The day was a perfect day for flying. The winds blew just enough to give a breeze, yet nothing more. Hysh proved gentle high above, and the smell of the salty ocean far below invigorated working arms and legs. Not enough clouds to cover the The Hidden Reserve (or the Thindrongol) as it stalked its prey, but it mattered little this high above them anyway.
“Land ahead!”
Not that surprising, with these winds, Okbryn Whisperport thought to himself as he looked down on the Bitingsea – at the two forces that hammered against each other. To oblivion at the look of it. They couldn’t make out specific flags, but it was clear their prey, followers of Targug the Cleaver had met a chaotic force that, most likely, owed allegiance to Blackmaw.
“Captain! Land to the north!”
“Aye, Skyf. I heard ye the first time!”
They’d followed the small fleet of ogors from Lynx’s Crescent expecting to attack from above when they were sufficiently out in the sea, where rescue was at it’s least likely. But another enemy had found them instead, and now both pirate parties found joy in death while the Duardin waited for the shots to die down. And the treasure to become available with minimal effort…
His first mate sidled up behind him, anxious.
“All preparations have been, Captain!”
“Well done. We’ll wait for them to kill each other, but it’s always good to be ready for anything.”
“And of the island?”
Whisperport looked up from his musing at his first mate, and then out into the oceans “the island…?”
“Aye, sir, the one Skyf sees…?”
It was then that Bjikki Engilsdottir, the ship’s aetheric navigator, came on deck – her eyes wide in fear. The navigator’s zephyrscope was still spinning and the rest of her gear running at full steam, when she reached her captain.
“Sir,” she said, catching her breath, “that’s no island… something, something is happening. It’s time we left. Now.”
The structure in front of Varon was a truly large arcane construction – built from salvaged parts from the remains of an ancient civilization that had lived here. Recently, some significant additions had been made, a massive seraphon artefact was now attached above the old machinery, allowing huge sections of the structure to float – most likely to be able to move more nimbly, and perform more efficiently. Lines of Slag-haulers were moving throughout the area. Massive pens of creatures were down there as well, with all manner of creatures – all of which were large though.
“By his blood… Irox, this is something different.”
“Most certainly. But what is it, exactly?”
“An extractor,” a voice said to their side. Larissa had obviously looked up from her furious writing long enough to notice the shift in the group. “You can see them, there,” she said, pointing down to a section of the machinery where individuals lined up in neat rows, “they’re collecting what’s being extracted in whatever they have in their hands.”
Varon squinted down into the valley but for his life he couldn’t even make out the individuals well enough – let alone work out that they were holding anything.
“And what about those?” he asked, pointing to two giant vessels that sat nearby the primary machinery.
“I cannot be sure,” Larissa replied, “but I could hazard a guess?”
She pointed down to the huge creatures held up in the pens.
“If the small vials are for those creatures, then those,” she said, while eying the mega-gargant-sized containers, “are for something of an entirely different ilk…”
“Impossible,” Irox exclaimed, “what could they possibly expect to tame that needs such a huge amount of amber blood…?”
The Bloodsunderer rode through the waves of flotsam. The town swirled and crashed against itself below them beneath the brine, along with those ships of his fleet that had been docked in the area. Khrovar’s ship wasn’t the only one fleeing the destruction, towards the horizon he could see dozens of other vessels – all moving further into the Bitingsea as fast as they could.
It had all started very quickly, the shore buckling and shifting – most had assumed that another earthquake had hit nearby. But it hadn’t stopped. The beaches had collapsed, harbours had been pulled into the drink, and the shore began to eat the sea. Evidently, after the initial shock of the crust clawing up the ocean, an equilibrium of sorts had been reached – with the shore still moving but the coast no longer collapsing further.
The Bloodsunderer had managed to stay clear of much of the destruction due to the quick thinking of her captain, as well as a good amount of luck. They hadn’t been docked, and Blackmaw had been awake and prepping the crew for departure when the initial shockwaves had happened. Now they were simply part of an ever-increasing flotilla of ships, owing allegiance to all factions, that sailed towards the Bitingsea, and hopefully, towards some level of safety.
“They’ve taken so much,” Larissa writes in her notebook, “and if this amber blood is supposed to tame, or calm, or subdue? Well, it only spells doom for us – for what has been taken here as been kept so deep for so long… who would even remember what Rondhol was like before this blood soothed its mighty anger? What happens when the chains are removed from an entire continent?”
“The land has awoken,” Khrovar muttered to himself, “this changes everything…”
“We will not flee from this,” cries Whisperport above the roaring wind that flies past them as they move as fast as their frigate can go, “we will work until we collapse! We will save all who we’re able to save! We fly into the jaws of this monster, and we will be victorious!”
