Leiv Eiriksson's Story

"Alright. Steady. Wait for it... Annnnnd now." Halfdan the Black said as he and Thorvald Eriksson turned the mighty Eye of Colossa into position again, accounting for the movement of the massive object in orbit above Gaia's exosphere. The giant space particle laser cannon, otherwise just an attachment on the large 50 ton long twin barrels of the Viking Telescope was aimed directly at the CU Cheerfulness rather than at its tiny dropships as they entered Gaia's atmosphere.

Eric the Red confirmed the coordinates, nodding to his daughter Freydis, who nodded back before repeating the coordinates and issuing the command to start hacking the CU Cheerfulness rather than risking an EMP wave, as Floki the Vitki had advised their new colony to be mindful of the solar system and protect Gaia at all costs. "I detected small pods descending from the target towards Northern Ellaria, possibly towards Iskjerne Bay, but I can't access Iskjerne Bay from the googled satellite, maps or search base due to a strong interference. It could be a snow storm, or the Ward," Thorstein Eriksson said abruptly.

"What do you mean, Googled?" Freydis asked sternly, looking confused and disgruntled with furrowed eyebrows. Thorstein quickly walked over from his station to where Freydis was standing, changing the frequency channel on her screen monitor to display a blurry video and a folder of missing images. "I mean it's not there, it's all googley eyed and distorted, look." Freydis and Thorstein both stared at the blurry screen in frozen silence, trying to make sense of why the video showed an area of space that was strangely distorted.

"It has to be the Ward," Freydis said, referring to Iskjerne Bay's own invisible force field sparked by a clever viking colony's use of magic and powerful witchcraft during Gaia's earlier years, an obscure magical dome of protection against technology which... didn't exist... The distorted images were caused by some other means, not by the Vikings of Iskjerne Bay, but rather by the Vikings of the Empyrean Empire, whose civilization was composed of several magical races and species that used their own innate abilities to perform magic, rather than leaning on the energy of Gaia as some Vikings did.

Floki the Vitki was wise in his old age. He was older now, and bald with no head hair apart from his slanted eyebrows and his rustic greyish brown beard. His eyes were still white with blindness, but after many years, he slowly accumulated to his surroundings to gain more milky grey irises and pupils that were now noticeable. He was still blind, but not entirely, for in his old age he could see very blurry shapes and colors, enough to detect movement but not to identify features.

Floki's giant telescope and secret weapon attachments were not the kind of magical weapons that were used by Empyrean Norsemen, as Floki himself was a veteran Iskjerne Viking from the time of Sigurd's sons, and when Erik the Red charged the crystal laser, Colossa itself began to bruise and bleed from the immense energy required to operate the massive tether-like weapon module. The Vikings of Agartha had done something truly epic that no other Viking on Gaia had ever done, by creating a means to observe the galaxy through a microscope and combat against any space-bound foreign objects within their immediate solar system from the surface of their world.

The Empyrean Empire may have had the space ships and the record among Gaian Vikings for exploring other galaxies, but Floki's colony on Colossa had gone the extra mile, using Sigurd Hring's simple sunstone approach to study Colossa's composition instead and learn about its surface, its minerals and all that could be gathered from its stones and sand. The Eye of Colossa, as the colonists referred to it, was built using what available minerals and materials were already present on Colossa's surface, as if the man-made giant cannon was part of Colossa itself, fueled and powered by Colossa's own energy.

That meant that the Eye of Colossa could fire long distances across the solar system, but it would require the moon's life force to do so, which meant that every time the cannon was charged, it destroyed part of the Viking's own protected tropical paradise. Over time, an overuse of that power could therefore cause problems for future generations. The first generation born in Agartha on Colossa knew the risks, and as the old prophet named Floki sat quietly on his bench, he thought about the future and all the children born in Colossa because of him. He wondered for a moment if he had made the right decision to bring the Vikings to the barren red moon, and what decisions their younger descendants would have to make once he died.

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Things appeared tense in the solar system, but as the hours ticked by slowly, most of the Colossan vikings of Agartha had plenty of time to do other things besides work on their giant surface telescope. Leiv Eriksson and Kaleb Flokisson were out prospecting the red moon's barren desert for gold, silver, zinc, iron deposits and crystals such as transparent quartz and red agate, obsidian and whatever other wonders they might find when suddenly they noticed something off in the distance. There was an Empyrean converiboat parked, hovering near the hill where Floki's posse had originally emerged from the Crystal Nexus.



About ten passengers had jumped out of the small transport vessel and were walking around the hill of rocks and sand from the crude failed attempt that Floki's crew had made to build a shelter some years prior. Among the new arrivals were two vikings that were not of Empyrean descent, but were accompanied by Empyrean Norsemen nevertheless on the obviously Gaian viking karvi. The first was William "Longsword" Hrolfsson the Tartarean Norman count, the firstborn son of Duke Robert "Rollo" the Viking, who was older now but still living, and the other young man squatting down gazing at the sand was Sitric Cáech, the Hiberno-Scandinavian son of Ivar the Boneless who had been born right before his father died in Iskjerne Bay, despite rumors that Ivar was unable to procreate and thus had no heirs.

Sitric was staring into the sand at an old runic inscription that had been made many years ago. "Erik the Red was Here", it said, and Sitric Cáech repeated those words back to William Longsword, who walked up and stood behind him, looking down at the inscription. "Who is Erik the Red?" Count William asked, having never heard of him before. Sitric chuckled slightly with a grin. "My mother raised me in Iskjerne Bay, but after my father died, she feared the other vikings might kill me before I was a man, so she sent me to the Empyrean Sea Beach with an old man named Thorvald Bloodyfist, an outlaw returning from exile. He had a son named Erik the Red, but nobody ever knew what had become of him... Apparently, he came here" Sitric smirked, standing up.

Just then, the other Empyrean vikings started shouting and pointing at the horizon, causing William and Sitric to glance over. There in the distance, watching them was Leiv Eriksson and Kaleb Flokisson, who upon being noticed, suddenly turned around and took off running in the other direction. The party's commander yelled at everyone to get back in the convertiboat, and soon they had caught up to Leiv and Kaleb, almost running them over with their silver vessel before stopping and jumping out of the hovering boat with their weapons drawn. Outnumbered and unprepared for combat, Leiv and Kaleb looked at each other before surrendering without a fight.

They would lead the Empyrean Viking party back to Agartha to the telescope near the entrance to their underground hidden colony, and soon Erik Thorvaldsson and his other children observed as the foreign convertiboat approached their position with its visor down, so that they could clearly see Leiv and Kaleb seated in the middle of the shallow deck with the Empyrean captain standing at its bow. "Woman, go down and get the others," Halfdan the Black ushered. "I'm not your slave anymore Prince Halfdan, that's my son aboard that craft, go and fetch them yourself" Thodhilda said sternly, looking over at Halfdan before looking at her husband Erik, who shrugged before pulling out his own small pocket lens and gazing at the new arrivals.

Halfdan the Black nodded quietly and turned to enter the scaffold that led down into the cave's open entrance chamber. Moments later, the convertiboat had arrived with all the twelve passengers jumping out to greet Hrafn-Floki the very old prophet and the entire moon colony, along with the first generation of children who were now all old enough to work and fight, and have children of their own. William and Sitric released Leiv Eriksson and Kaleb Flokisson who walked over and hugged their fathers, before introducing everyone to the new arrivals. It would seem that the Empyreans were not looking for a bargain or a fight, but were really just interested in hospitality, food and shelter after having explored the red moon and finding nothing.

"Dad, can I do the rite of koryos?" Kaleb Flokisson asked. Hrafn-Floki the Vitki stopped carving with his seax, pausing before chuckling and responding back with a high pitched voice whilst blindly staring at the sky. "Who told you about the koryos?" he asked, before going back to work in carving his wooden idol of Loki and Sigyn from a single piece of fire-stricken oak. Despite being blind, Floki had spent his entire life building boats and carving wood, and no longer needed his worldly physical vision to smell the trees or feel the grain. Kaleb walked over to his father and sat beside him. "The newcomer, Sitric Cáech said that all young men used to do it. I'm a man now, I'm old enough. I should take care of our family." Floki's son said, speaking openly to his mostly blind father.

"Your son speaks of the koryos," Erik Thorvaldsson said as he entered Floki and Helga's home, checking up on his old neighbors from across the open grove. Floki of course recognized his young friend's voice and said nothing, only chuckling uncontrollably, something he had done all his life as a consequence of pseudobulbar affect ever since he was young. "Were you in the koryos, uncle Thorvaldsson?" Kaleb asked curiously. "Heh, no... Sort of... My father was. The koryos is banned in the Empyrean Empire, but, my father initiated me anyway when I was very young," Erik the Red answered. "What did you do?" Kaleb asked inquisitively. Floki and Erik both paused for a moment, and the only sound in Floki's house was the crackling of fire from the open fireplace, before Floki started carving again silently.

"My father took me far away from our homeland to Iskjerne Bay, and then I came here with Floki... That was the last time I saw my father," Erik Thorvaldsson said calmly, recollecting the past, and the time on the wagon, when Livia Caesarius of the Argosian Empire had paid his father to escort her with some wretched draugr they had discovered on the mainland. "We had a tradition in Iskjerne Bay long ago... It was still practiced there when I left," Floki said quietly. Floki never told his son Kaleb why he left Iskjerne Bay, only mentioning that it was too painful to remember why he left. Kaleb Flokisson till now had never heard anything about his older sister who had died in Iskjerne Bay, as both his parents had never quite finished mourning for her.

"But this isn't the Empyrean Sea Beach, this is Agartha, father. None of you have made any law against the koryos. What is it? I'm curious," Kaleb said with an open mind. Hrafn-Floki again stopped working, and Erik the Red hesitated before nodding and answering the young man's question. "There are four traditions, depending on the tribe," Erik said calmly, sitting next to Kaleb by the fireplace while staring into the flames, trying to recollect everything his father Thorvald Bloodyfist had taught him before they parted ways.

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"The ravens, the boars, the wolves, and the bears," Erik said calmly, causing Kaleb Flokisson to glance at his own father. "Is that why they call you Hrafn-Floki?" Kaleb asked, causing his father to giggle uncontrollably once again. "Yes, your father was a raven. The best of them I'd say," Erik chimed in. "No bird has ever taken flight the way your father has Kaleb, and we all owe him our gratitude... Whereas my own father was a bear, solitary, never much for words", Erik continued to educate the young master in the ways of their ancestors, watering it down so to speak. What he actually meant was that Thorvald Bloodyfist was a pure viking, and had a bloody reputation for murdering his aggressors rather than negotiating. In fact, his family's bloody reputation was part of the reason why the tradition had been banned in the first place.

"And Sitric Cáech?" Kaleb asked, wondering about the young foreigner who had brought up the topic to begin with. Erik just shook his head, but Floki chuckled. "Hehehe, I knew his father Ivar, yes. I remember him when he was a child," Floki said. "A crippled boy with brittle bones, slithering this way and that like a dragon, I remember... His father was my best friend, who left him for dead when he was only a week old... I remember that boy when he grew up, and became a vikingr. I envy him to this day... Such a brave lad", Floki said, hinting at some deeper disappointment from his past and reason for leaving Iskjerne Bay, almost off topic. Erik and Kaleb listened quietly as Floki tried to remember, but his Alzheimer's disease made it difficult for him to remember exactly every detail from years ago.

"Well... In any case, that was a long time ago, and those old ways have passed. Nobody does the koryos anymore. Especially now, here in this barren wasteland, it's not safe," Erik the Red warned. But Kaleb was still curious, unpersuaded by their stories. "But it's not supposed to be safe... Father, you know you are getting older now. You're blind dad, and your mind and body aren't what they used to be. You and mother raised me to be a Viking, and I am ready to join the koryos, just like our ancestors did on Gaia long ago," Kaleb Flokisson insisted, causing Erik to rest his hand on Floki's shoulder. Floki nodded quietly, letting out a soft giggle. "Am I really that old? Am I so obsolete that I can not protect my family? Hehehe. Tell me boy, who is able to perform this ritual? You boys won't last one week on Colossa, much less the whole winter, and I am not ready to lose another child so soon," Floki said, again hinting at the fact that he already lost his daughter.

The house was filled with silence for a while, as Floki continued to carve his wooden idol. Kaleb Flokisson sat next to him quietly, disappointed, while Erik the Red scratched his long red beard before speaking up. "You know, I can relate to what the boy is saying." He said. "I'm not a boy," Kaleb retorted defensively. After some back and forth bickering and arguing, finally Floki agreed to let Erik the Red perform the rite of passage, so long as the young men in their colony agreed to certain rules and accommodations. For starters, once initiated the koryos would be forbidden from raiding Agartha or even staying to wander on Colossa, and secondly they were not to be banished from the colony for more than a whole season. Kaleb argued for a year while Erik ofted for a week alone, but the wise old Floki met their argument halfway by allowing the young men to venture out during the winter. Afterwards, the survivors would be welcomed home and granted certain privileges as ulfhednar, berserkers, svinfylking and feathercloaks.

This was the first time in a long long time, since Bjorn Ironside, that any young warriors from Gaian Viking descent would actually partake in the koryos tradition and be initiated formally, in a cult-like spiritual manner in order to become wildlings and religious warriors, leaving their parent's nest to fly away from home and die free, or survive and return as bonified men and certified Vikings in some sacred order or union. Erik the Red and Floki the Blind himself would participate in training the young men and preparing them for their journey. But for this to happen, there needed to be a secret ceremony involving magic, fire, and an animalistic feral rite of passage involving a mixture of beer and mead with henbane and nightshade to produce certain shamanic effects that would ultimately lead the young men to discover their own primal natures, and their innate animal spirits hiding dormant within.