Below the Nornir heights, or Sosir the thief

The dust of the road clung to his feet. The cold air was dry, but the dust stuck like paint regardless. He took his eyes of his feet and glanced to his side. The lavender ettin, once a Norn, walked beside him. His mind was still very much turned inwards, and his words only practical. 

Sosir had captured the transmutator, the technological conjurer which had twisted the purple mountain norn into a doll eyed lavender ettin. But this half breed runt, to their frustration, lacked real knowledge. He could not guarantee to return Selwin to his old form, and Selwin refused to experiment blindly, as the horror of being remade time and time again was too great and painful to him.

They parted ways with the fallen warlord, who crawled into the ettin tunnels desiring to be forgotten. Selwin and Sosir had marched again towards the mountains through the barren grasses and dust.

They camped at the foot of the heights. A small mountain stream quenched them as they ate some of the cheese the nomads had produced. To Sosir's surprise the lavender journeyman ate well enough, and looked sharper than he had before. 

“I could pass for a real Ettin…” Selwin realised out loud.

Sosir looked at him in confusion. “You could, I reckon. Whatever for though?”

“Grendels breath, man! To steal from them! My Nornir kin live happiĺy above the treeline on their purple heather moors, inside their wood lined burrows, chatting and telling stories of the great treasure below them!”

“It is said the Ettin’s most prized possession lies within that mountain. What it is and how that knowledge got out is a mystery, yet I intend to make the most of my situation and seize it!”

Sosir looked at the pale lavender, small creature with its doll eyes in amused surprise. Moments before he had thought his companion would never be restored.

He kept quiet, but his bemused silence fired Selwin up.

Selwin explained how they were going to go about it. Despite his now low and turned voice, he was still a gifted speaker, and knew exactly how to entice Sosir to the venture. He knew treasure itself was not interesting to the ascetic Norn. Adventure however, a challenge, hardship and to visit new places were exactly the things the ombre Norn could be lured with. Sosir agreed to join Selwin, and argued almost uncharacteristically empathically that they might find someone to turn Selwin back.

They continued to climb as the sun rose again. They left the dusty plains behind, moving into the Nornir heights. Sharp peaks rose between rolling purple hills of heather and moderately fertile land. These peaks never truly blocked travel, but lengthened the road to the settled land of the purple mountain Norns. The sharp cliffs and heights halted the winds that blew dry the dusty plains below, keeping the land moist. The road itself was well kept by Nornir travellers and Ettin foragers, and fields of hardy crops like carrots, potatoes and sunflowers welcomed them.

They avoided the first township, Selwin explained that he was born in those hills, and to directly see the kinfolk he no longer were, was too painful to him. 

Sosir cynically thought his fellows' sticky hands were just as likely a reason, but kept the notion to himself.

The cosy burrows of the main settlement were a luxury to the ascetic Norn, having grown to youthdom in a solidly built but drafty stone eighthouse. Selwin kept as quiet as he could, as he did realise he was a stranger here, and considered even stranger for travelling with a Norn. He was nevertheless welcomed very warmly, as was Sosir. They stocked up on food, and fatty lamps and some sunflower oils. In the warmth and comfort of the common hall they ate together with other travellers, and were entertained by locals who told stories in return for an even trade. After some steering by Selwin they tell the legends of the immense treasure that would be hidden in the mountains nearby, although they follow up with a warning: Company and a full belly will always surpass cold treasure, however great it may be.

A search they expected to take days, takes only little over one morning. A little beyond noon they had walked though the second cave of the day, hoping this would not prove to be a dead end. This time they had been lucky, and though the narrow cave had been a difficult route for the larger Sosir, they happened upon a small door at the end of the cave. Clearly made for Ettins, it was a solid metallic door, opened by a hidden mechanism. Selwin had needed some encouragement to attempt to open the door, and found it a difficult moment when the door completely accepted him to be an Ettin.

The vaulted ceiling and cool stone were very different from the glass, metal and concrete halls of the Ettin tunnels. Sosir thought back to the great hewn halls of the mountain Ettins, of their ancient masonry and their great statues. To him this mausoleum was not too impressive, the few gargoyles that graced the walls rather small. Selwin however, thought he could already smell the valuables.

The halls stretch deep into the mountain. They meet very few Ettins and Selwins Ettindom and confidence seemed to be enough of an explanation for Sosir's presence to these elder Ettins. Some of these were simply sweeping the endless corridors, some tended to potted mushroom gardens. They were not at all talkative however, working in reverent silence. Nothing around betrayed the tunnels to be a vault of prized possessions.

“This cannot be the place, Sosir. We have been walking these tunnels for too long, and have nothing to show for it! Why would these palefaced devils build such a vast network, only to occupy them with geezers?”

“Don’t worry yet, Selwin. What better way to repulse thieves than to simply let them lose their interest? So far we have these safely hidden tunnels and a great bounty of mushrooms to show for our efforts, a great boon to the Nornir above in more difficult times that always follow the easy times.”

“Perhaps. But we must first be able to tell them about it. We are very lost.”

Sosir looked around him by the light of the oily flame they had brought along. Selwin was right, he realised to his dismay. They had not marked the tunnels, and the sweeping ettins had erased their tracks in the dust. They pass through libraries and quietly running machine rooms, never finding waypoints or straight tunnels. They keep meandering though the seemingly endless and featureless tunnels. With no way back to them, they had no choice but to hope they would find egress through luck alone.

Sheer chance took them to happen upon a silent procession of old Ettins, appearing almost religious and somewhat frightening in the dim gloom of flickering smokey flames. Sosir blew out his own oil flame, and gestured to Selwin to join them. He tried to keep his distance, hang back and follow their sound and light in the dark tunnels. Their elaborately decorated gadgets implied they were on their way to an even greater good, which gave him reason to hide in the darkness at all. The gadgets were clearly of alchemical and electric nature, and he wondered about their purpose. He had plenty of time to think about that, however. The track through the darkness kept going for ages. He felt like they had turned and moved to end up in circles, tracking back upon the original track often, simply to lengthen the journey. This procession was closed again by sweepers, clearing their tracks as they were made.

Sosir had to guess more and more where they had gone, taking the road on junctions often purely by guess. Luck had seemed to be on his side, as all his choices had again led him to a dim light in the distance and their low droning. Until the last time. He had become lost, losing the dim speck of glowing hope in the distance. He kept walking, taking more and more junctions based upon hope and nothing else, until he was certain he was well and hopelessly lost. The rock felt cold under his feet, and the silence rang loud. His fur kept him warm enough, and his hand to the wall kept him oriented as he moved. The lamp he carried felt utterly useless, as he had no way of lighting it. He spat and continued to move again.

Muffled and reverberating sounds sharpen him. A slight scraping of what could be steps echo around the tunnels, and he has to walk back and forth a few times before he has bearing on it. He follows his tensed ears aster the sound, preferring to be caught by the Ettins and expelled over wandering until the stars would fade. A faint, constant light glowed vaguely in the distance of the tunnel. Sosir's heart jumped with hope for a moment, and. He noticed the light was coming towards him. He stopped for a short moment when he noticed the heavy, raw stench that emanated through the damp mustiness of the tunnel.

Drunk with hope, he ignored his keen nose’s warning. He was drawn like a moth to a flame by the greenish light. He took step after step, and could almost touch the three ominously glowing lights when his subconscious mind finally connected the color, the smells and the amount of lights. 

He came to with a shock, and directly charged the owner of the lights. A beastly grendel was taken completely by surprise as Sosir ran headfirst into his gut. The monster folded over as Sosir bounced back. Milky eyes stared blindly forward as its arms waved to find its prey, but Sosir was already on the run. It was an amalgamation of various breeds of Grendel; the beast's tiger Grendel fur protected it from the cool and damp, as its wisp lights had both lured prey and blinded his staring eyes.

He ran from the aberration. Snorts and grunts reverberated through the halls, and he tried to run quietly, his hand to the wall. He slowed down before his breath ran out, fearing that panting would give him away in the darkness. He tried to estimate distance with the snorting and shuffling of the grendel. Snorting and grunting gave way to wailing, an unexpectedly meek sound from such a creature.

He stopped moving altogether, turning his ears to pick up as much sound as possible. 

“Stranger! Straaanger!?” Did an eerie voice call out. The voice was formed by a throat not used to talking, and it added a weary and whiny timbre. 

“Please! You’re no Ettin! We both simply want out, help me and let me help you.”

He listened for a while to the whining and the pleading, but he knew he had little choice in the matter. He mistrusted the hulking creature, but suspected he would starve before he would have blindly stumbled over the exit. 

“Hold it, Grendel. What would you need from me?”

“I have fulfilled my oath a thousandfold, non-ettin. I protected this hole forever, served here for more than a lifetime! My eyes have withered, and so have I. I have given up all that I am just to survive, and I don’t know how long I can hold back the thing I have become.” The grendel moaned:”I shall take you to one of their exit points, where they close the walls. Your eyes can find an exit my ancient blinded eyes cannot”

Sosir tracked back at his trail, and looked at the weary sentinel. In its own sickly green wisplight the creature looked as pathetic as it was powerful. Milky eyes stared straight at the heavy wisplight globes hanging just a bit off his face. His chin and chest was crusty with the dribble of mushrooms he had been eating. The skin a mottle of furred tiger grendel and slick dark wisp hide. Revulsion tied a knot in Sosir's stomach, feeling both threatened and disgusted by the creature. Yet still, he realised, he had no choice.

“Lead the way then, Grendel.”

The aberration let him on. Like with the trail of ettins and Selwin, he followed at a distance. This time as a safety precaution rather than stealth. The tunnels twisted endlessly on, the bare stone cool under his feet, the air thick with the Grendel’s filthy odor. As he tried to find recognisable features on the walls as they passed them he found little more than some filth here and there, likely left there by the creature that was guiding him now.

Suddenly the face of a dead end came into their light, and the creature simply stopped. Sosir noticed the beast trembled and struggled to contain itself. It had apparently fulfilled its promise, and the rest was up to him from there. Keeping half an eye on his guide, Sosir checked the walls and floor. The latter was polished by many waves of feet, though we would never have found it without the light.

The wall itself had been touched, pushed and scratched for a long time, and Sosir had a clear idea whose work that was. Faint lines between the damaged stonework suggested that instructions had once been displayed there. He filled out the spaces between the lines with his finger and some spit. With some guesswork, he assumed the figure was meant to be that of an Ettin shouting through the wall. 

He guessed some words that could be used to open the hidden door, a list that included open, push,pull and so forth. He looked back at the hulking aberration, but he still sat on the cool stone, sweating and muttering to himself as he had turned inwards. Sosir systematically spoke the words of his list to the wall, twisting his voice low for it to sound like that of an ettin. His hope seemed to falter a little, when no reaction came to some of the words, but when he came to work, gadget and stone he heard something click, the whirring of machinery, and the sliding of heavy stone.

He sighed with relief. To know as much of the Ettin language as he did was a rarity among Nornir.

He stepped back, the grendel had heard the secret door open and was clearly not going to let anything stop him. Sosir walked after him into the polished and sterile metallic halls. His eyes had to adjust to the bright light, and the reflective surfaces of the walls did not help him there. As his eyes refocused he saw that piping and thick wires ran through the entire space, all feeding into a great central machine. A great deal of beautifully made machinery and grandiosely decorated gadgets seemed to serve to monitor, to energize and to feed the gorgeously carved equipment in the middle of the hall.

The aberration could contain his now truly savage form and loses his mind utterly as he relieves a thousand lifetimes of vengeance upon the elderly ettins. Sosir stands besides Selwin, who stares up at the protective case atop the elaborate machinery. The greatest treasure of the ettins held within: an unhatched, antediluvian egg. Fleshy, leathery, formed like a bivalve. The last egg of the Shee.