M.I.S.T Campaign: Session 47

If I never have to dip so much of a toe into the River Urnes again I’ll consider myself fortunate.  It is, perhaps, the most trying thing I’ve done since my visitation.  Not physically.  No, that bit of swimming is something I could do a thousand times without tiring.  In ordinary water, at least.  But that river wears on you; emotionally, mentally, spiritually.  It seeps through flesh and bone, without care for either, to set its hooks into your soul.  So easy is the temptation…to close your eyes, stop struggling, relax, and sink.  To be lost forever in its dark depths.

It is a fortunate thing that I took Kebauet up on her offer, assumed a Virtue of the Psedjet and of my Father.  For without the strength of will it granted I might well have been lost to those dread waters.

As it was, I was the only one to enter them who emerged from them out of his own power.

Andrew might have been able to, I suppose.  But I was close to him, not taking any chances, and short on time.  So I simply tossed him out of the river, onto the deck, before turning my attentions elsewhere. For it was the Vigil Brand I’d placed on Rufus blaring like a claxon within my mind.

We pulled him from the river twice.  The first time when Ken snagged him with her shadows and the two of us pulled him to the barque.  But as soon as I had a moment to take stock of what had happened I realized that the river had separated his being into constituent parts.  We’d dredged up his soul, but the river had not relinquished the body.  So I went right back in after him, dark as the waters were I barely even managed to find him.  But I did, tied a harness to him, and we got him pulled back to the surface.

But of course it couldn’t have been that simple, not with this river.  The body wasn’t alive or dead.  But it was animate, and hostile.  It snapped at Ken as soon as she drew near.  I was quick enough to pull it away from her but…she must have seen something, known somehow that what was happening was beyond our ability to solve right now.  Because the next thing I knew was the roar of a gunshot, the muzzle flash from her rifle, and Rufus’s blood cooling against my skin.

It’s…sobering…the first time we’ve really lost somebody.  Even if Andrew was able to bind his spirit, prevent it from departing.  I mean, Einherjar have died over the course of our adventures, sure.  But we can’t just throw a feast to get Rufus back.

And I haven’t known my Einherjar for a fraction of the time that Ken’s had Rufus as her companion.

And I’ve never had to put one of them down with my own hands.

I can’t even imagine what she must be feeling.