There was something happening among the Iskjerne vikings, as they now appeared to be in a declaration of war with the Ellarian barbarians, the Tartarian nobles, the Argosian legion, the Takayama shogunate, the Detente and many others. King Harald Fairhair seemed like he had gone mad, but in all reality, most were not wars that he himself had started. Rather, these were wars that Harald Finehair inherited when he became the King of Iskjerne Bay.
Granted, the Norwegian king had made an oath to restore Iskjerne Bay back to its native people. He fulfilled that oath with honor, giving the land back to the Iskjerne vikings by restoring their rights to lands, refurbishing Sigurd Hring's old viking settlement, replanting and rebuilding with communal assistance from the Iskjerne vikings themselves, liberating them from all foreign relationships, invasions, policies and religions.
That sounded like a good idea, but this was not to be the will of the gods. For whatever reason, the nature spirits didn't return quickly to repollinate the old settlement. Iskjerne Bay had also inherited a pestilence, a great plague of barren mounds and the feeling of death around every corner. Many were those who died performing legendary feats and engaging in heroic battles, and King Fairhair had also demonstrated a lust for power through xenophobic behavior. This behavior, however, did not go unnoticed. The gnomes, elves, dwarves, and other races were slow to repopulate and repollinate Iskjerne Bay, and the gods were unresponsive when offerings and sacrifices were made to them.
King Harald Fairhair had waged no war on the nature spirits, but it would take some time for them to return in great numbers. Fairhair did purge the vikings into a bitter conflict with the Argosian nation, the Taiyou city of Niihama, and the Tartarian Norman duchy. This perhaps had racial or cultural implications, and his total genocide of foreign affairs in Iskjerne Bay had only added to their complications. With the lack of goblins and ogres, dragons and giants, only the statues of the gods remained.
There was a slight breeze, low dark clouds hovering swiftly over grey skies, a murder of crows and large black ravens squawking as they glided down from their perches on the tower balcony when King Harald opened the doors to the large stone crescent patio and stepped out on to the balcony, resting his whole bodyweight against the stone railing which separated him from gazing hundreds of feet to his death. He gazed up at the rolling clouds and peered out towards the mountains, studying the direction of the black billows of smoke escalating from the sloping horizon. He knew that the great fire would not cross the Weargtooth mountain range due to the sparsity of woodlands and shelters.
As he looked down at the small kingdom below, he noticed two people walking slowly up to the third entrance of the castle, assisting what appeared to be two more people who had been wounded. It was Bjorn Ironside and the last of his own personal berserkers, the rest of whom had been slaughtered by Ellarian barbarians led by a Germanic chieftain whose identity was concealed behind a facemask-visored helmet. King Harald listened to Bjorn's venture to capture Duke Robert, as did Queen Lagertha who sat across from Bjorn Ironside next to King Harald on her throne, remaining motionless and listening quietly to her eldest son's exploits. King Harald was displeased to find out that Bjorn Ironside, even the large berserker son of Ragnar Lothbrok had failed to capture Rollo on account of the Cheruscans, Chatti, Harii and other tribes that had ambushed Bjorn's gang.
Harald Fairhair slammed his fist down on the arm of his throne seat and cringed. After a moment, he raised a mead horn and gave a toast to Bjorn's safe return, vowing before all of the volva and witnesses in the great hall that he would seek revenge against the Ellarian barbarians after their battle with the approaching Argosians. This didn't seem feasible, had it not been for the tone and manner in which he said it, for it was evident that the Great Ellarian Forest was burning, and that the Ellarian barbarians must have suffered many losses in their fight with Bjorn Ironside and his party of Iskjerne berserkers. Capturing the Duke Rollo was no longer a priority, but neither were the Ellarians as even now, the Argosian legion was already approaching the kingdom.
Bjorn's return was not celebrated very long on account of all the circumstances and mead shortage. Soon, everyone would return to their posts, and their plan to make their last stand against their enemies would resume much as before. Bjorn Ironside shared what little information he could about his venture into Argosian/Ellarian territory, but said nothing about his encounter with Odin as his eyes scanned over the leather map that King Harald rolled out over the round table in front of them.
It was a Map of Gaia...
Little did the House of Finehair know that the Iskjerne ulfhednar had already been defeated, but King Harald had never put much reliance on the front line to begin with. There were still Iskjerne hestuhar, svinfylking, kattrfylking and shield-maidens, specialized archers armed with the Tartarian crossbows they had seized, and many a berserker and war machine to deal with. King Harald was expecting the Argosian legion to utilize seige weaponry, and thanks to the great (although slow) progress of Iskjerne Bay, the vikings had some seige engineering of their own. Prepared for any attacks from land, air or sea, the Iskjerne vikings waited.
Meanwhile, to the far west of Iskjerne Bay and more southward towards the tropical regions of Ellaria, the Empyrean Norsemen had just launched a full-scale space expedition across the galaxy, and indeed, in an attempt to circumnavigate the multiverse using elven and dwarven alchemy, reaching for the stars. Things were not so advanced in Iskjerne Bay, where the lack of magic had been replaced by human strength and perseverance, and King Harald's "advanced" weapons were but medieval catapults and trebuchets made of simple metal, wood and stone. Such weapons were still magnificent, however, comprised of some of the most advanced human engineering that Gaia had to offer.
Human beings were a confusing lot, their human natures full of inquisition and unanswered questions, revelry and rivalry, and the chance for uncertainty. Here in Iskjerne Bay, in the midst of the Milky Way galaxy, pure-blooded human beings were still in existence, untainted by computers, tracphones and technology, without augmented repairs or simulations, threatened by entire space empires yet still remaining, 100% human, uninfected and unmutated by the whims of the goddesses of fate.
Gaia was indeed a remarkable planet. The mortal Iskjerne vikings stood in defiance of the gods, against time and space, and against the very spirits of their own innate destruction. One particular deity was Sigurd Hring, the native god and titan, who observed their offerings and sacrifices whilst subservient to Odin and the other more powerful deities who held him back from intervening in their human mortal affairs, even though Sigurd was being humble and modest, for Iskjerne Bay was his kingdom and not even the gods themselves could stop him from ruling it with an iron fist.
But the gods had made council, and the heavens themselves were of one accord, so that the Iskjerne vikings and their equally mortal enemies would be destined to battle without magic or luck, modern science or technology, and especially without the help of the gods. Ellaria's great forest burned slowly, consuming more and more of the enormous continent with every passing minute. There was silence and the cumbersome feeling of loneliness in that moment as the enemies of Iskjerne Bay neared closer and closer, bringing that same global pandemic with them as they approached.
But despite even all of the other stuff that was already happening, there was still more beneath the surface. Be it by some sacred vampiric ritual or perhaps a tumor of energy prescribed to dark magic, or the curse that had consumed the kingdom, the tumuli and burial mounds in Iskjerne Bay were not all lifeless and dormant after all, some of the skeletal bodies and mutilated corpses groaning or tossing in their graves. Unanimated, still dead, the corpses would not rise from their resting places... this was not a resurrection. This was merely a trembling, a subtle signature of things to come as the shores of Iskjerne Bay became more darkened.
White caps and waves started to approach and recede from the rocky fjords, as the unsettled and cremated spirit of Ivar the Boneless made its draugr presence felt, not upon the living but upon the already dead.
King Imar...
The new king of the dead...
Like the great world serpent, he emerged from the deepest darkest depths of the Great Ellarian Sea, his own tattered and sunken, burned and charcoaled funeral ship lying in abysmal ruins and broken pieces at the bottom of the sea. His own body had been turned to ashes, which now mixed with the soot and sand at the sunless sea floor, but King Imar had inherited his mother's and father's curse, being both the son of a famous viking konung and an equally talented famous witch. He had started as a false self-proclaimed mortal god. But now Ivar the Boneless was no longer a slithering half-paralyzed cripple. He was not even a physical person anymore, but his restless spirit had become a draugr, a type of Old Norse ghost, vampire or revenant.
Such was the situation in Iskjerne Bay that even the primeval forces remained silent, awestruck by the situation. Sigurd Hring would grin, giving testimony to his cause. King Harald and King Halfdan, and indeed Floki the Blind, were all now competing against one another in a freezing cold triangular war for absolution. Clearly the Iskjerne vikings had been outnumbered, outpowered and outsmarted by the Argosian army. But fate always seemed to rear her head as the vikings resolved to stand against them, continuing as planned.