Setting
Port Fate is visible from a distance, teeming with life, smoke and steam rising from the great city as civilization continues.
You can't see it from here, but across these dangerous waters is the continent of Siv'ven.
"This seems like a good place to camp," Prince Hrollaug said, as he stopped on the hilltop and looked down towards the coastline. There in the distance over the watery horizon, he could see a familiar longship sailing southwest into the Empyrean High Seas, waving the raven banner. Jarl Hethel and his leidang had been on the same mission and had taken to the sea instead. The ten riders on horseback would dismount their winterbred horses and setup camp on the hill. They pitched five small tents, built a rain catcher and a firepit before inspecting the area. They immediately noticed that the place they had decided to camp was warmer, greener and more forested. There were many different flowers and trees, and even some signs of long-term human trade ports and permanent settlements. The Norsemen had found what they were looking for. But it wasn't just the wood and other raw materials they wanted. Prince Hrollaug bent down and picked up a hand full of brown dirt, rubbing the rooty soil between his fingertips. Him and his small gang had found rich green earth, something which was good for farming, and something which the Norsemen lacked at their kingdom in Iskjerne Bay.
On the hilltops above the shoreline...
Prince Hrollaug and his band of 10 riders had setup camp on a hill ridge above the seaboard, taking a break from their long travels. The parahelion Sun Dogs lasted all through the night, two suns illuminating the sky even at night so that Atargatis and Sagittae kept the sky bright blue even when the Norsemen slept inside their animal skinned tents. The next morning, Prince Hrollaug woke up to see the Dog Star directly north in the sky, as Sirius was hovering above the Kadota Peaks like a beacon in the distance. One of the crescent moons of Gaia could be observed in the bright morning sky as well, giving the dome of Gaia a truly magical and surreal beauty like nothing the vikings had ever seen before in their homeland. The sky was blue, the weather was warm and fair, and scattered white clouds provided only partial waves of shade over the flowering green hills. The land itself was covered in rich soil, clay banks, freshwater rain ponds, scattered woodlands with plenty of rocks and trees that would prove useful to the Norse settlers as they explored the beaches. To the north, they could see mountains on the horizon where they came from, with a large cascading waterfall and its ever present rainbows. To the south, they took in the view of the bluegreen Empyrean High Seas with its dangerous white waves, rich in sea salt. Beyond the gulf to the west was a chain of islands stretching down the coast. Jarl Hethel had taken the NuÃļrmbatÃēr longship down the coast and into the Empyrean High Seas, heading towards a tiny distant island on the Empyrean Sea Beach, while Prince Rollo and his small gang decided to pitch five tents on the mainland where they could see billows of smoke rising from Port Fate in the near distance.
Port Fate was the Kingdom of Benavierre's main port, and import/export center. Deciding to check it out, the Iskjerne Vikings took their woolly horses down to the coastal waters to have a look. They were passed along the way by merchants and travellers of all sorts who paid them no mind as they made their way to the famous Albatross Bar and Inn. Prince Hrollaug and his riders were flying the Raven Banner, something that most of the local inhabitants had never witnessed before. A few of the fishermen from the seaport would stop and give the vikings ackward and distrustful glares, but the Norsemen just rode their horses slowly and casually up to the docks and dismounted them before entering the bar. Prince Hrollaug and his gang would have a few beers, deciding to gossip with some of the locals in the bar in order to gather information about the land, its kingdom, its people and their king. The vikings were larger and stockier, perhaps at times even taller or more muscular than the local Ellarians, but nevertheless Prince Rollo and his band would maintain their respect, being mindful of their surroundings while enjoying a few beers. It wasn't as tastey as the Norsemen's mead, but it would suffice for now.
After gathering all the information they could, the vikings would leave Port Fate and head back to their encampment further up the bank on the top of the grassy hill ridge. "This would be a good place to start a meadery," Ale the Beekeeper commented. Prince Hrollaug nodded quietly. "There is a woodland up ahead," the prince said. "We should get to work," he added. The gang agreed, and so they unloaded all their tools and started chopping down some trees. The ten of them spent hours chopping, cutting, shaping and wittling the unsanded wood by hand using a variety of different metal saws, axes, scrapers, hammers, wedges, bevels, primitive scales and measuring strings. Even their winterbred horses would help with their labor as the Norsemen used the smaller stocky horses to pull the load. By the end of the day, the small circle of two-man tents on the hill had turned into a fenced-in circular round settlement of considerable size. They hadn't yet built any longhouses, but they had managed to build a rather basic sawmill, a wood workshop, an outhouse, a wooden gate, a few sheds, a lookout tower, a ring moat with a man-made narrow trench leading down the hill into the sea, a horse fence, a small well, a forge, a few hive boxes and a large wooden palisade to protect their animal skinned dome-roof whale bone tents. At the end of the day when one sun set and another began to rise, the Norsemen built a fire next to their rain catcher and sat idly on the hill inside their own walls, staring up at the sky. Hrollaug would study the stars and moons silently while Ale stirred up an kettle of onion soup with an iron dipping ladle, listening quietly as the band of vikings drank Albatross beer and told poems or sang Old Norse folk songs about their favorite heroes.
The fog engulfed the longships in an impenetrable veil that shrouded one from another. A foul miasma - the stench of rot, decay, and mildew - drifted through the air as the sea became deathly silent.
Somewhere in the fog, the creaking of a lone vessel stalked the herd of longships like a shark. It drifted through the water, presence felt but unseen like a phantom, and left a sense of wordless dread in its wake.
The fog engulfed the longships in an impenetrable veil that shrouded one from another. A foul miasma - the stench of rot, decay, and mildew - drifted through the air as the sea became deathly silent. The vikings would stop rowing, everyone looking to their left and right to the rowers beside them, everyone being quiet all of a sudden. Somewhere in the fog, the creaking of a lone vessel stalked the herd of longships like a shark. It drifted through the water, presence felt but unseen like a phantom, and left a sense of wordless dread in its wake. "I've got a bad feeling about this, Floki" one of the shipmates whispered quietly with fear in his eyes. "So do I" he responded calmly, "so do I..."
As the five longships slowly faded out of sight of one another, Floki the Vitki turned his attention to the men at the back of his ship, signalling for the drummers to sound their drums. BA-BOOM!!!... BOOM, BOOM, BA-BOOM!!! the leather skinned drums were sounded, the loud bass causing ripples in the water, echoing off the coastline's sandy shores. All five longships had drummers on board, and for good reason too. The sound of the drums helped to keep the ships in rhythm and formation, providing a form of echolocation for Hrafn-Floki's leidang and aiding with their navigation.
As the fog got thicker and started to envelop the individual longships, Floki suddenly could no longer see the back of the Seamaiden from his position at its prow. Some of the vikings would use flint and steel with dried moss to lite some torches, providing at least some flaming light as a beacon in the mist. As the drummers kept drumming in slow, paused, rhythmic beats, Hrafn-Floki pulled up the hood on his baggy black hooded cloak and ordered the rowers to row inland slowly. The five longships slowly changed course, navigated by hundreds of torches and the sound of drums as they lifted their sails and headed in towards the coast. The Seamaiden took the lead at the front of the leidang, with the other four longships trailing closely behind them in a Y-formation. The vikings would mount their shields to the side of their longships to create a shield-wall, many of them putting on their helmets and fastening the leather straps on their viking-style armour.
A chorus of wails, dark and terrible and dripping with poisonous terror, fell upon the viking fleet. Ghostly apparitions materialized upon and below their decks. They glowed with cold blue auras, gaunt faces shrouded by spectral mist and cowls, but their forms were as transparent as sleet under the light of a full moon. The wraiths drew longswords from their sides, gripped them with both skeletal hands, and raised them in a vertical salute.
They waited a moment as an aura of dread fell upon the vikings, attempting to grip their hearts and minds with crippling terror, and then they struck. The wraiths swung wide but purposefully like reapers before grain - their phantasmal blades bypassing all nonmagical armor with ease - and they sang with a terrible keening howl as chaos would erupt within their ranks.
They killed without mercy or discrimination, cutting down all that crossed their paths.
A chorus of wails, dark and terrible and dripping with poisonous terror, fell upon the viking fleet. Yet all thousand of them were well prepared as the ghostly apparitions materialized upon and below their decks, with no sign and no warning, causing the vikings to draw their weapons. Most of them were already in full armor, and prepared to defend themselves from whatever the waters might bring.
The ghostly crew glowed with cold blue auras, gaunt faces shrouded by spectral mist and cowls, but their forms were as transparent as sleet under the light of a full moon. The wraiths drew longswords from their sides, gripped them with both skeletal hands, and raised them in a vertical salute. It was at that moment that the kattrfylking jumped into action. Hrafn-Floki was not the greatest of warriors, or commanders, but he was gifted in his own way, and had been sure to bring 50 kattrfylking with him on his voyage. The volvur would instantly raise their sheep horns and sound off, the reverberations of the ivory bugles causing the fog to desist as magical soundwaves penetrated deep into the minds of the Deathweavers, despite their ghostly forms.
The pirates had planned to wait before they attacked, with the hope of spreading fear. But the volvur were quick to stop them instantly in their tracks. The wraiths swung wide but purposefully like reapers before grain - their phantasmal blades bypassing all nonmagical armor with ease - and missing entirely as the sharp sound of the viking bugles caused them to stumble and miss their marks, forcing the pirates to indiscriminately cut down some of the other pirates beside them, cutting their own forces in half.
The soundwaves caused the fog to spread and thin out, allowing Hrafn-Floki to see not only the Deathweavers ghost ship with its Jolly Roger flag blowing wildly with the breeze, but also the pirate apparitions which had boarded the back of his ship. Floki the Vitki giggled, now partially amused as he raised two fingers before himself, stroking the black painted Teiwaz symbol on his forehead. "Everyone at arms!!! Angradi shouted as he reached for his shield. Floki quietly muttered to himself while drawing forth his axe and slowly walking towards the back of the Seamaiden, where his vikings had already formed a shield-wall, attempting to block off the ghostly pirates as they sought to over-run his ship.
- 15 posts here • Page 1 of 1