What follows is the account of how I got in trouble during Astral travel but was saved by a pack of Norse Hellhounds.
It is written in a second person perspective so you can easily place yourself in my shoes and share the experience. Enjoy!
- Lohcca
It is written in a second person perspective so you can easily place yourself in my shoes and share the experience. Enjoy!
- Lohcca
The Norse Hellhounds of Helheim
Few knew how it felt to be blinded.
Suffocating, disarming almost; as if you were clawing in vastened voidness, perceiving nothing at all and receiving nothing in solace.
You cowered in the bleakness of your journey, yearning for some way out of the darkness that shrouded your path. For you heeded the tales of there being amassed fog, but had no grounds to predict it would manifest so nebulously.
As you voyaged through the thick, becloud curtain, your skin prickled to the sting of cooling temperature; you yielded to the embrace of gusting flurries, gripping your arms as the sensation of falling snowflakes peppered your ill-dressed skin.
The crispness was expected of where you were headed; your adventurous personality dared you to traverse the bounds of your domain, hopefully reaching the frontier of enigmatic Helheim. The land of the dead, curious in its ambivalent duality of morbidity and tranquility.
Folklore whispered the realm was an extension of life that imitated the boreals you hailed from, Vikings bantering all the same and souls chattering to the plans of morrows.
The many realms illuminated no beacon of justice, no process discerned to each garden’s membership besides holed anecdotes.
Some said visiting Helheim took a passage of old age or ailment; others speculated entry came those who died not in the virtue of a warrior, parting life serenely.
Admission was all relative, regardless, as the deities that looked upon earthlings like yourself affixed themselves to arcane codes of morality. It was beyond the grasp of a simple mortal to decipher.
Plowing on into the snowy tundra, you were mystified by the jarringly frigid environment. Your hazed view had let up and landmarks could be made out more easily. Still, the ambience remained at a grim quiet, some element of the icy stillness worrying you about a bad omen.
You shouldn’t have been anguished with fear, not with the provoking portrait of normality you were en route to trek; behind a soaring wall, inconspicuously a dimensional barrier, roars of laughter and hums of relaxation should’ve emanated at a concentrate.
Yet, in lieu of the detection of reprieved souls, you were overcome with the dread of a lurking menace; a fiend which had every intention to lure you elsewhere, if not snare you by force.
Warily, you came to a stop as the soundless environment reverberated with hisses; one, then, two, then too many to imprint in your memory.
Then, the culpable figures poked out from the mist, inching to claim you—their frightened fowl. Anatomically, they bore likeness to the twisting enmity of snakes, the blurred skies just barely veiling their contorting forms. As they loomed hungrily, the shrills of ghastly hisses grew and grew, finally distorting to a sinister quality that compelled you to shut your eyes.
Though, it was good you were delayed in action; at the dawn of their climaxed thirst, when they’d just braced to entangle you in their ominous plots, their desires had been stifled fortuitously. A barrage of slender vortexes, aurous in colour, materialised everywhere in the fog. In a twinkle, a pack of canine creatures pounced your intimidators with shattering howls and echoing thumps.
You observed the scene, mouth agape, stunned that these beings had seemingly sprung to save you from casualty. A credulous traveller like yourself could’ve been left to bleed the consequences of your faults—yet, some benevolence incited these protectors to whisk you out of harm’s way.
There was an obscured tussle before your preying serpents retreated to the genesis of the air’s cold drafts—Niflheim, you presumed. It was teeming with coldness, in both weather and character; the base rulings of frost giants made it so.
Gratified by your vitality, you riveted on the protectors behind your salvation; it was a pack of wolves, furs ranging the hues of white, black, and sepia-colorful greys. Their coats and builds resembled the fierce hunters native to your homeland, but you puzzled at their comparably gigantic statures; humbly detailing, these beasts towered you by several meters, a daunting feat for sharp-teeth canines.
Thankfully, they weren’t stanced in the prowl of voracious predators; their melting gazes, which flowed from eyes of xanthous and azure, assured intentions of cooperating, not conspiring against you.
Gulping your fears, you studied the situation more tactfully; their huddled dominance was not to terrorise you, but rather to ward you off from the treacherous paths you ventured to explore prior to a humbling caution. You obliged to the warnings of their barricade and watched as one wended their way to your feet, halting to arch their back downwards; it was calling you to perch yourself onto it, become its token rider.
It was hard to not buoy with glee; the prospect of mounting something so mystifying yet charming thrilled you to the bone, the awaiting lift thrusting you out of apprehension.
Climbing the beast took a gruelling effort, its back so large and long you foundered all attempts to tug on its hold. Finally, you realised it was your approach that rendered this an exercise in futility; instead of yanking its warm coat as a hook to latch onto, you tucked your body into its bountiful fur, buried in its snug protection.
Respecting your comfort, the wolf and its bevvy trod the path to the undead village gracefully, never jolting with sudden speed and sustaining a calming pace. You almost fell asleep in its soothing hold, rocking to the gentleness of its steps as if you were tranced in a lullaby.
The shifting surroundings were the sole obstruction to your dormancy; you couldn’t help but admire the beautiful scenery, so uncannily reminiscent of the terrains on earth yet marginally deviant in the way they shimmered and flowed. You sleepily extended your hand to catch a fallen leaf, appraising its roughly familiar and strange finish; the peculiar grains of earth that speckled its exterior.
You’d been so invested in the moment that you lost sight of the bigger picture; the wolf had come to a stop because you’d reached the village of the dead. Your expedition with the being had come to an end, and like all wondrous sightings would be filed to the keepsaking of your memory.
As you slid off the wolf—no, you corrected yourself, recounting it being a Hellhound—Wolfdog’s furry shelter, you gazed into its gracious eyes. The magnetising blue orbs that you vowed to paint in your mind for eternity.
In its reproachful, concerned look, it warned you to never wander into perilous areas like you so naively embarked into earlier in the day; you promised in your own expression to respect its wishes, the satisfied being poised to travel back with its clan into the fog, waning to a speck in the mist as it advanced farther and farther.
While it was away and unseen, the vivid souvenir of its benevolence burned in your mind, never fading with the cloak of the mist.
Suffocating, disarming almost; as if you were clawing in vastened voidness, perceiving nothing at all and receiving nothing in solace.
You cowered in the bleakness of your journey, yearning for some way out of the darkness that shrouded your path. For you heeded the tales of there being amassed fog, but had no grounds to predict it would manifest so nebulously.
As you voyaged through the thick, becloud curtain, your skin prickled to the sting of cooling temperature; you yielded to the embrace of gusting flurries, gripping your arms as the sensation of falling snowflakes peppered your ill-dressed skin.
The crispness was expected of where you were headed; your adventurous personality dared you to traverse the bounds of your domain, hopefully reaching the frontier of enigmatic Helheim. The land of the dead, curious in its ambivalent duality of morbidity and tranquility.
Folklore whispered the realm was an extension of life that imitated the boreals you hailed from, Vikings bantering all the same and souls chattering to the plans of morrows.
The many realms illuminated no beacon of justice, no process discerned to each garden’s membership besides holed anecdotes.
Some said visiting Helheim took a passage of old age or ailment; others speculated entry came those who died not in the virtue of a warrior, parting life serenely.
Admission was all relative, regardless, as the deities that looked upon earthlings like yourself affixed themselves to arcane codes of morality. It was beyond the grasp of a simple mortal to decipher.
Plowing on into the snowy tundra, you were mystified by the jarringly frigid environment. Your hazed view had let up and landmarks could be made out more easily. Still, the ambience remained at a grim quiet, some element of the icy stillness worrying you about a bad omen.
You shouldn’t have been anguished with fear, not with the provoking portrait of normality you were en route to trek; behind a soaring wall, inconspicuously a dimensional barrier, roars of laughter and hums of relaxation should’ve emanated at a concentrate.
Yet, in lieu of the detection of reprieved souls, you were overcome with the dread of a lurking menace; a fiend which had every intention to lure you elsewhere, if not snare you by force.
Warily, you came to a stop as the soundless environment reverberated with hisses; one, then, two, then too many to imprint in your memory.
Then, the culpable figures poked out from the mist, inching to claim you—their frightened fowl. Anatomically, they bore likeness to the twisting enmity of snakes, the blurred skies just barely veiling their contorting forms. As they loomed hungrily, the shrills of ghastly hisses grew and grew, finally distorting to a sinister quality that compelled you to shut your eyes.
Though, it was good you were delayed in action; at the dawn of their climaxed thirst, when they’d just braced to entangle you in their ominous plots, their desires had been stifled fortuitously. A barrage of slender vortexes, aurous in colour, materialised everywhere in the fog. In a twinkle, a pack of canine creatures pounced your intimidators with shattering howls and echoing thumps.
You observed the scene, mouth agape, stunned that these beings had seemingly sprung to save you from casualty. A credulous traveller like yourself could’ve been left to bleed the consequences of your faults—yet, some benevolence incited these protectors to whisk you out of harm’s way.
There was an obscured tussle before your preying serpents retreated to the genesis of the air’s cold drafts—Niflheim, you presumed. It was teeming with coldness, in both weather and character; the base rulings of frost giants made it so.
Gratified by your vitality, you riveted on the protectors behind your salvation; it was a pack of wolves, furs ranging the hues of white, black, and sepia-colorful greys. Their coats and builds resembled the fierce hunters native to your homeland, but you puzzled at their comparably gigantic statures; humbly detailing, these beasts towered you by several meters, a daunting feat for sharp-teeth canines.
Thankfully, they weren’t stanced in the prowl of voracious predators; their melting gazes, which flowed from eyes of xanthous and azure, assured intentions of cooperating, not conspiring against you.
Gulping your fears, you studied the situation more tactfully; their huddled dominance was not to terrorise you, but rather to ward you off from the treacherous paths you ventured to explore prior to a humbling caution. You obliged to the warnings of their barricade and watched as one wended their way to your feet, halting to arch their back downwards; it was calling you to perch yourself onto it, become its token rider.
It was hard to not buoy with glee; the prospect of mounting something so mystifying yet charming thrilled you to the bone, the awaiting lift thrusting you out of apprehension.
Climbing the beast took a gruelling effort, its back so large and long you foundered all attempts to tug on its hold. Finally, you realised it was your approach that rendered this an exercise in futility; instead of yanking its warm coat as a hook to latch onto, you tucked your body into its bountiful fur, buried in its snug protection.
Respecting your comfort, the wolf and its bevvy trod the path to the undead village gracefully, never jolting with sudden speed and sustaining a calming pace. You almost fell asleep in its soothing hold, rocking to the gentleness of its steps as if you were tranced in a lullaby.
The shifting surroundings were the sole obstruction to your dormancy; you couldn’t help but admire the beautiful scenery, so uncannily reminiscent of the terrains on earth yet marginally deviant in the way they shimmered and flowed. You sleepily extended your hand to catch a fallen leaf, appraising its roughly familiar and strange finish; the peculiar grains of earth that speckled its exterior.
You’d been so invested in the moment that you lost sight of the bigger picture; the wolf had come to a stop because you’d reached the village of the dead. Your expedition with the being had come to an end, and like all wondrous sightings would be filed to the keepsaking of your memory.
As you slid off the wolf—no, you corrected yourself, recounting it being a Hellhound—Wolfdog’s furry shelter, you gazed into its gracious eyes. The magnetising blue orbs that you vowed to paint in your mind for eternity.
In its reproachful, concerned look, it warned you to never wander into perilous areas like you so naively embarked into earlier in the day; you promised in your own expression to respect its wishes, the satisfied being poised to travel back with its clan into the fog, waning to a speck in the mist as it advanced farther and farther.
While it was away and unseen, the vivid souvenir of its benevolence burned in your mind, never fading with the cloak of the mist.
This Story was written by Lohcca belongs to Spiral Horn Magic. Do not copy or steal.