Alfheimr Renaissance

Borgarsandr, day 1

(Gothenburg)

Day 19, 15 july.

I'm awoken by the morning light and there is movement, light and sounds from outside. It was late so we spent the night on the ship, but I'm just happy to finally be here at the end of this part of my journey and to leave this ship. I have to adapt to sailing, because the future will most likely include more sailing, and my small group packs everything we have to go ashore.

It's clear that Borgarsandr is the same type of lively trading town as Skiringsalr is. I thank Merchant Danr for everything, wish Toke good luck in the future, and Hagan promises to show his life preserver to people as they travel around which I can only smile and thank him for, and we wish each other good luck in life. Danr gives tips on where there is a good and more luxurious tavern where we can stay.

It's funny to see how surprised Alith and Bodil are over my backpack, but they haven't seen it before, and it attracts surprised looks from many. It's a big difference to have a bag with a strap over the shoulder, or carrying a wooden chest etc, compared to a modern large green backpack with side pockets and things attached to the outside. Not to mention its buckles, the material itself and more. Iselin and Ciara just walk happily by my side carrying the food chest and enjoy the attention we get, while we all take in the visual impressions, the sound and the smell of the big town. It's probably the biggest town any of them have seen, although Ciara might possibly have seen bigger, but for me is more picturesque and open.

Just like he said, it's only a few hundred meters to the tavern that Danr suggested, and to start with I pay for three days. A larger room with two beds, table and chairs and a view of the harbour, as well as a smaller room with a bunk bed located just a door away for Alith and Bodil. I don't take the most expensive rooms, but also not the cheapest.

It feels so nice to be back in Sweden again, even if it isn't Sweden, and everything is completely wrong. It's actually a little easier to understand people and make myself understood, but that can also be that I've had a couple of weeks to learn. I've become quite acceptable at the Norse that my company speaks and I now hear a difference in Iselin vs Alith-Bodil's dialects. I've always had it easy with language, but only rarely been motivated to really learn anything I don't have a use for like English, and dialect and speech pattern is not something I can control - to the entertainment of family and friends. I can choose a language, but not which dialect it comes out as or way of speaking it. After living in Northern part of Sweden for a few years, I spoke their dialect and use their distinct way of talking when I talked to northerners, and my home dialect with people at home and could switch dialect between sentences depending on who I spoke to. I didn't notice that I did that and I couldn't choose one or the other, but for everyone else it was obvious and entertaining. It just happened depending on to whom I spoke with. Linguists call it code switching, and it's quite common. According to Iselin who giggled at bit about it, I've apparently started to do the same here. I talk in one way to her, Alith and Bodil, but have started talking differently to Ciara. I'm starting to speak with her weird dialect and her stilted way when I talk to Ciara, and it's only been 2 weeks, and we've not talked that much.

We put down the packs etc in our rooms. It's possible to bathe here at the Tavern, as they have a couple of wash rooms down the side, and we quickly decide to use them instead of finding a bathhouse. We bathe in shifts, first Ciara and Alith, then me and Iselin, and finally Bodil. I enjoy sitting in the bath and Iselin insisted that she should bathe me, and I don't complain even though it feels unusual and uncomfortable. I just lean back and try to enjoy that she carefully make sure I'm clean, and then spend time trimming my beard growth. She keeps the circle beard shape, but again suggest that I should let the beard grow even more impressive, and preferably also on the cheeks.

After the bath, it's so nice to just lie and rest in a bed that is not rocking or swaying, and I'm pleased to reached the first goal for my future, and that the bed is bigger. I really just want to take it easy and relax, because there have been a lot of changes in the last three weeks.

After brainstorming ideas with my company, the plan is to try to talk to and persuade the King to sell me land to build an Academy somewhere and that it becomes neutral land, protected by the kingdom, but following its own laws and where the kingdom has no influence. Preferably no duty on things, but the place will be too small and it must not be a pure free trade haven. Yes, those are lofty goals that will be hard to reach, but best to set high goals and just not be disappointed when they aren't met. Leave room for negotiation too. I'm not asking for that much, maybe a couple of square kilometers, but with limited occupancy? Here were there aren't mountains everywhere, there should be more available land, and although the coast would be best, I expect the inland to mostly be vast forests.

If I can't convince the King, I just have to try another place, or way. Do I want to try for Denmark or the continent? Or should I just accept that I will be under someone's power and travel back to Skiringsalr and take Jarl Skiringe's offer? Which ruler I'm under will then become important, and the higher, the better, but more so the rulers personality and behaviour. Jarl Skiringe is a really powerful regional ruler, and she might be persuaded to keep it more business like, but I just have to be careful with her agendas.

I can't read Norse yet, but I need to check what books are generally available here, and how much information is already available in different areas. I don't expect there to be a library and books will probably be kept in private hands, so that will be hard. Well, I'll make a library, but I'll have to write and make so many books for it to be worthy of a library, and I need to buy books too, and that will be expensive. I need to visit someone who writes and makes books. There should be books printers here. If there are no printed books, that will be a very important thing to start doing. It might be a way to get the King interested as a patron, but instead of funds and influence, I 'just' want a little bit of land and freedom.

But what is best to sell, here and now? I can try to find someone who wants to buy my last North Arrow. It's honestly just a matter of how much I'll sell North Arrows for, and I could probably get Iselin to walk around and demonstrate to richer people, while Ciara and I wait here, but that just feels like a bad idea. I need to find some secluded place where I can just relax for at least a week and start jotting down all the information I have in my tablet while making plans and checking options. In this room would work, but I need to be able to use the solar panel, and Borgarsandr is on the south side of the wide river, and this room with view towards the harbour mean it is facing pretty much north, so another room with a south facing window is a must, since I want to keep my eyes on the solar panel. And the solar charge per day determines how much technology I can use. I need to buy some blank books or blank pages to tie together into books, depending on what's available.

Today will probably be a day where we just go and have a look around to see what is here, talk to people, etc. I really should have thought more about these details during the ships voyage. How the next step should be taken, and not just what the step will hopefully be. Hindsights easy. So; accept reality, learn and move on. Although I might have done that if the last three days hadn't been miserable. And the days before was mostly sex and dealing with Skiringe and Liv. I probably needed those few days to recuperate from the sex.

I wonder if Liv is making any progress with IUDs. I gave her as much information and sketches as I could before we parted, including a full-scale model on paper and a redesign based on how two of those fish bones might work, and I can just hope it doesn't lead to a lot of deaths and problems. No matter what she said about that, it will hurt in my soul. In a way this is medical experimentation done on women. Then again, both Iselin and Alith want to have IUDs, so I plan to melt down and cast some IUDs in body safe plastic I brought with me. It takes so little plastic, and as a modern person I have a lot of plastic with me. Hell, the backpack is Cordura and Nylon, which practically are forms of plastic and will melt.

I hope to be able to make eight or ten IUD's without any problems. Then comes the problem of trying to get them in place. I need to get in touch with a sejd woman who knows what she's doing. Perhaps it is better, that when I've made my plastic IUDs, to take a boat voyage back to Skiringsalr, visit Liv and see her progress, and let her do it. I wouldn't complain if something more intimate happened during that visit as well, as it was a hell of an experience. I just feel a bit conflicted about it. Happy it was good sex with a sexy and enthusiastic mature woman instead of Iselin, but also bad because it wasn't with Iselin.

I can only laugh at how my thoughts go on tangents. Relaxing and thinking about how to impress a King and make more money, move on to book making and end up being conflicted about sex and Iselin.

Huh. It's actually been 3 days without sex. Since the first hand job and more with Lova up in Eidfjord, this is probably the longest time without sex since I came to this world. But on the other hand, the last day with first a long intense evening, night and wakeup with Liv, followed by a pleasant afternoon with Jarl Skiring and then the bath house a quickie with Alith. That day will reign supreme for a long time.

The morning goes fast when we walk around and look, ask and buy things. There is a bookbinder and writer that makes and sell paper and ink. It is quite expensive but writing with a goose feather pen, a quill, isn't advanced, just very unfamiliar and cumbersome. Carving the tip just right with a knife on the other hand, that requires practice, which I get shown and explained to me, and it is also important to keep the quill as horizontal as possible since the inks flow is driven by gravity so the angle determines the flow. But it works well enough to be used for many centuries, and goose feathers are cheap. In any case, Iron gall ink is durable and last, even if I have to remember that it corrodes the paper after a few hundred years, so it can be a problem. The paper isn't exactly the thinnest paper either, and maybe I will try soot and linseed oil in the future for making books. The iron gall ink is also usually not black, but more dark brown. There are other inks here, such as red and green, but they are unnecessary to buy right now, because they will require their own quills and a good place to use them.

Large sheets of paper are made, and I would estimate them to be 65x50cm, and it's common to fold the paper 2 or 3 times and then get something similar to A4 and A5 after trimming. If its to end up as a book, several folded papers are usually stacked into in a bundle and then sewn and tied together to form a dozen pages or so. A book consists of many such bundles sewn together. The books the bookbinder have honestly look much better than I expected. I thought it would be thick tomes with wooden front and back covers, held together by buckles or straps, as I've seen in several movies and museums. Trinity college in Dublin has a nice collection of old books, but so do the Gutenberg museum in Mainz. In many places they just don't like you taking photos, even with the flash off. I get why, but it can still be annoying.

Here, they apparently moved away from using wood covers a couple of generations ago, when paper became more common, and the paper now contains wood pulp, and not just old fabric. It feels good that paper is made here, as I am a Swede from the region called Småland, where paper production and glass blowing is an old tradition. Although that tradition has never existed here, and may not exist because this is a completely different world. It's so weird feeling at bit like home, and expecting a lot of history, when it is a complete different history here, and that is the future that haven't happened here. Still, I'm so happy and grateful that I won't be fucking up my own worlds history. Talk about butterfly effect and ripples through time as I could really mess up history. Here in Alfheimr I won't have any of that huge burden on my shoulders.

And yay! Several large sheets of paper that I roll up, three finished small blank notebooks, as well as four goose feather quills and both black and red ink since I might want options. I have to practice writing and to carve new tips, and I need a separate quill for red and for black ink.

Once back in the tavern room, to get used to writing and drawing with a quill, I just sit and dabble on one of the papers. Writes some thoughts, sketch the view out of the window, and I try to make a sketch of Alith where she stands as a guard. The others are really impressed and think it's a good picture, but I sure don't. Argh. Faces and people is hard, so I keep it simple and just get the dimensions decently right and the clothes look okay. It's so much easier drawing hard physical objects or schematics, than soft people and animals. I got an 'A' in my Art class in primary school and I've made loads of sketches and drawings since then. So many. I usually walked around with two double folded A4 papers in my pocket at work, as a small notepad to have for sketches and notes as my thoughts churned while I worked. Some of it was work related - most of it wasn't. Some days I fill all the pages in just one day. But drawing people or body parts just didn't happen that much.

I've never been interested in drawing people as art, and hardly any art at all. It's always been drawings or sketches of something I needed or wanted to describe, and sometimes of nature. Sit and plan out and sketch a city with surroundings, simple sketches of boats, carriages, castles, houses and farms, with shadows and dimensions right before the role-playing adventure where I am the GM? No problem. A monster, horse or cow? It's possible to identify what it is. I have always googled and tried to find pictures of people and show them those instead of drawing people. It doesn't get easier since I'm using a quill and there is no corrections and it makes ink blobs, and it has to dry, etc. I miss my Uni-Ball pens. Yes, I have four UB-150s in different colors in my backpack, but the purpose is to get used to quills, and the Uni-ball pens are going to run out way too fast, and I don't expect to be able to make some ink good eough to refil with. So it is worth saving them for when I do the final drawing that's meant to last, where nice details and colors are important.

Then again, I'm generally very self-critical, especially according to the now four women in my everyday life, because all of a sudden everyone wants to be portrayed. No pressure. I'm just happy that they take turns to sit a little relaxed at the table or stand as a guard, instead of posing naked or something. Many men would probably enjoy having a beautiful elf woman posing naked in front of them to draw, but I had been nervous and annoyed to get all the proportions, body shape and shadows right. More skin and shapes? More problems. But I had certainly managed the erotic tones without much problems once I got in to the craft, because when I focus on something, I tend to miss obvious things, and that is something that's been entertained my friends, so many times.

Driving around a city in France to find a parking space one evening to see an old castle? I completely missed that there's prostitutes, including a couple who apparently were on their way to the car. I was annoyed about idiots who stopped cars in stupid places and got in the way and people everywhere. Only afterwards when my friend told me, did I understand why he was so bad at seeing traffic and cars. As long as the women didn't try to go out in front of the car or had a direction that intercepted in front of the car's route etc, my brain just classed them away as uninteresting people in motion I could ignore, including what they are wearing. Or not wearing. Germany have been similar.

Most that know me are used to this selective attention, and my company here is learning it. I've been focused on drawing Bodil standing inside the door, but there have been people walking in front and annoying me, but it is only when I take a short break for hand cramps that I see the other three eating at the table. When did the food arrive? They've apparently been eating for a while, and told me that the food is served. I had just replied:

'Soon, I just...'

Bodil and I join them. Bodil is happy with the sketch, and Ciara has started embroidering something on a piece of fabric, and it looks like she has been doing it for a couple of days. I've decided to create a map of the region on a large paper as that will be useful. So once we've eaten, I ask Alith or Bodil to guard outside, and the other one to guard Iselin and Ciara when they go for a walk while I use my mobile phone to get measurements and sketch coastlines etc. The work will take up a large part of the afternoon.

I only draw the places I visited, because I don't know where there are any more. I draw larger water features that hopefully is there plus large rivers, and simpler hill and mountain markings and peaks. The biggest problem is again trying to flatten a curved surface. Should I care about coordinates, directions or distances? Considering how the map may be used and most of it is sea and coast, I decide that compass directions are most important, and vertical distances are correct, while horizontal are divided into three areas and the two dividing lines each have a separate scale that can be used along or near them. It is not optimal but I assume that no one will be able to measure much more accurately for a long time. It is interesting work and I use a thin pencil to sketch it out, thank goodness for a small ruler and thin 2m measuring tape in my back pack. The slate is very useful as scrap paper and for calculating scale. When I sit at the table and fill in with ink, the others knock and return.

We talk about life in their regions; what is harvested and when, and how things are stored and other things I need to know before I design my own farm, and the afternoon becomes evening, which becomes night.