Appearing in "The Wager"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Loki
- magically-enlarged rats
- magically-animated mummies
- a small lizard magically transformed into a fire-breathing dragon
Other Characters:
- The captain of the expedition (Unnamed) (First appearance)
- Johannsen (First appearance)
- Hela (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Asgard
- City of Asgard
- Rainbow Bridge
- Valhalla (Vision or hallucination)
- Midgard (Earth) (circa 1000 A.D.)
- Norway
- A fishing village (Unnamed) (First appearance)
- "New World" (Greenland)
- Atlantean ruins (First appearance)
- Norway
- Jotunheim (Mentioned)
- Hel (Mentioned)
Items:
Vehicles:
- five Viking longboats (none named)
Synopsis for "The Wager"
In Asgard, one thousand years ago, a much younger Thor is tricked into accepting a wager from Loki. Thor will travel to Midgard, and join a Viking expedition to the new world. He will not have his power and will be forbidden to use Mjolnir. If he fails, he will be exiled to Midgard forever and give up all claim to the throne. If Loki loses, he will exile himself to Jotunheim, also forever. Of course, Loki has plans to cheat to ensure that he wins.
On Midgard, Thor travels to a fishing village in Norway and goes to the local inn where he, calling himself Sigurd, claims the last berth available on an expedition that is about to set sail for the New World in search of treasure. Meanwhile, Loki send his astral self to Greenland where he finds a long-deserted Atlantean outpost and prepares it for Thor and the expedition by setting deadly magical traps.
As the five Viking ships make their slow way across the North Atlantic, Sigurd finds himself beside Baldric. As they work together and compete with each other, Sigurd and Baldric become fast friends, and the now-mortal Thor gains respect for his new friend who matches him task for task.
Eventually, Loki begins his plot by secretly conjuring forth a fierce storm that sinks two of the five ships and drowns many of the men. Sigurd and Baldric help rescue others and pull them aboard their ship. Thor knows that he could end the storm and save the lives of the brave men but believes he cannot because doing so would forfeit the wager and enable Loki to one day rule Asgard. Thor realizes that it is because of his pride that these men are dying, but he must think of his duty to Asgard and the All-Father first.
Later, after the storm has subsided, land is sighted and a landing party is sent ashore to forage for food. Spotting the fairly-advanced ruins nearby, the interest that Sigurd and Baldric show in them causes the captain to appoint them as the leaders of a group who are to check out the ruins.
In Asgard, the Warriors Three and Balder speak with Odin, informing him of the wager that Thor made and of their suspicions that Loki may be cheating. They ask permission to join Thor on Midgard but Odin refuses their request, declaring that Thor has sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind.
In the ruins, Sigurd and the Vikings follow a corridor that leads only downwards. After hearing what sounds like scratching being made by large rats, some of them enter a small room and a door falls shut behind them, separating the party. Sigurd and Baldric and the others within the room are then attacked by giant rats who kill or injure some of them. Although tempted to regain his powers, Thor decides to fight like a man. Spotting water dripping from the ceiling, Sigurd realizes that there is a cistern above and that the leaking water may have loosened the mortar holding the stones in place. Sigurd manages tp pull a large stone loose and use it to batter a rat but then the water unleashed through the hole sweeps over the magically-enlarged rats and they disintegrate. After appointing Johannsen to stay with the wounded, Sigurd, Baldric and two others leave to search for a way out for them all. Since the only passage leads down, they descend to another chamber whose walls are lined with crypts. As Baldric inspects one of them, looking for treasure, the mummy within animates and attacks him, and the other mummies join in. The Vikings manage to all survive until one of them takes advantage of a moment when Baldric is distracted and stabs him in the back. Baldric soon dies in Sigurd's arms, causing Sigurd to battle even more fiercely to avenge his friend's death and inspiring the other two Vikings as well. Seeing that his undead warriors are going to be defeated, Loki casts a spell of transformation on a small lizard that turns it into a dragon that Thor knows is extinct everywhere except in Jotunheim. Realizing that this means that Loki has violated the terms of the wager, Thor feels free to act and uses Mjolnir to again become the mighty Thor who soon ends the threat of the dragon. Seeing that the Vikings are now worshipping him, Thor tells them that their courage and nobility has earned them the right to stand as his equals.
Once back in Asgard, an enraged Thor bursts into Odin's hall to confront Loki and prepares to send him to join his daughter in Hel. However, Odin stays his hand and states that Thor's pride and arrogance were as much to blame for what happened as Loki's dishonorable behavior. When Loki points out that the mortals had shown nobility and courage equal to his own, Thor is shamed by Loki's words and releases him. As Loki quickly leaves, Thor speaks of how he is certain that a soul as noble and courageous as Baldric must even now be enjoying the pleasures of Valhalla where the feasting never ends and the treasure is without limit.
Notes
- A sequel to this story appeared in Thunderstrike #20-21 as a bedtime story about Thor's past that Eric Masterson told to his young son Kevin. In that story, which was also written by Randall Frenz, ten years after Baldric's death, Thor (as "Sigurd") traveled to Baldric's village to check on Baldric's son, Cedaric, and discovered that he was a pacifist who did not respect his father because he regarded him as a man whose greed for treasure left his wife a penniless widow and his son an orphan.
- The sequel adds some information about Baldric's life that wasn't presented in this story, like the fact that he had a wife with whom he had a son, and that he had asked Sigurd to give his sword, Skullcrusher, to his son when he came of age. Presumably Baldric told Sigurd these things BTS in this story.