This week, Grillain is rather quiet. Her whole target is to gather enough resources to get to her next prey, The Elder. She has no idea what this prey is, but she knows she's going to have to go a long LONG way to get to him. She's going to have to secure enough meat, enough weapons, enough wood, to get there and set up a raiding camp!
—
As she slept, she dreamed. She stood upon the prow of a great ship, the salty spray in her face and the gulls shrieking joyfully above her. She turned her head and saw herself in her village. It was such a bright, sunny place far south of the rest of their kind. She remembered what it was to be alive. It was pleasant.
The vision faded, replaced by another vision. This one was the shadowy Valkyrie.
*Pleasant? But not as rewarding.*
The Valkyrie showed her all her accomplishments since getting being brought to Valheim. Depending on no one, she had built a fortification, a comfortable house, made weapons, conquered monsters.
*You did this.*
"I did this." She agreed into the darkness of the dream place.
The Valkyrie's silence was weighty, as if its next words were so important, it did not want Grillain to forget.
*You can do more. To get to the places you cannot reach easily, you must construct an item of such power, it will transport you instantly from one place to another. The construction is complicated and difficult, but you have access to everything you need to make it.*
Behind the Valkyrie, a circle of fire lit up, glowing in the dark. Fascinated, Grillain reached past the Valkyrie toward it and as her hand came in contact with it, the image of the item seared itself in her mind, the runes she had to carve on its surface burning themselves onto her tongue. The power source came from two of the surtling cores. The eyes of the gray dwarves themselves focused the power of the fiery ring.
*Portals are great for fast travel between different parts of the world. Of course, you need to build one on the other end as well, then give the pair the same name, and they will be automatically connected!*
Build two rings. Call them both the same name. What a dream! But what could she see if she could move that fast. She could build one across the water near The Elder and build a raiding base. Abruptly, she was awake. The birds chirping and the fire hissing as it consumed the last of its fuel. No Valkyrie. If she was going to put this plan into motion, she was going to have to take precautions while she was gone.
Spikes were not the hardest thing to build, but placing them was worse than building. In the midst of wedging one in the garden wall, it all came tumbling down. Grumbling, she replaced the wall and set the spike. At the end of the wall, she shoved a spike just a little too hard and felt a nasty pain sear her arm. A trickle of blood reminded her NOT to push so hard. Irritably she swiped away the blood. It was a deep, painful cut. She looked at her hand.
Blood. Her own blood. She thought of all the blood she'd spilled. She wasn't too concerned with that, it was an inevitability that came with being the Viking woman she was. But even though she knew she could come back, at least a number of times, something else tugged at her.
"Am I becoming insensible to my own fate?"
Her voice escaped into the sounds of necks in the water, the rustle of wind in the trees, an occasional bark of a deer. There was no læknir to stitch her wound and no one to fuss over her.
"I'm alone. I'm really alone."
The recognition of that simple fact was like knowing you had been eating the best food you had ever eaten, and yet, you only had one bite left. She had her memories of father, of her village, of her world. But they were only memories.
"There have to be other people here. Somewhere. Not all of them perished."
A wash of relief flooded her. Belief was a powerful motivator. She also felt the nagging sourness of fear in the back of her throat which she ignored.
"I have to be very careful from now on. I cannot let myself become stone hearted."
She ignored the emptiness that greeted her words and turned for the garden. Moss would stop the bleeding eventually. Food would replace her blood. Good food. From her stash she made soup. The sweetness of fresh carrots straight from her garden was complimented by the earthy character of the large chunks of mushroom in the rich broth. It was hot and satisfying. Wiping her face on her sleeve, she opened her treasure box. If her dream was real, she needed more than two of the glowing cores. Each portal took two. She'd already wound around the cold place up north and had seen no more barrows in the forest. She'd have to try going south this time.
Running was a wonderful activity when done in the bright sunshine of the afternoon. She found herself at the end of her mapped path quickly. Without hesitation she plunged on through the strings of meadow. A break in the trees brought her to a welcome sight. Although there were no people, she saw another village space with many buildings still standing. More importantly, there were shrubs of berries and fencing. It looked as if these people had once fenced off the bushes. The reason became apparent as a boar snuffled up to a shrub and scarfed down a mouthful of the berries. A grin lit up Grillain's face.
Fencing was not difficult, she'd been doing it since she was knee high to a grasshopper. She enclosed as many shrubs as she could and tried to avoid triggering the boar's reflex to chase her. She tore down all but one building inside the area to build more fencing and a gate, even incorporating the last structure into the pen. Finally she completed it and turned to tease the boar, but it was nowhere to be found. She sighed. Circling around the back of the building she heard an angry squeal.
"There it is!"
She took off at a dead run and heard the angry porcine barge through shrubs and grass in its attempt to get to her. She came to the gate and flung herself inside.
"Come on piggie piggie!"
Her insulting tone goaded the boar into bolting for her and it wiggled past the gate. She slammed it closed and endured an angry swipe of its tusks before she was able to take off running, She scaled the fence and heard the boar slide to a stop behind her. Hearing a squeal from a different direction she whirled, but nothing outside the fence caught her eye. She realized the squeal was coming from inside the pen.
"Two! There was one inside the fence! Good piggies! Good piggies!"
Wandering the inside of the fence, the boars continued to try to attack her, angrily charging again and again. Maybe she should leave them alone? Her light step allowed her to scramble up the roof of the building she had incorporated into the fence and sat on the roof ridge, trying to be patient. The boars ran around for a long time snuffling here and there. When they came close enough, Grillain tossed bits of food down. Raspberries, carrots, mushrooms.
It took so much longer than she wanted to stay there. The hours of the afternoon ticked over into night. The hours of the night passed in an interminable stretch of boredom and stars. Every time she came down, the boars squealed and charged the fence to the point where she was worried they would destroy it. She created a bench inside the fenced off area and was gratified to see they focused on that, snapping and tusking it.
Around the time the stars in the sky began to fade, the porky pawns finally calmed down slightly, even ignoring her on occasion. As the first light poured over the sky one of the boars came to her of its own accord, whuffling softly. She patted it and it laid its ear contentedly on her leg. The other took slightly longer, but it too finally accepted her. Leaving them lots of food, she gave them both more pats before leaving.
"Good piggies, make babies while I'm gone!"
She was not very happy leaving vulnerable tamed creatures by themselves, but she did not want to take the time to create a better fence and to be honest, there were LOTS of boars around. She had to find cores, which would be central to her efforts to create a quick pathway to and from her raiding camp. Her run into the Black Forest was cautious but quick. She ran into nothing but a few gray dwarves which she smacked into oblivion. Only their eyes went into her bag.
She was intent on finding a barrow when she came across a strange plant. It's sparse green leaves left the little plant stretched, reaching for the scraps of light available to it. Atop the whole thing was a fuzzy glowing poof of bright blue flower.
"Oh, it's so beautiful."
Grillains fingers wrapped around the bottom of the plant and snapped the stem with a quick jerk. The flower itself had a heavenly aroma and reminded her very much of the thistles she used to cook with meat. She plucked all she saw and continued on.
The rest of her day was not exciting, though she encountered three trolls. Two of them she killed easily. In between the trolls she scoured the barrows she found for cores, though she did take just a few pieces of treasure like coins and the odd ruby for herself.
It was when her axe had grown dull from destroying skeletons and her arrows had been depleted to two flimsy flint heads that she became concerned, and turned for home. She had stopped to pluck more thistle when a familiar rumble in back of her lent wings to her feet. Her weapons were not capable of taking on a troll now! As fast as she ran, she heard the steady whump whump of feet behind her and occasionally a tree near her exploded as the troll following her let loose with its solid club.
She almost laughed when the troll turned away from chasing her and she turned her feet for home, streaking over the landscape lightly, avoiding necks, boars, deer, and graylings alike. Once home, she added the six precious surtling cores to the ones she had and settled them all in the box, gently caressing them with a hand. Next she walked outside and looked at the space she had. She went inside and looked at her workshop. She was NOT a fan of putting the portal in the workshop itself. It would be creepy having an artifact of that kind of power right where she worked. No. It would have to be placed in a separate building.
Outside, she chopped down the last pine tree that was close to her and used the wood to create core posts and then floor posts. Frustratingly, it was not positioned well and she had to try again and again to get it to line up with her workshop. Hours later, a rumble overhead warned her the rain was coming.
"AAAAUUURRRRRRGH! I HATE DESIGNING!"
She was so bad at this! Nothing ever came out the way she thought it would in her head. Why couldn't she have maps of how buildings were supposed to be built, like the map of the world she made in her head? Angrily she tore up everything she had already placed. Giving in to the inevitable, she attached floor panels directly to the wall of the workshop on the outside wall, essentially creating a room off the workshop with a door to the outside. As the rain poured down on her she built the walls and lashed thatching together. She struggled to position the corner thatching correctly. Doggedly she continued on, positioning flat thatched panels against the corner pieces.
She realized as the last panel fell into place that the rain was no longer pouring down on her. It was hushing against the thatching and plopping into the mud outside. She carefully repaired the floor panels that were beginning to warp from the rain. Feeling a bit brighter now that the rain wasn't soaking her, she fetched fine wood. She shaped and carved it into the circular structure with flaring curves she saw in her minds eye. She nestled the gray dwarf eyes within the carving and deep within the base of the whole ring she buried the cores. On the ring itself she carefully carved its name.
"ONE"