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A restless night among the tangled roots and
twisting trees offers no rest to the stranded sea voyagers.
Each awakens covered with tiny bites and sores, inflicted
by the carpet of crawling and flying insects that lay claim
to this forsaken shore. The only person to have slept
until the cruel dawn's light, was Dammon,
but even he was tossing, turning and muttering to himself
through the night's darkest hours. With morning, only
Graiç arose without a hint of lethargy or complaint,
though his hardened body crawled with hundreds of tiny black
bugs.
The sun rose red through the morning's fog,
burning the mists from the crippled trees. Graiç
flexed his limbs and strode down the hillside toward the
white sand beach. No sign remained there of the ghostly
icythoids that had emerged from the waves the night before. The
low water lapped calmly to the shore now, broken only by
the rings of coral reefs that circled the island as far
as could be seen. It was a wonder they were able to
make it, he thought. A keeled boat would never have
made it to shore here. Somewhere, out below those
dark waves lay the remains of the sunken Aylyréar;
another chapter of his long "life" closed.
There had been talk last evening of building
another boat. The trees that grew from the rocky island
were bent, turned and without girth. A thousand trees
could be ripped from the ground and bound with vines but
they would make only a mound of brambles, not a raft. It
would be interesting to see what plans the Uren had for
these resources. Graiç
then decided that he was in no rush to leave this place,
though he would offer no resistance to the plans of his
companions.
Returning, Graiç listened while Dorkun
and the Uren discussed moving the camp above the treeline.
Following them through the tangled forest, they soon
emerged onto a barren rocky landscape where nothing grew.
A place where nothing would grow. Graiç
returned his gaze back to the sea below and wondered why
the plants did not grow at the ridgetops. Furthermore,
he wondered why the forest insects refused to claim the
ridges.
Soon, the others were carrying the remnants of the
crate-raft that had borne them to this isle into their new
camp, tearing the crates into panels. The panels were
soon erected to provide flat sleeping surfaces. Tressta
began (and was soon copied by all that watched) using some
of the textile bolts to make pillows and sheets, for none
had slept well for almost three days. Others began
examining their food options. Aside from the wine
and cheese that had come with them, the only other foodstuff
seemed to be the orange-red fruits of the island trees. These
were found to be nests for hornets. Younger fruits
however might be 'purified' by the priestess
of Zalan though they were thoroughly impregnated with
eggs and larva. Those that ate looked grimly at their
food. Others could not bring themselves to eat for
the first few days.
Weary from their voyage and many sleepless
nights, not much was completed on the first full day. Most
were simply grateful they'd been 'allowed' to establish a
camp far above the shore and out of the casual reach from
the submarine Zultayan villages below. When night fell
most looked to the waves and shore below, until they could
discern no further details.
On the next day, several of the group separated
and marched off through the trees to a distant shrine while
the others picked their way down to the shore to begin gathering
wood and vines to construct a ship or raft. These busied
themselves about the task of binding trunks and limbs together
in a manner that could be defined as little more than haphazard.
There were no shipbuilders or engineers among them,
they only knew that their vessel must float and carry people
and provisions. It was soon discovered that the longest
usable size of wood that could be harvested from the many
trees Graiç ripped from the hillsides, were no longer
than a man's arm and no thicker than one's leg. The
separated group returned some hours later with a lost looking
creature with wild hair and shifting appearance. The
person called itself Edahyla
and spoke fluent Azálari, speaking long with Zildara
and Graiç. As it grew more comfortable with its
newfound friends, it slowly revealed a more comfortable female
form. She had no suggestions on how to build a ship,
though the others explained that she was an expert weaver
and able to fashion chairs and baskets with roots and reeds.
Among other things, Edahyla tells those gathered about
giant burning beetles which she fears more than the centipedes
reported earlier by Dammon. Additionally, Edahyla explained
(through Zildara) to Dammon how she came to make potions of
water-breathing, though she did not offer details on how she
was able to gain the blood of spellcasting Zultaya.
As the second day drew to a close, Tressta
heard again the soft voices in her head that had been with
her since her meeting with Elesea. She had not noticed
the voices for several days with all the things that had been
happening and now found peace in their sound and a night of
pleasant dreams.
On the next day, Dammon returned late in the
morning in the form of an Owler, trailing a medium longboat
in the air behind him. At this sight, many rejoiced.
The celebration and hope this offered was palpable,
but the captain and Graiç stood and watched in silence.
The boat needed some repair, and even pristine it would
not bear them long across the open sea. As the days
continued, Dammon would come and go in a variety of shapes
dragging pieces of sunken ships and masting from a graveyard
over the ridge. On the fifth day, the caster returned
with news that a sunken building or gate could be seen
through the clear waters of the channel, but that he could
not near it. The entrance at the channel's end appeared
to be shaped like a giant fish's head.
In the intervening days, Paldor had set about
examining some of the rigging and canvas salvaged from Dammon's
ship graveyard. He placed his greatest hope into the
task of constructing a sail and mast for the longboat. While
he contemplated this, the others fashioned a number of personal
rafts and experimented with them in the low surf. They
found it difficult to maneuver off-shore both with oars or
short poles, and were often returned by the sea, spinning
or capsized. Only Farwin was eventually able to navigate
his raft out to the first reefs on the third day of this.
His raft has capsized twice in the process, but undeterred
he climbed back on and paddled further out. An able
swimmer, Farwin could have probably swam to the reef without
the raft.
During all of this, Graiç did those
duties he was assigned, which amounted to little more than
tearing trees from the rocky ground, de-limbing those same
trees, and fashioning woods together when asked. The
tasks seemed folly to him, but he wished to remain in the
group's good graces and the duties seemed to help the spirits
of all involved.
Every evening, he and sometimes others would
wander to the shores to watch the ghosts emerge from the
surf.
If Dammon was evident, the ghosts would inevitably
flock to him and send a guide to the shrine above. On
the night of the sixth day, Jak followed
the spectre again to the ridge-side shrine, before it dissolved
again into the darkness. Examining the interior again,
he claimed to have placed a fish into the shrine's offering
bowl and watched as magial flames reduced the fish to ashes.
On the next night, this again was attempted but without
effect, leaving his comrade Dammon questioning the warrior's
story. That same night they made their way to Edahyla's
shrine and were able to repeat the effect there. Dammon's
divinations uncovered slight Vorbid magics, but little
else.
On the ninth night, they were guided by Edahyla
to a third shore where Zultaya and Uren spectres roamed
the midnight sands. Here they were led again by a
ghostly Zultaya to a third shrine before their guide dissolved. They
repeated the offering to the witness of Dammon, Edahyla,
Tressta and Zêla. Immediately following this
offering however, the shrine began to glow from an external
light as burning beetles charged from the forest outside. The
giant insects belched forth balls of flame and clicked menacingly
with their hungry mandibles. Dammon however, was able
to erect an invisible wall and then rain upon them icicles
and hail, causing the monsters to scream and flail-about.
Jak found his way to the wall's end but after being
badly burned and bitten thought better of melee and retreated
to the soothing touches of Zêla and Edahyla. Soon,
Dammon dispatched the small-minded monsters and they were
able to return toward their camp.
Meanwhile, Graiç stood vigilant, tirelessly
watching the treeline and distant waves from the group's high
campsite...
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