Over the Edge

The final departure from land and sanity had been from the a small farming village nestled into the fjords of Brocklye. The only reason the poor sods had even built a dock was to launch dinghys to collect eggs from the protected cliffs. There's no fishing in the northern waters - the ones that can be caught are poison. There's no trade in the northern waters - the storms soon crush any ship. Needless to say, the voyage was already a long one for this crew, so far from the Samalan passage. Our objective: to discover new lands on the far side of the World Ocean.
But let's start at the beginning of the story, rather than at the beginning of the end.
The ship was a masterpiece: the third caravel ever built, from the great wharf of Chenning, of the Weald. She wasn't a large ship, about half the length of the largest cogs built at the wharf, but her seaworthiness was second to none. Rather than a clinker-built knarr, her hull was sleek, with planks that fit edge to edge, and a powerful hull from the greatest hardwood ironcones from the Ferroch forest in Grennoch. The rigging was of the new triangular design, allowing navigation into the wind. The entire result was a ship that was faster, more nimble, and sturdier. The Chaert may have been commissioned by the eponymous tyrant, but the ship was the perfect union of art and science, a collaborative effort from the three forest nations, the absolute best the Great Weald had ever produced.
The crew matched the ship. These were the best sailors in Erwt, hand-picked by myself from the Oerik isles just south of the narrow isthmus, in Isolet. They were hard men, birthed in salt and ice, reared in storms of cold and dark, and fearless of the abominations that crossed into the southern sea from the bitter north.
We geared up in western Ennobel, close to the Samalan tundra. The Chaert was loaded with provisions, the sails and rigging were replaced with the hardier fibers from some Ennobel marsh plants from the border regions, and we set off towards the southern entrance to the Samalan passage. In late summer, the ice floes are few, and the winds southerly and pleasant. Nevertheless, navigating over 1400 miles of winding passages between walls of stone and sharp ice is not an easy task, even with the help of indigenous Samalans to point the way, and it is a testament to both crew and ship that we reached the northern entrance with nary an incident, and first laid eyes on the terror that is the World Ocean.
The water there is black and malevolent, with an eldritch stench. The warm southern breeze was replaced by a blistering cold, although the air was nearly still. The world held its breath as we slowly sailed out of Samala and into the unknown.
I should mention that two serious expeditions had made it this far previously. In the first, the expedition consisted of two knarrs and a longboat. Then, as in our expedition, the wind had died out as they continued away from the mainland. The crew on the longboat had suffered heavy casualties in the passage, and within a span of minutes, they fell behind as the knarrs sped along by the power of their oarsmen. Without warning, a great mass reached out and crushed both ships, pulling them beneath the placid waters in a matter of seconds. All hands were lost. The longboat immediately turned and made for shore, beaching on an ice sheet. The surviving crew burned their ship piece by piece, to keep warm in the bitter Samalan north, and were eventually rescued by a passing group of nomads. To avoid the fate of those knarrs, we turned immediately westward and headed past the frozen shores of Samala towards the Great Weald. We were spared.
The northern shores of the Great Weald are not hospitable, so we continued, stopping only once we reached the mouth of the great river Reddoch, which flows from Gutreal far to the west and south, skirts the Guttoch forest, and winds through the Reddoch forest until it reaches this infernal sea. We dropped anchor at the mouth of the river and rowed to the eastern bank in the small dinghy. Hiking upriver, we soon encountered a village of Wealdans (with that wonderfully lilting dialect) who were willing to help us resupply both food and water. As we worked, a storm approached. It was a violent northerly, and the Chaert risked crashing against the rocky shore, so we decided to weather the storm out at sea. When we returned two days later, we finished restocking and continued on our voyage.
The weather no longer worked with us; it appeared our luck had begun run dry. The voyage to our intended departure point in Gutreal took three times longer than we planned. We were challenged by abominations from the deep, islands hidden in the mist, reefs of jagged basalt lurking in the dark. This is where the ship's navigator, a great bear of a man named Jarlfrist, truly proved his worth. One of only two survivors from the second expedition, the memory of that voyage lived vividly within him even after three decades, which enabled us to make it past this gauntlet with only minimal damage.
At long last, we turned into a broad fjord, and then into the narrower eastern arm of the fjord, until we reached a small village, smeared against the cliff walls, as if clinging to it for protection against the wind, and hiding from the cold. This would be our final staging area before heading out into the endless northern ocean on this voyage of discovery.
The captain of this crew is a strange chap. He was selected by the Dark Lord Chaert to act as captain on this venture. The reason why isn't entirely clear. He's not a very accomplished captain, nor has he demonstrated any arcane abilities such as what Chaert commands. He is not of great stature, his eyes are not piercing, nor is he a great swordsman. And yet, and yet, he commands the crew with a skill and ability I have not seen before or since. He gives orders with precision, he demands respect and receives it, he is always present in moments of doubt and never interferes when the task at hand is clear. Perhaps the captain is to be credited with the success of this expedition, insofar it can be called a success at any rate.
When we finally deported from that narrow fjord, we had already been at sea for over 100 days, having travelled well over 7000 miles. We had braved sea monsters, storms, and bitter cold, and the forces of nature had plied us into a cladding both strong and unyielding. Little did we suspect that our greatest trials still lay ahead, and that even the strongest cladding can come apart.
Our course was set straight north. The mountains of Gutreal first seemed to grow in size as we increased our distance to the shore, with higher and higher peaks paradoxically becoming visible as the lower peaks shrank in the distance. Eventually, even the highest peaks dipped below the curved horizon, until it was black, boiling sea all around us. Winds were northerly, so we had to tack aggressively to make headway. The Chaert was nimble and never ceased to impress us, but the constant work was wearying on the crew.
The clouds hung lower and lower as we pressed on, the wind grew stronger, and the waves grew larger. With the heavy cloud cover, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between night and day. In the fourth day after departure, for a harrowing four hours, we sailed in a sea of coiling snakes. A crew-member cut his own throat at the sight. We threw his body into the sea, causing a frenzy, but none of the snakes made it on board.
Navigation with ordinary means was impossible. Even if we could tell time, there were no stars, moon, or sun with which to determine our heading, no landmarks to guide us. This explains my presence on this voyage: I'm a dowser. I can, with the help of my pendulum, determine the cardinal directions to within a few degrees. Without this ability, the expedition would be doomed. Perhaps that would have been for the better.
The following day, the seas became rougher still. Every other wave crested over the bow. The wind appeared to be trying to push us back. We pressed on. The deck became sticky and the water tasted metallic. When illuminated by the lantern, we discovered that we were sailing in a sea of blood. The water returned after several hours.
A great glowing eye stared up at us, a few meters below the surface. As we watched it pass by about 10 or 20 meters away on our port side, it blinked.
The seas increased in violence. The water was now opaque and black, with glowing silver froth. A great swarm of fanged jellyfish spilled up on deck, immediately killing four crew-members and maiming eight others. A minor scratch from their jagged fangs was sufficient to reduce the strongest of men to a whimpering child, some evil toxin gnawing at the wound. In one fell swoop, the crew was effectively reduced by half. The remaining crew fell in a panic, intending to turn back. I was among them! Even Jarlfrist joined our cause. But the captain, that damnable captain, he convinced us to persevere. I'll never know how he did it, but even as I contemplated lying about the pendulum, to turn us back to home and safety, I found myself pointing north, honest and true.
It wouldn't have mattered anyway. From the unplumbed depths ahead, arose abomination. Taller than the mountains of Gutreal, blacker than ink, it stood. Uncountable tentacles reached out, each one extending a thousand tentacles again, sweeping broadly through the air. The ship shook, as water crashed across the deck and the sails were torn from the rigging, and I realized I heard laughter. I saw great, ragged wings, as from a lizard, hanging limply in a momentary flash of lightning. The after-image was grim.
One tentacle reached the ship; it was just a thin one, about the width of a grown oak. As it crashed into the hull, its barbs cut into the wood as though it were soft butter. Finer tentacles grew out from vile orifices, and the crew who could still stand drew knives and hatchets and hacked futilely at the endless horror. The inevitable end could not be long in waiting!
Suddenly I felt the ship lurch under me, and I fell into the sea. It was bitterly cold, colder even than melting ice. Supernaturally cold, numbing my face and limbs before I even properly sensed it. I floated there, eyes closed in the absolute dark for what seemed a very long time, thankful that death would take me, to save me from this hell. Then I felt a breeze. Upon opening my eyes, I found myself on the back of a great white cloud, a twelve-banded rainbow; the Dragon Vayu, soaring above the dark clouds of the Great Northern Ocean, towards towering Gutreal. Turning my view to whence we came, I saw nothing of that great abomination, nor of the ship, nor of the crew. Only the dark clouds remained.
After mere hours, Vayu tipped such that I slid down his long rainbow tail and landed on a gently sloping pasture nearby a village close to the holy city of Ae. It's in Ae that I gained access to a monastery with vellum, quill, and this rather thin ink of vegetable origin, with which I am writing my notes. This is the first draft of the tale of an expedition to reach the far side of the Great Northern Ocean. I pray this is the last such expedition. The World Ocean is not meant for man.
Category:Story