The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Chapter 145: Vanir

Circling around the hillside, Crucis saw a small cave mouth with footsteps in the grass towards it. There were a few people fighting loudly downhill, but he was crouching in tall grass and they didn't see him while in the midst of battle.

He called Starfighter over, and they quickly ran into the cave. In front of them, there was a pale, wooden door, with a boar carved on it which was paler still.

Crucis hesitated in front of the door.

"We might as well go in," Starfighter whispered. "I can recognise the boots that left footprints, it's low-level gear."

Crucis nodded, and the two of them forced the stubborn door open, with Starfighter tugging on the door's edge while Crucis dragged the firm, golden handle.

Looking inside, they saw a black room, with only faint light from a window with feather-shaped tracery.

A young man named [Remus] turned around angrily and jutted out his sword towards them. Crucis could see that this level 54 player was from the familiar Guild [Communion], one of their bigger players, and was allied with the Vanir.

"G-get out of here!" Remus cried, protectively squaring up to the intruders. He didn't seem entirely sure himself why he had such a protective instinct.

Crucis took the initiative and stepped ahead, striking with a simple, straight [Slash], which Remus parried. The bright blades made a loud buzz as they clashed.

Noticing that Remus was partially blinded by the light from outside, Crucis deflected Remus' uncertain counter-attack wide to the right and immediately lunged in with [Agile Step].

As Remus tried to curve his sword back in for another strike, Crucis held his own over his shoulder to block, then used his sword's hilt to heavily knock Remus' face back while kicking out Remus' feet. As Remus struggled to catch his footing, Crucis rounded his shoulder and laid in a sturdy [Chokehold] while keeping his sword in place. Crucis' sword now hovered up ahead of Remus, with Remus' sword on the other side and being blocked away by Crucis' sword and Starfighter's now-raised Haladie.

There was no threat now, since Crucis could use his sword and Remus' was too far gone to strike back. Crucis easily brought his sword down to [Slash] neatly through Remus' throat.

He let the body drop.

Starfighter hadn't taken a major part in the fight, since it had started in the narrow doorway where he didn't have much place to use his weapons, but he had managed to use his Haladie's curved blades to harry Remus' sword and keep it out of the fight. Once Remus began stumbling backwards, his sword had hovered and bobbed aimlessly in the air, and it was easy for Starfighter to hook it until it was useless.

"Thanks," Crucis said quickly, as he walked into the room ahead of them.

"You're welcome. Don't make things too easy on me, though," Starfighter said, also beginning to look across the room.

The room had a few statues, but these had seemingly been torn out to leave only a husk. The furniture was also mostly just an odd chair leg or segment of a table lying around. All that remained intact was a small book left in a corner.

Crucis walked over, and picked this up. It had a small, brown cover, and the pages inside were a bright, elegant brown-tinged white. The title and sub-title glimmered in silver: 'Metanoia: The Book of Freyja.'

He opened it. On the opposite site of the cover was written a line drawn from Keats, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."

However, the rest of it didn't seem to have any text. It only contained a variety of sketches and small paintings of what looked like the same woman.

She varied noticeably between the different portrayals. While she initially had dark, brown hair in the early pages, this sometimes turned blonde or even a swan-like white. Her frame would occasionally even become markedly stocky or bulky, with a slightly masculine physique, but at other times it was wispy, yielding and elf-like, and most depictions were somewhere in between. She generally had a dark complexion and mousy face, as well as a tightly curved body, although at times this almost unravelled.

A few pages had a slight glossy sheen, but others were earthy and firm.

While there were no words written, as Crucis turned the pages he heard a female voice rise from the book itself. It sounded like the female portrayed in the book, talking to an interlocutor of some sort.

She spoke hesitantly, with a melodious lift of determination to her voice. "I have a plan. I have prepared us a golden straw bower, within Yggdrasil's folds - a place where we may hide from the tumult. A sanctuary. You too have heard the tanzanite-shaded bower birds, and seen the eternal beauty of their constructions. When the end comes, me and you, Freyr, will not die. We will repopulate the world, with creatures that are suited to it, with new men and women of our descent. We shall have a new world, one of our own, of the Vanir, of peace and beauty."

A male voice briefly interjected. "But what of earth -"

"This world looks destitute to me - and must so to you, since you see with eyes so much like mine. When you saw the beauty of Embla, the first woman, how could you think that the grotesque end of Ragnarok would befit her? Under our gaze, she will flourish then as much as she decayed now. We will emerge from the bower and build our garden of Paradise. But I'm sure you would object -"

"No. Say the word, and I will follow. That is all."

She gasped quietly, and her voice turned soft. "Yes, oh Freyr... Freyr, mine."

There was a sound like an embrace, or like two twigs being tightly twined together.

"I shall be with you until the end, and after it, if we live. But -" the male voice began.

"Oh, my love... What can I say? I can say nothing, my words and acts are worth nothing. My skin lays prostrate before you, my most valuable possession given to satiate the debt of gratitude. Finish your sentence undisturbed."

"But are you not afraid?"

Her voice grew timid. "Your presence consoles me now. All I feared was that the warlike Aesir will draw us all into the final war, like a wild maelstrom, and endanger us all. But I take strength from your white warmth. We have always been a peaceful kind, who promote amity among the people. If we survive, then all will flourish, and war will not touch us. The sides have been drawn: the crescents of war and fertile beauty cannot forever form a circle."

"All you say is true, Freyja. But will you build this bower, and not invite your husband, Odr?"

"Oh, Odr! I cannot tell where he is, or where he will be... It is said that he is fated to die in times to come, and how shall he defy fate? But we have lain together while he was gone, without clothing or air between us, and the bower shall be for us. You shall mount upon me as you have your beauteous ship, its brown-blonde surface as smooth and soft as cloth, and I shall be more beauteous still than it. Can you ever doubt it? Even though Ivaldi's sons toiled hardest to imbue your ship with fairness, its beauty and might will seem like dun to you. I know that your beauty too is greater than Odr's, and you are as close to me as he is far away. So leave him, come with me and never want for beauty or for intimacy, and our children shall soon arise in the bower and await their new earth."

"I would have you to myself, but do you not weep each time that Odr leaves you? Even now."

She whispered, "And it shall be as you wish, my brother, finally. I know that Odr must perish. He has never embraced me so strongly, that I could not feel him vanish away. But I shall weep for him, and the rivers of the new world will be spangled with his memory. Be that as it may, it is as it must be. Just me and you.

"You know, even when I see the golden tears which I cry for him, their beauty diverts me to think only of you."

"May we survive, and be gods of a greater world."

The dialogue went silent.

On the back page, there was a small, lewd scribble of sexual penetration between caricatures with exaggerated genitalia, followed by the note, "Ah ha! I always thought so, and now I know! (And now I'll have Odin catch them in the act.)"

It was signed, 'Laufeyarson.'

"I'm somehow not surprised to hear that the gods are incestuous," Starfighter commented.

"It's the price of having pantheons of deities," Crucis replied. "You let gods have pantheons, they'll all be inbred in a few years. In fact, that sounds like Freyja's plan."

"So what could this 'bower' mean?"

"It sounds like it might be related to the current conflict. Ragnarok is approaching, so there's conflict because the fertility gods, the Vanir, don't want to be slain in the large conflict. At least it sort of explains why we're all Aesir, presumably the game checks for PvP aggression or something and sorts us into Aesir. I heard that Erasure is more of a 'gentle giant' Guild, so they might go with the morePvE Guilds on the Vanir side. Carnivores versus herbivores."

"Sounds about right. I think the Hashin and DeathGang were also Aesir, right? Suits them. Maybe the Vanir Guilds would be better at fighting monsters, but I'd guess that once major PvP starts they'll be routed."

"Yes, eventually the main fights will be between Aesir Guilds. But we'll figure out later, let's go outside and see if people are still fighting on this hill."

They walked outside, and saw that the conflict below was coming to an end. Only about six players continued the fight, most with severed limbs or other injuries.

Crucis and Starfighter crept out wide, and approached the flight from the flank.

By now, there were only five players still fighting. Crucis charged in with his sword, and slashed down one player from behind while they were locked in combat. Starfighter struck another unsuspecting player by the shoulder, leaving them to be cut through the chest by their opponent.

While the players were still in surprise, Crucis used [Agile Step] to approach one square-on, deflecting a last-minute slash to his right as he charged forwards and killed the opponent with a straight slash through the neck. The [Nightmare] effect produced some black fumes from the wounds, and the remaining two players flinched back in fear as they saw hollow eyes and black, lizard-like scales stare at them from the eyeholes of Crucis' mask.

One of them, named [MarkoPolo], attempted to lunge at him, but was intercepted by Starfighter's sword. As Starfighter leaned in for the kill with his Haladie, the other player swung wildly at him, not wanting to be the last target standing.

Starfighter easily swiveled around his Haladie to deflect this strike with one blade, then used the other blade to stab through MarkoPolo's chest and kill him. Meanwhile, Crucis easily beheaded the other player.

Looking among the many bodies littered here, Crucis saw that most of the fighting was between two Guilds, one named [Karma] and the other [Paranoid]. He hadn't heard these names before, but Starfighter explained that they were Guilds from the far West.

"I heard some chat about them, apparently they were having a turf war out West and getting in people's way. They're players who started in another town out West," Starfighter said. "I remember it because I sold the speakers a tribal feathered weapon, which was basically just cosmetic, for a few thousand gold. They thought it was a powerful weapon. A good deal."

"Cherish the memories," Crucis replied. "Well, I guess that people from all over are here. After this hill, do we head closer to the centre? We're far out East, there's not that many victims here."

"Alright, long as we're careful. But maybe we should stay East for now, still a bunch of new guys loitering here."

"Yeah, makes sense. By the way, spawns are randomised here, right? So people are spawned across the East and West, not all in one place."

"'Course, otherwise we'd all just get camped or fight each other from the start."

"There's not that much cover towards the South-East, and a few large monsters on the periphery. Some mountains, but most can't be climbed. Anyone who spawns there will have to move North, or it's risky. Maybe we can find a choke-point there, and cut off any new arrivals who are trying to find shelter?"

"That sounds alright. Maybe move towards the centre when the supply of new players runs out?"

"Sure. We'll keep an eye on the situation there."