Akaal yrFahris

**Akaal yrFahris (relifica for *Elder Ocean*), often also called asRaagan Akaal (*Void's ocean*)** is an area deep within Arsgri, about at the same depth as the Fog's Edge and Thornsbridge, close enough to the Observer to be forever changed by its influence. It is currently a complex cave system partially filled with freshwater that extends to an expansive lake-like area bordering the Obsidian Wastes. The only natural life forms living in the lake are the Voidfish, every other life form was artificially introduced.

The oldest settlement on the coast of Akaal yrFahris is Xraza Fah'eslar (Lantern town), the only other settlements being Igistozaen and the Cave Entrance (including the many smaller cave dwellings). The Giant fish shrine is the oldest creaturemade structure.

## History

The first recorded mention of the Elder Ocean, then called asRhaagan Akaal (using the old form of the word Raagan), was found engraved in the Giant fish shrine and tied to the rising of the influence of the Observer cult of fish, placed well before the first Vitravnen's reign.

Until the age of the New Vitravnen, most records describe the ocean as a dangerous but not actively aggresive place with potential for exploration for the bravest of individuals. The ocean is thought to originally flow directly to the Void.

During New Vitravnen's reign, the Ocean was cut-off from the Observer and most of it was turned into a malicious and complex cave system serving as a trap for those who would dare try to get to the Void, supposedly as a safety measure. This eventually led to the Void influence dissipating from the water, turning the previously dangerous and still mirror-like sea into sailable waters.

## Characteristics

The water in the ocean can support various species of hardy small fish (70% of the Ocean's current stock is made out of various forms of the Arschei katkasa) and other freshwater creatures, but all introduced species have to artificially fed, as the water is poisonous to most plantlife, and none of them stray far away from the coast. Fishing is only done as a matter of survival, recreational fishing remains a fairly rare occurence.

The water from the Elder Ocean is undrinkable unless manually and chemically filtered, and its adverse effects are numerous, including blindness, loss of consciousness, disconnect from awareness and death.

Many maps of the cave system of Elden Ocean have been created after exploration of the most dangerous and mysterious places in Arsgri exploded in the post-Azharrraja boom. The ocean rarely changes its shapes via shifting the locations of some of the caves; most often, corrections to the existing maps need to be made because of creature-caused, as well as spontaneous, cave collapses. There exist around 200 000 named caves, the largest being a*sFah'reyavista* (Fish village) comparable in volume to the planet Venus, and the longest being the tunnel *Vezerel des Chile* (Memory of Chile) connecting the caves *Os* and *Pocoloco* and measuring about 157 300 000 000 m.

#### Dira (The Drop)

A mysterious circular and seemingly bottomless pit found during a search of the deepest point of Akaal yrFahris. It resides in the center of the Great Pot cave (well beyond the point where submarines are required), and starts as a perfectly circular hole 204 meters in radius, its rocky sides dropping down at a 90 degree angle with a mild current sucking water out of the cave. The first exploration team only reached around the -1400 meter mark before aborting the mission due to intensely high, skyrocketing pressures and a difficulty of ascending back out.
Further explorations revealed The Drop to eventually abandon its 90 degree cliffsides for a gradually increasing radius, eventually becoming wide enough that the walls are difficult if not impossible to be found again once abandoned. The estimated width at the deepest point where walls were still reached was calculated at a 44.3 km distance from the center. At that point, the slope of the walls seemed to reach 72 degrees.

The intense pressure, unceasing current and a strange behaviour of matter similar to gravity make missions incredibly dangerous and returns nigh-impossible. Submarines cannot have windows and need to be navigated without sight. Death in the Drop does not spawn the dead in any other part of Arsgri than the Drop, most often exactly at where they died, meaning that escape from the Drop through death is impossible; a case entirely unique to the Drop and all black holes, leading to prevailing hypotheses of the Drop being the only surviving passage into the Void. These hypotheses have, however, been debunked more than once due to the simple fact that the Drop does not conform to any records of Void passages, not even witness accounts from creatures which had hands-on experience with all types of past roads to the Void. Also notable is the fact that the behaviour previously attributed to gravity cannot be so for the force of gravity placed upon any object in the Void does not have a center and seems to aim outwards, often in the same (downwards) direction the object itself and the current is moving. The Drop thus remains an unsolved mystery in need of further exploration.

The discovery of The Drop quickly led to the creation of the ANAD (*Abarva Naasevor asAkaalyrFahris Dira*, the Elder Ocean Drop Exploration program) which almost exclusively organizes no-return submarine missions under the program *Laytif* (firefly) and remote-controlled missions under the program *Tzev* (needle). Returning crews (initially under the program *Fah'chetadnota*, Abysscatchers) were abandoned after a ruling decision was made by the rotating crews themselves following the discovery of the limit of no-return at -11245 m. Citing the inability to let go of the need to explore the depth of The Drop and find its end at any cost, the depth limit and the unreliability and incompleteness of the data from the machines (given the eventual and often mysterious failure of the *Tzev* vehicles), the returning missions were largely abandoned in favor of the new *Laytif* program. Eleven crews of the original fifteen in the previous *Abysscatchers* program transferred to the no-return plan. The first submarine to leave Xraza Fah'eslar on this suicide mission was the three-man Aura-42B deepwater semimanual submarine registered as *Maya*.

The *Laytif* program only accepts submarines of 4-20 members (exceptions being *Maya* and another submarine from the original fifteen crews, *Alantois,* both having a crew of three), size of under 200 meters in length due to navigation issues around the deepwater technology placed at the Drop's entry, and further specific technological and psychological characteristics. The current number of active crews stands at 18, the total number being 20, as two crews (the four-manned *Konia* and thirteen-manned *Irielatera*) have been destroyed by hostile voidfish in the case of the former and critical reactor failure in the latter.

## Inhabitants

The Ocean's only native inhabitants are the largely mysterious Voidfish, whose numbers have greatly decreased after the Sealing, but some exemplars can still be seen swimming around the deeper parts of the water and the caves, especially in remote corners away from the signs of civilization. Due to their presence and past records of large numbers, Akaal yrFahris is seen as the birthplace of the Observer cult of fish. The Akaal yrFahris Voidfish are anatomically and morphologically identical to the Voidfish present in the Dead World and its Dead Lake.

Most of the current inhabitants reside in scientific outposts (of which there are roughly 132) or freelance exploration camps. The largest city of this area is still Xraza Fah'eslar on the coast, with all the outposts relying on it for supplies. This is not likely to improve, as mining efforts have largely failed (often resulting in cave collapses) or returned unsatisfactory results, even if limited food production in a controlled and closed environment is possible.