After several long months travelling under the radar through the vastness of the Milky Way, after launching its way from the Empyrean Sea Beach on Gaia, over the Empyrean High Seas, passing the moon Skygem before leaving Gaia's orbit and wandering into the Sirius system, the Stjornhestr drifted silently at harrowing speeds, propelled by its seemingly magical solar-powered energy crystals which were stored like miniature wireless electroplasmic batteries, causing the fabric of timespace to distort and fold around the vessel while causing a field of heat lightning or purple ectoplasm resembling a feintly glowing spiderweb around the Viking-styled space ship, completely harmless to the touch, but magnificent to behold as the eyes of the horse-headed golden prow were lit up like gleaming headlights as the Stjornhestr hovered quietly and safely into Bastion IV's gravitational field.

Jarl Goffre Alvisson, the ship's Nordic captain and leader of the 500 personnel aboard the tiny stalion-shaped longship had successfully led the Empyrean Norsemen halfway across the galaxy, following the constellations on the star charts that were drawn many years ago by Gaian Norse explorers and skywatchers. After leaving Norma Arm and descending into the Outer Arm of the Milky Way, entering the Kos solar system and nearing Bastion IV, the Nordic Gaian astronauts gazed out at the marvelous blue-green planet below, staring down over the exosphere at a large disc-like continent surrounded by the bright blue ocean. Goffre Alvisson was not aware of it yet, but he was now looking at the entirety of Xamoyos, a place which looked strikingly similar to Ellaria, at least from the outer orbit of the planet. Goffre was reminded of the old stories his father Jarl Alvis used to tell him, about how Midgard was just a flat circular world surrounded by a ring of water. And while although Bastion IV certainly wasn't a flat planet, to the crew aboard the Stjornhestr, their perspective of the continent of Xamoyos was that it looked like a disc surrounded by water from the sky, and so Goffre Alvisson determined that perhaps the old stories were more metaphorical than literal, something which few of his predecessors had the mind to think for themselves.

As the longship neared Bastion IV's exosphere, it hovered silently in orbit around the planet for the first few days, undetectable by radar or satellite as the Stjornhestr did not have any radios or computer systems on board, and was much too small to be seen from other distant spacecraft, or from anyone on the planet's surface. The only hint of its quiet humble existence was the feint purple glow, and the gleaming reflection of the golden prow under the nearest moonlight or sun's rays. Otherwise the Viking longship just appeared as a small black silhouette floating before the curtain of the moon, its soundless form hovering silently in the darkness as it orbited the planet from above while Goffre's astrologers and mapmakers took the time to draw out their coordinates on paper, and make a sketch of Xamoyos while staring out of the large curved thick round gold-plated mirror windows.

After his short battle and dramatic victory over the ghostly pirates, Floki the raven master and the rest of his naval fleet returned to Iskjerne Bay by way of the Empyrean High Seas, but it was freezing cold in the mysterious uncharted north and after many months at sea, Hrafn-Floki started to develop scurvy.

Princess Alruna Halfdansdottir would spend the next few weeks accompanied by hand-maidens who guarded her, protected her, nurtured her and looked after her every need. She ate three meals a day, starting with rismal, the first meal before the first sunrise early in the morning. For this meal she had plenty of oats, walnuts, berries, hazelnuts, grains and yogurt with milk and honey. Her second meal was dagmal around 8:00 in the morning. At this time she would eat fish soup made from cod, salmon or fermented shark with salt, whipped cream, stinging nettles, dandelion leaves, ashweed, chervil, marjorum, onion, parsley, thyme, bread and butter with a glass of water. Her third meal of the day was nattmal after the third sunset on Gaia when the sky was darkest and the moons were shining. For supper she would eat fried bacon and goose eggs with wheat bread, butter and honey, cinnamon, goat cheese and sometimes horse phallus with a glass of dilluted red grape wine containing motherwort and other spices used to ensure fertility. Princess Alruna sometimes also had gingerbread or oatmeal cookies for dessert.

The poor men, thralls and farmhands in the Empyrean Norse Kingdom consumed large quantities of plain chicken broth, vegetable soup and baked bread. These were mostly free-roaming slaves and paid servants who couldn't afford the finer things like salt, butter, milk and honey. The karls, land owners and freemen cooked calf, and ate beef stew, lamb chops, roasted chicken, and duck or pheasant with milk and butter. The nobles and jarls, people who could afford ships and crews, ate considerably well, consuming large portions of horse meat, fried bacon, roasted goose, and mead made from honey, beer made from hops and barley, glog and other malt wines made from cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, oranges or lemon. King Halfdan and Prince Logan ate mostly wild game, sharp cheese, reindeer meat, whale meat, seal, oysters, mollusks, potatoes, carrots and cabbage, wild boar, and vast quantities of beer and wine.

Life was good and the food was plenty as the Sjóálfar, Dryads or Sea Elves patrolled the borders and guarded the kingdom. These highly disciplined mercenaries were very subtle in making their presence known and felt throughout the region. They were incredibly stealthy, and yet it was by their helping hands that the seas stayed rich with fish and other life, and why the Empyrean Norse Kingdom had no shortage of forest and wild game, successful crop harvests and sparkling clean water. There was magic in the air, brought on by the Sjóálfar Guard and their invisible presence throughout the Nordic lands. They were the spine or backbone of the Empyrean Norse Kingdom, and these elvish guardians, so long as they were appeased by King Halfdan, would continue to bless him more and more. Soon their numbers increased from 500 sea elves to 5000 sea elves or more as they flooded to the Empyrean island, bringing magic, gold and silver trinkets. King Halfdan continued to practice his elvish tongue with Prince Logan over the next few weeks as Princess Alruna was being cared for by her hand-maidens. These nine maidens wore simple tunicas with long aprons , some of them carrying medicine pouches containing flax seeds, mushrooms, onions, garlic cloves, motherwort and other wild herbs for ritualistic magic, fertility and healing.