Out in the deep ocean, far away from any land, a group of nine small black ships were slowing to a halt as they adjusted their sails and began throwing large anchors over the side now that they had reached their destination.
The nine black ships were anchored extremely far apart from each other to the point that they could barely see each other. If one were to look at the ships from high in the sky they would see that the ships were positioned so that they formed three smaller triangles. When looked at as a whole the three triangles were positioned to form one large triangle—three ships in the southeast, three in the southwest, and three in the north.
Loud moaning chants started to echo out from the black ships as the sailors stopped what they had been doing and focused on chanting while staring at the calm ocean at the center of their formation.
“Baaaa!” The unhappy cries of a goat that was tied up were ignored as the dark-robed figures brought it up onto an altar that had been built into the center of the ship.
A knife glinted in the sunlight as it was raised and slashed down on the goat’s neck spurting blood all over the altar. As the chanting continued the altar seemed to drink the blood that was flowing and started to turn dark red and glow ever so slightly.
Similar scenes like this were happening on all nine of the ships even without communicating to each other they were all completing their tasks at the same time.
The calm ocean between the formation of the ships started to slowly churn as the chanting continued for many more minutes uninterrupted. With a second sacrifice from each of the ships, dark clouds began to form above them high in the sky.
The ocean water’s chaotic churning began to take form as it slowly swirled in a circular motion picking up speed every minute that passed.
When a half hour of uninterrupted chant had passed, a small whirlpool had formed and was still growing wider. As it did the whirlpool started to emit a gloomy gray light.
The fierce roar of the whirlpool was now drowning out much of every other sound as it slowly picked up speed.
Crack! Lightning from the gathered dark storm clouds shot down and slammed into the center of the whirlpool. As if a floodgate had opened the lightning started to repeatedly rain down on the Whirlpool as it was growing wider and moving faster.
When the whirlpool reached the ships the center of the whirlpool started to slowly part allowing one to gaze deep down towards the ocean floor where no human, demon race, or any other land-based creature had laid eyes on…until now.
But instead of the ocean floor… there was a pitch-black swirling gray portal that was growing as the whirlpool pulled farther and farther to the side. While this was happening Lighting repeatedly slammed into the growing swirling portal as if trying to destroy it.
“No! I don’t want to die!” shouted a ragged female human as she was dragged to the altar.
Slash! Blood spurted out of her neck and quickly drained out of her body as it was sucked up by the greedy glowing altar.
A loud groan echoed through the air coming from the swirling whirlpool, it was as if the world was being torn apart. The echoing groan shook the humans on the ships to their very core. After the third human sacrifice…
CRACK!
A giant bolt of lightning, that was over a hundred yards wide, slammed into the portal. But this time instead of a calm smooth surface, a tear had opened, and from that tear a piece of dark black land that looked to have been burnt was revealed. The dark ground was completely dry and did not look like it was ever underwater.
The chanting began to pick up speed causing the alters and the whirlpool to glow even brighter. Soul shuddering tears could be heard from the portal as the hole slowly tore open revealing more of the scorched earth. Large boulders and odd-looking plants and trees started to appear as the gray portal was repeatedly hit by the massive lighting strikes and was torn to shreds.
If one looked close enough, they could even see what looked like buildings!
Soon there were only tatters of the portal at the sides of the whirlpool revealing a large island of scorched earth. The whirlpool that had stopped growing a while ago once again began growing wider as its center was slowly pulled back.
The nine ships all cut their anchors but they continued chanting and offering sacrifices as they began to try to pull away from the whirlpool’s growing radius. But the speed at which it was expanding was growing too fast for the ships and caught them.
Even so, the dark-robed figures continued with the ritual as they swirled around the top of the ever-expanding whirlpool.
The size of the revealed land could no longer be considered a small island, its size now surpassed the largest island that had ever been mapped.
As more time passed another loud groan from the center of the whirlpool was heard and the scorched earth began to rise out of both the portal and whirlpool that were continuously expanding as fast as it could while a small continent rose out of the abyss and above sea level.
Everything was now happening automatically as the 9 ships had gone silent as they tried to hold on to any handhold while the ship swirled around almost comp on its side.
After an unknown amount of time trapped in the whirlpool’s clutch… the nine ships one after another slammed into the new burnt land shattering them and scattering the occupants along with the altars all over the small continent that was still rising out of the torn gray portal.
The dark clouds above the whirlpool began to pour out all the gathered rain soaking the parched land below as more and more of the continent was revealed and rose above sea level.
After over a week of stormy weather, the whirlpool and the portal had completely disappeared.
In its place was now a small continent.
***
Akira was walking along the shore of the island viewing the recently cleared land that the skeletons had worked on as well as the crude docks that they had built for Kodria’s new deep-water naval base.
For now, they would have to suffice as there were more pressing buildings and fortifications to work on.
Now that the builders from Kodria were here, they were closely watching and commanding the skeletons on each of the building projects. Although the skeletons could work nonstop without the need for sleep or food, they often had to redo the jobs more than once as they tended to slack off if no one was watching them.
Ding!
-
A piece of [The Old World] has been summoned!
A ritual has been completed and summoned a long-lost continent from the old world out of the deep abyss!
This new land has many secrets, treasures, and dangerous creatures. The land is inhabited and the races that live here are strong warrior races.
There is a chance for new allies to help fight wars or a possibility for new enemies that you will have to fight!
It is up to you if you want to explore the new land or ignore it and allow others to grow rich from their discoveries!
Ding!
-
[Awakening legend part II] Conditions met!
-You have a key item from [The Old World] in your possession so the mission is automatically accepted!
-Gather the remaining pieces to the secret hideout of an ancient kingdom and use the clues written on each piece to find the entrance so that you may receive the many rewards inside!
Akira’s mind was pulled away from the construction in front of him as read the notifications.
The second message confused him for a second before memories of buying an old map from the auction many years ago came back to him.
Ding!
-
Akira’s bad gut feeling +10.
“Damn it! I knew that the legendary sea creature mission was too easy!” said Akira now realizing what this all meant.
“Yap?” asked a confused Fluffball, who had been grooming his rear.
“Klyn! Go gather everyone for an emergency meeting on [K.S. Wulfric]. If I am right I think I have finally found out what the old Dream Reader was talking about!”
When the mermaid princesses, Captain Pegleg, and Captain Wullcot joined Akira for the meeting he explained everything to them causing much commotion.
“For some reason, the remaining demigods that were holed up in the last city gave up defending it and escaped last night on several boats headed out to sea,” said Klyn.
“This is probably why… they are looking to strike it rich on this new land,” said Akira.
Klyn rushed out of the meeting and gathered the shamen to send a communication to the Grand elders back in Kodria about the troubling news.
There were so many decisions to make and so little time to prepare! The only bright side was they still had a large portion of their supplies due to the last trip on the ocean not taking as long as they had expected.
