The Old Virginia Lowlands (Set 1)

Okay guys -- let's have some fun with this!
Sorry I took so long, here's hoping this ends up being a long round ^__^;.

(Ic)

If you were a bird in springtime, migrating the great divide between East Ralston and the topmost fringe of the southern continent, arcing and capturing a patch of dead sea which is the outlet for the Tare river basin, you may not know you were over sea at all. This patch of water is kept stagnant by the stretch of rocky land sealing it away almost completely, and is green to the eye because of an invading oriental grass. Discarded as ballast offshore by a tea junk -- tall and sickly, it squats upon the spongy silt and thriving placidly in the matt, warm nights as they wed eternally daytime -- a dull bride clad in a sticky gray lace of dirty fog.

Few ships enter this way. Though a hull can easily plough through the soft mud, the lowlands present a hideous doldrum -- weeks of wind blowing constantly in circles, conflicting or just not bothering to get up at all. Upon entering -- you can only return the way you have come, through the single gap in the reefs. And that is easier said than done.

And as for those on foot -- scrying a bearing through the fog and identical clumps of alien grasses is a task that has yet to be graded by the 'Guild of Survivalists' because noone has yet been so... thoughtless, so dumb, so downright foolhardy as to ever get themselves lost in the lowlands.

-/~\-

As Johann hops from tuft to tuft, the pressure weighs on his ears. The muddy silt shifts under him, knocking him off balance time and again as he works his way back along his well-set path of destruction. His feet had almost worn the clouts of earth down to complete insatiable sludge by their passing, each day venturing and returning to the hub of his operation -- now just a score of mounds ahead. And, as its shape condenses out of the mist: A broken mast, a shattered hull -- a pitiful and stained figurehead, half visible as its own weight buries it in a grave of mud. An elegant vessel, striking -- but all of its beauty sucked out by the mire. The old ship flaunts its name almost ironically -- 'The Rose in June' seems hardly fitting to be emblazoned on a hull both elegant -- but decrepit.

The craft sunk slightly into the soft Earth as Johann stepped aboard. He hung the battered lantern on his piece of string in the intact end of the hull, stepping across rotting boards to solid wood of the point suspended furthest from the water beneath. He absentmindedly kicked a barrel -- which moved too far for his liking, and sloshed with the whole of his acquired store of fresh water. Throwing himself onto a rough bed of fusty sailcloth -- he empties his knapsack onto a low stool.

"Joy."

Three oozefish. The attributes of the oozefish are many: sustenance, nutrients and essential oils... but also a slimy texture, complete absence of flavor and the persistent, nagging knowledge that the Atari -- who happen to be exceptional chefs -- use this fish for odd jobs, such as grouting.

Johann poked it. It oozed.

He found it helped to wait between portions, to allow the brain to stop quoting chemical warfare agreements -- so Johann wandered across to the wall to the 'Ooze-o-meter', as he etched another line into the moss on the inner wall, he deducted that it's an alcohol-free decade was in order to stop his liver from curling up and surrendering to sheer toxic shock once he found his way back to solid ground.

But that's the problem exactly, thought Johann as he masticated the greasy, rubbery flesh: Where is that solid ground? He scratched his chin -- aware it was both unshaved and awash with oily fish juices. He picked up a second fish, and wandered to the entrance -- a hole in the rotting hull. He felt the damp seep into the sleeve of his clammy, unwashed shirt. This fog has got to clear eventually -- right?

What is the meaning of it all? The meaning of life? The meaning of existence? Is there any meaning, or is life just random and pointless? Does there even need to be a meaning in order to experience existence completely? You're just shooting in the dark, searching an ocean for a drop of blood, walking an infinite road hoping to find a pebble before the road ends. You're determined and stubborn though, and if life has any meaning for you, this is it. This is what you've made it.

The bright flash of green light was muted and choked out by the thick gray haze, but the burst that occurred when spacetime was shifted to allow eighty more kilograms of matter to appear where it wasn't before pushed the fog aside to reveal a person. The person was six feet tall and dressed entirely in gray, to match his equally gray eyes and even gray hair, despite his youth. The fog quickly closed in on him nearly as fast as it had been pushed aside, allowing the man only a brief moment to see his surroundings. He whispered something to the air, and his sword glimmered a bright green color. He sliced through the mist, dividing it and forcing it to depart from around him, forming a sort of hazy shell surrounding him, nearly five feet in radius.

Kartaikian Stormcloud found himself standing on a foggy island, or rather, a small chunk of muddy earth with about enough room for five people to stand on without touching each other, and only if they kept their arms down at their sides. All around the islet was a deep body of stagnant water, stained green over time with algae. The otherwise flat and still plane of water was broken by tall blades of sickly pale grass and mounds of moist soil that appeared to form acceptable stepping-stones for traversing the swamp. I guess it's a good thing I didn't bring my horse this time, eh? Kartaikian thought.

Before continuing onward, Kartaikian raised his sword into the air and concentrated on the surrounding area. He extended his soul, reaching out and searching for life. After about a minute of this, he felt his soul brush by another one. He was able to detect somebody, and it appeared that the person wasn't so far away. He pulled back his spirit and sheathed his mystic blade. "I wonder who would be out here..." he said aloud, to himself and to the fog laden air. Looking to the Sun, or at least, to where the sunlight managed to shine the brightest through the mist, Kartaikian was able to orientate his internal compass, and then began to walk in the direction he'd detected the person.

Well, on the contrary, walking wasn't exactly what he did, as there was no ground to walk on. Rather, he had to leap from mound to muddy mound, splashing in the dirty water and hoping not to slip. He was able to see and navigate, still keeping the asphyxiating haze at bay with his enchantment. It wasn't long before water began to soak into his pant legs and stain them green with chlorophyll, but he could deal with it. After all, he'd been in much worse and far more uncomfortable situations than this several times before, and it wasn't like the trousers were irreplaceable.

After nearly twenty minutes of traveling through the stagnant bay, he saw something begin to reveal itself in the mists. Kartaikian examined it and noticed that it appeared to be a ship. Who in their right mind would guide a ship into these waters? They can't be nearly deep enough for a ship of that size... Indeed, Kartaikian noticed as he approached it, the ship appeared to be stranded in the mud, and looked as if it must have been so for quite some time.

Silence. It had been one of the things that this place had been known for. This place had great silt belts and a thick mist that carried an almost haunted feeling. Hell, this place even had a few crazy claims of ghosts and specters in the area. Who was he to tell these people that there were no such things and they were crazy. After all, all one had to do to make money in superstitious worlds was to tell people you were an exorcist, go out, vanish for a few days, and come back and claim the ghosts were gone.

Well, Monroe knew better than to say his thoughts aloud, especially to stupid people who believed such things. Especially to stupid, rich people when they were paying you to do such things. In the bounty hunter's mind, money was money, and no matter how one earned it, a dime earned was one dime more towards food. Still, this was almost too easy. Too easy indeed.

The thick, soupy silt that covered Monroe's now ruined boots and his pant legs made the dark clad man slightly more angry than the fact the rich weirdo had sent a guide out with him. The modern fencer wasn't one to ever rely on such people as a guide, mostly when he runs at the first sign of something odd. Then again, earth worms like the giant land snake that the mercenary had encountered weren't exactly every day sights either. Still, that fleeing guy would tell the rich weirdo that was paying Vossler the bounty hunter was dead, and when the man returned, Monroe could demand double. It was almost too easy of a scam.

Yes, a scam, that's all it really was. Since arriving in the Dome, Monroe had come to believe many things, but one of the few things he could claim he still didn't believe in was ghosts. After all, unlike magic and monsters, ghosts hadn't proved they existed to him. Logic, therefore, dictated that ghosts didn't exist. Although the dark clad man had always been a skeptic of some things, the existence of ghosts was something he knew to not exist. Still, despite that self-acknowledged truth, an ill feeling set in. Not so much a feeling of dread or a cold, tingling feeling, as are said to set in when a ghost appears; rather, a gut feeling that something was out in this place.

With each sloshy step, the dark clad man moved onwards towards his final goal. All he had to do was travel as far out into the swamps as he could, bring some kind of proof that he had been there, appear to have exorcised the ghosts, and leave town with twice to three times his agreed fee. Life couldn't get any sweeter, could it?

Still yet, the pea soup thick mist and the wetlands were beginning to wear thin on Monroe's nerves. He took a few steps and would stop, trying to find anything distinctive. Another few steps and a stop. Still nothing. A few more steps and... wait... that wasn't something that had been there a moment ago!

At that moment, Monroe saw something he hadn't seen a few feet back. A form. A silhouette if you will. The outline of part of a ship, figure head and all, stood out short in the distance. A shipwreck would give people the reason to assumed sailors that died there had become spirits. Still, that didn't mean anything. Maybe a little more would be squeezed out of that old dirt bag for bringing back proof the shipwreck. Monroe was almost too smart for himself, he felt. Now all he had to do was get there.