Alberich Island: deserted shore of the Bay of Bounty

Alberich Island was a small shoreline at the far northern edge of the Bay of Bounty in Svartalfheim, the world of the Dwarves. Like much of the bay around it, the island had been all but deserted by its makers, and the dry vegetation of the region was slowly claiming the wooden mechanisms and platforms they left behind. Kratos, Atreus, and Mimir reached its shore during their voyage across the bay in the days of the Fimbulwinter, and the island later gave up several of its secrets, among them a rift into the branches of Yggdrasil, the gravestone of a berserker called Beigadr the Feared, and a jewel belonging to the Amulet of Yggdrasil.

Geography and abandonment#

Alberich Island lay in the northern half of the Bay of Bounty, the great body of water at the heart of Svartalfheim. The Watchtower and Radsvinn's Rig divided the bay in two: the southern waters held the docks of Nidavellir, Modvitnir's Rig, and Dragon Beach, while the northern waters held Althjof's Rig, Lyngbakr Island, Alberich Island, and the tunnel passage of Alberich Hollow. The island itself marked the bay's far northern reach.

The place bore the marks of dwarven industry on every surface. Wooden ramps and platforms climbed its rock faces, lifts hung on their chains, and cranes fitted with soundstone plating stood over the water. Geysers vented through the stone, and the Dwarves had harnessed their flow to drive the island's lifts and wheels. By the time of the Fimbulwinter all of it stood silent. Like much of the bay, the whole area was virtually deserted, and the dry vegetation of the region was taking over the wooden mechanisms and platforms piece by piece. The surrounding waters still glowed with patches of unharvested resources, riches the Dwarves had simply left behind when they withdrew.

The landing of Kratos and Atreus#

Kratos, Atreus, and Mimir came to Alberich Island during their long voyage across the Bay of Bounty, in the course of the errand that took them from rig to rig across Svartalfheim. As their boat carried them north, Atreus, ever the distracted, passed the time recalling the deeds of Thor and Odin together with Mimir, and the conversation carried them all the way to the island's shore.

Their first landing offered little. The beach at the island's edge, strictly an arm of the Bay of Bounty rather than the island proper, held a Nornir chest sealed in the old manner, guarded by three rune bells hidden among the gratings and machinery of the shore. Only when all three bells rang out together did the seal break, and within the chest lay one of Idunn's apples. The travelers claimed it and left the area soon after, sailing on toward Althjof's Rig and the labors that awaited them there.

The gravestone of Beigadr the Feared#

In the open ground beyond the beach stood a berserker gravestone, the resting place of a warrior remembered as Beigadr the Feared. Stones of this kind lay scattered across the realms, each one holding its restless dead in silence, and each one answering only to the Inert Hilt of Skofnung, the relic bound to the berserker kings of old. Kratos passed the stone on his early landings without any means of rousing what slept beneath it. Only after the hilt of Skofnung came into his hands, in the days after his audience with the Norns, could the Spartan return to Alberich Island and face what waited under the stone.

The rift and the lindwyrm#

High on the island, beside a wooden platform reached by the old geyser lift, a tear had opened into the branches of Yggdrasil itself. Within this rift dwelt a lindwyrm, one of the small serpentine creatures that had strayed into such openings across the realms and needed to be found and recovered. The rift on Alberich Island could not be reached at all until Kratos carried the Draupnir Spear, for the way up ran past wind fissures and dead machinery that only the spear could set working again. A thrown spear burst the sealed fissure in the rock, the freed geyser raised the long dead lift, and the path to the rift lay open. From the lindwyrm and its rift came gale sparks and lindwyrm scales, materials prized by the smiths of the realms.

Treasures of the heights#

The island's upper reaches guarded more than the rift. A treasure map, remembered as the tale of something washed ashore, lay beneath one of the great yellow gears of the abandoned works. The map pointed the way to riches buried at the southern end of Dragon Beach, far across the bay, where a hoard of hacksilver, rare metals, and a pommel of Jotunheim's craft lay hidden beneath the sand.

Higher still, past a lift haunted by cursed wretches that had nested amid the machinery, a chest rested at the island's summit. Within it lay the Jewel of Yggdrasil, a fragment of the Amulet of Yggdrasil that could restore one of the amulet's broken settings, together with whispering slabs and a great weight of hacksilver. Two of Odin's ravens also haunted the island, one wheeling over the water beyond the ramps, the other hiding within a hollow in the rock, watching the comings and goings of the bay for the All-Father until Kratos found them.

The wayfarer's spirit#

Alberich Island was also the mooring place of a lingering soul. Two spirits haunted Svartalfheim in the days of the Fimbulwinter, a father and his son, sailors both, who had traveled to the land of the Dwarves to seek treasure and grow rich. The venture sealed their fate. The elder wayfarer lingered at Dragon Beach in the south of the bay, while his son remained at Alberich Island in the north, the two of them parted even in death. The father's account of their doomed treasure hunt sent Kratos searching the bay on their behalf, and once the matter was settled, both spirits moved on at last, each in the hope of seeing the other again in Helheim.