[Exposition] Chapter 1: Times of Change
Chapter 1: Times of Change
8th of Septiri, 2023rd year ADG
In a weathered lighthouse perched on the world's edge, Marnez cradled her morning coffee, its warmth a stark contrast to the chill that had settled in her bones over the past decade. Her eyes, once bright with hope, now bore the weight of countless dawns spent watching ships venture into the unknown, never to return. The sea stretched before her, a vast canvas of greys and blues. To the casual observer, the waves lapped idly at the shore, but Marnez knew better. Each swell could be the harbinger of a return, each glint of sunlight on water a cruel illusion of a sail.
Marnez wasn't yet thirty to have seen it herself, but she could viscerally imagine the Great Waves that once pelted the shoreline beneath the shadow of the two moons. Beyond, like jagged teeth jutting from the ocean's maw, loomed one of the crashed islands of the Ekreli. Once, they had been jewels of curiosity, a distant stormcloud always in view. Now they stood as mute sentinels, their drowning cliffs a grim reminder of the Shattered Storm's fury. In their fallen state, Marnez saw a reflection of her own fate - a vibrant spirit reduced to a hollow vigil, both she and the islands forever changed by the merciless hand of the past. The rain and thunder over the sea of the crashed island, left by its uncontained Shattered Storm, reminded Marnez of her own Nightmare that she had awoken from only a few weeks ago. She shuddered and looked back to the open sea.
The Eternal Lands. The thought of them twisted Marnez's lips into a bitter grimace, her fingers tightening around the chipped mug until her knuckles whitened. Two years had crawled by since the last expedition had set sail, carrying with it the hopes and fears of Roera. Marnez could still hear the gangplank's creak and smell the salt and tar that clung to the air as the ships prepared to depart. The captains' words echoed in her memory, hollow promises carried on the wind: "A new route from the north," they'd boasted, eyes gleaming with fool's gold. "This journey will be different. This time, we'll breach the veil."
How many times had she heard such claims? How many ships had she watched sail into that hungry horizon, never to return? Yet they had gone, drawn by the siren song of the unknown, perhaps driven by the ghosts that haunted their waking hours. The words of farewell tasted of ash each time. Now, with almost three hundred missing expeditions, they were a poison Roera swallowed each dawn anew.
The cool and insistent stray breeze tugged at Marnez's hair, drawing her from her reverie. She turned, absently brushing aside one of the living vines that sprouted from her scalp - a hallmark of her Awakening as a Quanoxi. The verdant tendril curled around her finger, responsive to her touch. Her gaze swept over the town below, and she froze, struck by the tableau unfolding in the streets. The usual morning quiet had shattered, replaced by a frenetic energy that pulsed through the cobblestone arteries of the settlement.
Figures darted to and fro, their voices a rising murmur that reached even her lofty perch. Doors flung open, spilling neighbors into the streets, their faces masks of confusion and excitement. Marnez felt her heart quicken, a spark of something long dormant flickering to life in her chest. Was it hope? Or merely the twin edges of fear and anticipation?
Before she could ponder the unfamiliar sensation, her eyes were drawn inexorably back to the sea. The horizon, so often a cruel, unbroken line, now bore fruit. Dots appeared in the distance, dark seeds against the pale morning sky. One, two... Marnez counted, her breath catching in her throat. Six ships, their sails billowing with promise, materialized as if conjured from the mists that had claimed so many before them.
Marnez's heart thundered in her chest, a staccato rhythm that matched the pounding of waves against the shore. Her eyes, sharp as a goshawk's, scanned the approaching fleet, searching for familiar silhouettes among the weathered hulls. Each ship that drew near sent a fresh surge of hope and dread coursing through her veins, only to ebb away as disappointment settled like lead in her stomach.
As the vessels slipped into the embrace of the harbor, Marnez found herself leaning precariously from her perch. The vines in her hair writhed with her agitation, reaching out as if they too sought to pluck answers from the salt-laden air. Her gaze darted from deck to deck, scouring each face and silhouette for signs of the lost expedition returning. Her gaze darted from deck to deck, scouring each face and silhouette for any familiar form.
Among the returning ships, only one stood out as familiar - a battered vessel that bore little resemblance to its former glory. It was a patchwork of repairs, each plank and nail a story of desperate ingenuity in the face of unimaginable trials. Where once it might have cut through waves gracefully, it now listed slightly, as if eternally braced against some unseen tempest. Its masts stood at odd angles, like broken fingers reaching for a sky they could no longer touch. The sails, what little remained of them, hung in shredded tatters. She then noticed that the hull had strange, changing symbols carved into it that hurt her eyes and mind… The closer the ship came, the more tension Marnez felt. Even when the vessel approached fully within view, she could not force herself to look upon the markings its hull bore.
Avoiding the hull in her periphery, Marnez's gaze was drawn to the deck, where a figure stood apart from the rest - still and watchful amidst the chaos of arrival. Marnez could sense the burden that weighed the air around them even at this distance. The docks erupted into a cacophony of excited shouts and frenzied activity. A voice rose above the din, calling for an immediate activation of a portal to the Spire, the words tinged with a manic edge. Yet amidst this maelstrom of activity, the figure remained apart, a silent specter untouched by the chaos around her. The stranger's Myrelok horns, pitch-black and formidable, cast deep chiaroscuro of light and dark across her features.
As she reached the weathered planks of the dock, her chest heaving from her rapid descent, Marnez realized that this was but the first step on a long and arduous journey for Roera. A survivor had returned from the Eternal Lands - one who had walked its shores, breathed its air and lived to tell the tale. The implications were staggering, the possibilities endless, and the dangers... Marnez shuddered to contemplate them.
The lone stranger paused as she cut through the crowd, and her intense eyes met Marnez’s wide gaze. "The Council must know. Everything changes now. Where is the closest portal to the Spire?”
Marnez paused, shocked, and pointed to a graciously nearby building. Her small city was fortunate enough to have access to a few rarely used portals thanks to their shipyard, but the intensively expensive portal to the Spire had collected dust for many years. She was curious to know if they had enough resources in the entire town to power a portal of that distance, especially since it went across the open water of the Inner Sea. The Spire, the Council's largely inaccessible and sprawling compound, was located on the only land island in the center of the Inner Sea. It was the most remote and expensive place to possibly portal to.
Marnez silently accompanied her to the portal hall, listening as the stranger spoke firmly to the curator. “I have returned aboard the Meon from the Eternal Lands, the 226th expedition mission. Open your portal to the Spire.” The curator went to speak, but already knew the words to be true. One by one, every local open portal in the hall was shut down, and the coffers of resources were bared empty. The stranger lingered for just a moment at the portal’s mouth, every second costing the annual salary of an average citizen.
“I'm certain the Council will repay you handsomely. If they do not, you have my debt. My name is Zeix Amaranth.” She unceremoniously stepped through the yawning portal, leaving the curator and Marnez standing alone.
The portal hall’s curator was a wiry, serious man who had taken a disliking to Marnez since her childhood often left his pockets empty. Deep in thought, he had forgotten to remove the mechanism that channeled the portal. A few seconds later, the portal closed on its own, running out of the energy to power it. His eyes were misted with tears that threatened to spill onto his beard. Marnez didn't know if he was crying from the large fortune just spent on powering this single portal, or if he was considering what this meant for humanity. Likely the former.
The following days blurred together like watercolors in the rain, a chaotic swirl of activity. The modest homes near the docks now thrummed with a constant stream of visitors. Officials in starched uniforms and scholars with ink-stained fingers crowded the streets, their voices a cacophony of questions and theories that seemed to sap the very air from the town. The Meon was covered by vast swathes hours after its arrival, hiding from sight the strange symbols on its hull that came to be known as godstongue. Those who had witnessed just moments of its barren hull were left with excrutiating headaches and waking nightmares. A few days after, the Meon was taken inland by the largest caravan that Marnez had ever seen, intended for the Spire.
As the days wore on, fragments of the truth began to emerge from the survivor's tale. As the initial frenzy subsided, the true magnitude of the Meon’s odyssey began to unfold like a dark flower blooming at midnight. Whispers became murmurs, murmurs swelled to proclamations, and soon the tale of their journey swept across Roera like wildfire.
