Svenya Yngvildsdottr
The awakening
Night passes without any significant events, as the party rests from the day's exertion. Svenya sleeps fitfully, but her night still ends up better than that of Jormund. He does not care much for the hidden world of signs and omens, and scoffs at the idea of the giant owl that watches over the party as being a servant of the Goddess of Wisdom. It is not clear if this is Snotra herself, or just an owl, but it certainly does not demonstrate politeness, refinement or respectability as it rewards Jormund's cynicism by dumping a rat onto him. To the amusement of all except Jormund, Shepard starts growling at him and he seems to be marked to attract wild animals. Svenya just hopes that one of the bears they are looking for do not try to mate with Jormund. Or maybe it would be interesting and entertaining in a weird sort of way to see that?
The party makes their way up to the cave where the hibernating bears could be found.
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[Svenya --]
What is it about the machismo culture of having to slay a bear to prove your worth as a warrior? We make our way deeper into the icy cave, accompanied by the sound of dripping water. We come across a little chasm, and I manage to do an awesome jump plus a fancy s0mersault from the wall. Look at me! I could be an entertainer at the highest court! I giggle and think that I am such a show-off. A little further into the cave things turn a bit more serious as we find a fresh trial of blood leading around the corner. It has a slight shimmer to it and when I touch it a golden ripple goes down the trial.
Just around the corner we find a woman dressed in glowing armor lying next to a large pool of water. She is breathing shallowly and seems to be bleeding out. She looks like the depictions of valkyries I have seen in some carvings, but why would one of them be here? There is no battle? And what happened to her to cause her to be unconscious? As I touch her to make her more comfortable, a golden glow spreads from my hands and surrounds us with a warm, sparkling, healing aura. As surprised as I am, it is probably some magic coming from her body or her armor, but it felt ... real? I know I did not focus my attention on the magic required to use my words to heal, but still ...
She opens her eyes, but the poor thing must be delirious, as she seems to recognise me and addresses me as "sister". She grasps my arm as she gasps: "You have to stop them!" "Wh ... what?" I stammer, and I must look as confused as I feel, as she reaches behind her and pulls out a golden mask which she offers to me. "Find the one who wears the golden mask and put an end to her. She has wormed her way into Odin's court, and I am not sure if Loki is involved". I swallow deeply but before I can open my mouth to say something she continues: "Something else: give me my sword, so that I can die in battle". This my brain is at least able to process, and after taking a few moments to accept that she knows her death is imminent and that she needs to die bravely, I nod and help her to her feet.
Her wings spread out magnificently as she stands with the sword in her hand, looking at the party. She shakes her head when I propose that Jormund fight her, and again says to me: "You must fight me, sister. Help me earn my place in Valhalla". At this point I am not going to correct her on the whole sister thing, and although I am VERY sure there is no way I can hold my own in one-on-one combat against anyone, especially a valkyrie, I swallow the large lump in my throat and stop myself from pointing out that being defeated by me is not a feat of bravery as I raise my axe and shield. Honoring dying wishes and all that. Even near death she is a fearsome opponent, and I think I survive mostly by distracting her focus and aim with my magical words. After the exchange of some blows and parries I manage to strike the deathblow that she sought. As her body explodes in light I am filled with a sense of ... hope... or maybe of surety ... that her soul has been taken to Valhalla. I offer a quick prayer to Odin anyway, just in case.
As the light dissipates only her sword and winged helm remain and it seems fitting that I place the helm on my head. It is as if the dim darkness suddenly explodes with a panoply of light and colour. I swish the sword experimentally - it is a long, pointy thing and seems to be much more suited to poking and stabbing like my spear, rather than the slashing I am used to when using my axe. It fits really comfortably in my grip - in fact so comfortably that I do not think I will share it with any of the other party members.
This momentary distraction does not, however, stop the churning refrain of questions and thoughts whirling through my head. It is one thing learning and recounting the myths and legends of the gods and their servants and their enemies when they are concepts and ideals that live far away in another plain, and a totally different thing to encounter two of those in my actual reality and have them shed some of my actual blood in the course of two short days.
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The pool in front of the party glimmers with gold and jewels and other treasures, beyond anything that Svenya or the others have ever seen. The walls are covered in ash, and it seems to be some creature's lair. There is a small pool with some sort of shape at the far end, so Gorm turns into a salmon and swims down to investigate, whilst Carmilla does her weird spider climbing on walls thing. It is a water elemental that guards the treasure hoard, but for now it seem to be more curious than aggressive.
The exploration is interrupted by the sound of something coming into the cave, possibly carrying some sort of prisoner by the sounds of cursing going on. Svenya sneaks around the corner and is shocked to be confronted by a dragon carrying what appears to be a human that is on fire. She almost succeeds in talking her way past the dragon, but at the last moment things go shit-shaped and the party gets chased down the tunnels by the dragon. Attempts to slow it down aren't quite good enough, and the dragon blocks their escape at the entrance. The fiery humanoid is a being called Trus, and he joins forces with the party when it becomes clear that they have to fight the dragon if they do not wish to die in this cave.
An epic battle between the dragon and the party ensues, with everyone throwing everything they have at it as they are driven deeper into the caves by the relentless onslaught. Shepard does his disgusting biting thing (remember that rude shanty Svenya sang yesterday?) and does serious damage to the dragon's long term parenting prospects. A few of the party members get taken out of the fight and brought back by healing magic. Svenya finds that the Valkyrie's sword can dance in the air and attack on its own when she says a celestial word that pops into her head.
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[Svenya --]
The dragon makes many references to his father and how he should have listened to him during the battle. I wonder if it is just (some) humans who have issues with their parents? It is a near thing but Trus finally manages to strike the killing blow that fells the dragon, in a poetic turn of the tables. He is actually the fire genasi that manages the giants at Jotun's Crossing - something on our sightseeing list that we made before we left Braudavik three days plus a lifetime ago. Although I tell Trus that we owe him for helping us as much as he owes us for saving his life, he promises to reward us when we get to Jotun's Crossing and takes his leave to attend to his business. I have a long thin burn scar across the lower half of my back to remind me of the flame he used to seal the gash the dragon made when it nearly killed me. I wonder if I would have gone to Valhalla and be met the Valkyrie there, and what our conversation might have been like? I grimace as I picture her disappointed voice saying: "Imagine running into you here, and so shortly after our last meeting? Did you do what I asked you to do?"
We killed a dragon! As the adrenaline flows out of my veins I realise the epic enormity of this and our whoops of victory fill the cave.
While we survey the carnage left from the final explosion caused by Trus, the giant owl that has been following us for the last two days fly past us into the middle tunnel, from where we can hear roars and screeches. We somehow conclude that the dragon was looking after many creatures in the forest, and I cannot help but wonder if killing it was a good thing to do, and what would happen to all of those creatures now that he is no longer providing food for them. I would like to investigate the screeches, but we are in no shape to go fight with anything larger than a bread roll for dinner.
Battered and bruised but elated nonetheless, we make our way back to the pool and the hoard for a rest. I cannot resist jumping against the chasm wall and showing off my acrobatic skills, and again luck is on my side and I do not end up on my ass on the ice. The water elemental is quite happy to chat to Ursula now that his master is dead, and does not seem to mind us taking trinkets and jewels and so forth out of the pool. One of the things we find is a beautiful lyre that is clearly magical. It is a bit embarrassing to take it but once I start playing the sounds it makes are beautiful beyond anything I have ever managed to coax out of a musical instrument before. I can feel the magic surging through my fingertips as I sing the soothing healing songs, and I know that tonight's rest will be better than usual.
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Svenya picks up the golden mask which had been left lying next to the pool in the unexpected battle with the dragon. Gorm makes more headway in examining the mask, which the valkyrie must have picked up somewhere during a battle. The wounds she was bearing looked similar to the ones inflicted by the draugr, so the wearer of the mask might not have been alive? There are strange runes written on the inside of the mask. They look ancient and strangely unsettling, but no-one is able to read them.
The panicked screeches continue through the night, although it dies down a bit later. Some scratching sounds approach the tunnel during Mikill's watch but there only seems to be tracks of bears in the morning. After harvesting the dragon in the morning, Svenya's curiousity gets the better of her, and she sneaks down one of the tunnels to see what she can find. After coming across an air elemental she turns and runs away, and the party makes their way further north.
An ominous omen
20th Junal, 522
Svenya grins in anticipation as the party sets out from Braudavik after weeks of hanging around in town, doing boring adulting stuff. Training, working, selling their produce in the market - at least there were a couple of interesting traders or travellers with tales to tell of the lands far away. It is properly winter now, with snow a few feet deep and short days and long nights. She drinks in the clear clean smell of the air, and feels the brisk cold on her cheeks as she pulls the warm winter cloak she had gotten from Yngvild closer around her shoulders - it is much more than she deserved as a reward for her help, but also a reflection of her applying all the persuasive skills at her disposal to the cajoling and begging she went through.
She thinks about the ritual that Gorm had conducted with his mother, and the strange meaning of it all. What does the return of Aleson Jarl of Flostervik mean, and where does the large fleet he saw in the vision come from ? As her boots crunch through the fresh snow she ponders the options available, and the route they have plotted. Go check out the special rocks at the wooden bridge, investigate the draugr at the graveyard, travel north to investigate some caves that are said to contain bears, go investigate the rumours that the Old Dwarven Door north of town is open, maybe pick up a few bounties along the way? She is certainly up for that - the 15 gold pieces that she has in her chest is a large amount by many standards, but when she offered to pay one of the travellers for information about a long-lost shield, he laughed at the pitiful amount she had available. More gold is good.
All in all this adventuring thing is much preferable to the boring work of adulting.
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[Svenya --]
The graveyard is the burial place of a previous Jarl of Braudavik, whose name has been lost to time. Not surprisingly there are a few skeletons and zombies hanging around but we make short work of them. A more serious threat in the form of a Tveiherjar draugr emerges from the central grave. It glares at me and whispers something to me in a language I do not understand. I am used to some of the men in the village staring at me, but this is different - there is something cold, hateful, evil in the stares. It strikes at me with its sword, but misses both times. I mock it as I run away, and a ferocious battle ensues. I don't think we have ever fought so hard and our shield training comes into good stead - I must thank Jormund's mother if I make it out of here alive. Ulfhild takes a nasty wound from the sword but, Ulfhild being Ulfhild just continues to hit it with her axe.
As we finally kill it, the sword it used disintegrates together with its body.
There are a lot of stones in the graveyard that look similar to the infected rock Ulfhild found. The graves appear to be arranged in runic patterns, but one of the patterns are broken. I wonder if this is where the necromantic energy is seeping into this place? Maybe the runes can be repaired and re-activated to create protective magic against undead. I recall a tale about Nidhogg and how his hatred for the Valkyries who take all the best warriors for Odin and Freya resulted in the creation of the Tveiherjar draugr. But why would that happen here in Braudavik? We have some fine shieldmaidens and warriors for sure, but nothing that would hint at us being important enough to be noticed by Nidhogg?
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Svenya continues to ponder these mysteries as the party continues north, but soon the joys of travelling in winter lightens her mood. A flock of chimeric rabbits fly along, and they spot many tracks of elk and deer. At the river a small party of grung are trying to catch fish. Mikill and Carmilla chop down a tree to pass across the river, and the party helps the grung to catch a few salmon. Svenya smiles as she considers that this might be a thing ... feeding the giant owl this morning and now helping the grung. She sings a off-colour shanty that she picked up from one of the sailors that passed through many years ago and chuckles as she remembers the scolding she got when she sang it in front of the Jarl's wife.
Carmilla tries to charm an elk again, and this time succeeds in riding it, or at least until Jormund gives it a fright and it runs off into a pack of snow cats and crag lions where it promptly gives up its life in service of the greater good of serving dinner. A long-range battle with the snow cats ensue, and as the party fells one after the other the remaining ones try to flee north into the forest, in the direction where their map says the old ruins (portal?) can be found.
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[Svenya --]
As we emerge into the clearing, panting from the battle and chasing after the snow-cat, we are met with a most wonderous sight. A stone dias lies in front of us, with two rings crossing over each other. There are doorways pointing towards each of the 4 major directions, covered in runes. The size of these things! This has to be the work of giants, and I almost forget the danger of the other snow cats still hanging around. With some noise and bravado we manage to scare them off, but I guess they will be back at some point. This looks like it might be their lair.
There are some cauldrons that look as if they are covered by some sort of bubble in the clearing. They are not spaced symmetrically as one would expect, and could be constellations of some sort, but they do not look like a constellation from our skies. From what we learnt in the Tree House after finding the cult and that device there, it might even be from Asgard or Midgard or one of the other planes - so EXCITING!
Although the panel we are standing on is broken, we mark down the runes anyway. This could be one of those teleportation circles that the rune mages use, but I have only ever heard tales of those, and finding a real one, even if it seems to be broken, is a really lucky thing.
As we set up camp for the night, it looks like Ulfhild's wound is not healing. If the old tales are correct, it means that she would not have gone to Valhalla if that creature managed to kill her. This is a very unsettling thought, and I can feel my heart and mind is not focused as I chat to everyone and tell some stories and sing songs to raise our morale. I am too distracted by the encounter this morning, and am anxious that the nightmares might return tonight. I do not think any of the others know that I sometimes get really bad nightmares, and am not ready to share that part of myself with them just yet.
The village in the treetops
7th of Lori 522
At the top of the stairs we see an entire village which is just amazing. In the centre of the trunk there is a chamber with some vines surrounding a pedestal on which there is a flickering green gem. The gem seems to show a woman wearing regal clothes who is wielding a staff and fighting off more of the blights. There is a large metal tube thing behind her, and she seems to be higher up in the tree, but we don't really know what the meaning of this is.
Everyone goes off into their own direction. There are many more blights around but they are only watching us for now. Carmilla finds a library with two people arguing inside. Svenya joins her and they sneak up on the arguing people, who turn out to be a warrior grung and a druidess. The druidess wants to save their leader upstairs, but the grung warrior thinks that she is already dead. When we tell them about the scene in the crystal, they are happy to hear that she is still alive, and the grung and his brother who is also a warrior agree to help us. His brother is in the observatory, which is presumably somewhere else near here. I wonder what the purpose of an observatory is - from the word it sounds like a place where one goes to look at stuff.
Jormund is sneaking up the stairs, and hears chanting coming from behind a door which also has a purple light coming from underneath it. It sounds like some sort of ritual. On the other side of the tree the druidess tells us that there is a creature in the tree - called a decapus - that might have been summoned here to displace the grung and the druids, but she does not really know who did this or why they would do such a thing. Killing the decapus seems to be the logical next thing to do, and I wonder if there is a link between the chanting and the invasion.
Ursula finds a child locked in a chest, and does not kill it. Ulfhild breaks down a door behind which some older halflings are hiding, and also does not kill them. Although they are called Mizen and Glagg, we do not convince them to come to the tavern with us for safety. The cranky old halfling is a bit of a grumpy whiner so it is probably best to keep him away from children and pretty flowers. After finding getting some potions in the tavern we decide to go upstairs towards the ritual, and make short work of some blights with bow and spell. We also manage to not set the whole tree alight - or not yet, at least. The druidess is still coming with us to protect the tree from our radiant brilliance.
We sneak up the stairs towards the room where Jormund heard the chanting, and open the door. It creaks loudly, and we see some sort of strange astrological device with a group of cultists standing around it doing their chanting. One of them notices us and we ask them to go away and take their decapus with them. They scoff at this idea, given how much effort it apparently was to bring it here. One casts magical darkness, and by the sounds of it they escape while we fight off tree blights and a rather nasty tree creature that Gorm and Jormund found a bit further away from the stairs where we came up. Note to the reader: This cowardly behaviour was confirmed when we went back to take a look after rescuing the chief druidess.
Just past the tree creature we see the druidess fighting off a whole pack of tree blights, and manage to kill them all before they defeat her. She is battered, tired, and not as grateful as I thought she might be, although being in a bit of a hurry might have played a role in that. She rapidly talks to a tree spirit called Mymird who will protect us against the vines, and without any time to take a breath we charge downstairs to defeat the decapus before it does bad things to the village. On the way we manage to convince Cranky and his wife to go to the tavern, together with another child we find hiding in the village.
Night has fallen, and it is turning into a LOOOONG day. However, with a quick quaff of the fabulous potion they make, and we approach the decapus in the greenhouse from two different directions. More tree blights try to stop us, but without much delay or fanfare Gorm and Jormund engage the decapus in combat while the rest of us sneak around the other side and attack it from the back. It is a pretty interesting creature, and I am sure the druidesses will be able to tell us more about it in the morning. By now we are operating like a well-trained raider band, and although there are a few close scrapes, including Shepard coming pretty close to finding out if wolves can get into Valhalla if they die bravely, we manage to defeat the decapus with sword and spell.
A job well done. I am looking forward to a feast in the village, with too much mead and lots of stories. And a nice soft bed to sleep in. Hopefully we can spend a few days here so that I can see what interesting books and things the library holds, and also learn more about that strange pipe-like device in the observatory.
Frogs and Bullies
7th of Lori 522
Svenya
Ulfhild the Troll-slayer should probably be called Ulfhild Trollshit-for-brains! The mad dwarf comes storming out of the woods and across the wooden bridge and immediately lays the pain onto some troglodytes on the other side. Luckily for her Jormund and Shepard are not far behind and soon there is more blood and dead troglodytes lying on the snow. They also wake up a giant snake that was sleeping in the tree. For once Ulfhild's brain seems to be functioning and she steps away from the snake and a small amount of peace returns to the world momentarily.
Being the nice people that we are, Gorm and myself also rush over to help, but thanks to Loki we both fall through the rickety bridge into the freezing water, where it is curiously black. Gorm later tells me that he does this thing where his hand turns all eldritch and blue, and that he killed an underwater undead creature, which made the normal light come back but did nothing for the freeze-your-butt-in-seconds-cold. We manage to get out and set a small tree alight to quickly warm us up.
Whilst this is going down, Carmilla decides that she wants to tame an elk, and although she successfully manages to sneak up to a princely specimen and jump on its back, she does not stick the ride. Things get a bit tense and we end up with lots of elk meat for dinner.
We continue our travels towards the Moon Bridge and Shepard the scout brings us a slimy bandanna that he found somewhere up ahead. We come across some small rainbow frog people in the trees (sneaky Ulfhild surprises them) and at the same time some bullywugs come out of the trees, bearing spears. One of them is riding on a giant frog made of ice. We seem to have landed in the middle of two factions fighting about the small guys leaving some sort of frog cult, and after a few short exchanges, we end up siding with the little guys who just want to be free.
A battle ensues with arrows, weapons, fire and holy force burning and hitting and pushing the bullywugs around before they are able to retaliate by swarming towards the front line. The bullywug croaker starts some awful singing that hurts the brains of the boys, and I respond by hurting the brain of the frog rider so much that he runs away. Ulfhild wallops him with her hammer, and then Jormund kills another one and together with Shepard bravely attack the stone underneath the witchy bully.
The royal bullywug jumps back onto his ice frog and hurts Ulfhild badly ... and Ulfhild retaliates by breaking his frog. Gorm at the same time causes icy sharpness to kill all the bullywugs around him and turns his own beard into a spiky ice stalagtite. The battle remains on edge and Ulfhild and Mikkel both get knocked out. Carmilla rips out the throat of the royal bullywug and heals herself in the process - this is still a bit freaky even though I am starting to get used to her strange magics. Jormund and Shepard kill the last croaker. Weirdly the royal bullywug's crown has grown into its skull, but we do get 8 tongues which are very long and apparently quite valuable. The shit that we will do for money!
The happy and grateful grungs take us to their druids for healing - I guess they like us now, but the bullywugs probably not so much, if word of today got back to them. The moon bridge is literally magical in its appearance and only works when one of the moons are full. Happily the largest one was full last night so there is enough magic left for us to cross the bridge safely. Jormund tries to smoke some of the stuff the bullywugs had with them, and the forest spirits leave him a small wooden pipe. Carmilla adopts one of these spirits ยท a chimeric hare. This probably the first bunny she does not immediately kill and eat.
When we get to the village there are two dryads and a halfling left. They have been forced out of their houses by some foul creature and have only 3 healing potions. As we are worried for the safety of the other villagers, we decide to immediately go and confront this foul creature even though we are not in great shape.
With some leafy druidy magic we travel through the trees to the village, and immediately fight some tree blights who are being controlled by an assassin vine. They kill Carmella's pet and she swears With sword and axe and spell we defeat the vine, and are rewarded with a most wondrous sight of stairs carved into the tree, which leads to a beautiful village high up in the tree-tops.
Venturing out for the first time
7th of Lori 522
The party starts their epic journey by some last minute shopping, and maybe a hug from mom when no-one else is looking. With roles assigned they set out towards the west, towards a place known as the Fungal Mass. It looks very spooky, and when they get closer it releases a cloud of spores, which leave half of the intrepid adventurers gagging and coughing with poisoning, and the rest completely unaffected.
Some mushroom people observe them from afar, and Svenya's curiosity soon has her engaged in a conversation with them. The spores are a natural defence against troglodytes, which have been emerging from their underground tunnels to raid the community. Svenya of course wants to know more about them, and they offer her some mushrooms as this is the way in which they retain and spread their knowledge and stories. Thinking that Odin sacrificed an eye for wisdom and that a bit of food poisoning is nothing in comparison to gaining some new lore, Svenya eats one of the mushrooms. Camilla and Ursula join her, but it does not appear that there is any immediate benefits.
Being exhausted from watching Shepard kill a rabbit, the party decides to take a short rest while Gorm cooks the rabbit and Ursula and Carmilla makes an anti-toxin potion. None of our brave adventurers are up to drinking the potion, either because of familiarity with the girls' culinary skills, or past experience with strange liquids in little bottles that come out of the healing hut where Gorm studied with his mother. The poor dog gets to drink the anti-toxin - one is surprised at his loyalty given the multiple experiments the party has no doubt conducted on him.
As the troglodytes are broadly in the same direction as the Wood Bridge the party needs to cross they decide to go south and see if they can find them. Shepard again proves his worth as he spots them near the Wood Bridge.
Any doubts that Odin is guiding and blessing them disappear from Svenya's mind as the party jumps into combat like a skilled raider band, anticipating each other's moves in a way that suggests years of practice and combat together. Carmilla absolutely destroys one of the captains with a dazzling display of skill, and the fighters and Shepard make short work of the large number of tribe members who were also coming towards the party.
After Mikkel goes down and is pulled back into the battle by Gorm's soothing magical word, he plunges the saex that he made from the ice troll's tusk into the ground, which results in an explosion of cold air and mist around him that finishes off the remainder of the troglodytes.
Was that the silhouette of a wanderer in a long traveller's cloak and hood watching from the woods on the other side of the river?
Time flies like a dice roll
6th of Lori 522
As the sounds of battle die down, we realise how badly Ulfhild and Mikkel got hurt when Ulfhild's father picks her up and starts running to the village. We help Mikkel to limp back as well. I get to carry Ulfhild's father's axe, and feel like a proper vikingr for a while. Back at the town everyone goes to the healer, but I see my mom and some of the other adults around, and call them all to come over. I tell my mom what happened, and as I finish the Jarl comes out and wants to hear what is going on. So I get to tell the story again, still leaning on the impressive dwarven axe. The Jarl is very impressed and proud of what Ulfhild has done, and happily goes along with calling her Ulfhild the Troll Slayer when she comes out of Gorm's house after him and his mother healed her. She is so proud and happy on this day! Mikkel and the wolf also gets healed.
I notice that Magnus is very unhappy and jealous about the glory that Ulfhild gets from the Jarl. I hope this does not cause problems for our mothers in their duties as advisors to the Jarl, but we go to the feast and enjoy a glorious evening celebrating the victory of Ulfhild the Troll Slayer.
---- time passes by ----
As time pass by we kind of grow into young adults, with most of us learning our craft from our parents, and following our passion for smithing, fighting, weaving, hunting or whatever tickled our fancy. I must admit that Ulfhild went a little crazy for a bit, and I spent as much of my time trying to keep her out of trouble she causes for herself as I spent trying to get all of us out of trouble that probably started with me being curious about stuff or just egging everyone on to break the rules a little bit. I love talking to all the travellers, traders and merchants that come to Braudavik, and have become quite good at chanting while accompanying myself on my drum or lute. I have also been secretly observing my mother when she is advising the Jarl, and think I have learnt a lot of her tricks to make him hear unpleasant truths and do things he would not usually consider. I often think about the power that titles such as Jarl, Shield Maiden, Town Warden or Troll Slayer, give to people, and how the weight of that title can sometimes be good, and sometimes be bad.
[insert more backstory from other players here]
---- the feast ----
10 years to the day after slaying the troll we all get together underneath the Tree. It is a surprise to realise that we have not done anything spectacular since that day, with only minor incidents and stories to tell. I do not know if it is just the realisation that a decade flew past faster than a dice roll, but we all seem to feel the itch to go out there and explore the world, and start making names for ourselves. Of course Ulfhild wants to go immediately, even though sunset is approaching and there is a feast planned for tonight. I would give anything to be there and do singing and dancing and storytelling and drinking, and I promise Ulfhild that we will get her into a fight if we can go out the next morning. Of course the promise of a fight convinces her, so to the feast we go.
When we arrive the hall is already half full of people and noise, and of course Magnus and his gang makes fun of me for coming in late. I think I get my own back, and offer to tell an interesting story that I heard earlier that week from a trader travelling from the east. The Jarl seems to be particularly interested in that part of the world. As I start beating my drum to accompany the story, [insert name of other drummer here] comes into the hall. I ask him to accompany me but he seems to see performing as a competition and challenges me to a round of flyting to make him join. I win this in spectacular fashion and we tell an awesome story together.
Magnus and the twins and Ejnar are looking for shit as usual, so we go over and Carmilla challenges Magnus to a drinking competition. Of course she beats him, and then one of the twins (Orvar?) challenges her and also loses. I guess they do not know about her breathing tricks.
[[Ulfhild did something here but I did not write it down]]
The Jarl is full of approval for Carmilla and Ulfhild, and viciously cuts Magnus down to size in front of everyone. I can see how hurt and angry Magnus feels at this treatment, and I guess he will do anything to win his father's approval. I just hope it is not something stupid or crazy where one of the townspeople or one of us gets hurt.
A funny thing involving a puppy
6th of Lori 512 EC
It is early in winter, but enough snow has fallen to allow for a snowball fight as we go play in the woods. We hunted some rabbits and of course Ulfhild let her inner animal out and caught one. Carmilla was even more of a surprise - tearing the rabbit apart with her teeth and eating it raw. Blood all over her face, just like a bearserker!
So these ravens called us to a cave, which we decided to investigate. Maybe it is Odin's ravens, maybe not, but it was too interesting to pass by. There was some whimpering coming from deeper in the cave, so we took a stroll in that direction. We found a gorgeous little wolf puppy locked in a cage, with some other empty cages around, and bones from food they had fed it. The other kids made friends with the puppy, and as we were looking around to see what we could find - maybe even a key for the cage - a large ice troll came stomping into the cave.
Ulfhild charged towards it, expecting all of us to follow. You should have seen the look on her face when she turned around and we had all disappeared like a younger brother when it is time for a bath! We threw some stuff at the troll, and then Ulfhild decided to bite its finger. The troll did not like this and tried to eat Ulfhild. He must have been very hungry to eat her without washing her first! During all of this Mikkel and Jormund was trying to free the puppy, and Gorm was throwing these flame thingies at the troll. Ursula was shooting her awesome cold rays at the troll, but it didn't work so well. Carmilla was shooting at it with her bow, which also did not work so great, so in the end she just threw her bow at the troll.
So there we were, throwing stuff at a troll, bashing the cage door, and Ulfhild was having a nap inside the troll mouth. I shouted at the troll to spit Ulfhild out, because it might get food poisoning if it swallowed her. The stupid troll just opened its mouth, and there was Ulfhild lying on its tongue, with no care in the world. The troll bashed Mikkel real hard, and he fell down. Then Carmilla hit Mikkel so hard in the chest that he got back up again.
I jumped up to the troll's head and shouted at it - by the gods, its breath smelt terrible! Somehow I managed to pull Ulfhild out and then we shouted for help, and the boys finally got the cage open and the puppy charged at the troll. The wolf was very angry and very hungry, and bit the troll right in its man-sausage. The troll did not like this and started fighting with the wolf, and ripped off his back leg.
Ulfhild's father came charging into the cave because he heard us calling for help. With his axe he cut the troll in the leg so it had to kneel, and then Ulfhild threw a bone shard right into its eye and killed it. It was a very proud daughter-father moment!
I think this is going to be an awesome story to tell tonight, and maybe we will not get into too much trouble.