Completed Misery is the River of the World

[Vand]

Withereach, Nordengaard
Southern Eretejva Tundra
The morning immediately following He is No King of Mine​

“It just feels like so much.”

The two were awakened perhaps far earlier than they intended, the people of Withereach having awoken collectively as the dockhand caught the oncoming ship in his scope. They had broken their fast quickly, and now, they stood on the beginning edge of the dock in quiet reflection, small tin cups in-hand containing some herbal mixture which, for all intents and purposes, may as well just be coffee.

“Then don’t let it be,” Signe chimed in, her ever-encouraging, Disney Princess, sing-songy voice.

“Yeah, I know, but did you ever imagine it would come to this?,” he was clearly excited, with that little peppering of fear which made doing things that much more worth it. “The future of Withereach … riding on this one thing.” He gestured with his hands, opening them up (though careful not to spill), as he stated much more pensively, “And it’s in my hands. How did I get here?”

Signe was too old, too wise to be shocked. In her time on this planet, she had come to learn there really wasn’t any reason why anything wouldn’t happen to anybody.

“You did something. You reached out and you touched the world, and now it’s touching you back. Should’ve been more responsible.”

“But..MY hands. ME. MINE. Would you have ever guessed this, when I showed up at your door, damp and fucking – “ He tensed his fists and shoulders in emphasis. He wound up coughing, bringing the closed fist of his free hand to his mouth. Finally, “ –shaking-pissed…?”

Vand grinned to her, taking a sip of his coffee-type thing, the steam kissing his face.

A thin smile grew upon her face, remembering him as a youth; his boots swallowed by the wooden floor, but still him, red in the face, shouting righteous platitudes split apart amidst a coughing fit.

He was like a little puppy, trying to bark.

Signe couldn’t help but laugh.

“Such a trifling pair!,” she cheered in delight. “My Svalen, long dead; Yours – Never born.”

She adored their connection, and she underscored it to enhance the bond. Bittersweet, but true, and perfect in its own way.

“What poor Nordenfiir we make!”

Vand was no longer smiling. His eyes withdrew from her, cast down into the cold water below. His head nodded in understanding of her perception, his reality. Her own joy vanished instantly, the moment ruined.

“You think I’m without a Svalen.” Her implication was restated flatly.

“Oh…,” she shriveled, realizing what she had done.

“I’m just a bitter old woman…”

She betrayed herself.

“Don’t you go listening to me.”

Vand nodded again, discretely wounding her. He dumped what remained of his cup into the water.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He let that hang on the air for a minute. The breakdown was so jarring, he wasn’t sure how to transition.

“Yeah,” he nodded again. “We should be getting ready. Could you --?”

“Tell the others? Of course…”

Signe smiled weakly at him, only to tuck it away.

Vand looked at her for a moment, hesitant, before finally leaving her to the dock. She would hear him hacking and spitting as he cleared the docks.

~^*^~​

There was a story Vand would have told Princess Gemaudelene, had she asked. It was about Jorn Irvad, and Withereach, and a shaman named Halamarth, and a miner named Bjarn, and how all of it came to be to end up the way it has.

It would have gone like this:

Once upon a time, the people of Withereach worked in the iron mines as a point of pride and public service, shipping off a steady supply of ore, and precious gems, and Black Ice. They did their daily duty on behalf of King Iovard; and the King, in turn, supplied them with housing, and food, and school services. Their work was well-rewarded, and their work was well-done. And so it was for years and years and years. One day, however, the Jorn of Withereach passed away, leaving his position to his son, Irvad, the first of his name. The people of Withereach took no objection to this – While they were all warriors by point of heritage, their Svalens identified more with cave work; with fostering community and giving to the tribe. There was no reason to fight Jorn Irvad for his position – though, if they had, they would have found that Irvad the Only was no slouch.

The people begin to find that newer goods were showing up in town. More traders passing by, like clockwork, bringing better food, and blankets, and supplies, far beyond what the King ordinarily supplied. The reason for this would be revealed later by the Jorn with the opening his own storefront. He announced that he would be introducing a currency, rewarded for hard work in the mines. Currency would now be the mechanism by which the people of Withereach would ensure their lanterns had oil, and their clothes without holes, and their tables well set so their children were well fed. More currency meant better items. More currency meant more work. The people of Withereach were hard working, so this not only seemed fair, but sure win for everyone involved.

And so it was that more the relaxed work hours became more rigorous. Where the day had once ended long before sundown, they were now mining into the night, using their own lamp oil to where the daylight faded. In fact, the work became its own reward – you paid for your own resources for the opportunity to make currency. For a few years, it seemed like everyone had enjoyed an increase in quality of life. The miners did not seem to see as much of their family as they once had – were no longer the same vested members of a community --, but they knew that, one day, after they paid for the new doors and the lamplights and when the kids got out of school and joined the mines themselves – they would be able to relax on the currency they had saved from all the work they put in now.

The shop became less and less consistent, however. Some months, the meat was rotten, sometimes the portions meager, but the price did not fluctuate. “Tough times in the world,” Irvad would allege. “It’s what the traders charged. You’re getting a fair rate.” Though, while the miners seemed to be working harder for less, Jorn Irvad only seemed to get richer – his estate even populating a mercenary detail of errant barbarians and Dark Elves, many of which were former guards of Nordengaard on Irvad’s seemingly infinite take.

There was a rumor going around that, following the successful sale of a burlap blanket, that Irvad turned to one of his guards and laughed, albeit quietly, “These stupid fucks will buy anything.” This was widely regarded to be the misinformation of the lazy and deservedly poor.

One fateful day, a miner named Bjarn – the hardest worker, really; never complained – seemed to come down with a bit of a cough. His co-workers asked about it, worrying he would contaminate them as well, but Bjarn was not to miss work – Time was money, after all. Still, they persisted, and he was forced to take a day off. A day which became a week. Bjarn simply was not getting better – blood accruing in the thick spats of mucus that he was hacking up, well into the night. The Jorn was all too happy to provide a doctor (At Bjarn’s expense, mind you) to give a proper diagnosis. The doctor Irvad brought it gave Bjarn a clear bill of health, declaring it simply related to seasonal sinuses. After all, some Nordenfiir has such pronounced issues on account of their keen sense of smell – And, if you consider it, Withereach is a bit south for Nordens.

The Spring came and went and Bjarn continued to cough, worse and worse. Some other people did, as well, though they tried to conceal it. Unable to afford another visit with Irvad’s doctor, Bjarn elected to sneak a trip to see the Bear Shaman Halamarth – a man who rarely saw visitors anymore, as the people were too busy working to attend ceremony. It took Shaman Halamarth not long at all to see what had happened – due to continuous exposure to the dust of the mines under the unsafe conditions that came from the workers being forced to shoulder safety expenses, Bjarn’s lungs were scarred and caked over in rock dust. There was no way he was ever going to get better.

Bjarn and Halamarth rallied the people of Withereach, determined to bring it to the Jorn’s attention. They were able to assemble a small, but reliable posse as they marched on the gates of Irvad’s estate. By now, the credibility of Irvad’s healer was under scrutiny, and an explanation was demanded. Jorn Irvad refused to meet the allegations, or answer any questions, simply choosing instead to send down his mercenary fighters to protect his assets. He was heard by the townspeople who had gathered for the scene to have shouted to his men, “Do what you have to – Just don’t let beyond the gate.” The workers had queued up at his estate only for explanation, not a fight. They were armed with nothing except their fists, their bodies unarmored. And yet, for whatever reason, though no call to shoot was ever heard, the mercenaries opened fire upon the posse with their crossbows. They reloaded and did it again. Perhaps people would have fought if they had understood what was going on, but…nobody really did.

In the end, Shaman Halamarth was the only one left alive.

In the morning, Jorn Irvad would gather the people of Withereach. His healer would proclaim that he had determined the root of the cough which inflicted everyone was none other than witchcraft performed by an embittered shaman who had lost his place in the community. Halamarth was angry that nobody saw value in the old ways which gave the shaman so much authority and power and so conspired with the witches to bring everyone back into his dependency and discredit the Jorn. Halamarth was offered no final statements and was burned alive for his treason. This explanation did not line up in the hearts and heads of the community, but then again, it was logically sound, and it was easier to do nothing than something.
​

Interestingly enough, it was this story about witchcraft that would propel a young Vand to attempt confront the witches of the bogs when he and his father inevitably caught the cough. There, of course, he would meet Signe, the Bog Witch that would become one of his longest and most-trusted friends.

Silver linings, and that.​

Later that evening, Bjarn and the others were laid upon their ceremonial barges, set off into Haymar’s Folly, and torched as per traditional Nordenfiir funerary rites.

With heavy hearts, the miners would return to work the following morning to attempt to resume their normal lives. However, one final upset appeared in the form of a banner with Norden scrawl, hanging at the mouth to the cave. It read:

“These stupid fucks will buy anything.”

​

From almost the moment that the ship had dotted the horizon, the Nordenfiir of Withereach had been anticipating its arrival, and while the workers and townsfolk dutifully continued to fulfill their daily duties, pretending their bests that they were unaffected by the coming traders, it could not conceal the palatable anxiety in the air.

This arrangement had to succeed. It was too important not to.

For their autonomy from the new crown. For the promise of survival.

For the restoration of their dignity, bought then thrown away. For a sense of agency in their own short lives.

For that bear, once roaring in their hearts, refusing to submit.

 

[Gal]

It was winter, and that meant westward winds and bucketfuls of rain all over the south. It was winter, and that meant howling storms and white squalls dashing good and bad sailors alike against the fanged shores of the Spear. It was winter, and that meant few merchants and many hunters, with the smart Captains all too busy drinking their summer pickings away in Black Bay to stalk the former or avoid the latter.

In her scant two decades on this earth – the two decades she was old enough to remember, anyhow – Gal had been called many things. Murderer. Thief. Whore. Pirate (which arguably encompassed all three), but never smart.

And so instead of lazing about with smoke-glazed eyes on a maggoty mattress of a Cerak brothel, the woman was instead swaddled in furs, cursing her life choices, and staring hard at the windward shore. Hard not because she couldn’t see well – she was Nazrani – but rather to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Fuck dis cold,” the corsair spat, half-expecting the words to hit the deck as an ice cube. “An’ fuck me fo’ sailin’ dis far nort.”

She collapsed the spyglass and tucked it into the depths of her coat. “Mistah Leghtór?”

“Cap’n?”

“How ar’ we on sapplays?”

“Ehhh...” Then a brief shouting exchange with the cook later, “We prob’ly got enough for anotha week, but no more ‘n that. And, uh…”

“Yes?”

“Well, tha fowks wanna see some trade come outta this, y’know? And thass tha first port we’ve seen up ‘ere.”

Gal puffed warm air into the cup of her hands and rubbed them together. Again.

“Dey lookt ta’ have tee. Rayt now, das enuff fo’ me.” She turned away from the gunwale and made for the helm with a determined stride. “Hard ta’ port! Brace op da yards! Haul op da jib an’ git redy fo’ soundin’!”

Vand

 

[Sigrith]

Sigrith had left the fires late into the night, long after the twilight had been filled with the gentle snores and rasp coughs of the locals. A nightowl, for the most part, the young witch took to the forest to hunt while the moon was high. She did not return again until the infantile hours of the morning, just before the sun broke the horizon.

She was here because Signe was here, make no mistake about that. It wasn't the townsfolk or the recent revolution that drew the Nord to linger. Signe was as much her mentor as she was her sister - a source of wonder and wisdom and, as apparent by the company she chose to keep, a certain amount of entertainment. Vand was a curious subject of study, as was the company he kept. Sigi had seen him before, from a distance, shadowed by Signe on his various pursuits. Only now did she feel any metaphysical pull to insert herself into the thick of things.

So she made the central fire her new point of contact and settled in at Doggrave's side where he sat - likely the only lupine that ever would. As the sun rose and warmed the grounds, fur gave way to feathered pauldrons, leather armor and a pale hide hardened by the chill of winter.

 

[Vand]

The town of Withereach vibrated at high-frequency – a low buzz humming through the air, permeating the spaces of silence not filled by workers unknowingly practicing their craft at a hurried pace. Blacksmith hammers striking their anvils in staccato bass; the butcher sawing through carcass like a rhythm section of crunchy violin. Everyone, Vand included, would like to see this go well. Would need to see this alternative ventured.

They didn’t want to do this dance forever. Nobody wanted to work on Maggie’s farm no more.

Vand exited his rental hovel -- his sword girded on, his form battle-ready -- and he shadowboxed at nothing in particular, loosening up his body in a boxer’s adaptive stance. The boat was so close now; Doggrave probably could have hit it from the pier. The Rabble-rouser exhaled deeply, then shook it all out through his hands. “So it goes,” he whispered, and stepped out into the greater camp.

Listen. There is another story of which Vand had never told anybody. It goes like this:​

Meanwhile, at the campfire, Signe rested a gentle hand upon the bare skin of her proteges upper-arm. Standing before the sun as though it were halo, Signe’s eyes still glowed against their silhouetted backdrop. “I must…,” she looked away, deciding on her vaguerie, “…see to some things.” It was clear she would answer no questions. “He will need you,” she clarified. “Be there.”

Once upon a time, when Vand was still very young, he had been exploring the woods when he heard a cry, not unlike a baby’s. Curious and immortal, the Nordenfiir child went to investigate, fearing not what lurked in the trees, nor the cave from which the cry had come.​

Perhaps the one exception to the tension had been, paradoxically, Irvad the Only; the one Voted Most Likely to Die Horribly by his peers. While in the early days of his being deposed, Irvad had been much more forthcoming with information --copping to everything from hiding the presence of Black Ice in the mines from the Throne, to his trading the novelty material for vast, untaxed wealth, and even admitting that he was trying to strip the local Nordenfiir of their ancestral heritage -- as Vand and Doggrave beat it out of him, as the Bog Witch drew it out methodically with her torturous instruments and serums; it seemed that, now that the existence of the traders had become less abstract, more real, the noble had found new confidence. His answers now took on vague descriptors, the going rate of the obsidian suddenly nebulous and hard to remember.

He even smiled sometimes, as Doggrave shoved him along, the disgraced Jorn tripping and stumbling over his chained legs, unable to stabilize with his chained arms.

“Oh, look – It seems my sword was not so ugly after all,” Irvad smarmed, seeing The Black Bastard remaining in Vand’s possession.

“You’re certainly sassy for someone who spent most of the night in tears, sobbing so loud it even drowned the rising tide,” Signe chirped, sing-song.

His newfound confidence was not a mystery to Vand and company – the prisoner obviously thought the traders would come to his rescue. As if. The Nordenfiir would kill him first.

“Make no mistake, Irvad – You will be dead by the end of this,” Vand addressed Irvad’s hope, noting that the boat was squaring up with the docks. The company proceeded to walk, Signe excluded. “The only thing you can negotiate is whether or not you go in chains…”

Upon entering the cave, he found a baby dire bear, absent from its mother and covered in blood from a wound it suffered to its leg. It was broken, Vand could tell, and the bear was left to die. It screeched as it smelled the Nordenfiir, trying to flee on its shattered limb. Animals often had this reaction to his kind, so it did not affect the pity Vand had for the creature whose life had become forfeit.
​

They had barely made it halfway down the dock before Irvad’s tone suddenly changed. His step hesitated, and he attempted to move backwards, only to fall straight into Doggrave’s one-armed push. “That’s not –” Irvad swallowed hard, continuing forward at the Tusk’s insistence, but clearly more somber.

Vand glanced back at the sudden commotion. Signe was nowhere to be seen. He pondered this for a moment, before conceding her mystery to the witch.

Vand would return with food and a splint, treating the bear as though it were human because, really, to a Nordenfiir, there was not much distinction, anyway. After a few days, the dire cub did not scream and piss and shit itself at the scent of the Nordenfiir, and would even try to approach the barbarian. It would be a stretch to call the cub domesticated, but the two were at least friendly.​

They would square off at the end of where the gangway would be, whether the pirates dropped it or not:

On Vand’s right -- Doggrave, the massive mammoth-man, effortlessly shouldering an etched boulder on his shoulder while standing poised behind Irvad the Only, on his knees, bruised and battered, his hands shackled behind his back.

On Vand’s left – Sigrith, doing whatever she says she’s doing.

And in the center, Vand, the apparent leader, stalking back and forth parallel to the ship, like a tiger in a cage, his fingers wiggly in anticipation, causing the claws on his gauntlets to wave up and down, their tips shining in that purple and green and yellow like an oily puddle of rain runoff. He was faintly armored, mostly to one side, with the bulk of his torso exposed to show off hyper-developed abdominal and serratus-anterior musculature – clearly, some form of light tank. An ugly, gnarled black bastard sword adorned his back…and, of course, that trademark bone half-mask.

One fateful day, Vand would return to find that the cub’s mother had, as well. From the bushes, Vand watched as the mother dire bear dropped a caribou carcass at the feet of its cub, then quietly sniffed at her offspring. Vand took pride in this, for surely, the cub would welcomed back into its den and would be able to continue its life.​

Irvad fidgeted slightly, wrestling with something – like an alien baby were about to burst from his chest. It instantly drew Doggrave’s attention. “Fight with me!,” Irvad said finally, rising to his feet, his form immediately transforming into a massive bear, his bear might making short work of his shackles. “ – and I will make you richer than –”

And that was it. Doggrave dropped his hefty boulder down upon the ex-Jorn’s head. The impact was such that it flattened the Nordenfiir’s neck as though it were an accordion, knocking his now ursine skull into his ribcage, his jaw shattering under the weight. Irvad the Only now Irvad the Dead. The bear slumped down upon the dock, Vand stepping casually upon his hand in a satisfying crunch as it fell into his path.

But as the mother sniffed the cub, it began to drool, breathe more heavily. The cub smelled wrong now. It was no longer hers. With unmatched ferocity, the mother proceeded to rip the baby apart all over the cave.
​

If one thing could be said for the Jorn, it’s that he refused to die in bondage. Still, it served a valuable message – all prior arrangements with Irvad the Only were now cancelled.

Vand, without reacting, held eye contact with Gal or her ambassador. “Do you speak Common?”

It never even had a chance to squeal. Vand had been thinking about this a lot, lately.​

 

[Vand]

BUT EVERYTHING WORKED OUT.

fin.​