Aquari's Story

Urakena raised her great head from the waves, extending her serpentine neck so that the ocean cascaded off of her scales. Hethel was a statue, raising his head to look up at the enormous creature as she extended her neck, towering over him. Even the large white horse that Hethel brought with him now seemed dwarfed by the dragon's size, and yet even now she had not fully emerged from the waters. She extended forward, but not too far, and gave Hethel and his horse a gentle sniff. As gentle as one could be with nostrils the size of the viking jarl's head. Hethel stiffened his back and remained steady, gazing into Urakena's large blue eyes.

As she rose her head and neck above the waters, Urakena exhaled a mist onto the beach, breathing deep the airs of Siv'en for the first time in a long time. The horse was shaken a bit with fear as Hethel Svensson's long flowing hair was blown back by the dragon's hot breath, but the jarl kept his composure and did not move an inch. He gazed up at her, marveling at the beastie's bioluminescent colors as the water near the shore started flickering and glowing around her; purple, blue and green scales shimmering beneath the surface. This was a different kind of sea dragon from the other ones Hethel had seen. She was very horse-like and leafy with colorful appendages, having strange fans or fins which made her difficult to identify. Her body was wavy and serpentine, almost transparent, and she had glowing bright blue ridges which gave her a sort of magical illuminating presence.

Nearby, and unbeknownst to the vikings, there was another presence in the midst. For nearby behind them in the tall grass, hiding within one of the sand dunes was a small female sea elf, watching the lone viking and the giant dragon on the beach as they looked eye to eye with one another. Aquari became increasingly curious as she made her way towards the strange settlement and closer to the dragon. The edges of Urakena's scales glowed faintly in the dimmed daylight. Beneath the surface of the water Urakena's bioluminescence rippled into effect. The waves cast an aurora of light on the beach surrounding Hethel and his horse, having magnified Urakena's blue-and-green projections.

"The sky has broken, child of man" the dragon said mysteriously, her low pitched voice being very soft yet still enough to echo over Hethel's shoulders as he gazed up at her in bewilderment. "Broken?" Hethel called out, almost shouting so that the giant monster could hear him. "What do you mean the sky has broken?" he shouted, his Nordic accent still not as loud as the dragon's whisper. The flame on his torch would flicker as the dragon exhaled, causing Hethel to sway slightly. He would raise the torch in front of him to get a better view of Urakena, the reflection of the yellow fire glinting off of her large blue eyes as she peered over him into the horizon.

Engöll was still watching the encounter from the window of the great hall. The thick wooden beams supporting the walls were enough to muffle whatever the dragon and the jarl were saying, but Engöll could see that they were saying something, just by the way that Hethel was moving. The rest of the vikings in the great hall were still sound asleep, but Engöll kept a watchful eye, mentally preparing for the worst. Still, there seemed to be no sign of any danger to the viking settlement, at least for the moment.

As the sun peaked through the dark clouds, a golden ray of light seemed to hover over the beach. The whole sighting was majestic, almost surreal in that moment as Hethel tightened his grip on the horse's reigns, stopping the wild animal from bucking at the sight of the dragon as she moved. That was the very reason Hethel never mounted the horse to begin with, foreseeing that it might get spooked easily by the dragon's very nature. At that minute, something else crossed the jarl's mind. He was standing face to face with a dragon, something few vikings had ever been privy to, and for a brief second Hethel wondered what the monster felt like to touch. He didn't dare to try, however, instead thrusting his spear into the ground and wrapping the horse's reigns around it. It was a pure white stallion, wild and without blemish. The vikings themselves rode different horses, but this particular one had been set aside for just an occassion such as this. Wild horses were used by the vikings for sacrificial and ritualistic purposes. This horse was specifically bred for the slaughter, a very ancient tradition that was still being practiced by the vikings even now.

After tying the horse off to the spear in the ground, Hethel slowly stepped back. He wasn't sure if Urakena would accept the offering or not, but the gesture of hospitality was important to Hethel, and appeasing to the gods. It was the viking way, and very often the vikings would leave offerings for the gods and land spirits. To them it was the gebo effect, an act of giving, as sacred to them as life itself. Hethel stood by quietly, watching the dragon with caution.

Urakena glanced at the small woman as she crept closer along the beach. Her eyes did not linger; the woman was not perceived to be a threat. The sea dragon returned her attention to Hethel, who did not appear to notice Aquari as she crept closer behind him. Hethel watched speechlessly as Urakena suddenly devoured the wild horse right in front of him. The unwitting stallion didn't even know what had hit him as the serpent seemed to swallow him whole with one quick snatch, breaking the horse's reigns over the mighty spear shaft. Hethel was stunned, and could only watch as she descended back into the waves, followed by a splurge of bubbles.

All of a sudden, Hethel thought he heard someone call his name from the distance. He turned to look around at the great hall, just one blink after Aquari hit the ground to hide in the tall grass just outside the outer wall which enclosed the viking jarldom. Hethel never saw her. At that point, a great white cloud formed taking the shape of a storming horse. It pranced in a circle, lightning hoof-prints and a great neigh of thunder, before taking off south towards the Exalted Mountains and towards the sky. Hethel could feel a slight chill moving in from the north as he peered up towards the white sky, deciding at that moment that he should leave the settlement and go up into the mountains.

Engöll watched with relief as the sea dragon descended back into the water. It was at that moment that he spotted something else from the window of the great hall. There hiding in the shadows crawling around the outside sheds was what appeared to Engöll to be a young girl, or at the very least, a short woman. She seemed to be snooping around, and to him she looked to be sneaking around the settlement. Engöll watched Aquari quietly, taking a sip of hot tea before setting his cup down on the table and turning to look at the bow and quiver on the wall above the hall entrance.

With the look the viking gave Aquari it was clear that her language was just has lost on him as his was on her. Aquari looked to the sea. She looked back at the viking. Slowly she took a few steps towards the sea as she made a gesture with her fingers that looked like walking. "I am just going to walk to the sea." Aquari said her hand making a wave motion. Engöll watched cautiously, quirking his eyebrows in confusion. What a strange individual, he thought quietly to himself as Aquari took off and started heading back down towards the sea. "Hvað? Litla stelpa, bíddu! Sjórinn er hættu--" Engöll Corysson was suddenly interrupted. "Engöll, what in Odin's beard are you doing?" Jarl Hethel asked, walking up over the grassy hill towards him with a look of curiosity.

"I thought I told you to wait inside," the jarl said as he stepped up on top of the slope. Hethel Svensson had not noticed Aquari at all as she took off and disappeared towards the sea. Engöll turned his head to look at Hethel, then back towards the beach. "There was a little girl here just a second ago," he replied, looking for Aquari again. "A little girl? Out here? In the middle of nowhere? I think you need to sleep my friend. Your mind will play games with your eyes out here. Come, we have new business to discuss" the jarl said before heading towards the great hall. Engöll would take one last glance back at the waves before putting his arrow away and turning to follow the jarl through the wooden fence to their encampment.

By now, the other viking ulfhednar were beginning to wake up. Hethel and Engoll entered the large open hall just in time to see Fudørn, Stryder, and the others getting motivated. The vikings would lite a fire and eat a seafood breakfast before going to work. Hethel debriefed all of them on their current situation and gave each of them a specific task to do. "Fudørn, you will be in charge while I am gone," Hethel said abruptly as the vikings were going about their different jobs within the camp. "Gone? Wait, what? Where are you going?" the wise man asked. "There is something I must do," Hethel said while grabbing his heavy wolfskin coat and fur snowcap. "Take care of the gang for me and look after the ship. She's your responsibility now," he said before opening the doors and leaving the great hall in a hurry. "Wait! What about the--" Fudørn never finished his sentence before the doors slammed closed.

Hethel grabbed his spear again, using it as a walking stick as he headed off by himself towards the Exalted Mountains...

Hethel Svensson and his band of ulfhednar had once served Ungrulf "Ulfric" Ellrufsson aboard the Örmbátur longship as members of the House of Ellrulf in a time since forgotten. After the extinction of that family line, Hethel Svensson inherited the Nuörmbátur longship and became a jarl under the late great King Sigurd the Ringtaker of the House of Munso along with all the original ulfhednar who had served the previous household. Fudørn, Engöll and Stryder were promoted to jarls. Sigurd Hring sent them forth in the Nuörmbátur to establish a new colony along with Sjonn the Skald and 45 other Vikings whose names are unrecorded. They established a settlement on the Empyrean Sea Beach which flourished and evolved. After the death of King Sigurd and the Iskjerne Vikings, the new colony chose Hethel Svensson to be their new konung or sovereign. King Hethel the Dragontamer ruled peacefully for his entire reign and was praised after he died of old age, being given a large burial mound close to the Empyrean Sea Beach known today as Hethel's Barrow.

King Hethel was succeeded by his son King Ingvar the Highruler, who also had a peaceful reign. King Ingvar was a younger contemporary of an elder Ragnar Lothbrok in the days of old. King Ingvar would expand on his father's kingdom by building upon King Hethel's original establishment. Fudørn Ivansson's successor Ivaldi would become a famous inventor at that time, having purchased a magical purple crystal from Volund the Archer, one of the ljosalfar who had stumbled upon it by pure chance at Iskjerne Forge and sold it to Ivaldi in exchange for silver, along with many other broken remnants of lost technologies that King Sigurd had once confiscated from his Taiyou enemies in the days of old. Ivaldi wasted no time in studying and reverse engineering some of those technologies, using magic and a bit of Nordic alchemy. Using a mineral solution to grow more crystals on the surface of stones, Ivaldi greatly contributed to the accelerated advancements of the Empyrean Sea Beach settlement, helping the House of Hethel to jump several hundred years ahead of Gaia's other Viking settlement at Iskjerne Bay.

King Ingvar was succeeded to the throne by his son King Svein, who continued to expand the House of Hethel and grow his kingdom. King Svein was alive during the fall of the House of Munso under the rule of Ivar the Boneless, but did not get his own kingdom involved. Instead, he used his resources to order the construction of 3 magically advanced longships that could leave the planet and sail through outer space. The first ship was called the Stjorndrekr (star dragon). The second ship was called the Stjornkona (star maiden). The third ship was called the Stjornhestr (star horse). At this stage the Empyrean Sea Beach settlement had grown tremendously and evolved into a small nation, or Type II civilization that was fully capable of harnessing the natural elements in their local star system and utilizing Gaia's native magical defenses, something that the Iskjerne Vikings had tried to accomplish with the Hreggdreki longship many years before them but had failed to do.

During the reign of King Svein, a terrible event happened in the heavens which shook the mountains, leveled forests and left a huge shockwave of destruction throughout the land. By this time, however, the Empyrean Vikings had expanded their kingdom and had established such mighty and powerful defenses that it was able to withstand the storm brought on by the meteor as it passed overhead towards Siv'en and into the Exalted Mountains before crashing in the distance. To those peaceful Norse settlers behind King Svein's walls, it felt like a powerful earthquake. But the kingdom did not break. After the waves stopped rolling in and the earth ceased to tremble, and all the debris and thundering storm clouds had rolled overhead, the walls and towers of the Empyrean Viking settlement were still standing. After some time, life returned to normal and before King Svein died, what little forest that had been destroyed was already starting to regrow.

After the collapse of the Iskjerne Kingdom under the wrathful Titan deity Sigurd the Divine, during the time of Ivar the Boneless, the distant colony on the Empyrean Sea Beach just kept getting stronger and stronger. King Svein was succeeded by his son King Halfdan, the current ruler of that kingdom. King Halfdan was now the sovereign of a dynasty that had lasted four whole generations. Like his father and their fathers before them, Halfdan Svensson was a wise and peaceful king. He had skalds who could recall the legends and sagas of such famous heroes as Harald Wartooth, Ellrulf Trygvirsson, Hethel Svensson, Sigurd Hring, Ragnar Lothbrok, Bjorn Ironside, Harald Fairhair and others whose deeds served as lessons and teachings to the Empyrean sea king.

Halfdan the Great was a follower of Odin and a lover of wisdom who prayed to the gods and made daily offerings to the elves and land spirits. He would continue to provide a sanctuary for all the dragons, dwarves, unicorns, witches, pagans and exiles in his kingdom. In return, he received blessings from the land as the forests grew taller and the gardens grew fuller with an abundance of crops and flowers. Song birds greeted him with their beautiful songs as the grasses flourished above Hethel's Barrow and over the hillsides. There were many pleasant springs and ponds where frogs, fish and turtles nested, where crickets, ladybugs, bees and butterflies fluttered during the summer months, and the Empyrean Kingdom seemed like a quiet remote paradise. Life was good, and the Empyrean Norsemen lived without care, farming and crafting, forging and living in leisure without any needs or concerns.