The Devil Has All The Best Tunes
The Devil Has All The Best Tunes was a virtual representation of one of Eivor Varinsdottir's genetic memories, relived by Layla Hassan through the Portable Animus HR-8.5.
Description[edit | edit source]
A scene of merriment caught Eivor's attention.
Dialogue[edit | edit source]
Eivor came upon a jolly gathering with song and drink at a tavern.
- Norse Warrior: A merry tune! Play it again, Saxon!
- Bard: The Lord made me and the Lord made thee, and the Lord made hops and barley. So if you would close to Heaven be, have another ale or three! Drink some mead and drink some rum, for ye know not when the Lord will come. So drink thy ale and drink it fast, who knows if it may be your last!
Eivor drew closer and caught the bard's attention.
- Bard: You there, Dane! Come join your fellows! Music is my gift to you all!
Eivor approached the bard.
- Eivor: Here is a merry gathering. A Saxon, playing for Norsemen?
- Bard: "What joy a man gives is given back threefold." So my love used to say. Dear Cearo. I sing now for her.
- Eivor: Used to?
- Bard: Used to. But now is no time for sadness! Join our revels! I was about to open a cask for my new friends! Come one, come all! Nothing heals the heart of woe like a mug of ale.
- Norse Warrior: You look like the sort who laps at their brew like a kitten.
- Eivor: Wrong. Thor himself pales when he sees me take up my drinking horn.
- Norse Warrior: Ha! Come and prove it, then! Saxon, give us a song!
Eivor approached the hooded warrior next to the ale while the bard repeated his song.
- Norse Warrior: Show me how the Raven Clan drink!
(Accept - "I'll take that challenge.")
- Eivor: You'll be under the table before I've even warmed up.
- Norse Warrior: O-ho! We'll see about this!
Eivor and the warrior then started a drinking contest, while the bard kept playing his song. Eivor drank her horn full before dropping to the floor.
- Eivor: I feel cold fingers spreading through me. This is poisoned ale!
- Norse Warrior: Urgh. Feels like Jormungandr is turning in my stomach.
The dancing warriors also felt the poison acting.
- Norse Warrior: By Odin, this new ale is strong. I think I'm going blind.
The bard set down his lute and stood with a spear on his back.
- Bard: A hundred lives I promised my love as she lay dying, a Danish arrow in her breast. A hundred lives for hers. But there is one who has not been laid low. Let me see to that.
The bard attacked Eivor.
- Bard: You will die as my Cearo did!
- Eivor: It won't be me that dies today!
Though affected by the brew, Eivor managed to hold her own.
- Eivor: God, my head!
- Bard: I'll grant you the long peace of the grave!
Eivor wounded him.
- Bard: Murderer! Reaver! Death to all Danes!
- Eivor: Even sickened, I am more than your equal!
Eivor killed the poisoner.
- Eivor: He lured his prey with music, then poisoned them like a spider. Grief sick or not, the world is better without him in it.
Eivor took a letter from his corpse.
Letter from Beoswith the Bard
- My dearest Cearo,
I have read Caedmond, Bede, Cynewulf, and all the relevant bards, even Brissy the Elder, that pedant.
My mother taught me well in the bandit camps of the open world. Your name is nothing. And then the Danes came and saved us all from oppression with axe and glory and good combs.
I miss you, Cearo. You left me then.
I weep on my lute and play every day next to the Boar's Taverna.
Inside the alehouse, she found another note.
Letter from Alehouse Keeper
- Wregan, in case you cool down and come by, the tavern's closed for now. A stranger paid me a good sum to make myself scarce, and I wasn't going to ask questions. Forgot to tell him you had a key, though, and he seemed keen on privacy, so I thought best to let it lie.
Should you happen to turn up before I get back, try not to make a scene, my boy. I know how your temper gets. Come home and we'll talk about the things you said.
Father
Sure enough, Eivor investigated the lake below the cliff behind the tavern and found several Norse bodies floating beneath the surface.
Outcome[edit | edit source]
Eivor killed the poisoner.
Behind the scenes[edit | edit source]
While the memory's general vicinity contains a map symbol for a drinking contest, it is solely for the memory itself and does not operate like conventional drinking contests. No wager is placed, the five rounds of drinking come to a premature end in the first round as a "loss" even if Eivor outdrinks her challenger on the first horn, and the symbol disappears once the memory is complete.