Welcome to Vikings and Valkyries, an actual play podcast. We are playing When the Wolf
Comes, a role-playing game set in the twilight of gods and men. My name is Ian Stuart Sharpe,
and I will be your Helblinder for the ongoing campaign which we call the Thought and Memory
Saga. Snatching defeat from the jaws of cictory this week are the morsels of meat we know
as Bill, Steve, CJ and Annina. Welcome one and all.
Thank you.
Welcome back after the winter break. I presume you all managed to avoid the Wild Hunt, no
one whisked away by Allfather Odin?
I mean, for a little while.
Did you leave hay in your stockings for Sleipnir? That's the tradition?
No, that was the problem.
While we were away, we actually got some people asking us why we were away and hoping that
we would never come back. No, actually they were quite nice. They said, are we expecting
more episodes? To which I said, well, you know, as long as you pay me enough danger
money, then I'll see what I can do.
Yes, I believe they explicitly asked about Gigi's magnetism.
That's exactly right. The fan mails were basically requesting you to send signed photographs.
Anyway, we're back with a bang for 2025 and this time we are joined by writer, producer
and actor Annina Kaski who's taken a moment out of her role as Saga in Bardic Quest to
join us today and show you all how it's done.
You're welcome.
Fair enough.
Hello.
I listened to some.
Thank you very much.
Absolutely.
Thank you. I don't need to do a intro because that was perfect. That's literally what I
do.
We desperately need someone to show us how it's done.
Sorry, Ian, did you actually bring in a professional? What is this?
I think we may be all on the chopping block, CJ.
First of all, you were already on the chopping block every single episode. And secondly,
yeah, it was my New Year's resolution to try and do something to improve our fortunes.
CJ, you didn't have much of a break, did you? Because over the 12 days of Christmas, you
were just writing the 12 Viking related articles of Yule instead.
Yes, I wrote a whole lot of articles over the break, didn't I? I was on vacation, so
I got to do things that I like to do.
So endless articles about Viking stuff on your blog, which I encourage everyone to read.
And I wrote a book as well. I sent it to my editor and even he was like, what are you
doing with your life? I was like, I had two weeks off.
Annina, you're a writer as well, as is Steve. What things have you penned recently and did
you do them all within two weeks?
No, I'm more of a think about it for a couple of months and then do the best. I am working
on a book, a semi autobiographical book, but that's going to take a while. And also on
a sitcom pilot. I usually write either very, very dark stuff or black comedy. So I'm going
to try and just write comedy. And that's what I'm working on.
We'll allow Bill and Steve to treat this as a bit of an audition to see whether they can
jam their Odd Couple routine into your sitcom.
I'm curious, do the English have any sort of tradition of darker comedy?
I'm a bit of a half breed. Yes, yes. I'm Finnish. So I'm Finnish, bilingual and I grew up in
Oxford. So I'm a bit of a cultural half breed, even though I am, you know,
completely Finnish. We do a mix. Our Finnish Christmas is on Christmas Eve, not Christmas
Day. So what me and my husband do is we take turns what day we celebrate it on. And this
year was the proper one, which was Christmas Eve. Now, I do prefer controversial. I'm sorry
for any Finns who might be listening. I prefer British Christmas food apart from the dessert.
Apart from the desserts, apart from plum pudding, figgy pudding.
I made some gingerbread. So we can't talk too much about food primarily because CJ has
got a touch of the touch of something.
I gurgled at the thought of English food.
Is what has befallen you, CJ? Is it the revenge of the draugr of Bjarni? Did your
fart runes reverberate back on you?
Yes, they came back with a vengeance. Oh, boy. I won't go much further than that. You can
see on the news, there's an outbreak and I laughed it off and I said, you know, I'm going
to live my life. And I did. And my son came back from daycare and the it's all watery
diaper. I remember. Yeah, the the daycare later was like, you had a really watery diaper
when it changed clothes. I was like, OK, that's not a big deal. Right. And a day later, my
wife and her both just there we go. So fans of delicate disposition and listening to this
probably check out out now, stop the recording. That reminds me because we know,
obviously, the show must go on. Annina you can probably testify to that. It's an important
mantra in in performance art such as this is. But that reminds me, we made Ed play in episode
two when he had strep throat and talk. And he died in that episode? Has anyone checked
in on him to see whether he's actually well? He's lost his voice permanently. I was
talking to my sister and but the family was not upset. Just I mean, I think he is, but
he can't say anything. So no one's really sure. But the rest of them are fine. His sisters
are fine with that. It's for the best. It's for the best. It was a bit sassy anyway. So
well, Ed, if you do listen to this, then feel free to mime in your complaints. Every episode
I like to see whether you can earn your Odinnic inspiration points. And so this week I have
a question for you that's inspired by Annina's love of Lord of the Rings. We chatted last
week and you said you had the Lord of the Rings inspired wedding, is that correct? Yes,
yes, we did indeed. We got married in November. So very, very recently, Bill is showing us
his collection of Tolkien books, forgetting that it's an audio medium. It was for you.
Oh, thank you. I appreciated it. Yeah. Ordinarily, I cover up your window so I don't have to
see anything of that. I know he's not joking. I know that's true. All right. So the question
for your inspiration points, which you can potentially spend to save yourself an appalling
demise is this. Can you name me five races that occur in Tolkien's works that were drawn
from Norse mythology? It's a tricky one. Elves. Elves is correct. Tolkien's elves were drawn
partly from Celtic mythology, partly from Norse and the division between his Calaequendi,
the elves of light and the Morlequendi, the elves of darkness, such as Steve's, echoes
that Norse division between the Dokkalf and the Ljósálf, the light elves and the dark
elves. So that is very apropos, CJ, and that is one of the five. Depends how direct the
correlation has to be. Surely the Hobbits and the Halflings, because... I cannot give
you that one, mainly because I have excised any of the small folk with hairy feet from
When the Wolf Comes. But no, they were an invention of Tolkien's own. They don't come
from Norse mythology. And I'll give you another clue as well. It's not gnomes, because gnomes
were the invention of a 17th century Swiss mythologist. The things you know, Ian. Well,
dwarves, I'll go there. Let's go dwarves. Dwarves, correct. Dwarves or Dvergr, So he
took the names of 12 of his 13 dwarves that are in the Hobbit from the Old Norse Voluspa,
which is part of the Elder Edda. And he also took Gandalf's name from that as well, which
is effectively Wand Elf. It's a lesser known race, but I'm guessing maybe the Bombadilions
came from an original Norse source. And we only know one in the extant world. You're
gonna lose us that inspiration point. I always do, C.J. Come on. We've basically flushed
that down the toilet. I'm gonna go for ants. Surely Ents. Oh, good one. Ents are not in
the list. I'm gonna go for Ents. Ents are not on my list. I suck at this, Chris. The
eagles then. No. Trolls, guys. Trolls. Come on. The trolls. Trolls. 100%. Why are you
sitting there looking sickly instead of offering that up earlier? Come on. It's a lovely fast
night. I'm letting this be a team effort. Yes. In Norse mythology. And the dragons. Yeah,
I will accept the dragons and drakkar as well in the Norse sense. Trolls, obviously called
Risa, Jotnar, or Thurs in Old Norse. Although ironically, the idea that monsters like trolls
be below ground before dawn dates to the Edda in the Alvissmal. But the god Thor in that keeps
the Dverg or the dwarf, not a troll, talking until dawn and then sees him turn to stone.
So a little bit of a blending of things that Tolkien made more clearly separate. All right.
So I've got dwarves, elves, and trolls. Correct. Dragons. Yep. One more. Just one more. This
is very irritating, Ian. I can't begin to tell you. What about ogres? Nope. They're
wrapped in with trolls. Yeah, Steve. Geez. Not giving you that. I'm sorry. It's not part
of my family tree. This is very irritating. Why can't I think of anything else? I feel
like I'm going to get another, you know, klaxon noise. But orcs? Or is that same as... Oh
my God. Well, you know, orcs aren't... Isn't too bad because they are referred to in poems
like Beowulf, which is Anglo-Saxon, as the Orcneas or the devil corpses. I tell you
out of the spirit of you just joined us and I don't want to be mean, we'll give you the
inspiration point. You could have had the Balrog, which comes from the name of Odin
as high, the baleye, a nickname for Odin, his epithet. You could have had wargs. I was going
to say wargs. I was, but I just... Yeah, yeah. You were so snarky about my last... You want
me to edit it in afterwards? Yeah, warg! There you go. What about Beorn? Yeah, you could
have had Beorn as a shapeshifter, very similar to, you know, Bjarki, the warlike little
bear of Norse myth. Well, you could have had wizards as well, wizards as a kind of race.
Oh, I nearly said wizard. I was just saying, yeah, old men with beards. Would the bombardillion
count then in that case? I mean, he's not a true wizard, but he's magical. The ring does
not affect him. You've already got your five. So, so, so now... We're overachievers. We
have a professional with us today. As we show all the time, we're overachievers. So Ian,
I just want to clarify that's one inspiration point each, I believe. Or at least... Yes,
yes, yes. You always like to clarify that, but no, it's one between you all's a fight
over. Yeah, I know. I know that's the answer. I was just... I'm going to give you, I'm going
to give you a chance for a bonus point. Let's do double or quits. Let's do double or quits.
Okay. Because that's funny. For the bonus point, Annina, can you, can you name some Finnish
influences on Tolkien? Especially because of the Kalevala, which is the Finnish national
epic that he, he, he... So you can't mention that one, but whatever, whatever one's on
it. Well, Elvish is a mix, is inspired by Finnish and Welsh. Oh, truly. Very true. He
was a Finnophile. He was, and I mean, I've always said that, well, that basically makes
Finnish people elves. So I'm actually an Elvish. Congratulations. Very good. I'm very proud
of it. So yeah, he visited Helsinki and loved the language, read the epic, which is similar
to, but very distinctly different from Norse mythology. So for instance, we have our own
God of Thunder, similar, but we want in our own one. So we have a God of Water, Mother
Earth, and loads of druids. And me and Ian were talking about how the sort of Kalevala
druids are very, very wizardy. So... Bill, you remember Vainamoinnen from your Fiend
Folio or Monster Manual one or Gods and Demigods, whichever one it was in. I've got all the
old ones. I don't. Yeah, of course I remember. Yes. Yes. And what you had for breakfast
yesterday. Anyway, so Alfar, yes, the elves, he invented his Elvish language of Quenya,
influenced by the phonology and structure of Finnish. And so, Annina, if you wouldn't
mind if you and Bill could just, for the purposes of this whole episode, speak to each other
in Finnish. I'd appreciate that. Bill, crash course for you as an Alfar. I think, Bill,
if you're going to do it properly, you might as well. I'm getting a little headachy in the
back. Good thing it's an audio podcast. Such hilarity. All right, we will start with this
week's adventure, which is called, and I don't want to put you off before we've even begun,
but it is called The Horror of Fangstone Mine. Yeah, so it's a light and breezy outing. It
shouldn't cause anyone any consternation. Is that how we all pronounce it? One of those
picnic episodes. Exactly. So we left it just before the wintry break we left our Intrepid
heroes. They had returned from the Trolls Tongue brandishing the land deed to the whole of
Heimslit, which is now under review, being authenticated by the law speaker, Krapti
Thorfridssen. He had suggested to you, very strongly suggested to you, that you authenticate
the claims of Bjarnie and his Jotnar son Daniel and see whether the document indeed
pertains to their family lineage. And because the former Imperial capital holds those records,
it's a place known well to Steve, the former capital of Kóngssteinn, and it was broadly decided
that you should head across the fjord, across the gulf that straddles Heimslit and make
your way to the former capital to see whether you can retrieve said Imperial records. Steve,
did you have anything to say on the subject of Kóngssteinn before you go? There's some words
of warning, some suggestions to your colleagues and compatriots here, or do you want to vet
them blunder in unawares? Well, okay, the blundering is going to happen regardless.
But the I think the really salient points are it's a horrible place. Everyone will hate
us and try to kill us, but the music is awesome. Good summary. All right. So this adventure
is set in the last days of autumn or fall, if you're from a different continent to me.
The darkness is broken by a shimmer of pastel pink, gold and silver in the southern skies,
who at this event try to help you to imagine that the landscape is bathed in subtle yet
mesmerizing twilight. And of course, the crimson scar glows in the sky clearer than ever.
Krapti Thorfridsen has organized passage for you. It's a journey of a few hours and
he has made introductions to a local pilot called Harbard, who knows the churning waters
of the Helsund well. You are able to make your way to the docks where you can wave such
dockets and papers as the law speaker has given you to requisition travel in Harbard's
boat. You will also notice that as you do so and you find the ferryman there in the
back of his boat huddled in a dark cloak is another figure and will introduce Annina shortly
should you choose to, but there is definitely a foreboding presence holed up in the back.
Is there a latrine nearby on the boat? I would like some privacy. I think I've eaten some
spoiled something. It's urgent.
I suggest you use the latrine the guards provided you with. Aegir himself, you just need to
toddle off into their boy. It points to the direction, please. He merely gestures to the
end of the pier. Bye. It's suffink cold innit today, boy.
Is he going to be doing this all day today? Running off to the end of the pier? The man
is not quite himself. He's not quite anyone else either. I miss food, but I don't miss
that. The ferryman reaches out to you and says, are you right, boy? How are you doing?
We have paperwork here. Harbard, is that your name?
Aye. Oh, that's a load of squit, isn't it? Yeah. We have all these papers that apparently
say you will take us to Kóngssteinn. You want to get in my boat and go up the old
city? Yes, we do. And that on and all, he's covered in Charlie
pigs and Harry wiggles. He's gesturing Bill's character, the alfar Ljomi who is festooned
with bugs. While this is happening, you would have seen
my character sort of peering over the edge and looking over and then suddenly plunging
a hand into the water and pulling out very wet, very large, very wiggly fish. Got one.
That's a useful skill. The only steps closer and addresses the dark
figure. I see you are communing with nature, as am I.
Huh? You speak to the fish. You connect to the fish.
I was going to eat it. Yes, yes, very good. Yes, yes.
And during this, the hood would have fallen off and you see a brown sort of snouted creature.
It looks slightly like a bear, not quite. Oh, hello. I'm not sharing this.
Not to worry. I have no need of such sustenance unless it's been mingled into the ground.
Please continue, creature. What manner of creature are you then?
Oh, I mean, I was a wolverine, but now I'm half of one.
Indeed. Bill's flapping the fish. He's just flapping
around in a hand. In game terms, in this universe, Annina is
a járnviðjur, an ironwoodite, a child of the ironwood, uplifted to sentience by the
Verdandi, the green seers of Jotunheim. They were child soldiers bred for war, and you
know full well their fearsome reputation. What is your name, creature?
Alma. Pleased to meet you. Likewise.
A lot of people call me Beast, which I don't mind, but my name is Alma.
I shall call you Beast. If you can remember.
The ferryman says, Stop you piddling, mawther.
Alma. All right then, mawther. Now that one.
You the new jarl, eh? That Finnbogi ee owe me a pint of beer.
I driv all the way to the tongue and on the way back that snowed.
Bootiful, he said. He got something hotty dotty from the
snow and then he says to me, What you gawpin' at?
And after a few beers, well, I was on the huh. That will learn me.
Quite. I used to have one of those.
Um. Oh, you offering me a beer?
We know where to find bears if you're interested in one.
Oh, I like a beer. They like men.
Well, I know that's the only ones that are going to drink it, isn't it?
Drink it. A nice frosty beer.
A frosty bear. Eir's wondering if he's having a stroke.
He is. At this moment, Gigi walks walks back up the pier
and gets onto the ferry and just says, All right, are we ready to go?
Are we going to the old city? Are we done? If you had all your pleasantries?
Are we? Hew you hard.
I ain't a higgler, but I can't afford new jollifications.
Jo... What? You should... They showed you the papers.
Did they? Did they not?
My heart and life slow you down, hew your hard.
And then he catches Annina's character out of the corner of his eye
and sees and goes, sees the fish flopping around and goes,
You're not going to eat that, are you?
Yes.
Just don't do it in front of me, please. Not today.
For a lifetime. You turn around.
I'm a fucking jarl.
And I have claws. Turn around.
I've got a gun. Who the fuck are you anyway?
That's one great mawtherr come running and she was something savage.
She put on her past, didn't know what had done it.
God, that's a rum'un. So where's we going? Up the city?
Yes. To retrieve the documents.
To the war-fit Kóngssteinn.
Well, stop you blaring and croaking then.
Right.
You're a mixed bunch. Where are you going?
To the old city. Oh, why?
Why are you going to Kóngssteinn?
Important business for the Jarl, the law speaker, the man, one of the men.
Oh, oh, God Tongue. Yeah.
Right. Indeed.
Did you want to do any introduction to yourselves? Because as far as Annina can
say, you know, there's three strange people have just turned up at the boat that she was happily on.
Minding her own business.
CJ spent several episodes telling us that the first order of business,
especially in French society, is to introduce yourself.
Yes, absolutely.
And then he just runs off to the edge of the pier and squits all over the side.
It was an introduction of sorts. He's having a bad day.
So I'm Alma.
Oh, thank you for reminding us to introduce ourselves.
Where are my manners? I ate some bad something.
And then he...
Oh, you have to catch the fish fresh.
And he tries to flit his cape and do his normal strut, but he's just a little
off the end and goes, I'm Grjotgarth, the Magnificent.
My friends called me Gigi for short.
I used to know a dog called Gigi.
Very subtle, I think you'll find.
I am Ljomi, a spirit of nature, of the connection of all the energies of the living world.
And although I am normally quite cheerful and friendly, I'm still grieving for the loss of
my dear friend who died tragically some time ago.
And although we were very close, I feel I could have treated him better in life.
And yes, I'm inconsolable, so don't attempt to console me.
Okay.
Hello, my name is Eir.
No, Eir is the dead one. You're a robot.
I am the one accompanying this imbecile who believes I'm dead.
Instead, I am currently temporarily incarcerated in a robot body.
Yeah, you smell...
I smell probably of like hydraulic fluid or something.
This body is ancient and falling apart.
I assure you, I am in this entirely without my consent.
Oh.
I am a spirit of the earth, and I look to return to a more perfect body soon, I hope.
Alma, you're assaulted by the stench of all of these people, whether it's bugs, beetles,
fuel and hydraulics, or whatever is currently staining Gigi's satin pants.
Mm-hmm.
I think Ljomi's a little more woody and sort of earthy rather than a stench.
I feel stench is overly strong.
Yeah.
No, it's a stench.
Eau de forest.
Is that what you're going for?
All right.
Well, again, the ferryman Harbard says to you,
Come you here, I'm gonna ride out my boat across the diamond road.
Great.
As soon as Gigi is ready to go.
Oh, he's ready to go.
He's going right now.
Let's go.
Let's push.
No, no, no, no.
So you begin your journey across the Arctic fjord in this rusty speedboat,
the cold morning air stinging your faces as the cracked out motor chugs through the glassy water.
You're surrounded by these towering snow-peaked cliffs
bathed in the uncanny glow of the crimson scar in the sky.
The world around you is definitely quiet,
occasionally interrupted by the shrieks of arctic turns overhead,
the playful breaches of curious seals,
and the parps of Gigi as he is on one side of the boat.
Anyways, you churn almost.
That's the wrong word to use as well.
A mere speck amidst the world of frost and stone until you reach the far shore
and Kóngssteinn hoves into view.
Once the capital of the region bustling with life,
the ghost town is now silent, an eerie window into the past.
Silhouetted reindeer roam freely,
their bodies contrasting starkly against the snow-blanketed backdrop
are moved by your arrival.
As he pulls up to the wharf of the jetty and ties off the boat,
Harbard says to you,
I ought to be getting home soon before that snow.
I ain't been stingy, but I'll give you to the afternoon.
Do you keep a-trushing.
Um...
Robot, you speak robot.
Speak to the man who speaks robot.
It's clearly robot.
I don't speak rustic.
Can anyone translate?
You're only going to take us this far?
I'll give you to the afternoon, are you dutzy?
Yes, she is.
So we are at the wharf of Kóngssteinn?
You're at the wharf of Kóngssteinn, and I would advise everyone to hear that
Eir, the dokkalfar, he has crunched his way along the desolate paths
of this abandoned city before, and so he is in possession of at least a mental map
as to how this kind of time capsule suspended in the ageless winter landscape.
He is in possession of this map, and he can guide you through the derelict pre-war buildings
that stand eerily quiet.
Above table, is it safe to say that the archives would be at or near the palace?
That is a fair assumption.
The Imperial capital once held Palace of the Urðr
The Urðr are the name given to the combination of the secret police
and the Imperial midwives, the witches who run the empire behind the scenes.
They are a Termagant order who have their fingers into all Imperial machinations.
Do any of Eirs people live above ground?
Generally speaking, without giving too much of a history lesson, the dokkalfar were birthed,
were forced into their automaton forms.
They borrowed their way across the Niu Heimar to the world of Nidavellir the dark fields,
and hid there for many centuries.
In recent years, they have staggered across the greenways and infiltrated their former homes on Midgard.
Your people were drawn to this particular region by the vast mineral wealth
and burrowed deep beneath the mines here, the diamond mines that were once the basis,
and the reason for being called Kóngssteinn or Kingstone.
So mostly underground, then?
I'm assuming there's no one here to meet us, and it's not likely we'll meet very many people on the surface.
Is that a fair statement?
That is a fair statement.
In terms of the menfolk, about 40 years ago, Kóngssteinn was the main city of this world's end archipelago,
with more people living in it than in Hjálpmakaar today.
But then the miners stumbled across something in the darkness, an underground,
not a direct portal to Niðavellir through which they spied legions of your steam devils,
and barely comprehending what they saw, they all fled, leaving the town in an instant.
Um, there's no one here to meet us, which is probably just as well.
Error will suggest that we head west from here into the town.
Well, what's left of the town on the surface?
We'll find maybe shelter at the farms on the outskirts,
or we could keep going into the residential area on our way to the palace.
Oh, you've been here before?
I have.
I, yes.
I'm sort of from here, which is evasive.
My people dwell underground.
Do you remember being put in the can?
I do, yes.
Being put in the...
Oh.
Yes, yes.
Was it painful?
More spiritually than physically.
Yeah.
But it was that or Oblivion, and apparently I don't get to have Oblivion.
Yes, yes, yes.
How long will it take us to get to the place we're going?
The palace, the records, the...
How fast can you run?
I like running.
Can I come with?
I'm looking for my brothers and sisters.
I haven't seen them in a few years.
It would be safest to stay together, I think.
It's about half a mile will get us to the outskirts,
maybe a full mile to the palace.
Palace?
Well, what's left of it?
The buildings will be abandoned, but they will be otherwise intact.
They were constructed before the war, designed with rounded edges to deflect the winter winds.
Now, while they are deserted, the doors might be rusted or frozen shut,
but they are all broadly intact.
Okay, and there's no sign of anyone on the surface from here?
Other than the reindeer, mooching and eating the moss that they can find on the ground,
then there is nothing else.
Like I said, it's like stepping into a time capsule.
Each of these wind whip structures casting a haunting shadow under the pale arctic sun.
As you walk towards Kóngssteinn proper from the wharf, snow crunches underfoot,
and the feeling of bleak, unrelenting solitude permeates the air.
Lovely.
Ljomi turns to CJ and asks, have you finished making fertilizer?
I hope so.
He has, but I can smell it.
Try and save some for later.
Lead on, Dverger.
Lead on, Robot.
Yes.
I thought you were going to go Shakespearean there and just go with Lead on, Macduff in an
attempt to impress Annina.
Is this a bot I see before me?
I did a lot of Shakespeare and in Canada we do Shakespeare correctly, of course.
You Brits wouldn't understand.
You always act like you invented the language or something.
Well, I only treated the boards doing Romeo and Juliet, but what would I do?
You played both parts.
Interesting.
At the same time.
No, I played the nurse and the prince.
I was hilarious.
Very good.
Well, let's not make worms meat of anyone just yet.
Near the water's edge, a polar bear and isbjorn sits comfortably, his white coat blending
seamlessly with the icy snowy surroundings, his devouring a carcass, presumably its own kill,
oblivious to you and the rest of the world.
Typically, we would have a man available to throw at the polar bear.
We have a man.
Gigi, boldly lead the way.
Can we go around?
Which way is the wind blowing?
Well, that's really a question for yourself, certainly.
Because it's going to smell us.
Let's do this.
Let's make a slight roll, the first roll of 2025 to see whether your rather exotic odors
are detected and whether you manage to creep past.
And I know you've got plenty of bonuses to your sleight because you are a stealthy and
Arctic wise Wolverine.
Yes, how many D6s would you like me to roll?
I'm going to allow you to roll an extra one.
So you roll your dice 20 and roll a couple of D6 and try and impress us with that first
roll.
And her roll will count for the rest of us.
Am I understanding correctly?
If it's good, yeah.
1D20 all together.
13?
That's super.
In the spirit of the new year, I'm not going to make CJ roll with six woes for his undulating
tum-tum and will assume...
Undulating tum-tum?
He has a way with words.
Will allow you to glide on by and not be prey for yet another ísbjörn.
Which building would you like to head towards, Steve?
I assume you are being pathfinder.
Yeah, Eir is providing useful guidance and advice for moving ahead.
But I think Eir would encourage everyone else to keep an eye out.
We should be wary of others we see on the surface because they will be wary of us.
But we've just made it.
We've just walked past an ice beyond with no casualties.
And that's certainly a good omen for us.
It's probably our moment of good luck.
That was it right there.
Yeah.
The first thing we're going to come across would probably be the farms on the outskirts.
Correct.
Which are a few dilapidated barns.
There's some rusted wire and some animal pens.
Perhaps once it held cattle, pigs, horses, but it is very empty now and just blanketed in snow.
How close to sunset is it and how important is it that we not be outside?
We could find somewhere to shelter here or press on.
You left in the early morning.
This will be approaching midday because of the time of year, as I described, the sun,
really surfaces briefly in just a few more weeks.
The sun will descend below the horizon for the last time and you will be in 24 hours of darkness.
But now it has a brief flirtation with the horizon.
If you wanted to stay in sunlight, then you really do only have a few hours of daylight
to play with because the days are so truncated.
And certainly, in case you didn't understand his rather heavy dialect,
Harbard the ferryman is keen to be moving on sometime in the afternoon
and be chugging away to safety.
So you've probably got four hours before he departs.
And add a touch of urgency to your predicament here, marooned in this ghost town.
I'm going to keep a timer, a clock going in the background and occasionally just start to chime
to warn you that time has passed and Harbard will be off again.
You could make your way back through the mountains across the glacier
and find a path back to Hjalpmakaar on foot.
Certainly, if you were as adept as Alma, but the rest of you might struggle.
Oh, we'll struggle.
Where are the entrances to the underworld?
Your people traditionally just live within the diamond mines.
Oh, OK.
So from your memory, the diamond mines are on the far side of the town.
It's to the north, right?
Exactly.
Dug into the steep hillsides.
The town itself as a whole nestles under these kind of bleak outcrops
that rise from the beaches on the fjord.
All of the streets around you are littered with mining detritus.
There's still girders, there's rusted ironworks that lurch at odd angles.
Far as you can tell, the only other inhabitants are a few hungry Guillemots
who are hustling, tussling for food.
So it's possible, however laughably unlikely, that we could get to the palace,
rummage around in the basement and get out without any of my people, the mines, noticing.
Sure, hypothetically that is possible.
OK, yeah.
There's a goal.
You've been going excellently the entire session.
Yeah, none of this will happen, but I mean, we have...
It gives a basis for a plan that will go around the entire town.
For a plan that will go awry pretty much immediately.
Maybe this time no one will die.
Maybe this is, yeah, maybe this is our chance.
This is our time to shine.
So amidst those kind of high-pitched whistles of the Guillemots in this abandoned town,
the next thing that you would come across would be one of those apartment blocks
where the miners presumably were housed.
I was sniffing the air.
There is nothing that you can smell, armor in particular.
Again, this place is desolate.
You can smell the animals.
You can smell the odd rotting carcass,
which does have a unique aroma that makes you salivate.
Yeah, I go, oh no, I've got stuff to do.
I can't smell them.
One of the things about dökkálfar is in their caged forms,
they tend to inhabit stone or metal bodies, which is not very odiferous.
Naomi's going to use tree sight just to see if there's any sense of
hidden or invisible creatures around at all.
So using your arboreal senses, you can reach out across wavelengths and spectrums that are
beyond the norm for mammals, and you do get a sense that there are hollow eyes watching from the shadows.
Well, that's good news.
Good, hollow eyes.
Can I sense which direction those eyes are, or just that one?
From in and around all of the abandoned decrepit buildings,
you can get the sense of stairs boring into you,
and you should bear in mind that as an álfar, as a Ljósálfar,
the dökkálfar in general, not just Steve's version of them,
probably don't like you very much.
Oh.
Sensible creatures.
I knew this.
Alma would have been sort of inanely chattering, and she'll turn to Ljomi, the alfar
Ljomi, yep.
Are you going to end up in a can as well?
No, no, I am protected, special even.
I've been preserved, preserved again and again.
It's, it's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
it's a blessing.
Unlike my poor companion who fell.
Yes, yes, everyone does.
Everyone is much nicer than statues.
You'll end up in a furniture, I expect.
Does CJ wince every time someone keeps saying can?
Not today.
I've got some licorice root.
You should chew on it.
Helps with the nausea.
Would it help?
There you go.
I'll give it a try.
All right.
I do like the fact that our resident physician, the Alfar with all of his healing herbs,
hasn't so much as ventured into his medicine bank.
No.
I have this.
I roll for something as I eat the licorice root.
Roll for constitution.
Oh, sorry, this is not, we don't have that.
Don't mention that D&D malarkey on this podcast.
Oh, habit.
Did you want to wander into the apartment block?
Or Steve, will you be choosing another one of the many buildings that are arrayed across your map?
We are on a schedule.
So unless someone has a compelling reason to go and rummage around in the apartment block,
I suggest we keep going.
Has he mentioned that we're being stared at because of our machinism or anything?
Yeah.
Ljomi turns to the group and says, we are being watched.
Oh, where is it?
By?
Creatures, unliving creatures, maybe.
I love an audience.
Should I sing for them?
Sure.
Sing?
He is a skald. He is prone to outbursts of bad poetry, a little like a Vogon.
Smells about the same as well.
Does anyone wish to take themselves on a tour of the apartment block?
Well, I can't smell any other others like me.
I'll give you a bit of a lie of the land so that you can all sense.
So the apartment block is the nearest building.
Similar in most of these northern towns, there is a sick house,
a hospital building that is fairly well preserved.
You can see that on the other side of the town square.
The town square itself has a bust, a statue of the previous emperor, Dietbald,
who watches over what looks like a parade ground that is now overgrown with weeds.
And behind that statue of Dietbald is the Urðr palace
You can see just like a dark, Odinic mill looming against the mountains.
If there were a place where there would be a records library,
there would be details or an archive that prove the ownership of the land attached to the deed,
then that would be perhaps the place to go.
On the other side of town square is an empty gymnasium with a swimming pool.
There's also near the center of town a canteen and a dining hall,
similar to the cooking kettle that you know from Hjálpmakaar,
where the miners presumably once flocked.
Those are the main buildings.
And then as we said to the north is that mine entrance,
where some derelict mine railways scar the steep hillside up to the north
and disappear into the darkness beyond.
My aim is the palace.
How about everyone else?
Alma, you were looking for someone?
Yes, my brothers and sisters.
I can't smell them, but...
Okay.
Just give me a second and she'll bolt inside the apartment building.
Okay.
Then you'll you'll you're very much here like...
Before she rushes back out and doesn't see anything.
So Annina has conducted a brief impromptu search there.
Yeah.
Let me tell you what Alma sees in the building, a kind of whistle stop tour.
So it is clearly places where families were accommodated.
The floorboards within are saggy and creak as you run along the corridors.
They're full of sad monochrome rooms with worn brown carpet.
Occasionally you see some of the bedroom walls covered in maps with travel magazine clippings,
with pinups of a trigger, with posters of verulki games.
And I love Nyja York stickers.
And so you also were able to look out and see that next to that abandoned apartment block
was a playground which looked rather incongruous on the desolate landscape.
She's very solo focused so unless she can see anything that might hint to her siblings,
she'll just kind of rush through.
There's plenty of pictures of other families, but none of them are ironwood children.
They are all menfolk.
Ljomi says, beast, what did you see inside?
Just notes of fan objects.
It looked really old, really old.
I didn't see it.
You do notice something, Alma, though, as you come out.
There's on one of the doors you see a scratched cross as if it's been used as a warning sign
with the words AOSSI underneath.
And in the Jotnar Brogue which you speak, you realize that that is the word for elf.
Or elf, the elf.
So clearly someone has someone speaking your tongue has written the word elf as a warning sign.
Look, look, look, look, look.
Sensible, whoever they are.
He says elf, elf, elf.
They seem scared of it.
Eir points at Ljomi.
Elf, elf, elf.
They are wise to be...
Yeah, that's what I said.
They are wise to be wary.
What would they do?
What indeed.
Dvergr Ljomi says lead on to the place.
I was about to say, could we speed this along?
Because I would like to get home in order to rest.
We'll call it that and take a bath.
That's that's tall words for someone who's the slowest in the group.
But carry on.
Yeah.
Keep moving.
To the palace?
It was your main direction?
To the palace, perhaps not up the middle of the square, perhaps along the dark, shadowy edge of the square.
No sense in fighting attention, you know, any more than we have to.
Very good.
Normally, I would expect Gigi to march heroically up the middle of the square, but it doesn't seem to be...
It doesn't seem to be in the cards.
I don't think he's in the marching mood.
No.
He's probably doing a delicate little dance.
Slow, shivering, tired.
Slightly clutched with an unusual posture.
Yes.
And no short amount of moans.
Ah.
Oh.
In one of the windows of the apartment building, Alma, give me an awareness roll because you have the key to the door.
And the keen senses of the Wolverine.
I have a plus two, so...
And then you have a wheel on this as well.
Ooh, that was not good. I'm not paying attention. That's a four.
Yes, I did roll both dice.
I did roll both.
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the team. That's the kind of, you know, general incompetence that...
You roll like stupid. I don't mean insulting, but...
Yeah, you do.
You notice nothing, but you do hear the echoes of whispers carried on the wind.
Oh.
Do we all hear whispers?
Yes, do that type thing.
Only the Wolverine Alma hears these with keen senses. Steve, your mechanical contraption doesn't have the latest patch to make it for its audio files.
Would Gigi notice your ears turning?
You notice the feral form of this creature, tense, and perhaps the hairs prick up.
Do you hear something? Smell something?
I can hear whispering.
If I concentrate on it more, do I make out anything more of the whispers? Even if I can't make out words, do I make out, like...
Well, you know, it could have just been the wind blowing. It could have been the cries of a guillemot. It could have been the bluffs of a reindeer.
Well, shall we go in?
Yeah, it'll be fine.
If these are dökkálfar and Eir is any indication of their prowess, we'll be fine.
Eir is dead, alas.
Yeah, I'm right here.
All right, let us head out across the edge of the square and make our way towards the palace.
I guess we'll move at a reduced rate because we're all rapidly alert and aware and sensitive to any danger.
OK, you can take a cautious approach, moving at half speed, and add wheels to your awareness rolls.
So let's do this.
Steve, why don't you give me one of those awareness rolls since you are now stepping forward with trepidation.
OK, awareness roll with... I'm just going to roll physical dice because it's faster.
And I'm going to give you a weal.
Awareness roll with one weal. OK.
25.
Ooh, look at you with the...
OK, we're going to keep using physical dice for a little while.
You hear a glung, which is my attempt at a distant discordant piano noise that echoes out of the palace as if something had just literally dropped on a piano keyboard.
I assumed it was another accent, but OK.
Did anyone hear that? A piano was trying to speak.
No. Yes.
Was that just me?
No, I heard it.
Gigi, was that you?
Did you make that noise, man? No?
No, it was very definitely discordant, but it wasn't biological.
At that moment, Gigi has a very large gurgle in his stomach and says, I need to find another latrine urgently.
And he looks at the palace and says, there must be one in there.
I'm sure royalty go to the bathroom.
And so he just guards it for the palace, just for it to go find a bathroom.
OK, you're a burly strapping chap who's the size of the doorway.
And in your urgency, you take the rusted door off its raiment clatter all the way through.
I won't make you roll your shoulder barges powerful enough to take it off its hinges.
Within, it is completely dark and eerie.
There is no power to light these interior rooms.
And so you can't see your way to a bathroom, to a restroom.
And there are no kind of electric signs that would signal the direction in which to go.
That's a good thing I have a flashlight then.
Oh, good.
Feel free to flick that on.
We learned last session that we all have one.
That's true. It's like the Boy Scouts.
All right, you flick on your flashlight.
And as you do so, lurking out of the gloom is a silent mute observer.
Stony-faced.
Hello. Is there a bathroom nearby?
Left or right? Or is it in the back?
It basically dissolves into the ether, evaporating into the darkness.
Spectral Vigil ended.
That's fine, I suppose.
You were the only person to see him since you were the only one who burst through the door.
Did he see someone?
I'm...Ljomi's following him into the building.
Yeah.
Is there a room to my right or left?
There is a large auditorium that you can see immediately to your right.
There's no little broom closet or anything on the left?
There is not.
A broom, potted plants.
Any bathroom signs?
Okay, well he goes darting into the auditorium looking for a bathroom sign.
That must be something.
That's acoustics.
He's a jofurr. He will not disgrace himself by defecating in public.
He's got to find something.
Your best bet is probably in the middle of the large auditorium there is this grand piano on a stage
that would provide you with some kind of cover where you could leap to the other side and void your bowels.
Alternatively, there is above some kind of projector room that looks like old style cinema.
You can see the projector room.
You can see the small window above and you might be able to find your way up there.
He chooses the piano.
Okay. The other side of the piano.
The other side of the piano.
I'm so sorry for inviting you to this. Basically, it's a series of scatological gags.
But this is where we find ourselves.
You leap to the other side of the piano and find yourself an advantage point to perform your business.
I presume in the editing afterwards you will find a suitable soundtrack.
Good Lord.
That's a shitty idea.
To your horror, you find that one of the things that have been left behind in the panicked evacuation of Kóngssteinn
is monitoring your own panicked evacuation is an antique Urðr surveillance drone.
Perhaps that was what had caused the clamor by it powering down intermittently and landing heavily on the piano.
But this surveillance drone, again looking like it's antiquated technology,
but its imager is beaming right at you and recording every moment.
Is it being broadcast on two screens in the town square?
It's not, but it is safe to say that in the past the Urðr would have used such a drone
for the purposes of monitoring malcontents and dangers to the state.
I'm going to take a quick action and shoot at it with my pistol.
I had it for you.
Okay. Give me a roll.
All right.
There must be some way we can be less subtle.
Well, we don't seem to know what it is.
We need to attend ourselves.
You blast from the hip taking your...
Yes, he did.
I think that needs more attention if it's a hip.
The drone, the bullet ricochets off the drone and it careers down onto the piano again with another
discordant thud and the whirring within flickers and stops.
Ljomi steps forward and peers around the piano and says,
Is everything all right? Are you all right?
Get out of here.
I heard one shot. Are you making more fertilizer?
I mean, at least you'll never lose him. He makes so much noise and the smell alone.
It's a good point, Beast. Yes, it's a good point.
Should someone check the drone? It's there. It might be useful.
She'll... she'll... she'll tuttle over.
Okay, the drone could indeed be useful if now repaired.
Alma, you have a couple of abilities, do you not?
Yes.
You have your remote sensibility. You are slightly psychic.
You are attuned to the spirits in such a way as that your huger,
your mind powers will enable you to do an interrogation of this machine
and work out what it's useful for.
Yes, I would love to do that.
You have mind powers? That's what we've been missing.
Yeah, or minds even.
Yeah, any mind power at all.
Or powers.
Or does it do 20? Just a 20?
No, you don't even have to roll for this. You can really place your paws, your claws.
Yes, it's in my hand and I'm doing this very professional move of shaking it
and listening to what happens inside.
Okay, so that's it.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
Yeah, that will help things.
Turning right in.
Turn it off, turn it on again.
This video drone, like I said, was used to broadcast live to the site bands,
the sight bands being this universes version of television.
Were you to engage it, it would not only provide you with one wheel to your awareness rolls,
helping you to find hidden objects, traps or clues,
but it would also as a bound object give you the dream-site gift
that will prevent you from being surprised.
Effectively, you've got your own little mini drone that would orbit your head
and protect you from unforeseen consequences.
She's gonna take it and start with a nail, like tinkering,
see if she can put wires back into place.
Do you have any mechanical professions or anything that would suggest that you are able to perform technical work?
No, but I'm gonna give it a good old try.
Would the gunsmithing skill help in terms of intricate machines?
Possibly. I'm sure between you there's a range of abilities that you could look on your character sheets.
As I could...
...profess to knowing in advance.
I could provide guest counsel, which would give a wheel, if it's sufficiently adjacent.
I have guide and sense.
Maybe I know a guy.
You could sense that I know a guy somewhere.
It's a great skill.
It was the facial expression. I know that.
One of the things that might have pricked up your ears, so to speak,
is that you are in a diamond mine, or very close to a diamond mine,
and you used to be a fence, and so you're good at passing off stolen material to people and making a profit.
As opposed to Ljomi the Alfar, who is pretty much the other type of fence,
and just lives as a wooden edifice at the end of the garden.
Dividing members of the party on every adventure.
I will let Alma make her roll.
With the D20 I will give you two wheels, because the mechanical contraption, formerly known as Eir,
has decided to lean in and offer his assistance and poke various things for you.
Fantastic.
He's as antiquated as the box, who's probably all lines it.
Ironically, this dice I'm rolling is a dice with a one ring in it,
and I need to retire it from today's session, because it's rolling really badly.
Is it the one ring to rule them all?
Yeah.
The one ring to mess everything up.
There it is. You can kind of see it.
Clearly the Dark Lord is having a negative effect.
So that would have been...
40?
In which case, I will allow you to spend 30 of your valuable minutes fixing this contraption,
and then it whizzes to life and whirls around your head with wild abandon,
chirping with the incessant noise of a 1980s modem.
Great.
So, Ljomi ignores the noise and bends down to Gigi and says, still making more?
I think I've finished.
Shame.
Oh, is that what you eat?
He's very happy with her new friend.
Does Eir understand the modem noise?
Not much, it's not going to engage with you in conversation, it will flash warning lights
and prevent you from being surprised, and it will also zoom in and provide you with images of potential threats,
and that is represented in the game mechanics.
Nice.
So far it's kind of just whizzing around her head like a fly.
In this universe, bound objects are the equivalent of magic items, and so there are now three that the party possesses.
There is both this drone, which informs you its name is Look After, or in Old Norse, Lidte Eftir.
Again, there's often very... you know, kissing cousins, these languages, Lidte Eftir, almost sounds like look after.
So it is a bound object.
CJ, you have the heirloom sword bear paw that you can brandish, that is a bound object or magic item.
And Steve, you have forgotten it for a little while, but you did pluck a cigarette case that came from a parallel timeline
from the body of that fallen first world soldier, and that is also a bound object.
Yes.
Should you wish to deploy that at some point in the future?
Should you need a smoke?
Should I need a smoke, exactly.
An otherworldly smoke.
Bill, you have yet to claim yourself a bound object.
His bugs don't count?
I suggest you try harder.
We all suggest you try harder.
Ljomi holds up his stun gun and says, I have an electric gun now.
Oh, that's a good...
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Just never drop it, because if you drop it on yourself that really hurts.
Try it.
I have tried it, I didn't mean to try it, but I tried it once, I don't recommend it.
I still have a little bit of a ball patch here, look, she kind of points to her side.
That's where I dropped one.
Don't say dropped one, again, we have to be very careful with our language.
Oh crap.
Oh no.
These are punches, it must be...
Are we spending the next few minutes tasering each other?
Is that what the plan is?
Because I mean, I did set a timer.
It's part of the course.
I also have these grenades that flash there.
I picked a few things up in town, so I'm ready for a lot of things.
Bill was emailing me yesterday, they found 50 crowns in the back of the Draugr's ice cave.
Bill went shopping on behalf of everyone to buy various stun grenades.
I bought small... because essentially I'm not a violent creature.
I have the electric gun, I have the grenades that flash, I have a shotgun, a knife and a bow.
So, you know, not terribly violent.
And Annina, in case you didn't realize, his character is several hundred years old,
several centuries old, even a thousand years old.
1200 I think.
And you get that air of... the air of wisdom.
The wisdom of nature and deep time.
And there's a lot of moss on you.
Yes, also that and a lot of lovely bugs.
Is it gravitas or senility?
Senility. Yes.
Alma was... you said it was about half an hour of tinkering with the device?
With your help?
Oh, with my help, yeah.
I would like to propose that someone keep an eye out and maybe someone...
you know, just throwing it out there.
And maybe someone taking a look around for signs that say,
archives with useful information this way.
I've been watching Gigi,
Ljomi has been watching Gigi, fascinated by the natural processes.
Well, he just keeps going.
It's rather remarkable.
We should find a salt rock for him.
He must be dehydrated.
And do what with it?
A salt rock and he still like it.
I'm not hungry.
I'm going to... I'm going to do two things.
The first is I'm also going to let Alma and Eir discover
as they tinker with the surveillance footage on the drone,
you find recordings.
It's a bit like R2-D2's jumping to life and showing you Ben Kenobi.
You see a recording of a heavy set Orcneas walking through the auditorium.
He walks through, the timestamp suggests it was recorded 20 days ago,
and the Orcneas, which is one of those devil corpses we talked about in the beginning,
is effectively an Orc zombie kind of creature in traditional fantasy parlance,
but again drawn from Norse myth.
They are cage spirits in ruined bodies,
and it walks, strides through this auditorium 20 days ago,
and that is recorded on this device.
I'm also going to allow Ljomi to, as well as just keep an eye, a medicinal eye on CJ,
I'm going to suggest that you do look around the records library
and you can make a Wits challenge roll because you do have,
contrary to popular belief, the wisdom of the ages as a gift.
Really?
One has to be selective how often you use it, I find.
I'm also using a real dice.
Okay.
With one of the elven rings inside, so it should be better.
I haven't heard any Finnish or Quenya.
None whatsoever.
18 plus 3, so 21.
Very good.
So the palace does indeed include a records library,
which is full of card catalogs beyond the auditorium.
There's also a Glima court which is wrestling.
Eric Redshirt would have quite liked this had he not been eaten by a sea serpent in episode 3.
But it's full of antiques posters calling on athletes to run faster and jump higher,
extolling the youth of yesteryear to perform.
Anyway, beyond that is this records library,
and you discover quite quickly using your archival and librarian prowess,
marriage records that show that Bjarne's wife Fenja was originally from Kóngssteinn
There's no corresponding birth record for Daniel,
even when you search his real name as opposed to his nom de guerre, Biarki,
but Bjarne Bjarnesson and his wife Fenja were definitely from Kóngssteinn.
Oh, we're ending the episode there then.
The best of you.
Does Ljomi tell anyone this?
Yes, I tell everyone everything.
I found small pieces of wood with information, cards,
men talk, and there are records of the family,
of the other sick man, there's a lot of sick men,
the other sick man who unfortunately was ill through a bear, ultimately.
Yes, so there you go.
He passed through a bear's bowels.
Alright, you may decide where to proceed to, whether you want to hightail it out of town,
whether you're interested in pursuing the diamond mines.
There's also places like the spoon pool and the mess hall that you have yet to visit.
Does the information satisfy what we need to prove our case for the deed?
I mean, is it mission accomplished or do we need more?
So, if you're wondering where Bjarnies' wife was from, what does that give us?
It doesn't give you anything legal.
You can use your legal expertise to work out.
It's a kind of clue, it's a trace.
Perhaps Bjarnesson wasn't always the ornery old trapper without any possible charisma.
He was once married.
It could well be that he did have a child and that Daniel is his legitimate offspring.
So it's one piece of the puzzle perhaps.
Leone was a reeve, so does that give me insight in how to make use of that level of information, like legally?
If Eir understands custom and law, he could help, relatively.
Unfortunately, he's dead.
I'm right, no, never mind.
I've summarized it already.
It gives you enough to know the guy was married.
And as a reeve, you could officiate a new ceremony.
Ah, perhaps Gigi would like to marry the beast.
What?
Just a passing thought, not to worry.
Oh, he doesn't have enough hair for me.
And she has too much for me.
It wouldn't ever work.
I think we should go and look at the diamond mines.
I think that would be interesting.
Interesting as in it will satisfy the goal of this mission, or just interesting because I do have a bowel issue.
I should probably go home.
We might find something there that'll help.
Perhaps something to provide some sort of blockage, perhaps.
A dam, if you will.
A diamond plug.
Wow.
I can send this in, at least to the next room.
Can I send my little flying friend?
It kind of has to orbit you a little bit, so it can't go off too far.
But it is constantly in close quarters.
It does immediately, though, start to beep, whine and hiss frantically.
And were it able to gesture with its various lenses and appendages, it would be pointing towards one of the nearby walls.
You did not see anything beyond just the...
Almost as if something briefly protruded through the wall itself, as if the wall contorted to reveal a face.
Then just bubbled back beyond the wallpaper.
Perhaps not bubbled.
Does remote sense help figure out what it was?
No, your remote sense gave you the ability to notice it out of the corner of your eye.
Tree sight? Does that add anything?
No, there's nothing hidden or invisible, but there was something that appeared to protrude momentarily through the wall,
as if they were able to manipulate matter and step through solid objects.
This will sound insane, but Eir would like to... Assuming this is pointed out, Aer would like to approach that section of wall,
press his nose against it, and then look through the wall.
Using your black sight?
Using the black sight, yes.
Okay.
Which we determined has a range of nasal.
Well, certainly...
Certainly, you know, it's the equivalent of X-ray vision, so you need to be somewhat closer to the wall.
And you do see, again, as you gaze through, looking back at you with exactly the same X-ray vision, are some glowing red eyes and a stony face.
You clearly recognize one of your fellow dökkálfar, who has been tailing you, drifting between the walls.
And now, it disappears into the floor itself, stepping below the soil and out of view.
Do I know them?
You don't.
Long shot, I know, but still.
I was tempted to say it was your Auntie Ethel, but no.
Her again.
No again.
I will return...
I was hoping to hear her voice.
Aer will return to the group and advise them that we're being tailed by one of the dökkálfar, one of my people, who has been watching us probably for a while and who just went through the floor downstairs.
So would they be friendly, since they saw you?
Or is it more of a hates can situation?
If we're lucky, they'll be tolerant.
Yeah, I think friendly might be pushing it.
Is there anything back to the archives?
Is there anything in here about birth records where we could find out about Daniel's birth, if indeed he was ever born?
So there's no corresponding birth record for Daniel, even under his real name, Bjarki.
Right.
Right, you did say.
Oh, you did mention that.
Okay.
So he was never born.
Won't he be surprised?
Who's Daniel?
So there is this...
Are you just ignoring Annina?
No, no, no.
We're thinking how to begin to answer that.
I don't remember who Daniel is.
No, no, no, we remember.
She used silence.
So there is this lunatic name, well, there was this lunatic named Bjarne, who claims ownership of the entire north, like a ridiculous amount of landscape.
Oh, so a warlord.
I've met many of those.
Sure.
We escorted him to the Troll's Tongue and helped ease his transition into the afterlife.
That's a short version.
There is another man named Daniel who purports to be his son, who claims to inherit ownership of pretty much everywhere.
And we're trying to determine if this is true, and actually, I think we're hoping to prove it isn't true.
So we went back and found Bjarnie and found the...
He had the will on her, pardon me, the deed on him, and the deed is being verified by the law speaker.
And we're trying to find out if any of this is true.
Gotcha.
Well, disprove it's true.
OK, so Daniel was never born.
He's clearly some sort of abomination.
He's probably just operated with a false name.
Oh, OK, or that.
Or born somewhere else.
What you know of the Jotnar is that they were all genetically manipulated, birthed on Jotunheim for the purposes of waging war against the Empire.
Alma, the beast, is herself a product of the same experimentation.
Well, I'm not sure where to go from here.
I think we should go to the Diamond Mines. I believe they'll be interesting.
Let's go to the Diamond Mines.
Let's listen to the wise one. Let's go there.
There should be lots of dark private corners for Gigi.
If it's an area... the areas owned by the Dark Elf are by my people, you will find a complete lack of privies, I think.
We don't eat.
Or the other thing. Gigi, you OK?
Well, he's not OK, but...
But then none of us are.
Somewhat the point. You will have to at least leave this building, the Urðr Palace, and find your way back out into the snowbound paths of Kóngssteinn proper.
If you are now headed north, immediately between you and the mines is the old abandoned swimming pool that will provide you with some kind of cover
as you advance up the railway tracks that lead up the mountain to the mine proper.
Does this Dverg body have an internal clock? And if so, how long do we have to finish up and get back to the wharf?
You have a good two hours. About half your time has been used.
It's not like you had to walk far, it's about half a mile, three-quarters of a mile, and you could have covered that in 10-15 minutes.
OK, so we have time. So to the gymnasium and swimming pool then, on the way to the starting point?
Very good. So the door will need to be forced open if you want to go in there, because again, it's snowdrifts have piled up.
Anyone want to put their shoulder to it? Or anyone want to clock in the window as someone a bit more nimble and stealthy?
Alma will definitely shoulder check it.
OK, give me a roll. A Might roll.
Might, fantastic.
You can use your Outlander ability to add one weal to the roll as well.
Seven.
You jam your shoulder against it, but the door is unrelenting and nothing happens.
Although, as a result, a flock of white rock yuppa, the type of local bird, they fly out of a broken window nearby, excreting on you all as they make their escape.
Oh, she'll definitely try and catch one.
By all means, give me a sleight roll and I tell you what, I would just let you pluck one from the air and gourd yourself on the succulent.
I'm not sure what Gigi will say about just eating random birds, but...
Ignoring, ignoring.
It bites the head off.
Well, Gigi's going to try and hit the door after Alma.
I'm not even going to let you do a roll because, like I said, you are a sturdy gentleman and you will send it clattering to the floor with one swift kick.
The room beyond the swimming pool echoes like an empty swimming pool without any water in it.
The pool was probably quite impressive in its day there.
Here's a mosaic floor that details the nine daughters of Aegir and Ran.
One of the things that you notice is lurching up, staggering to its feet, is what appears to be a half-eaten reindeer, a carcass, little more than a bag of skin and bones.
It begins to lurch and amble towards you, again animated by the ferocity that perhaps comes down from that scar in the sky.
Something is bringing the dead back to life and even though this thing has been half-eaten, it flickers back into life.
You also notice, Alma, that as you toss the remnants of the bird you've just eaten, bits of its wings twitch and flutter as if it too is possessed and trying to walk again.
It's far too desiccated and devoured to do that.
All you see is this puddle of a bird trying to stand back up.
But the reindeer is lurching towards you. It's more substantial despite the fact that something has eaten from the contents of its stomach.
Ah, now we're done.
Okay, Annina, you can roll a dice.
In your war years you were something of a sniper. You are potentially lethal with your battle rifles, so feel free to blast away.
Lovely. Lovely, lovely.
I'm not having a good day.
Oh dear.
I'm not having a good day.
I mean, I rolled a six on the weals, but it doesn't help when you roll a two.
And I'm somewhat surprised by the lurching reindeer you instead blast into the mosaic, shattering the ornate painting and ruining it for generations to come.
I think she was distracted by the now somehow delicious looking again bird.
This is now a lion again.
This is my fright monger, this.
Fortunately for you, the decomposing reindeer isn't the most nimble of combatants and it lurches its way into the empty pool and falls with a thud to the bottom of the swimming pool, unable to climb up or use the ladder.
It continues to butt against the side of the drained pool and will not cause you any threat.
However, the sound clearly did echo loudly.
And in rejoinder, you hear across the breeze a long harmonious sound, a song, a siren song, a sultry beckoning song that speaks to your very soul and entices you towards the diamond mines.
Can you all give me a will roll, please?
Sure.
Love to.
Atta boy.
Also 17.
You are the shit.
Don't say it.
I rolled a 2 minus 1, so I rolled a 1.
There is this kind of telepathic signal that is emanating from the mines, the siren-like call, hypersonic frequencies that stimulate in biological brains your hedonistic hotspots.
Gigi is able to shrug this off while there is this insistent urge in your mind to wander into the depths.
Perhaps it's because you're struggling inside and have got other things to think about, but you don't find the call appealing or alluring.
Steve Eyre is very familiar with this.
You are familiar with the call of the fangstones, a form of sentient quartz that dwell in the depths of Nidavellir molten silicate that creates the chemistry of consciousness and their enticades await prisoners.
They are used by the dökkálfar as their versions of guard dogs.
They create these frequencies to lure in the unwary.
You know that that is what the sound is, and you are able to resist it.
Unfortunately, Alma and Ljomi, you are happy to hear the siren song and walk in trance at some speed towards the tracks,
walking towards the glittering diamonds that have clearly been laid out on the tracks to tempt people, to pick them up, to bring people within range.
You have heard these psychic emissions, these telepathic signals, and you can do nothing but advance towards the dark entrance to the mine.
Gigi, we should stop them if we can.
Then again, they were keen on going to the diamond mine. This may just expedite the whole thing.
Yes, that is where they wanted to go, unfortunately.
They may come to peril if they go up to the diamond mine. Shall we follow?
Yes, let's go kill whatever it is we need to kill, and then let's go back home so I can use them. Proper toilet.
Quite a lot to kill.
Annina, I'm going to give you one trauma for failing that role. You are also charmed and must rush towards you, begin to run as fast as your powerful warbling legs can plough you through the snow.
Bill, exactly the same for you, but in your case you take two trauma because whilst you are absent-minded and suffer from memory loss, when you do gain trauma, you gain twice the amount.
That is good news. The two of you bound towards the dark mine entrance, the others hot on your heels.
Just remind me what you're doing, Steve. You were kind of just following them. They are running pell-mell helter-skelter, drawn in by the Siren's call.
What is likely to happen when they get there? Does Eir have any recollection of what awaits them?
Oh yes, you do. The very nature of this sentient quartz, the Fangstone, should give you a little bit of an idea as to what might happen.
So they're going to get sliced to bits by quartz?
Yes, this hypersonic song that they are emitting. Again, the dökkálf use them as guard dogs and when intruders into their area wander in unwittingly and are lured by the Siren song,
the stone itself will arise to reveal these colossal fangs and lunge at the unwary, keen to consume their bones and organs and to ensnare their consciousness.
Yeah, I always thought it seemed a little bit like entrapment to have guard dogs ready to kill any intruders and then draw the intruders in on purpose.
Well, stony purgatory is perhaps a suitable form of punishment in the eyes of your people.
Yeah, think about that, Steve.
I am, it hurts.
Won't you think about that, Steve?
Gigi, we should follow them and we should stop them if we can. How should we stop them?
Stop them? Gigi is going to pull out his storm shooter and cast Sharp Runes on it.
OK.
Say, well, whatever's in there, I'll start shooting and cover the retreat.
That's the most complex plan we've ever had.
So, OK, we will follow and wait for the mountain to attack them.
Wouldn't it be the whole mountain?
I mean, enough, enough of it, yeah, mostly the bits that they're running towards.
I think she'd be running on all fours if this thing is going to be able to run as fast as she can.
And it's like watching an unavoidable train wreck approaching.
Alma, your drone buzzing around your head is bleeping frantically issuing all kinds of howling modem retorts.
You plow into the darkness of the mines. CJ, are you turning on your torch?
I suppose so.
Yes, yes, yes, you are.
I just want to describe this, I just want to describe this from your point of view as you see the alfar, the tree, plunge into the darkness.
Just at the penumbra of your beam, the light dissipates into the darkness and you see him.
You just go beyond the edge of your lamplight and the same for the Wolverine, Alma, the beast.
And then they drop 20 yards from the mine entrance, a false floor that has been laid to waylay any intruders.
Please give me both a sleight roll, the two of you.
It somewhat snaps your senses by the peril in front of you.
Twenty seven.
Bill?
All right, does this count as a challenge roll?
It does.
Can I use wits then instead of slight?
You can, using your newfound ability to bring out the wiles and the skills of yesteryear, because you spotted it in advance just at the last minute.
Okay, I get to use my wits and I have a weal as well, right?
You've suddenly transformed from bumbling oaf to wily and wise.
It was bound to happen.
Fourteen plus three and then plus six for the wheel.
So, twenty three.
Two of you perform almost super heroic stunts as you hurdle a pit, Alma, you vault across to safety, landing elegantly on two feet, avoiding the trap at the last minute.
And, Ljomi, you do exactly the same, less elegantly, but using your smarts to avoid the doom.
However, on the far side, five granite faces with bloodshot eyes leering out of the wall, huge fangs dripping with some kind of molten ichor, all stare in your direction, ready to consume you,
eagerly descending from the top of the mind-warp or from out of the pit, the pick of their prey.
I would like to cast Dream Monster.
Dream Monster allows you to use your Fygja, your spirit, to render yourself invisible and disappear from view so you are protected by your ancestral guardian spirits for a brief moment, leaving poor Alma to face the five fangstones directly.
You'll be fine.
Oh, god.
I'm guessing, does, I can't use headshot, can I?
This is not exactly a surprise.
No, it's kind of the other way around, were it not for your drone, you would have been the one I'm surprised.
But they're all head.
Surely a headshot is the only shot that's available.
Okay, noxious smell.
That is my ability.
Has Gigi run up?
Oh, I see.
As a, as a Wolverine, Alma has a distinct musky aroma that she is able to emit in times of crisis to distract her foe.
And it would be a grand idea were these not creatures of sentient quarks without olfactory capabilities.
But it's kind of like a, like a reflex so it happens.
I think you ought to, you know, show, show CJ how it's done and just squirt anyway.
Yeah.
Yes.
Where is Gigi in relation to this hole that they've found?
They have left this pit, that's a pit dug into the mineshaft, a kind of trapping pit. You are on one side, they are on the other.
Can I see, can I see these things?
With your torch beam, you can see frenetic and frantic activity as on the other side of the pit, the edge of the beam, the periphery and the darkness, you can see all kinds of commotion.
Does Eir know if these guardians would respond to him?
To the, to the presence of a dark elf?
In actual fact, they are responding to you already. The very nature arm of these creatures is that you act as a transducer, and it's you who's actually helping convert to the hypersonic frequency.
The dark elf, I have a kind of symbiotic relationship with these creatures.
And I can't, can I, can Eir influence them in any way? Like get them to knock it off and not murder these people?
If you want to yell out in true Norse, knock it off, you can see.
Your best teacher voice.
Best teacher voice through the, the speaker of a, of a, of a 20 year old computer, yeah.
Yeah.
Will yell out, we come in peace, we are not threats.
Okay.
Not much use. These creatures are also horrifying, so I need some more roles from you.
Amina, please make a Will roll, and this one is going to be with a woe. So you're gonna roll dice 20, you're gonna roll dice 6, you're gonna take it away. She's shaking her head, ladies and gentlemen.
Yes.
Bill, same to you, CJ, same to you.
Yeah, yeah.
30.
Oh, that's a good roll.
I can't really see these things yet. I just see a commotion. Should I be rolling?
Lawyer up, CJ, lawyer up.
You can see, you can see enough, you tend on your tools.
I can see there's, or, but do I get a woe, how about that?
Yeah, you're gonna have to.
Or can I just be woefully.
You've already got one. These are horrifying creatures.
Alright, that's a good roll.
15 in all, you got 17 minus 2.
Yeah.
Alright, well I'm gonna, can I do the Wit substitution again? Is that an infinite thing? The wisdom of ages.
It's not infinite, but you have to use it.
It's infinite?
This will be your second. This will be your second, Jesus.
I have a Will plus 1, so actually that would put me at 16 overall.
Shine your torch on that. So I could use it a second time, Ian, but then it's done until we do the rest.
Okay, so I rolled a 7 plus 3 plus 5, so 15 altogether.
So Steve, just you.
A Will roll with how many, how many Woes?
Just one.
Oh, well just one. That would be, oh yeah, so.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, see that's a very small number. So that's 2.
Because you gain a Trauma from this, Steve, so he's had a Trauma for the horrifying roll.
You instantly, with your narcolepsy, shut down.
You know what, that's probably the best response.
As usual, your, your, your resident sorcerer, your scratcher in the face of horrifying adversity has just powered down.
Really the most sensible response, I think, is just have a nap until it's all over.
All right, so summary of the situation as combat begins.
Your dverg sorcerer has powered down and will need to be woken up before you can do anything.
Your Alfar healer has gone invisible in order to avoid, avoid repercussions of standing in front of five Fangstones.
Gigi, Gigi is on the other side of the pit, is immune to the fear, but is separated by a gulf from Alma, who is immediately in front of five off-world creatures made of Quartz that threatened to rip her limb from limb.
All right.
Are we actually getting the gun out?
It's not great.
This reminds me of, it's just I have that strained, that, that nervous tick.
What was it?
Uncontrollable laughter.
Disorders and afflictions, yes, unusual behavior, uncontrollable laughter at an appropriate moment.
So seeing, seeing, Eir fall asleep and, and our other two friends about to be torn to tilly tilly bits, then on the other, from the other side of the chasm you hear.
It does echo eerily down the mineshaft.
And unfortunately for you alerts yet more dokkalfar who begin to swarm up from the depths.
Right, I remember.
Sure, they said.
Let's go to the diamond mine.
It will be a holiday, they said.
We'll get rich.
I mean, a fast turn, short turn, fast turn or slow turn.
Fast turn for Gigi.
And is there anything above that a rope could catch on to?
No, you've got to think of it as, you know, as a mineshaft, as wooden supports, you can't loop anything over the top.
And then I'm on the other side of a chasm and there's no way to cross it?
Yeah, not a chasm in the sense that that would be bottomless, but a trapping pit that was designed with a false floor to cave in when people lured by the siren song rushed in.
It was tripped and triggered by our two hapless heroes, but they did not plummet to the bottom.
Alma, well, since she's done her, she's all puffed out.
As in, hair, all puffed out.
She's done her, done her stink.
That doesn't work.
She is going to feel outnumbered.
And it's very rare for her to feel outnumbered.
She's going to, still on all fours, make a leap across the chasm.
OK, give me a sleight roll.
You may do so with a wheel using your Outlander ability.
And CJ, do take notice, you know, about how someone creates a stink to escape and then vaults to safety.
This is how you do it. I haven't seen you on all fours enough.
I'm glad to see CJ nodding his head.
I was about to insist on a wellness check.
He hadn't moved in a while and I was afraid he'd pass on.
But actually just a character died, but a participant died.
It would be a remarkable high point for the series.
But anyway, give me the critical roll.
So one, one, one. Do I get one weal?
You get one wheel and you get to add four because you are a nimble Wolverine.
Yeah. Good luck.
Oh no.
What a way to go. I rolled a one and my weal is a one.
So that is six altogether.
I'm going to say this, that you launch yourself into the darkness,
your claws scrabbling at the side of the pitch, trying to gain purchase.
And then into the darkness, below into the depths out of sight.
The fang stones gnashing at your retreating feet.
The last your comrade see of you is as you disappear into the darkness,
snapping and snarling and cursing as you do so.
Can we have a fly you fool's moment?
Yes.
Before the claws give out.
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