Ivor Lindholm and Njall Ulfson come back to camp. Ivor bears the body of some strange small mushroom-headed creature with large eyes, and Njall bears a large club made of iron. Both have a look of exhaustion to them, and an expression on their eyes of wonderment, a mix of fear and exhilaration.

Ivor has never had an opportunity to earn distinction before, nor to proclaim his deeds. But that is not to say that it is not something he has practiced in his head before a time or ten. After taking a moment to catch their breaths (and letting people gather to hear), Ivor strides into a clearing, planting his feet and puffing out his chest. He calls out, "Fellow Norsemen! We come bearing strange tidings, the only kind that this land seems to offer! Njall and I travelled north and east, in hopes of finding plants or animals that might help improve our village! We found neither, but we found a great deal else!"

"Our first encounter was with, of all things, a giant-sized sauna, like the Finns make! It was constructed of stacked stones, twice the size of any Norseman's dwelling. Beside it was a giant club of solid iron," Ivor gestures at Njall's burden, which is as tall as a Norseman, "and a set of armor likewise sized." He pauses for dramatic effect. "We never saw the inhabitant of this sauna fully as we did not wish to gaze upon an unwilling maiden, giant or otherwise, but we conversed with her from afar. Her hand was sized to fit the building, and the skin on it was red. She somehow spoke our tongue, or perhaps had some magic that let us understand her, for we had no trouble conversing, though she used a few strange words. However, if she knew our people, it was by a different name - "Norsemen" was strange on her tongue. In the end, she settled on calling us 'muck-afavi'. She confirmed there was a settlement of muck-afavi far to the west, along the coast. She called her people the Onigar, and," Ivor said, "It seems they are a warrior folk as well, for when I told her of the valor of the Norse, she said they would no doubt test our mettle. She spoke of thunder in the distance, and indeed, it crashed while we spoke. She called herself Kesk-Kavar, and told us to shout for her should we wish to find her on the battlefield."

Ivor takes a sip from his flask, staring off into the middle distance for a moment, before resuming. "But that is not the worst of the tidings, for a Norsemen, to find a strong foe is only a promise of ordstirr and Valhalla! No, the true dread came next, for there is no glory in being ground out of existence without a chance to fight at all."

Taking a stick, Ivor drew figures of himself and Njall in the dirt, and then drew a picture of the cave. Primitive though it is, it shows the scale - the entrance is the size of four or five houses stacked on top of each other. "Njall and I found a cave, surrounded by broken trees and tossed aside boulders. We could hear the rumbling inside of a figure of Fenrisian scale. But we knew we could not return without confirming the nature of this threat, and so we moved closer." He sketches a figure there, as best he could. Four bear heads, resting on long, coiling, snakeline necks, attached to some body that the pair had never fully seen. "It is not boasting when I say this creature had the heads of many of the great lizards we saw around its lair, and the beak of one of the Void Eagles as well. Piles of bones littered its lair, and among them, glittered gold, gems and iron."

Ivor cleared his throat. "We knew this beast was beyond us, but we could not simply leave its lair unplundered, because the monster slept. Njall devised a plan using his Kunna to create a carpet of soft moss for us to move on, and we stole on forward. We were able to remove an iron club, like those used by the Onigatar, and retrieved it. We would have sought more, but when I moved to a second pile, I was confronted by a strange creature." He gestures to the corpse. "It was friendly in manner, but bore a brass bell - it was no doubt a guard. I drove a needle through its eye and slew it before it could react, and we retreated before we encountered any other strangeness."

"Or so we thought!" Ivor leaps back to attention. "Upon our return, we attempted to pass through a swamp, which appeared to be full of logs. But it was as strange as anything else in this land of danger. Warned by intuition, we used Kunna to probe the swamp, and found an area that was separated from contact with outside. Njall could not call plants from inside it, and when I threw fire inside the area, it froze. We thought we could simply avoid it, but we soon realized that the strange area must be a cloak for some creature or spirit, because it followed us. Seeing no way to slow an area of stopped time, we retreated so that we could bring our tidings back to those who needed to hear them."

Musings of Sigmund​

Sigmund Sigurdsson is at a loss. Things had looked promising, his future set in stone. He apprenticed under his father, learning to be a smith that would forge iron and other metals into weapons, tools and other items for people to use. He had his darling Torunn as his beloved wife and Sigurd, named for Sigmund's father, would be the first of their many children together.

Then in a blink of an eye, he lost almost everything. His parents are gone, Gotland destroyed and everything in his future has been overturned. He has his sweet Torunn, his wonderful son and some of his clan, but his home, his parents, his future? They are all gone, destroyed in what others are calling a battle between the Blackhand and the Jomsvikings. He doesn't know what they were fighting over, his Gotlander blood compels him to side with the ruler of his home in the absence of knowledge. He hopes that the Blackhand gave the Jomsvikings a good fight for destroying Gotland, his home, for such a thing is easily beyond Sigmund himself.

Sigmund believes he is lucky, but he doesn't know if that luck is good or bad. He had the ill fortune to see his home destroyed, but he had the good fortune to survive it. He had the ill fortune for him and his family be blown off-course, but the good fortune to survive as the ship he was on along with five others successfully washed ashore.

Sigmund knows has good luck in two ways. The first is that he has been blessed to meet with Torunn and win her heart, something he is always thankful for. The second is that his paternal great-grandfather is Tyr himself and while many are able to claim divine ancestry, Sigmund doesn't know of any who can claim it as closely as he can. Now if only he knew what it meant to be the great-grandson of a god.

Tyr wields a sword just as Odin wields a spear and Thor wields a hammer and he does so one-handedly because he sacrificed his right hand to ensure that Fenrir was bound. Perhaps there is something in that for someone of his blood like Sigmund? Torunn would have his head if he decided to lop off his right hand and truth be told, Sigmund isn't sure he is willing to make such a sacrifice yet. But wielding a sword with just one hand? Sigmund is confident he can work with that.

He has to work with something after all. Sigmund might have his bloodline, but he has no kunna or notable skills. Ragnarr is skilled with both his spear and tongue, using his emotion kunna to paralyse his foes in battle. Kare can fly and toss lightning whilst slaying his foes from afar with his archery. Moli blinds his foes with his light kunna before stabbing them to death with his glass kunna. His cousins can do all that while Sigmund has to rely on the basics and hope that the gods and the Norns are smiling upon him.

"Are you brooding again?" comes the sweet voice of his darling wife, startling Sigmund out of his thoughts.

"I was not brooding," protests Sigmund as Torunn comes up to him and leans against his side.

"You certainly looked like you were," Torunn teases him while Sigmund begins to stroke her golden locks, which go perfectly with her blue eyes and fair skin.

If Sigmund is a son of ash, his beloved Torunn is a daughter of elm. Even more so than Sigmund as while he is struggling to find his course in life, Torunn is always settling into being a mother and housewife.

"If you weren't brooding, what were you doing, Sigmund?" asks Torunn as she gives him a playing poke in the side.

"Reflecting on the past and future," answers Sigmund, "The past is gone and with it my future. So I must find a new one because I am still alive and so is my beautiful wife and my wonderful son."

"Oh you charmer," says Torunn as she snuggles in closer to him, "And what is your future to be?"

"I don't know," admits Sigmund, "I can't be a smith, there isn't anyone here to teach me. I could be a warrior. I am a great-grandson of Tyr after all. To be a valorous warrior is in my blood after all, more so than most Norsemen. When you showed up, I was thinking of learning to wield the sword one-handed on its own."

"Forgive me, husband, but that sounds foolish?" replies Torunn and Sigmund can spot the small frown on her face out of the corner of his eye, "I am no warrior, but why only one hand? Surely it would be better to make use of both hands."

"Tyr sacrificed his right hand to see Fenrir bound," explains Sigmund, "You don't need to worry about me going that far, but I believe there may be some value in copying some aspects of my great-grandfather's fighting style. I need something more than just my blood."

"Fretting about your lack of kunna again?" tutters Torunn.

"All of my cousins have kunna," grumbles Sigmund, but his heart isn't in it, not when he has Torunn at his side, "Kare has his lightning kunna, Ragnarr has his emotion kunna, Moli has his light and glass kunna, Harald has his soil kunna and Steinarr has his stone kunna. Even you have a shapeshifting kunna when I don't have any."

"You'll get one in time," his wife reassures him, "But enough of that. What do you want out of the future, my darling husband?"

"A farm," says Sigmund reflectively because what Norseman doesn't want a farm of their own to call home, "Glory and adventure."

"A farm would be nice," agrees Torunn, "I would like a farm to call our own. We should claim some good land before it is all gone."

"I think it already is," says Sigmund as he thinks about it, "There might be some land remaining north of our clan's land. Untamed jungle and hilly to the boot, but still unclaimed and neighbouring our clan."

"Hills are good for livestock but bad for crops," muses Torunn.

"Don't ask me that," replies Sigmund, "I always intended to be a smith not a farmer."

"I would have preferred some flat land for corps, but a farm is better than no farm," says Torunn, "Livestock is good prestige too if we could get some horses. Do they have horses here?"

"I have no idea?" admits Sigmund, "I could ask one of my cousins? Most of them seem to have a better grip on what is going on."

"That seems like a good idea," says Torunn, "Now, Sigmund, there is another problem that the village is facing that we can help with."

"Oh?" inquires Sigmund as he tries to work out what his wife might be referring to.

"There aren't many of us in this new home of ours," says Torunn with a lustful grin on her face as she looks up at Sigmund, "How about when you join me in bed tonight we get to work on helping increase our numbers?"