Colossa

#2020-02-10 08:05:39: 

#2021-02-27 08:33:25: 

Vikings from the Crystal Nexus suddenly materialize on Colossa, appearing from out of a red tornado-like vortex or wormhole. Hrafn-Floki, Halfdan the Black, Erik the Red, Floki's wife Helga, a Gaelic Irish slave girl named Thodhilda, and two other Viking thralls from Gaia appeared out of nowhere as the vortex receded into the dark red clouds before disappearing. It seemed that Floki's plan had been a success. Everybody had made it to the red moon together, alive and in one piece. Or mostly everybody, anyway. Floki lifted his head and looked around with wide eyes. But he couldn't see anything at all, only being aware that all of the wind, lightning and thunder had stopped and that everything had gone silent. It was at that moment that Floki's wife Helga noticed that Floki's eyes had turned completely white. He had no pupils or irises at all. His eyes were solid white. Although Floki wasn't quite aware yet, he was blind. He had stared into the bright lights for too long, and had damaged his retinas, maybe even permanently. Everyone else, however, could see the area around them. It was the great red moon they had been hoping for. And just as they had all suspected, it was brilliant red, with similar hues of orange, brown and yellow caused by the moon's minerals and composition. Their journey had been a success.

"Helga... Helga I can't see!" Hrafn-Floki the Vitki said panickly while looking around with pure white eyes. As he fell to his knees, Helga quickly knelt beside him, throwing a dark grey hooded cloak over his shoulders before lifting his chin up to examine his face.

"Floki, your eyes have changed!" Helga exclaimed, a bit shocked to see that her husband no longer had bright blue irises. Instead, his eyes were milky white and had no irises or noticeable pupils at all. Just solid white, with no discolored rings or red veins which could be seen. Floki had failed to close his eyes during the teleportation to Colossa, his curiosity getting the better of him as he was now completely blind, perhaps even permanently. It was a small price to pay however, for the clever Floki had gained a wisdom and knowledge that very few others possessed. He had witnessed the wormhole, and the distortion of space-time firsthand with his own two eyes as he peered into the bright spectrum of rainbow colored white blinding light before going through it.

Helga looked around the immediate area, searching for something useful. She found a very old petrified piece of smooth salt dried driftwood which looked like it had once been washed ashore by the waves. But there was not an inch of water in sight, as the oddly curved stick appeared to just be laying out in the open on a vast barren desert of bright red, orange, brown, white and black sand that was so fine and dry that it seemed like powder or dust. Helga quickly picked up the driftwood and brought it to Floki, placing it into one of his hands as a walking stick before helping him to stand up. Floki appeared much different now, with his white eyes, long crooked shepherd staff and dark grey hooded cloak, which was already turning orange from the collecting red dust.

"Tell me Helga, what does it look like? Was I right or wrong about this place?" Floki the Ghostslayer asked curiously, staring off into the distance at the great void of space, unable to see a thing. All the aging middle aged partially balding auburn haired Viking leader could see was a bright white blinding light surrounded by a circle of rainbow colored rays, like stained glass or a crystal prism of sorts resembling a halo or ring. It was like looking directly into the sun itself.

Helga looked out over the horizon. There was nothing to see at first glance. There was no forest, no grasses, no rivers or lakes. Just a vast bright red desert of mixed dust with deep red mountains and low laying wavy red hills of sand. There were no signs of intelligent life, if life even existed at all. The surface of Colossa was very similar to Mars, apart from having a breathable atmosphere capable of supporting carbon-based lifeforms, and perhaps even more obscure alien species. But there was nothing. The sky was thick and orangish brown, with purplish red clouds and windy dust storms. It looked like a desolate wasteland.

"It's... amazing. It's absolutely gorgeous. The most beautiful landscape I've ever seen," Helga reassured Floki before glancing at the others around them and motioning for them to play along. Erik the Red wasn't scathed at all however as he knelt down and picked up a handful of the red dust, letting it sift through his fingers. He sniffed the sand and tasted it with the tip of his tongue before nodding quietly. He was not from Iskjerne Bay, but from the Empyrean Norse Empire, and his advanced knowledge would prove to be a great asset on this unremarkable red moon.

"The soil is rich with salt, iron, and black powder. I think it contains quartz, charcoal, sulphur, gold, zinc, and sandstone as well." Erik "the Red" Thorvaldsson explained. Of course, there was much to be learned from the moon's mostly uncharted surface. As he drew his name in the sand using Futhark runic script, the young red haired outlaw noticed very fine small reflective particles of gold and other elements which he knew could be exploited with a little bit of knowledge and industrial mining. It was very fine though, and Erik knew from his father and grandfather before him what it would take to separate all of the elements and make something of it. But he was sure he could do it. He just needed some time to setup shop and get things going.

Meanwhile, Halfdan the Black didn't even know it yet, but his brother Harald Finehair had just become the legitimate King of Iskjerne Bay, following through with his plan to defeat Duke Rollo, eliminate all foreign influence and restore the Iskjerne Viking Kingdom to its original Norse Pagan independence and glory. Halfdan was now directly akin to the most famous Viking chieftain since Sigurd Hring, and unbeknownst to him, Halfdan the Black was now in danger of being powerful. He wasted no time in trying to establish a moon colony for his new comrades, as he began barking orders to Thodhilda and the other thralls.

There wasn't much to work with, but between the Empyrean Norseman and the Iskjerne Vikings, they would find a way to survive on this desolate Mars-like landscape and thrive by any means necessary, even if it meant they had to improvise by building an earthware settlement and terraforming their own backyards. It didn't take long for them to come up with a plan. They were Nordic peoples, after all, and had learned to survive in some of the harshest lands imaginable. It didn't matter much where the Vikings had landed. They were warriors by nature, and extremely resilient for what limited technology they had. It only took a week for Floki the Blind's group of seven diehard explorers to build a ring fortress out of nothing at all but natural sand.

A sand castle? A life-size replica. Was it even possible? Hrafn-Floki was blind, but not deaf, mute or stupid. As soon as the project was presented to him, Floki began to contemplate a way. Floki had no limitations apart from his own imagination, which had helped him succeed in times long since forgotten. Within a few days, Floki had Halfdan working on building a sustainable development. With no sign of an oceanic presence, Halfdan the Black started using Norse magic and science to make Floki's dream a reality.

The Vikings were already aware that the air itself was breathable. Halfdan the Black experimented with alchemy and studied Colossa's natural resources, while Erik the Red led the expedition party, surveying the area and determining the proper location of the first settlement. Floki himself, although blind, would orchestrate the whole project and he was very keen in doing so. Since there were no obvious natural resources like wood and water, the Vikings instead began studying the soil and red dust beneath their feet.

The red dust, although insignificant to many other nations in the history of the Multiverse, turned out to be quite fertile and full of natural elements which the Vikings themselves took full advantage of. Two weeks or so after their arrival on the red moon, the Vikings were already developing artificial structures and technology. Sigurd Hring the Titan had already controlled the planet Gaia herself. He had sworn to protect Gaia, and now, as nothing less than a god himself who had somehow merged and became One with Gaia, the great Sigurd Hring, known officially as the "Ringtaker", had already subjectated himself to a higher power.

There were many Titans on Gaia in those days. Even the gods themselves were not immune to Gaia's divine council. It had seemed that, despite the power of the Titans, the gods of the solar system still operated under a Council Republic where freedom was preserved, and Medieval Paganism was still the main authority. This meant Freedom, or what was left of it, as the gods themselves operated semi-democratically, with understandable limitations. Sigurd Hring had ascended completely to godhood. But by his own words, he was still limited and unable to leave the planet, bound by an unwritten, unspoken code of honour. The Vikings on the red moon Colossa did not have his direct presence, for the godhood that had been Sigurd Hring could never leave Gaia, and could only observe from Gaia's exosphere.

Hrafn-Floki had taken the Vikings above and beyond Gaia, to a very foreign place within the cosmos. Colossa was a very underestimated, very uninhabited red moon. There were flying translucent jellyfish on Colossa, but no sign at all of Intelligent life. That is, until the Vikings arrived. Two weeks in, Hrafn-Floki and his new gang had accomplished what Hethel Svensson had accomplished years before. Despite being as blind as an Earthworm, the great Raven Floki had established a colony on the red moon.

The moon. A natural satellite for Gaia, one of the overlooked main forces which had driven the gravity, and controlled the tides of Gaia itself, had now been colonized by none other than Iskjerne Vikings, led by a blind prophet. Floki no doubt had concerns for Iskjerne Bay, and despite having only partial awareness of King Harald Finehair's plans to perform a cultural ethnic cleansing of the planet, Hrafn-Floki was intelligent enough at least to put some thought and effort into protecting his homeland and furthering Gaia's security.

Floki the Blind considered every option in his free time, as most of the work on terraforming had been left in the hands of his subservient followers and thralls, or slaves, who worked tirelessly for over a week or two to turn his dreams into a reality. It was at that time that Floki the Ghostslayer developed a secret colony, naturally camouflaged by the red landscape, and a secret weapon designed specifically for the protection of the planet Gaia herself, from the Viking base on Gaia's insignificant red moon.

The Vikings were ready...

Or so they thought...

The Vikings tried to build a sand castle, but after a half day of digging they realized that Floki's plan didn't work as the structure caved in. Gathering the information he heard from everyone, Floki realized that he needed a more stable shelter. But without any trees, rain or grass, he would need a replacement for wood and water. So to compensate for their time, Floki proposed that they keep digging and use the rocks and stones on the ground to build an earthdome over the top of the dirtpool, using the red and black dust beneath their feet to support the earthdome like underground walls, giving them a temporary underground shelter which, once covered in the red dust, looked just like another hill on the sandy desert.

This worked, for a time, allowing Floki to think about his options. They couldn't go back. Their transport crystals were only good for a one way trip. He needed to formulate another plan. The following day, the Vikings left the earth lodge to explore the moon further. Floki learned that the sky was black with a red haze during the day, the stars were bright, the 3 suns were further away, and that Gaia itself looked absolutely stunning, a magical glowing blue and green sphere which looked huge from the moon's surface. Floki listened quietly and walked with his 6 followers for miles, but they never found anything other than rocks, salty metallic tasting sand and scarce bits and pieces of driftwood, which they collected anyway. But after a while, and many more attempts, Floki was about to give up.

On the third day, things were starting to get worse. The moon was starting to get windy, and reddish orange dust storms covered the horizon. Floki and his team were too far from their shelter to return in time. They needed another plan, and quickly. Floki led them towards the large fallen rockpile at the base of the mountains and hoped for the best. Time was running out. The Vikings were tired, dehydrated and getting sore. They needed water, and Floki prayed to his dark gods that the large rockpile would be able to shelter them from the incoming red dust storm before they got sand blasted.

But as they got to the rockface, they didn't find any of the large fallen boulders which resembled a shelter. Floki sat on a rock and lowered his head. He failed. He knew it. He understood why Helga deceived him. It was because she loved him. But he knew in his mind that he had given up. He cursed himself and threw his walking stick on the ground, palming himself in the forehead while cursing. But all of a sudden, he heard a yell.

"Floki, come! Come quickly! There is a cave." Helga shouted. A cave? Floki contemplated. If large enough to hold seven people, a cave would be an even better shelter than a rockpile. The Vikings quickly headed into the cave as Helga and Thodhilda prevented the blind leader from falling. But as they entered the small tunnel and headed deeper, the cave started to open up and get bigger. But there were no other passageways. It just went straight back and expanded into a large dark empty chamber. They used the gear they had brought with them to lite candles, and at first they didn't see any particularly interesting shadows. But the chamber had another small tunnel going down even further into the cave, hidden by it's own size, shape and color, both by the darkness, and by the shadow of its reflection. Halfdan almost didn't see it, until he stepped into a hole and fell through, twisting his ankle.

The cave seemed to go on forever, and they still saw no sign of life anywhere. Erik the Red helped Halfdan to his feet while Floki gave up his walking stick so Halfdan could support himself. Now the Vikings were really in trouble. They kept walking slowly deeper into the cave tunnel until finally, like a miracle, they started to notice something different. It sounded like thunder and rushing water behind the cave wall. They traveled further, going around the cavebend, but they didn't expect what they were about to see. For right there at the very end of the cave, was a massive subterranean ecosystem which was blue and green, and had been untouched by anyone until now. It was lit up by the crystalline stalactite and stalagmite formations which formed what looked like an open jaw entrance through a sinister looking smile with sharp pointy teeth for pillars. This seemed to be the only way in or out of the enormous breath-taking underground environment. The light seemed to be originating from the candle lights they were holding, as if the crystalline structures had been some sort of magical amplifiers that made the innermost rigidly dome-shaped part of the cave lite up. Whatever this place was, it had some type of force field around it. It seemed to be protected from outside interferences by some form or manner. Was it technology? Was it anti-technology? Or was it Gaia's magic? If so, the implications were interesting as the inner cave seemed to nullify teleportation, wormholes, time traveling and other strange phenomena. Whatever it was, the hidden gem in the cave was like an underground oasis or paradise with waterfalls, hazey mists, forest jungles and rocky steps up a miniature mountain deep down inside the hollow red moon. They had found water.

The Vikings weren't done yet...

Hrafn-Floki and his 6 companions had discovered a new subterranean world, an unknown, hidden gem on the otherwise unexplored moon, a place like the mythical underground kingdom of Agartha, a continent that existed beneath the ocean which contained its own atmosphere, ecosystem and biodiversity.

"Floki you old fool... you did it," Harald Fairhair's brother, Haldan the Black, said slowly, marveling at the large Eden-like oasis before them as a flock of birds flew over the double rainbow bridge that projected from white misty waterfalls over the densely green mountain.

"We did it..." Floki said with a smile, leaning on his walking stick as he listened to the flow of the nearby creeks and rivers. Floki was still blind in both eyes, but he could just tell by the sounds of nature and the smell of the jungle that Helga had located the paradise he had always imagined.

"Oh Floki it's beautiful," Helga said, hugging Floki over his grey hooded cloak and causing him to chuckle. Helga and Thodhilda continued to accompany Floki across the rocky river as he used his walking stick to navigate. Eric the Red meanwhile stayed with Haldan the Black and helped him to get across the river with a twisted ankle.

The group traveled slow, but they weren't in any hurry as they crossed the river and stopped to rest on the rocky shore. Eric the Red, Thodhilda and the other thrall would gather sticks and firewood, and materials to make rope and thread. Haldan fashioned a splint for his leg to help keep his ankle straight as he twisted his foot back into place with a sharp pop, causing him to cringe and moan with pain.

Floki was given a blindfold or cloth to wrap his head and cover his eyes now that they were useless. After a few days on the rocky shore, the six companions traveled deeper into the jungle and started to explore around. They found a place that was teaming with life and full of useful materials. There were bananas, mangoes, grapes, pineapples, strawberries, peaches, pear trees and all kinds of other edible plants, nuts and berries. They found wild corn, wheat, cereal, seed and grain. They even spotted some of the other local wildlife.

They counted no less than twenty species of birds on the warm mountainside, and thought that there must have been at least 100 different species of animals living on the continent if not more. To their surprise, however, there was no hemlock, no belladonna, no moonwart or any other poisonous ivy or plant that they could find, and very few natural predators. It was like a dreamland of sorts, a place that couldn't be much more perfect for a settlement. After about a month, Floki and his gang built a small permanent settlement on top of the mountain inside the caldera at its peak, which had long turned grassy green over time.

After a while, Eric the Red purchased Thodhilda from Hrafn-Floki and set her free before asking her to marry him. Thodhilda agreed to marry Eric the Red, and soon they started living together in the same house. Floki and his wife Helga lived in the house across from them, along with Floki's servant, while Haldan lived in the 3rd small wooden cabin next to Floki's cabin, and diagonal from Eric's cabin. All three cabins faced inwards towards a round circle made of stones, and inside the circle stood the large, life-sized upright runestone that Floki the Blind carved himself as a little monument and guidestone for their settlement.

#2023-09-09 00:47:40: 

"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.

https://youtu.be/2od0xiL1mPw?feature=shared

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.

https://youtu.be/SNHL3uWGx7M?feature=shared

"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.