Meteor Island

The Meteor Island is an island at the end of the Shrouded Isles. It serves as the point of impact of a Meteor that brought Kyl'il to the mortal plane, and was partially responsible for killing off the dinosaurs. It is the primary location of the Dark Vision arc.
== History ==
In the ancient past there existed one who desperately needed help. Anybody, anybody would do. So, in a deep cavern at the center of the island, they drew a sigil, a message to the world and even beyond, calling into the void. Around the sigil they drew even more magic onto the stone, some of it even with blood, amplifying the power of the message drastically. The result came as a gift from the heavens, pulled down by the draw of the spell. A meteorite. However, the amplification of the sigil had an unintended consequence. The spell manifested as gravity-warping tubes that pulled things from the surface of the island down to the central location. But due to the sheer strength and intensity at which it pulled for someone to appear, it would inevitably destroy all that passed through it. Whoever drew this sigil, and all those once resided on this island, have since disappeared.
A meteorite crashed down onto the surface of the world, resting at the center of the island above the site of the sigil. From within it came Kyl'il, one of many spiritfolk who arrived in a mass exodus. As a result of the event, the dinosaurs would go extinct. Kyl'il occasionally uses pieces of the meteorite to construct parts of her body. However, when used by those besides Kyl'il, the meteorite is seen to have many adverse affects, corrupting the land around it, and the people as well. Old nobility used to fashion crowns from pieces of the rock, before being driven to madness by the corruption. The land around the meteorite has grown dark, as light is sapped from the area.
At some unknown time, the Silhouettes were discovered, gradually creeping up from the core of the island. These people built large stone tunnels, attempting to redirect the creatures to prevent them from reaching the surface. However, when these attempts failed, they elected to instead use these tunnels as chimnies, funneling the creatures into specific paths.
At the edge of the isles is a narrow land. In times passed it was used as a stopover point, as unlike the rest of the isles it is not hidden away and is somewhat close to a common channel. From there, one can reach the island. At some point fairly recently, the Alaran Empire attempted to create a settlement on the island. One of the architects sent there was Croug and, based on him still being alive at the beginning of the Dark Vision arc, this attempt must have been somewhat recent. They seem to have been able to create numerous outposts and even began a brick road before the creatures first appeared. How or why they came to be on the island at that time is unknown, but within a few decades all but Croug were consumed into the Earth by the entities. The settlement has since been completely abandoned.
After the Alaran settlement fell, the group of Markus, Gregor, Inien, Harlock, Mercedes and Kyl'il arrived in search of the meteorite to forge new eyes for Kyl'il, and began investigating the mysteries of the island. Eventually Harlock and Markus would find the sigil at the center of the island and step into its center, at last fulfilling the spell's intent for somebody to come heed the message, and the island fell into peace once again, the silhouettes fading as well. 
=== Dark Vision ===
When the team first arrived on the island, they found various wooden structures dilapidated and worn, a watchtower and bridge among them. The watch tower is loosely fortified by wooden spikes, with parts seemingly used to reconstruct other things. Within the watchtower is nothing but some tally marks on the walls, tally marks possibly indicating that whoever once resided within the tower had been stuck there for years. The bridge was constructed over a dark pit of great depth. When Harlock descended Kyl'il's lantern eyes into it's depths, she noted that the shadows down there were behaving unusually, before she felt something tug at the bottom of her lantern, prompting her to have Harlock bring it back to the surface. It is then that they first encountered the mysterious creatures that reside on the island, and began one of their many experiments on them. Past the bridge, another outpost and more of these creatures could be seen, residing in the dark mud.
Scared about what traits these creatures may display when the sun sets and the island is covered in shadow, the gang attempted to leave the island, going back from where they came. However, as they continued to walk, they kept getting turned around, ending up in the wrong direction. They found the paths on the island make a loose spiral, not flowing perfectly straight, so following one provides no direction. Combined with the confusing structure of the island and some possible magical elements, the team finds themselves stuck.
Later on the team would enter the chasm, however did not notice any particular oddities in the cavern itself. It was dark, but fairly shallow, stretching a vast length of the island. However, the team was able to better observe the full extent of the creature once they saw what happened below it. The team continued down the chasm as night fell.
There is a bridge made of birch wood present, which is odd as it seems birch is not native to the island meaning that the wood had to have been imported, and the native trees are substantially stronger.
As the team ventured further down the crevice, they eventually stumbled upon a large cavern. Within it were the ethereal throats of two of the creatures, extending down large dark pits, alongside a shack made of pine by someone named "Croug" that was seemingly once used as a toll station. It even still had some prize tickets in it, with the booth being Alarani in nature. Curiously, the shack was not built there, with its foundation jutted into the ground at an odd angle, but how it got there is unclear. A series of curious bricks are also scattered around the area in a path. It seems incredibly likely that these objects, including the house, were originally on the surface before being devoured by one of the creatures and being ejected through the throat into the crevice. The team continued onward, discussing their intentions on the island before encountering more of the creatures and escaping them by rolling on a pipe.
Further down the cavern, a massive version of the creatures was found, presumably one of the sources of these objects or at least of the same make. After evading it and some other creatures, the team managed to arrive back at the surface, near the landing site of the meteor. They also found a building that, while not made by Croug, had stairs made by him. Croug then emerged from the top of the tower, howling at the team for messing with his stairs before promptly falling off of the tower and into the maw of a creature, disapearing beneath the earth. After a failed attempt to rescue Croug with a rope, they continued into the island.
As they approached the center of the island, the dirt path transformed into brick road, eventually leading to the crater itself. Entering the crater, they realized they were surrounded by creatures around the rim. Mercedes cut a chunk of the meteorite off, and after a bit of experimentation, deliberation about what they would do with it at home, and marvelling at its extraordinary weight, Mercedes made a handlebar to carry it and they prepared to exit the crater. After traveling some distance, the new eyes were forged. After some more experimenting with the meteorite and its time bending properties, Kyl'il was able to navigate the team off of the island. 
The team eventually returned after the Espohaguys appeared on the main islands, seeking to investigate the cause and hopefully stop them for good. This time, they ventured deeper into the caverns of the island than before, discovering an area filled with strange stone barriers. Upon examination, these barriers turned out to be chimney like structures for funneling the creatures, providing them an optimal route to reach the surface. Another stone barrier further down appeared to be filled in, whatever passage once there abandoned. Upon digging around, Markus discovered a wooden idol and some poop. The team eventually descended down one of the passages, proceeding deeper into the depths, as the sillhouettes became faster and faster, the path growing darker and darker. They passed failed chimneys and passages created by those who came before, seeming attempts to redirect the silhouettes. Soon, before them was the source of the creatures.
Examining the tunnel momentarily, Gregor used his bread brain to cut a hole in the spiral. Upon entering the whirling wind and gravity, Harlock and Markus found simply a magical sigil, a sigil crying out for anybody to come. The terrifying effects of the creatures had resulted from the spell being amplified to a power so intense, that anything that was pulled down to the sigil was destroyed. Stepping into the sigil themselves, Harlock and Markus finally fulfilled the magic's request, and around them the pillars of gravity that stemmed into the creatures began to vanish, the magic at last satisfied. 
== The Sillhouettes ==
Referred to as Creatchy Crawlers and Espohaguys, residing on the island are strange creatures unseen anywhere else in the world. They appear like shadows late in the day, long humanoid figures formed by a slight shift in the ground. If anything is placed above them, they will attempt to suck them in, pulling themd own to the core from which they originate. They move gradually, seeking things to bring into themselves.
The beings appeared due to what is, in essense, a colossal typo. A sigil placed beneath the center of the island was amplified to a massive degree. With the purpose of the sigil being to find anybody, and bring them there, the sigil would manifest gravity distorting tubes in the shape of people to pull things down to their core, spiraling around this center. A pillar of pure distortion. These creatures are not magical in nature, simply being a manipulation of the innate pphysical properties there, though the sigil itself is. However, as a result of the power of the spell, nothing could make it through without being completely destroyed. The sigil's message specifically ended up bringing down the meteor, and thus the creatures primarily target that, though, as by nature of the spell, anyone will do still, and it will still attempt to absorb essentially anything it can.
The creatures' behavior largely revolve around their proximity to two things: the meteor, and their core beneath that meteor. At the surface, further away from the meteor, they tend to move fairly slowly and generally seem to be unreactive and docile. Closer to the meteor, the creatures begin behaving strangely, with a few seemingly vibrating in place nearby. At the meteorite itself, several of the creatures surrounded the crater, seemingly more aggressive despite not being able to approach the meteorite themselves due to its time dilation effect. The deeper in elevation, and the closer to the core, the creatures begin moving faster and more aggressively. In general, they are able to move down elevation easily, but not up elevation as well, and tend to have a hard time navigating non-natural paths. They also must carve their way up through things that block them from reaching higher elevations, gradually eroding away at things, causing things such as porous rock formations deep beneath the island. They additionally aren't very intelligent, not being able to identify alternative paths to their goal.
Things the creatures attempt to take in can only be absorbed from the top, with a tangible pulling force felt above them. Entering the tube from other sides does disrupt the tube however. Once pulled inside, things are either ejected through the side if too large or eroded into nothing but dust by the time they reach the center. From the outside, this process appears like spaghettification, with things being stretched and contorted as they are sucked down. If disrupted or punctured, the tube will reshape itself given time. The pull towards the central sigil can still be felt from any tunnel that leads to it, even if a creature is not currently there. They can be thought of as simply amplifying the natural pulling force. They struggle considerably to consume larger pieces, having to effectively grind it down as they do all larger objects. The creatures additionally always seek to take the path of least resistance to higher terrain. A similar grinding process is used when they tunnel to reach higher elevations.By nature of the creatures themselves, they exhibit several strange properties. When Markus attempted to put his hand underneath one of the creatures, the body sank to fill in the hole his arm made. Later on, Markus laid his cape over one of the creatures, and the cape promptly fell through, descending through a hole with earthy walls before filling itself over. Curiously, this happened over the bridge, and despite the fact that the bridge went over the chasm, the chasm itself could not be seen through the hole. The space below one of these creatures exhibits some oddities, with the air fracturing in odd ways. When viewed with dark vision, it becomes apparent that this is some extension of the creature continuing continuously downward like a human-shaped tube. When viewed with dark vision, they take on a light blue hue. Larger versions of the standard shapes are also seen in some of the island's caverns, otherwise possessing the same traits.
The connection the creatures have to the meteor is still shrouded in mystery, with laughter heard and the shadows vanishing when the released a cyan pulse through the ground. When a piece of the meteor specifically is consumed by one of the creatures, they stop moving momentarily, seemingly satisfied. The creatures follow wherever the meteorite goes. When a significant chunk of it was brought to other parts ot the isles, more of the creatures having spread to the main lands. Despite Kyl'il having taken pieces from the meteor numerous times in the past, this behavior was unprecidented. 
== The Meteor ==
The meteor at the center of the island is unlike anything else seen in the Free Isles. It is extraordinarily heavy for its size and shines a curious gradient of red and silver. It shines brightly, and when stared out it is as if one can peer back into one's own eyes. When one looks at the meteor, the part being directly observed seems still and solid. However, the segments of the meteor in the corner of one's vision seem to almost flow like lava, the meteor itself changing in nature as it is observed. What's more is the fact that the meteor is singularly alive. The sigil called for anyone, so this meteor must thus be a 'one'.
When some unnatural object is placed in contact the meteor, out of view of any observers, the object seems to slowly be destroyed. This could be seen with a chisel Mercedes used, placed under a small fragment of the meteor where it seemed to slowly be essentially swallowed up, with the top few inches of the chisel vanishing without a trace. 
Fascinatingly, the meteor seems to exhibit time and space warping properties. When closer to the meteorite, all inorganic matter that is not currently touching an organic creature slows down immensely relative to organic observers. This has the interesting effect of the sun seemingly moving irregularly depending on movement. This time warping aspect also is inherent to smaller parts of the meteorite, and due to the creatures being inorganic in nature, they are slowed down as one approaches the center of the island. 
When the sun died down on the day the team arrived, the shadows grew deeper, and the meteor pulsed a dull cyan glow beneath it as if flesh mixing with the world below, traveling through the island. With a single large pulse, the shadows on the island vanished and laughter could be heard throughout the land.
When the meteor crashed, evidentally parts of it split off and scattered across the island. These smaller chunks, while still too big for the creatures to consume, would eventually be mostly destroyed, in essense grinded piece by piece into a fine powder where the fragment once stood.
After the sigil's request was fulfilled, the meteor's reality bending effects ceased, as did its unnatural weight.