Day Four of the Odinsleep (Korbin's Ordeal Part II and the Coming of the Wyrms)

Day Four of the Odinsleep (Noon- 5pm)

Birds don’t sweat.

Korbin lay prostrate and pinioned through his wings as the noon sun beams down mercilessly on his thick coat of luxurious sable feathers. The heat rises and the crow tightly closes his eyes in an attempt to protect his keen avian vision from the glaring orb above. Desperate to cool himself, he opens his beak and flutters his neck muscles, trying to expand his lungs as much as possible to lower his body’s rising temperature but try as he might, he finds his head swimming and his gorge rising in his throat. He shakes his head from side to side, mouth agape to gulp in whatever cooler air he can but his stomach rebels and he vomits up everything he ate the night before.

The Norn Maiden crouches beside the pool and dips the cuff of her sleeve in the water. She leans over the crow, shielding his body from the sun with her own as she cleans him, wiping his chest and face with the dampened cloth. The Crone looks on disapprovingly, her iron teeth set firmly in a perpetual scowl but the Maiden dips her sleeve once more and trickles water into Korbin’s mouth.

The bird has some trouble swallowing past his swollen tongue but the liquid droplets prove to be a soothing balm. She speaks as she bathes and waters him, “Beest at ease, Noble Bird. The beginning is the most difficult as thee art in the summ’r of thy life and thy imm’rtal blood strives to square ‘gainst this process of loosening it from thy mortal soul. Persevere and I wilt lendeth what succor I am able. Steel thyself, what cometh next wilt surely test thy endurance and resolve.”

With that, the Maiden falls away and is replaced by the Mother. The matronly Norn slips her fingers beneath the exposed root of the World Ash, Yggdrasil, and lifts the slack from the tendril into an upright position so Korbin’s body is supported only by the silvered nails affixing his wings to the wood. Korbin’s chest muscles pull tight as his body hangs and he struggles to lift himself to alleviate the strain. The effort is taxing and his shoulders throb and burn until exhaustion settles in and he slumps forward, no longer able to resist the incessant pull of gravity any longer. He struggles to breathe, not in, but out, as his lungs, unused to being held in this position for so prolonger a time have difficulty expelled spent air, making it next to impossible to take in anything more than the merest sips of breath.

The blood from his spike-pierced wings refuses to clot and run down his feathers in rivulets to drip onto the wood where it soaks into the whorls and swirls in the grain. Instinct rails against Korbin’s rationality – screaming with primal fury for him to fight, to escape, to out-smart his captors. His spirit surges as his body weakens and the afternoon wanes. The leaves begin to transition from green to red, orange, and gold as the temperature drops.

The Mother nods to the Maiden and the Crone. The two retreat as the Mother cradles Korbin’s limp form in her right hand and slowly pulls the nails from his wings with her left, freeing him from the tree. She walks around to the far edge of the Swan’s pool while the Maiden helps the Crone into the water on the nearer side. The Mother enters the tiny pond from the opposite bank and the two Norns walk toward each other until they meet at the center of the water. Korbin’s bearer lowers his body onto the surface of the still pool, allowing him to float on his back, gently supporting him with both hands and speaks to him, “Thou has’t done well, Korbin of Aesopica. Thee needeth go no further and may withdraw without shame. But knoweth that the All-Father wove the skein of thy life a long time ago. Wend, and hide in a hole if ‘t be true thee wish, but thee won’t liveth one instant longer. Thy fate is fixed. Doth thee desire to continueth?”

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Kysek joins Ra’ziir in the inspection of the Raven’s damaged bracer. Malazzarr’s last apprentice squints at the gemstones and, particularly, the settings used to hold them and notes something unusual but beyond his spellcasting prowess to identify. Tiny sigils that remind him of the runes carved into summoning circles are intertwined around each of the stone’s housings and he points these out to Ra’ziir. The bladesinger, his eyes ill-trained into minute inspections a thief must endure in his profession, blinks in surprise, almost embarrassed to have missed the gradations in the leather and notes that the symbols are useful in spells of calling forth creatures from other planes. As far as creatures that have control over time, none come to mind save the Inevitables, but those Planar inhabitants are more concerned with ensuring that things occur as they are meant to – the upholding of deals, the passage from life into death, and so on than the actual manipulation of time itself…perhaps some sort of denizen of the Elemental Planes could be the focus of these runes and the binding spell they support?

Shadow, having crafted many an item over course of his career, suggest summoning one of these beasts and binding it, using it to repair the damage caused to the armband when Raven reversed time to save the party from death.

Drax listens to the discussion about the magical armband but most of what is said lies far beyond his understanding of magic. Instead, he focuses his attention on the grove and how he would penetrate it if he were to make a target of the goddess. The path through the trees themselves offer few options as, he surmises, the goddess is attuned to whatever happens within her orchard. He turns his gaze instead to the sky and the many flying figures circling above – yes, an attack from the air would allow a blackheart to bypass Idunn’s first line of defense, especially with her standing exposed as she is, even with Arthur standing beside her as bodyguard.

Grotto chuckles at Cedron’s nervous flirtation but, interested in the goddess’s response, plops down onto the wall with a metallic clang and listens to whatever she may have to say. Cedron ponders Idunn’s words. “Yes, the Jotun are formidable indeed. Yet I cannot escape the thought that a more complex and devious plan is afoot. Evil and mischief is the same in all the realms, and there is always something more than what lies on the surface.” The priest turns his attention to Desmond, “Sergeant, can you help patrol the wall? This is a war and every soldier makes a difference.” The minstrel then turns his attention to the wall itself as Hansuke paces back and forth. The priest studies both sides of the wall, searching for a pattern to the ebb and flow of the battle, looking for clues that may allow him to foresee Loki’s next step.

Niklas continues to fire shots down into the melee below, more for the sake of doing something and giving the attackers something else to be concerned with than trying to eliminate any particular foe on the battlefield. That is the woodsman sees something off in the distance, long sinuous forms slithering through the waters of the fjord toward the lonely island and the shirtless, barefoot god Ægir standing ankle-deep in the sea. He opens his mouth to speak when a cry goes up among the Einherjar, loud enough to be clearly heard even here atop the wall. Niklas looks up and sees a massed squad of at least a dozen Jotuns cresting a low ridge far out on the plains, driving a horde of ogres and trolls before them.