In the wild tundra of the north, the wood-walled village of Casera stood. It was a simple place, where a mixture of hunters, gatherers, and farmers lived in peace, along with the craftsmen that most villages possessed.
It was a cold morning, with snow just starting to mist, and the villagers were just about to awake to start their day. But no one knew what danger was headed their way.
It happened fast. A roving band of 10 frost giants rushed out of the growing snowstorm, easily charging their way through the wooden wall that surrounded the village, and swung their giant battle axes through the air, rending all foes in two as they moved towards the village square.
Upon reaching the square, they laughed upon seeing almost every male villager there, all armed with some form of weapon and most with a scared, but determined, look on their faces. Beyond them, the sound of children crying and women trying to calm them down could be heard.
As nine of the giants eagerly gripped their axes, the tenth one, which was also the largest, grunted from behind them. “We need to leave soon, so hurry it up.” All nine grunted in response, before stepping forth and swinging their axes, sending a good chunk of the villagers flying. Another step and swing, and there was less than a quarter left. One final step, and the last of them were sent flying.
The frost giants grinned as the women started crying, except for one human woman with a light shade of brown hair and steel blue eyes, who was standing in the front of the women and children, and dressed in an outfit reminiscent of the valkyries of Valhalla, as she was holding a spear and shield, with a great sword strapped across her back.
She took a step forward, a frown on her face and tears in her eyes as she looked at the carnage. “Leave this place, foul giants, before I force you to.” Her bravado was betrayed by the slight shaking in her limbs, but she just gripped the haft of her spear tighter, ready for battle.
One hour later, silence echoed across the ruined village, as carrion birds of all kinds flew lazily over the destroyed village while waiting for everything to finish dying. As the birds kept watch overhead, slight movement could be seen down below on the field of battle, as the warrior woman crawled through the carnage of dead bodies and puddles of blood, tears streaming down her face while she kept going.
Finally making it out of the field of death, the woman trudged on, finally reaching a storage shed, which was the only building still standing. When she got there, she reached up and unlatched the door, then pushed it in slowly…..
-Half an hour later-
A man walked through the snowstorm, walking over the remnants of the massacre, sadly looking upon the remains of the villagers. The man was wearing a set of leather armor, with a quiver of arrows on one hip, a longsword on the other, and a wolfskin cloak covering his back, while in his hands was an exquisite longbow. He had slightly greying brown hair, and grey eyes the color of the clouds roiling in the sky above.
This man's name was Uller, the Norse god of hunting and winter, and he had come here after tracking down a band of frost giants that had stolen an artifact from his residence in the realm of Ysgard, and had used a planar gate to come to the Material Plane to escape the gods wrath, before they came across this village.
Wandering through the wreckage, the god frown, lamenting the fact that the planar gate had to recharge, and that he needed such methods to traverse the realms. Looking around, Uller could barely make out a small building through the snow, so he headed in that direction, figuring that any survivors would be holed up there to wait out the storm.
As he reached the small building, which turned out to be a storage shed. The god could hear the sound of faint crying coming from inside, so he pushed it open slowly before peaking in around the door.
Inside, Uller saw a trail of blood leading further in, then curving behind a pile of sacks, chests, and barrels. He could barely see a set of feet poking out from behind all of it. He carefully stepped all the way inside and shut the door behind him, before setting an arrow on his string and walking forwards.
Glancing around the corner of gear and storage items, Uller found what he saw sickening, even for a god. Laying down and propped against the wall, was a youngish woman that still wore the tattered remnants of scale mail, and was missing her left arm from the elbow down, while her right leg has gouges and was obviously broken in 5 spots. Her chestplate had a dent that obviously made breathing difficult, if not impossible. Her face was covered in blood, except for streaks that were obviously gouged through the blood by tears.
Kneeling by her side was a 4 year old boy with slightly pointed ears, obviously a half-elf, and he was on the edge of hysterics as he kept nudging her. “Come on, mom, get up. You gotta get up. I've heard those stories you used to tell, about being a shield-maiden and fighting in lots of battles! Come on mom, please wake up….” As he finished pleading, he leaned down against his mother's chest, and Uller was amazed as he realized that she was still alive, barely.
She lifted her arm up weakly and wrapped it around her son, hugging him gently. “Marrok, I don't have much time left… You need to be strong *cough* Strong enough that no one will ever do this again… please*cough*, promise me this ok?” With every cough, she became paler and more blood dripped down her mouth. Her son was nodding rapidly as she smiled, then looked up and over at the god, and silently mouthed the words, ‘please help him’, right before the life left her eyes and her body fell limp.
As he realized what happened, the boy started sobbing, and Uller stepped forward, setting his hand on the boys shoulder, which resulted in the child jumping in fright, but still being wary, with a large dagger in his hands. Uller smiled sadly as he inspected the boy. He had brownish hair and steel blue eyes, just like the now-dead woman behind him.
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The hunting god knelt down and set his bow down slowly, before raising his hands in a calming manner, like he was approaching a wild animal. Which was how he was treating the current situation, actually.
The god moved forward slowly, and stretched his hands out to the boy, gently grabbing the dagger and setting it to the side. “Boy, I know you must have been through a hard time. But you need to make a choice now.” The god gently smiled as the boy looked up at him with a burning question in his eyes. “You must choose- will you be held back by this tragedy, forever afraid of and angry at the world? Or will you overcome that fear, and direct that anger towards righting this wrong, and bringing justice to this village?”
The boy sniffed for a few seconds, before looking back at his mother then back at Uller. He then stood up with a determined look on his face. “That's what I thought you'd choose. Now, tell me boy, would you like to travel with me and learn of ways to fight the evil that started this tragedy in the first place?” The young lad nodded resolutely, and Uller smiled again, still sad that his blunder with the giants had resulted in this little boy losing his whole world, then he stood up and swung his cloak off of his back and around the boy. “Then, the first thing to do is get some warm food in you to fight back the cold, and then to bury the dead.”
The god sighed as he set about opening the various containers stored in the building. He set aside enough food that he found to last for a week, and set the containers that were empty or full of burnables to the right of the door. He then covered the mother with a sheet that he had found, and proceeded to cover all the blood, before finally starting a fire right by the now-open door, and making soup, which they ate and went to sleep, the boy huddled under the cloak while Uller kept watch.
The next morning, the boy woke up to find the storage shed empty of everything. Walking outside, he found Uller setting the final box onto a pyre of similar items. The sky above was still dark and cloudy, but had stopped snowing, if only after leaving enough to cover the carnage left from the giants.
Looking back at the god, the boy saw his mother, freshly washed and her armor polished, laying on the pyre, with her broken spear and rended shield by her side, along with a nice amount of food, gold, and other things. As the boy watched on, the god turned, holding a lit torch in one hand. “it is time for you to set your mother to rest, boy. Come over here.”
The lad walked over slowly, unable to take his eyes off of his mother in her final rest. Stopping next to the god, the boy finally looked up at him, only to have the torch handed over. “The right goes to you, lad. It is time for her send off.” Unknown to the young boy, Uller had left early and inspected the village while burying the dead as best he could, before finding that the warrior woman had been the last person left alive besides her son. The god also found evidence that she had taken at least 2 of the ice giants down with her, until the rest ran, leaving her mortally wounded, before she made her way back to her son for her final words and time with her son.
The boy sniffed back more tears and crying, then grabbed the torch and stepped forward, and spoke in a soft, quiet voice. “Mom, I'll right the wrongs done today to everybody. And I'll make you proud of me” As he set the torch to the flame, Uller pulled out an gold bound Horn of Valhalla, which he blew into, and in shimmering portals of swirling snow, 40 einherjar appeared around the burial pyre. They all looked towards the god, who raised the horn high. “We all honor the fallen warriors of Casera, the most honorable of which is Sarana Hemming, who slew 2 members of a band of ten frost giants!”
At the mention of frost giants, each of the spectral warriors murmured in shock and awe, as they all knew the might of giant-kin. “She shall be honored in the halls of Valhalla as a great warrior, and loving mother, from now till the end of days!” Uller faced towards the raging pyre and saluted, right arm held down to his side and his left across his chest in a soldier's salute, and each of the spirit warriors saluted with him. The boy kept staring at the fire, staying there till it had died down, leaving not a single trace of the woman he once knew as mother.
Over the next 6 years, Marrok traveled with the god of hunting, training himself in ways of hunting and tracking, until Uller felt he was ready for his first hunt. For the occasion, they traveled to the Beastlands, where the young teen had his first solo hunt, and brought down a dire wolf after a long hunt.
After that, they traveled to the plane of Ysgard, where the Nordic Pantheon held sway, and was tutored in more elaborate studies- animal handling, martial fighting, the basics of map making, the languages of Nordic tribes, and the production and usage of maps. After another 8 years, Uller traveled with him back to the Material Plane, where they split, one to train himself further in whatever he wished, and one to find any traces available of the band of frost giants that had destroyed a village 13 years before…
And now, 2 years have past since that day, and a new dawn is rising. As our young hero has just ridden into the town of Mazier, of the kingdom of Thurin, and has just been approached by a guard with what appears to be a bounty notice...