Not the First Ones Here

John, Talia and Frida cautiously stepped through the hallway, their weapons drawn as they slowly made their way deeper into the barrow. This hallway appeared older, the carvings of Beowulf’s life had gone away, and in their place were carvings depicting the gods. They saw such displays as Thor, wielding the mighty Mjollnir against the Jotuns; Heimdallr, from his perch upon Yggdrasil, looking out across the Nine Realms; and even Odin himself, perched upon a throne with his ravens, Huginn and Muninn. John scanned the walls as quickly as he could, but much to his chagrin, no new magical runes made themselves evident. In fact, very few runes appeared at all; it seemed this wall was reserved for artwork.

As they reached the door, Frida placed a finger atop her lips to silence them, and John and Talia both complied, holding their swords in their ready stance. Frida’s hand carefully made its way onto the door, and as softly as she could, pushed it open.

What lay inside the next room were ruins, but not the ruins that John expected. He would’ve expected smashed statues, desecrated tombs, maybe even a dragon sitting upon a giant loot pile, not… not…

“Is this… a camp?” Talia exclaimed. It was true. What they had walked into was an encampment - or at least what was left of one. Remnants of about half a dozen tents formed a semi-circle around what was once a firepit, and small, broken-down tables to the left seemed to form either an area to eat or perhaps an area to meet and discuss things. To the right sat the carcass of a wagon, its wooden hull blackened by fire and its leftmost wheel completely smashed, now mere splinters scattered across the floor.

John lowered his blade as he stepped forward. “Does… this mean… someone else has been here? I mean, this stuff looks relatively recent, at least more recent than a thousand years, when this tomb was last used, I assume.”

Frida stayed silent, taking in the sights around her before turning to the two younger adventurers. “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t what we came here for. We need to keep moving.”

“Now hold on, Mom,” Talia interjected. “Maybe the people that once lived here did some exploring of their own. Maybe we could find some sort of hint or reference book detailing the puzzles or traps we might be facing, assuming they got deeper into the tomb than we have.”

Frida seemed like she was about to interrupt, before giving a dismissive wave. “Fine, search about. I doubt you’ll find anything, as this place looks like it’s been abandoned for quite some time. But I would ask, if these people abandoned their camp within this hidden tomb, one would wonder why they abandoned it. Stay on guard.” With that, Frida walked over towards one of the walls and began reading through some of the writings on it.

Talia and John looked to each other, offering a shrug. Talia’s mother was oddly dismissive of this camp, and neither of them had any idea as to why. But they figured they might as well make use of the time they had to give the camp a quick search.

“You go for the left, I’ll go for the right,” they both said in tandem. They laughed for a moment before once again speaking in unison. “Oh sorry, I’ll go left-” They laughed again, and just as John was about to say something else, Talia clamped a hand over his mouth.

“YOU go right. I’ll go left. We’ll meet at the firepit.”

John nodded, and after a quick kiss on the cheek, Talia walked over towards the tables, trying to see if there was anything left that would be of use. John, meanwhile, walked over to the broken cart, ready to use Observe and figure out who lived here - or at least, whose cart this once was.

Broken Wooden Cart
This cart is broken. And made of wood.

‘Oh, how wonderfully useful. I wonder if it’s made of wood. Or if it’s broken at all. Glad to know that I now have an answer for both of these burning questions.’ John rolled his eyes and began to search through what was left of the cart, which wasn’t much. It was a simple two-wheeled cart, probably drawn by a horse, ox or donkey at some point. The cart’s insides had been cleared out, but he could see an impression in the wood. It was rectangular and sat in the back, most likely where a large trunk or crate would have sat. It was probably the cart’s only cargo - or at least the only consistent one. After looking underneath the cart, he managed to find a couple of small gold pieces and a small piece of fabric, no bigger than his hand. It was a deep red color, and appeared to have been ripped out of something, maybe a flag or a banner of some kind. It had a very distinctive design on it, that being a raven seeming to fly off from a branch or perhaps a tree. John decided to use Observe on it, hoping to get more information than what he got when he observed the cart.

Piece of the Rebellion’s Flag
The top right corner of the flag of the Rebellion from two hundred years ago. This corner has a picture of Huginn flying from Yggdrasil.

“Well. That’s interesting.” John quickly stowed the fabric away in his inventory, ideas racing through his mind of what this could mean. This cart had some sort of interaction with a rebellion, although the details were lost to John. Either the cart was associated with the rebellion, and perhaps dropping off supplies, or it could’ve been attacked by the rebellion and brought here. Or this camp could not have belonged to the rebellion, although John doubted that. After all, if Star Wars taught him anything, it’s that rebellions often had secret, hidden bases far away from the Empire - and how much more hidden could you get than the lost tomb of Beowulf?

John pocketed the gold pieces, noting that each added $10 to his inventory, and was left $40 richer. ‘Man. Tomb robbing is a lucrative business, assuming we find more of these coins’ John thought to himself as he ran over towards the camp. Hopefully more information would be found there, and if not, he was sure that Talia or Frida could tell him something about this rebellion.

The camp itself was in a sorry state. Most of the tents were in shambles, with only two of them looking somewhat hospitable at this point. The camp was probably very old and this had just been a result of negligence. ‘Or maybe this camp is newer, and this is the result of someone not being a happy camper.’ John walked over to the fire pit, noting the lack of coal or evidence of a recent fire. Another point to this camp being very old.

Curious of the contents, he walked up towards one of the tents that was still standing and peered inside. At first glance, all that was inside there were a few useless bits and pieces covered in dirt. But after he got a closer look, he noticed an old picture near the middle of the tent. The top half was completely buried by the dirt, but the bottom half showed a group of people standing in front of what appeared to be the entrance to the barrow. Half of them were holding flags, judging by the cloth hanging in front of them bearing the same insignia John had stumbled upon earlier. As he tried to brush off the dirt, the paper crumbled to dust, losing the image forever. ‘Damn it. I should have Observed it first. Idiot.’

After some digging, he found a dulled knife, the blade stabbed into the ground. It was simplistic in design, seemingly less meant for combat and more for day to day activities. He figured he’d learned his lesson this time, and so before he attempted to pull it out of the earth, he used Observe on it.

Survival Knife
4-5 slashing damage
A knife crafted and used by Hálfdan Leifson. This knife is best utilized for things such as tanning leather or opening up jars of baked beans. It is quite old and has seen little care for quite some time.

John’s careful expression dropped as a sense of dread washed over him.. He could feel his pulse begin to quicken and his breath start to come up short. ‘What the hell? Hálfdan made this? AND used it? He was here in the barrow? When? How? Why?!’ Beads of sweat appeared on his brow as he sat down next to the knife and drew his knees up to his chest, unable to look at it again. His mind went at a million miles per hour, hypotheses and speculations appearing and causing his fear to escalate.

After a moment or two, his breathing slowed and his mind became a bit more calm, allowing him to think rationally through his find. ‘Okay. So. We found a knife crafted and used by Hálfdan. What does this tell us? He could have been here, and could have known about the barrow all along. Or, whoever lived here used one of Hálfdan’s weapons. Maybe he borrowed it or something, or stole it even. But, if he did know about the barrow, and if Frida also knew about the barrow, that would explain their odd behavior when Talia and I announced we were going to find and explore it. But then that would pose the question of why they didn’t tell us. And what does the rebellion have to do with all of this? Could they have been-’

Just then, Talia opened up the tent flap, letting a harsh stream of light inside to illuminate John. “Hey, sleepy head, did you… fall… asleep…? Jeez, that was a lot more clever in my head…”

John looked up and tried to plaster a mask of calm onto his face. He didn’t know what Talia’s role in all of this was. For all he knew, she was also in on it. Granted, he doubted that, but at this rate he couldn’t be too sure. Best to keep his cards close to his chest until he knew more about what was going on. “I, uh… I tried to get some sleep, but turns out the smell of burnt tent isn’t very good for my… sleep...ing… yep.”

Talia giggled. “I would normally make fun of that statement for how awkward it was, but I didn’t do much better, so you’re off the hook this time around. Let’s pretend we were both, like, super clever, and never speak of this again.”

“Agreed,” John said, slowly crawling out of the tent to go stand by Talia’s side. “You find anything interesting?”

“A few things,” Talia replied, reaching over into her pack and pulling out some small trinkets. “I found a few scraps of a journal, which seem to talk about areas deeper into the tomb, although it’s kinda hard to read. And… oh yeah, I found this!” She pulled out of her knapsack a piece of fabric similar to that which John had found underneath the cart, except this piece had the full logo.

“What is it?” John asked, feigning ignorance.

“We don’t actually talk about this a lot in school - some of the elders are kinda embarrassed by it - but this happens to be the banner of the Elvish Rebellion. See, you can see Yggdrasil, with a focus on Alfheim on this one branch, and the two ravens flying away from it. It was supposed to symbolize the Ljósálfar emerging from Alfheim and venturing out into the rest of the Nine Realms.”

John figured this was a prime time to dig for some information. “Who were the Elvish Rebellion...eers?”

“Rebels, John. The term is rebels.”

“I knew that. I was just, uh, testing you.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Well, the Elvish Rebellion-eers, as you so gracefully put it, were a group of elves who had grown tired of the ways of the elder Ljósálfar. Remember when I told you that they’re not keen on picking up new traditions and the like? Well, they used to be even worse about it. They refused to advance in technology, even when the humans of Midgard were far outdoing us. So apparently, one of the members of the council had chosen to form a rebellion, hoping to change and update the council’s ways. The problem was, though, the rebellion got violent very quickly, and the leader went from a hero of progress to a terrorist. The council ended up executing the leader later, and the rebellion dispersed after that. Thankfully, they’d at least learned that progress WAS necessary, hence why I’m able to do things like play Magic or use modern refrigeration.”

“What happened to all the rebellion members?”

“The Rebellion-eers? No one really knows. Some of them are assumed to have been killed by the council, while most of them probably went back into hiding. Maybe they’re waiting for the day that a new leader arises, one as charismatic and inspiring as their first leader was. We elves can be patient, after all. We’ve got hundreds of years to wait for a new one.”

“Who was the first leader?” John said, glancing cautiously over at Frida, who was, for all he knew, a former terrorist.