Mythos: The White Willow

Mythos: The White Willow or Mythos III is the sequel to Mythos: The Perpetual Knot. It takes place in a post-Ragnarök world, continuing the presence of Norse mythology from Mythos II.
==Characters==
Draid
Vidar
Vali
Magni
Modi
Balder
Hod
Hoenir
Sigel
Idun
Líf and Lífthrasir
Jord
White Willow
Frey
Odin
Litha
==Text==
After the flames had died down and the steam from the snow of Fimbulwinter cleared out, a new earth arose from the water. Plants and fields grew and flourished, in most places at least. The daughter of the sun goddess will carry on her mother’s journey across the sky.
	Odin’s sons, Vidar and Vali, as well as Thor’s sons, Magni and Modi, have survived the Ragnarök. Balder and Hod made there return from Hel. Hoenir, one of the Æsir had also made it. A new pantheon of gods will form from these survivors, led by Balder.
	As for Draid, he was rescued by the daughter of Sol, Sigel. In the field of Idavoll, where Asgard once stood, Sigel placed Draid down as the gods were having a discussion there. Hiding in the grass was found the golden tafl game pieces that had belonged to the Æsir back when the universe was young. The gods and Draid left for Gimli to protect the pieces.
	Once at Gimli, the place where the survivors of the Ragnarök are to live, the gods hid the golden game pieces for safekeeping. They saved one to make a necklace out of and Balder gave it to Draid, declaring him an official member of the Æsir. Draid went with the gods to the remains of Hoddmimir’s Forest in search of golden apples to maintain eternal youth.
	Hoddmimir’s Forest was now mostly stripped of vegetation. Only some of the older, more mature trees had survived. These few remaining trees bore no golden apples. Almost none even had leaves, and the leaves still intact were black. The Æsir found Idun wandering in the woods.
Idun, the goddess of the golden apples was approached by the Æsir. She told them that the condition of the forest was most likely due to the effects of Fimbulwinter: the three season-long winter that began at the end of autumn but spanned the times of spring and summer, resulting in it ending in autumn again and messing up the cycle of the seasons.
She said the only way one could possibly fix the seasons is to travel to Oak Woods and speak with the only white willow tree. According to Idun, in order to locate Oak Woods, one must first obtain the “fungus of the divine” located in a grove at the back of Hoddmimir’s forest. Draid accepted the task. Before setting off the hero was given a replenishment of his frost Mjolnirs and lightning arrows.
	The back of the forest looked almost just as barren as the front. There Draid found Líf and Lífthrasir. They were among the few last survivors of the Ragnarök, and destined to start a new race of humans. The two gave him the divine fungus, a mushroom with a red cap and white spots; and guided Draid to an obelisk, where he was to use the sage to communicate with the “Spirit of the Earth”.
	Kneeling before the obelisk, the hero ate a piece of the mushroom. Upon swallowing the colors and sounds around Draid changed. The goddess of the Earth, Jord, appeared before him. With her mouth up to his ear, she said softly to “ride until the leaves on the trees from black color turn to green”.
After she left Draid could still hear Jord’s voice, telling him that he must complete a certain task before leaving the spiritual realm he was transported to. The hero got up and wandered around, slightly disoriented at the sight of changing hues. In the distance he saw a towering mountain. As he approached it the mountain shrank. At a few feet away it was just 3 times the height of Draid. What was now a hill crumbled and a stone golem appeared from underneath.
The golem’s composition made it immune to most of the hero’s weapons, but a blow from a frost Mjolnir could cause the monster to ice wedge. Upon hitting one of its upper legs Draid rolled away as the golem nearly fell on him. On its back the hero shook the golem up using his quake boots, exposing something glowing under the rocky exterior. A stab in this spot from the Sword of Echoes reduced the stone creature to rubble.
What was stabbed was a pearly orb, about a third the size of Draid’s head, presumably meant to hold the golem’s stones together. The hero was back in the grove, where Líf and Lífthrasir awaited his return. Before Draid left he heard the cry of an animal. It was Odin’s eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, who unexpectedly made it through the Ragnarök and slowly walked his way to the hero. With Odin gone Sleipnir gladly accepted Draid as his new owner. With his new steed the hero set off to find the White Willow.
After Draid exited Hoddmimir’s Forest he could see fuller trees. As he rode on the leaves went from black to grey, grey to white, and then white to green. He had a feeling that the pathway that continued to get greener would lead to Oak Woods. This was until all around him, the foliage was so lush that he couldn’t tell which direction to go next; until a grouping a trees, one of them with a runic inscription was found. With the golden tafl piece he could decode it. It said, “In these woods is someone who will open up your eyes.”
By the time Draid entered Oak Woods night fell, and a full moon was out. A howling was heard, causing Sleipnir to momentarily trot beyond control. The hero could hear the wind “whisper” in his ear, “Ask for the White Willow near the Silver Lake.” He looked around and found a shimmering body of water nearby. Beside it was a giant tree that appeared to have a lifeless face and runes on the bottom of it. With the golden game piece it read, “Eat a piece of the divine fungus, for it is the sap of Yggdrasil”.
Draid did what he read. He was again transported to another realm, and the tree came to life. The White Willow said to gather the “Essences of the Seasons”, which can be taken using the orb Draid found, called the “Unity Orb”. He said to takes the Essences to the place where “the stones cross paths”. The tree closed his eyes and the hero took some more mushrooms.
The first Essence, the Essence of Spring was supposed to be found in Oak Woods, and like the rest of the Essences, only when Draid is in the mushroom-induced realm, which he was currently in. The version of the Silver Lake in this realm was dry, exposing a deep valley which the hero took Sleipnir down its steep slope. The wall of the valley was carved out by a gargantuan centipede with a circular mouth lined with sharp teeth.
Lightning arrows did nothing when shot into the centipede’s mouth, but Draid noticed the monster’s saliva was highly acidic and made holes in the ground upon contact. It also dissolved Draid’s shield Tyr gave him. The hero used the acidic saliva against it by shooting an arrow into the mouth while picking up saliva that was dripping from it. This acidic lightning arrow hit the centipede’s brain and slowed it down. A frost Mjolnir struck a vessel and froze its blood, killing the centipede.
The water rose, carrying the creature’s corpse up. Draid swam to the surface and climbed into its mouth, where he found the Essence of Spring, which appeared as a glowing green aura. The Unity Orb was held out and absorbed the aura, turning the orb green. As the sun rose Draid and Sleipnir exited Oak Woods, upon which they came in contact with Frey, the god of agriculture of weather. He gave the hero the World Staff, a rod used to change the seasons once at the stone monument. It had a globe with a miniature Yggdrasil tree at the top of it, which will change depending on the season. Frey told Draid to take the staff to the “stone circle” later in his journey.
Frey held Draid’s Unity Orb in one hand and the World Staff in another. The staff turned green and was enchanted with the ability to create strong winds. He told the hero to use the staff to shift time forward one season before searching for the next Essence. Draid did just that and made the season winter, while it is supposed to be summer. Before leaving, Frey said to find the place “where the proper season sticks out”.
The hero’s surroundings consisted of all virgin snow, with the exception of a volcano with only its top exposed. He took the horse over to it, where he found that on the other side it was dry and was covered in hardened magma. Sleipnir galloped Draid across the barren landscape but stopped before lava from the volcano was vastly distributed throughout. The hero dismounted and ate bit from the fungus. The lava cooled and was able to walk across. Out of the ground emerged the Skull Lord: a horned, tailed, upright standing skeletal creature wielding a flail.
The Skulls Lord’s extreme body heat could melt Draid’s items upon contact, and its flail kept him from close proximity, but the Skull Lord was chasing Draid. When it burst into a rush the monster nearly trampled the hero. Draid was on the ground as he, with the Kvinneby Amulet, sent a jolt at the Skull Lord. The metal flail conducted the lightning, sending a shock to the beast and making its flail drop. With the World Staff the hero created a torrential wind, opening up the Skull Lord’s rib cage. When he threw the Unity Orb inside it began to pull the skeleton apart from the inside and absorb the Essence of Summer. With the quake boots he shook up the plane, drawing up fresh magma to consume the beast.
Draid rushed to pick up the now yellow orb as the lava returned to its liquid state. He also took the flail. Sleipnir raced across the lava and got him before it was too late. The staff turned yellow, changing its power to make torrential winds into a wave of volcanic temperature. Draid change the season to spring, with the Essence of Autumn next to retrieve.
The familiar landscape had the hero in search of something sticking out of the homogeneous foliage. Just as he could locate Oak Woods through finding things green out of barren, Draid could find different colors out of green. A few dry, fallen leaves led him to a colorful autumnal glade full of red and orange leaves. Further into the glade was a series of tombstones. Feeling (in) the presence of someone other than the horse, he used the divine mushroom. On top of the fence in the back of the graveyard Draid saw a wizard in a black robe that was raising the bodies under the tombstones from the dead, making the hero recall what happened in his first journey.
Unlike the undead of his previous two adventures, these zombies could be neither distracted nor scared. At first he had no practical way of facing them all at once, until he tried out the World Staff’s new ability. An immense rise in temperature caused all of the leaves in the area to ignite, catching onto the zombies. With the necromancer’s undead army burnt to ashes the wizard vanished, but reappeared behind Draid attempting to possess him. Just after the hero dodged he reached for his sword and cut off the necromancer’s head. He then enkindled its robe, effectively killing the wizard. From its lifeless corpse emitted an orange aura, which soon occupied the orb.
Out of the realm Draid found himself in a ring of fire. Soon before being consumed by the flames he changed the season to summer and the fire vanished. The last Essence to get was for winter. The hero left the glade, which was now full of summer green.
It both looked and felt as though no little piece of winter could be sustained in the blazing summer heat, but a stream of water led Draid to its source: a snowy mountain. At the top he could see the silhouette of what appeared to be some winged creature. He climbed up quite a bit with the help of his grappling hook before realizing he could do something else to reach the being at the top. One last bite from the mushroom brought the mountain to half its height. The quake boots kicked the mountainside, sending a shockwave to the top. The winged beast, which turned out to be a giant bird made of pure ice, responded by flying down to the hero.
Draid tossed the grappling hook around the ice bird’s neck, holding on tight as it flew off. Staying around the where it was cold, the bird ascended back to the mountain peak. Finding it difficult to breathe at such a high altitude, the hero did his best to attempt to melt the monster with the staff. With such frigid surroundings, however, this wasn’t very effective. The flail, on the other hand, clipped its wings, causing the bird to take Draid somewhere more sustainable. As the flail was hammered against the icy structure, the ice bird lost control and ended up in the hotter region. It soon made a crash landing and melted in the summer sun.
Revealed was the blue Essence of Winter, collected not far from the stone circle, which the White Willow and Frey mentioned and was seen upon leaving the realm. He walked up to the monument and heard the White Willow in his head, telling him to place the Unity Orb in the tree stump when Sol’s rays travel through a split stone outside of the circle, the Slaughter Stone, and hit the Altar Stone inside of the circle. After doing this the Essences could be seen on the four sides of the monument, spiraling into a vortex created by the orb. The seasons were now back in place and synchronized. After doing that he shifted the season back to spring and saw golden apples blooming.
As Draid was taking a bite out of one of these apples Vidar, Vali, and Idun unexpectedly appeared carrying Odin’s body, which they found laying in Idavoll. Idun picked a golden apple and transferred its powers into Odin’s body. The god woke up and was reunited and his horse and sons. He went with Draid, Sleipnir, Vidar, and Vali back to Gimli, where the World Staff was to be put for safekeeping. With a year sped past through Draid’s season changing, Líf and Lífthrasir had a daughter which they named Litha, named for the festival of midsummer.
Category:Mythos