Dragon Beach: bone strewn shore of the Bay of Bounty

Dragon Beach was a shore region of Svartalfheim, lying on the eastern side of the southern waters of the Bay of Bounty. It was a place of ruin and remains, where a long abandoned Dwarven settlement crumbled in the shadow of a giant skull and hostile creatures prowled among steaming geysers. Kratos and Atreus landed there during their search for Tyr, when Mimir guided them across the bay toward the mining rigs he had once built in service of Odin. The beach later gave up several of its secrets, among them a buried cache of treasure, a rift into the branches of Yggdrasil, and a living dragon that had passed for a statue.

A shore of the southern bay#

The Bay of Bounty was divided by the Watchtower and Radsvinn's Rig into two stretches of water. The southern bay held the docks of Nidavellir and Modvitnir's Rig along with Dragon Beach itself, while the northern bay opened onto Althjof's Rig, Lyngbakr Island, Alberich Island, and Alberich Hollow. Dragon Beach formed the eastern shore of that southern stretch, one of the first landings a traveler reached after entering the calm, warm waters of the bay.

The shore earned its grim character from what lay upon it. A giant skull loomed near the ruined settlement, a second colossal skeleton rested in the shallows off the southern end, and large bones lay heaped near the southern boat landing, where a geyser vented scalding steam among them. Geysers broke through the sand across the beach, and at its back they hissed around a warded chest whose sealing runes were hidden behind the columns of steam.

Wooden structures climbed the cliffs along the northern side of the beach, hung with gold chains, and an enormous wooden walkway stretched high across the middle of the shore, carrying the road toward Alberich Hollow above. The upper reaches could not be climbed by ordinary means. A wind vent barred the ascent, and only after Kratos carried the Draupnir Spear could the vent be plugged and the high walkway reached. At the far end of that walkway a tear in the bark of Yggdrasil had opened, and through the rift came Wulvers and Nightmare parasites from beyond the world.

The abandoned settlement#

Not far from the giant skull stood a Dwarven settlement that had been deserted long before Kratos and Atreus came to Svartalfheim. By the time of their arrival it had been invaded by hostile creatures, and from time to time the body of a Dwarf was found lying on the ground, the promise of a meal for the monsters that wandered nearby. Tatzelwurms and Grim lay in ambush across the sands, and an Ormr sheltered beneath the wooden scaffolding along the north side of the beach, hiding under the planks where it was difficult to corner. Someone had also left a runic inscription remembered as "Don't Breathe" on a wall beneath the elevated walkway, close to the warded chest at the back of the shore.

Kratos and Atreus reached Dragon Beach on their way to the mining rigs of the bay. Mimir had confessed genuine guilt over those rigs, which he had ordered built in the bay long ago, a piece of treachery that helped Odin subdue the Dwarves by means more subtle than sheer force, and the travelers had resolved to destroy them before continuing on to Durlin's office in Nidavellir. On the beach they found the ruined settlement and its dead, broke the seal on a rune warded chest, and then sailed on toward the Watchtower and Radsvinn's Rig to begin shutting down Mimir's old machinery.

The Everlasting#

At the southern half of the beach stood what appeared to be a dragon carved from stone. It was no carving. The shape was the Everlasting, one of the dragons of Svartalfheim, held in a stone sleep from which nothing on the beach could wake it. Its stillness was so complete that one of the sealing runes of the nearby warded chest lay tucked behind its body, protected by metal grating, and the creature never stirred.

Only the Mystical Heirloom could rouse it. That relic lay southwest of Tyr's Temple in Midgard, and it could not be recovered until after the forging errands in Svartalfheim were done. When Kratos returned to the southern sands and rang the Heirloom before the statue, the Everlasting broke from its stone sleep and attacked. The battle ended with the dragon slain and its claws taken, along with an amulet fragment that carried the force of Jotunheim.

The elder wayfarer#

On a ledge above the beach lingered the spirit of an elder wayfarer, one of two such ghosts haunting the Bay of Bounty. In life he and his son had been sailors who traveled to the land of the Dwarves to seek treasure and become rich, an ambition that sealed both their fates. The father's soul remained at Dragon Beach while his son's wandered Alberich Island, each dead without knowing the other's end.

The elder wayfarer told his sad story of the treasure hunt to those who climbed up to him, and his account set in motion the search for the lost treasure, a hunt that led across Alberich Island and into Alberich Hollow. When the errand was done and both father and son had been found, the two spirits moved on at last, each in the hope of seeing the other again in Helheim.

The wayfarers were not the only ones whose greed the beach recorded. A treasure chart recovered on Alberich Island pointed back to Dragon Beach itself, where riches lay buried in the sand at the southern end of the shore, close to the giant skeleton resting in the water. Among the goods washed ashore there were an Asgardian ingot, luminous alloy, petrified bone, and an amulet fragment bearing the virtue of Jotunheim, wealth abandoned to the tide like everything else the Dwarves and their visitors had left behind on that shore of bones.