Eril Bolverkr 64 Day Initiation Journey continued
Update Day 3
Day 3 (May 27th 2017)
I've always thought that this place, this red, barren world was some sort of purgatory. Turn out, it was actually the borderland between what we know as Muspellheim and Hel. I know, I know, I thought I was on shrooms too. Bear with me and let me rewrite this whole thing later when I have a better grasp of it myself. Yes, I asked Cvets, but as usual with all magical beings, his answer was more of a riddle than point-blank 1+1=2.
He said the "Layer of Verses" (god knows what it means) "sits inside a constantly revolving sphere that hangs from the Void at its centre. Each one forming its own globular boundaries which ultimately connects and overlaps with each other at all times." If I had a penny every time I scratch my astral head I'd be rich enough to commission Fast'n'Furious 8. It kind of made sense though, why I saw this world curved upward.
Anyway, today I didn't materialize in the tunnel. I "woke up" in the red river. No cuts. Yay. Scary shit I tell ya. I reckon my living body was gasping for air too on the other side.
Cvets was there, on a rock. Surprise. "How are you accepting everything?", "Well hello... if I accepted that I'd be as good as fish bait mate." He only smiled thinly. "Onto the next lesson then". He didn't even wait for me and started a trot away from the river. I tagged along, marveling the environs much like the day before. This was when I got into a conversation about the nature of the Nine World as I described above. "What's with the orange flames in the sky? Why are they so big?"
"The Rasp, we call it. It is caused by frictions of this world and the others."
"What worlds mate? Where the bloody hell are we exactly?"
"Do not squander the name of The Lady so easily, young jester, we thread at the edge of her realm and that of the mighty Surt." friction
Okay, hang on a minute. Surt? Really? Surely not Surt the King of Flame Giants. And The Lady? Didn't I just say "Hell"?
I was still processing this information when I noticed that trees in the vicinity seemed to have charred look. In the previous area they were already dry alright, but here, they charred in parts. Black, dry and brittle to the touch. I snapped a twig and it just turned to black ash in my hands.
The further we go, the reddish haze took a slight darker shade. It's misty here, but the mist was black, not white like in our home world. Gravels underfoot had also become smaller, some parts were even sandy. Not the smooth white beach, more like the coarse, gray volcanic sand.
Before long we arrived at a beach. I'm serious. A beach, like a coast with sea and stuff. Except the water was dark brown and the waves had orange-ish tint. The swirls looked like they could swallow a double deckers bus in no time. Cvets and I were facing a strait. On the other side, everything either glowed orange, was burning or in various stage of turning into charcoal. The black mist I mentioned before, were actually smoke that carried over from across the strait and it came from all the burning things there.
"Your next lesson lies on the Burning Land." Cvets graciously pointed to the other side. Okay so, I dealt with water before, and bridging it was a bad idea. "Should I fly across Mister?". "No need, you will fail." Well that was encouraging; so I'll just sit here and play Farmville or something. Awesome.
Cvets walked a couple of steps into the water and draw a stave in the air. I recognize the form of Uruz, Kenaz and Dagaz, but the rest were too complex to make out as stand alone rune. Then he did something surprising. He straightened his back and bellowed in such deep, booming voice. Gurgle gurgle gurle, raah raah raah, blaaaargh gurgle gurgle gurgle. Another voice answered from the other side. Reeeghhh raaaghh hmmmmmm hmmmmm hmmmm (why did it remind of Treebeard from the Lord of The Rings?). Then he took a step back, "Now we wait" he said, back in his squeaky voice.
If I wasn't in such state of flabergastedness (is that even a legit word?), I would have laughed. A few minutes passed and the waves died down. From amongst the smoking rocks and forest of burning trees on the other side, numerous figures appeared. They glowed in various shades of red, orange, yellow, and white. Some looked humanoid, others not so much. They stood on the beach, or walked towards one another, all seem to be looking towards us.
One of them, a particularly tall and slender giant, waded into the ocean till the water was about chest deep. The giant fumbled with something underwater, and with a mighty heave he upturned an object. A boat. A shallow boat. He jumped onto it, which made the boat rocked sideways. He was doing something on the boat, pulling out the anchor I guess. He seemed to be taking a long stick, and started to row. The stick didn't look like an oar though. We'll find out.
The boatman came closer. There was something off about him coming closer though. The boat didn't float right. First it floated level, after some time the front gradually lifted up, like a jet ski going at high speed. Except the speed of his approach did not change at all. Then the boat stood up on its rear end and began to scale an invisible wall. There were very natural looking water ripples on this "wall".
At certain height, the boatman jumped out and hung on the edge of the hull. Vertically. With a couple of tug, he flipped the boat and did a half somersault back onto the boat and started rowing again. Downward.
The invisible wall sloped to level with the beach where I stood with my very own angel of death. Now that the boatman got closer, I had a better perspective of his size. This guy was immense. He stood maybe fourteen feet tall. He had a flat face, thin lips, an aquiline nose and a pair of huge but sad eyes. His skin was dark orange and seemed to glow along the joints and folds. I had encountered flame giants before, but the hermits I met were either malnourished or deformed. This fella looked like one approaching is prime. And a pretty tall one too. He wore a skirt that looked like it’s made of some sort of thick, grey lizard skin.
The stick he was using wasn't an oar, it was a spear with very broad point. All made of dark metal. The boat looked like it's made of layers of metal strips. Rough cast iron. No ornamentation apart from the double fish tail design at both ends of the boat.
He put a stop to the slow movement of his transport with a firm jab of his oar-spear and beckoned us to board our ride, which we did.
I waded, and Cvets swam. Which raised my eyebrow. "Hah, I thought you were gonna go Jesus mate", I said to Cvets after we came aboard. "I could, but it would be an unnecessary display of gifts and impolite towards our host". Man, I felt like an oversized kid.
Obviously, health and safety regulations didn't apply here. I couldn’t find a seat belt, so I held on the edge of the boat like my life depended on it. I thought I was gonna flip and fly out half way across the Nine World when we went up the slope to the wall. But the only thing I noticed was the change of perspective in terms of how I view the land. There was no change in gravity at all, whichever was downward stayed downward. During the ride on the updraft, the land on both sides looked like they were carved on the wall. Imagine the world was flat like a book and you just flipped half the book upward. That's how it looked like.
Sometime later, the boatman eased his rowing til we came to a near full stop. Wordlessly, he jumped out and began to rock the boat. Oh shit. I was just taking a lungful of air when the whole world turned upside down. Literally. And before I could take a proper look on the side of the world that we were on now, Cvets put his little hand on my forehead and said one word "Rest." I opened my eyes looking at the all too familiar tree.
updates on Erils progress and experiences will continue as i receive them
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