers, but battery life and timer rewinding and running is the issue. A small wind turbine and electric rewinding can solve that, but it might not be transported to another world if there is too much technology or metals or such. A future upgrade I won't be able to make, is if that control signal disappears, the test site radio unit starts scanning radiobands and record until that signal returns or the data storage runs out, and it might after a set time actually start to beep to call attention to itself. Either way that someone managing the units have to go and check the test site as usual. Batteries and the balloon or balloons will need replacing anyway, and there's probably other maintenance. If the radio unit disappear and actually returns it might bring back proof that the other world have radio signals, and it might get voice or data transmissions that might tell about that world.

If we have many sites, they should get similar data at similar frequencies, since the test sites aren't really that spread out. If they get different data, they might have gone and returned from different worlds. I know quite a few important frequencies that should have signals in Midgård, and are unlikely to change in the near future, and we are already writing down enough of English and French that it should be possible to identify those languages, and I could probably add a bit of Russian, German and Spanish too. You know I hope to be able to save recordings of our voices in the future, and just saying numbers 0-10, common greetings and such will help. Anyway, then you might really be on to something and have some facts and data about dimensional travel and where you might end up."

"Bloody hell! That sounds like a really good plan! I also need to learned to let you finish before I say something. Gods, you've really thought about this! I get why you said to not get my hopes up, but that actually sounds good! That is a plan!"

"Thank you. It will take years and be a lot of work, but imagine if we get any results at all. Who knows? It would be quite a thing if it works, especially if it is the returning area type of travel and we know that it will only take us to Midgård. According to their lore, Alfheimr should only be connected to Asgård or Midgård, but that might be wrong. Anyway, that would make it possible to do a lot of things without giving away the secret to Midgård or anyone else."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"You could actually send an automatic transmission on a frequency someone would listen on, to tell about us and Alfheimr, but that would open up that can of worms."

"Yeah. I've thought about that too and the easiest way to do it, and I would be able to do that before autumn; if that control signal disappears the test site radio unit starts to beep on one of the important SOS emergency frequencies, or just a frequency where it will be noticed, like radio amateur bands or aeroplane bands. It might have a short recorded message in morse on a wheel that keeps repeating, like SOS and the units longitude and latitude. The whole unit can be painted orange and include a small book or sealed jar with a lot of information and sketches. So if it actually moves to another world, it can bring a lot of info and shout out 'help, please find me' across the radio spectrum. Spark gaps are not narrow band. But as you know that is a huge risk, since we don't know where it will end up, and it basically gives away the existence of Alfheimr to the one that finds it. Probably a Norwegian Search and Rescue team, and they're in NATO. If something like that radio unit ends up in another world and they come here, people here will know who is responsible, so we might as well include our names, stories and driver license numbers. We could include blood samples of me, you and a few or our Elvish friends. If they analyse the metals, they shouldn't find any nuclear isotope trace, which is an indication that every metal was made before the first nuclear test in 1945. The wood will also not match dendrology records."

"Bloody hell, love!"

We jog on in silence, and eventually we start talking again about other things and about pastimes others can do, because someone stuck out in the Nordic wilderness during the winter months needs something to do.

As for the trails, Jane and the others have helped, both with route selection and with making enough wear and tear that there is actually a visible trail, and they've used an axe and sword in some places to really clear the trail. The bodyguards have at least one axe with them anyway while jogging, especially as the tomahawks that have become more numerous are still being tested and evaluated, and I always have at least my multi-tool and usually a folding knife. Technically, I have more than that as when I now leave the house, I always wear an MB belt with its hidden gold-silver coins and weapons.

We have used existing trails and accessible terrain to make four different exercise trails on Small Ackerek. Inspired by downhill skiing but adapted to be visible and more logical, we have named them Blue, Yellow, Red and Black. The Blue is a loop south from Thrymheim of about 3 kilometers that loops back via the road through the village and the lakes, and is in total about 35 vertical meters, but all of that on the village to Thrymheim section. Yellow and Red trails snakes around most of Small Ackerek and is mostly the same, the difference is that Red goes over hills while Yellow goes round hills and dips. So Yellow is about 5.5 kilometers and 45 vertical meters, while Red is just over 7 kilometers and 280 vertical meters. Black is only 850 meters, but each lap passes over the mountain between Thrymheim and the village before going back down to the road on the other side and the back via the road, so 55 vertical meters per lap.

The Black trail is hard, and six laps is 5 kilometers of torture that the bodyguards have developed a love-hate relationship with, especially in full armour with chain mail, helmet, sword, spear and shield. The hatred comes from the exhaustion and the fact that most of the lap can be seen from Thrymheim's pavilion, so those not running can stand there and enjoy themselves, and almost half the distance is along the road, so others can also see them suffer. But everyone agree that the training has helped and it is now easier, and they have started to use a certain number of Black laps as something the loser of a bet has to do. Hillevi loves trying to force it, because she's been training a hell of a lot voluntarily and runs a few black laps almost every day, just to beat Jane and the others, and she's become something of a training fanatic, but Gunhild isn't far behind. It's not unusual to hear one of them say, "time to do some laps". The one who hates training the most is Raneigh who is 4 months behind the others in training, and even Ryla and Agnes have really good fitness, but Raneigh is motivated to achieve the others fitness, and she understands why our bodyguards have so much better fitness than the King's guards.

The plan was for future warriors to do the Red 7-kilometer run basically every other morning, and sometimes with a backpack, but we might create a new special trail in the northern forest. It's better that the public doesn't see the warriors training, and how they train.

Jane comes with a great suggestion, and I feel silly that I haven't thought of making a Jenga game. How hard is it to use a template to create evenly thick wooden blocks and cut them into lengths that are three times the width and stack them vertically? Annoying that I missed that, and I will ask the carpenter to make sets of 51 blocks. Might become a popular game. Not sure if I got the number of blocks right, but seems about right, and gives 17 layers which is a prime number, as is 3, which is the number of blocks in each layer. It appeals to the nerd in me regardless of what Midgård's Jenga game actually use. Jane rewards me with a "Bloody Nerd!" followed by a kiss.

So we detour to the carpentry shop, and I ask Engdrid to make four sets and 204 blocks, so we can test, and maybe more so I can give it away as small gifts to wedding guests. Cheap, easy and new. With the sawmill and carpentry shop machines, it's an easy and quick job for him. Engdrid is also going to make two sets of domino tiles but all the pits will take time to make and in the future domino pieces should be moulded in clay from templates if they are to be mass-produced. He will have to make a few sets of the game pick-up sticks too. I will have to work out the numbers and points, but he will make a pile of identical pick-up sticks. They don't have to be identical in diameter or perfectly straight, but bevelled tips are good for playing. I'm thinking Siri and Albriktr will get their own Jenga and pick-up stick games.

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