Ch.17

(Rokgar POV)

Over the centuries my Clan has taken over most of the old places the humans once resided and the surrounding islands south of our capital. Which we have begun calling the Golden City. Though a century ago we came across a group of these savage humans with gray skin that almost looked like scales from a distance. We at first tried to help them, but they attacked us. Once we lost a few clan members to them, I decided these were no longer humans and our God would not be upset if we killed them. We realized these humans were affected by a disease, which thankfully we could easily cure with magic if one of us caught it.

Now the Grey Ones, which we have begun calling them, avoid our lands since we kill them on sight. Plus the magic pillars we have placed across the islands keep them away from us, along with alerting us should anything enter our domain. A heavy magical fog covers our lands and sea, obscuring anyone who is not part of our clan. I have noticed that the magic in this world has grown slightly weaker, but not enough to notice too much. That means two things, first most of the populace of this world has forgotten how to use magic so it is slowly disappearing. Like muscle, magic must be used or it will forever be lost.

Second, certain beings may be siphoning the magic away from the world for a ritual or their own personal gain. Though our lands have remained magical due to our God forcing his own magic into the land to bring it back to life. Like any other day, I woke up and spoke with the magic users of our clan to see the current issues or needs we are facing. The magic users of our clan are much smaller in size than your new average kobold, similar to what we used to look like, but they all hold much more magic inside them.

"My King! We received an alert that another ship has entered our domain. How should we handle this?" a Skink, which is the name for our magic casters, says to me interrupting my current meeting with the elder Skinks.

Our God told us to not kill any surviving humans, but the ones who came to explore our lands all died from the rocky sea and storms surrounding our islands. Even the sea creatures living near our islands have increased in size as giant sharks and other sea creatures roam around the islands. Most of these ships sink after entering our lands from the rough sea or the monsters residing inside them. Though I have given the order to not harm any humans that somehow survive that journey and make it to our mainland. So far none have, so I figure it will be the same as any other ship that came since the New Age.

"Same as always watch them from afar. Should they somehow make it to our mainland, send a hunting party to bring them to me. From there we can see if it should be time to awaken our God," I say to him and he nods his head running off to relay the orders. I turn back to the elder Skinks to continue our meeting.

______________________________________________________________________

(Gerion Lannister POV)

After months of sailing the sea and stopping at several ports on the way to Old Valyria, we finally arrived at the 'Smoking Sea'. Which is the term all sailors and people have begun calling the heavily fogged sea that surrounds the islands of Valyria and several hundreds of miles of open sea between them. The whole crew grew silent as the Captain and I share one last look before he shouts the order to move forward into the Smoking Sea.

The journey was a not terribly boring one and I grew to enjoy the overall company of men on this trip with me. But the jovial atmosphere quickly disappeared as we entered the fog. Nothing but the sounds of the ships creaking and water splashing were heard as we entered the fog. The whole crew was on edge and on the lookout for anything as we all could barely see more than twenty feet from the edge of the ship. There were stories about what was believed to be inside the Smoking Sea, but nothing of real answers as no survivors came out once they entered it.

After a very tense ten minutes of silence, I could feel my heart beating in my ears as the stress was increasing every second we spent inside the fog. A shout was heard from the crow's nest saying a huge mass was ahead of us on our starboard side. The captain tried to look through his 'Far-eye' (their term for a spyglass) for this object. Though he could not see anything until we almost hit it making the helmsman quickly move us out of the way.

"All Hands on deck!! Move your fucking asses! Batton the sails! I want us to move with the current! From now on everyone is on the lookout for more of these rocks! I don't want to capsize, do you?!" the Captain quickly shouts as the whole crew rushes into action hearing him and the helmsman saved us just in time from hitting the giant spike of a rock sticking out of the water.

The silence took over once more with everyone now on the deck of the ship and even more tense from the almost capsize. Our ship slowed down as we now moved through the fog even slower almost at a craw. After an hour of maneuvering through these jutted rocks, we all of a sudden felt the ship rock back and forth like we hit something below us. The hit made some men fall to the floor of the deck, but many of us, myself included, were able to grab a hold of the rails to steady ourselves.

"What the fuck did we just hit?! Someone go check below to make sure we aren't leaking!" the Captain yells more orders as a handful of men rush back below to check. The others look around us to see what we may have hit.

As we all looked around, we found nothing. Until I thought I saw movement below the water, but with the fog and darkness of the water which seemed almost black in color. I could not tell if I actually saw something or if my eyes were playing tricks with me.

"Captain! There may be something below us…" I say turning to the man and pointing below where I thought something moved and he looked. We saw nothing now and we both shared a nervous look with one another.

"Maybe–" I start to say.

"Captain no holes below!" one of the crew members shouts after they finished checking below.

"Good! Then we keep moving!" the Captain says turning his attention back to the crew and surroundings. Though I felt very nervous in the pit of my stomach like something bad was going to happen very soon.

'By the Mother, keep us safe,' I say a silent prayer to the Mother in hopes she watches over us and keeps us safe.

With another tense half an hour of time, before anyone can react or move. The ship gets launched into the air and torn in half by something. All I remember is being launched into the air and then falling into the sea below. I was so disoriented, that I could not tell what was up or what was down. Plus with the blackness of this water, it was almost impossible to tell. I decided to pick what I thought was up and prayed to the Mother for her guidance.

As the air in my lungs began to disappear and my throat felt it was on fire, I breached the sea taking in gasps of air. Though I quickly looked around to see the once large ship now splintered into thousands of pieces that floated around. With dozens of dead sailors floating in the water and pieces of the boat floating all around. My survival instincts took over and the adrenaline pumped inside me. This allowed me to snap out of my daze seeing this destruction, to grab a large chunk of wood nearby from the ship. I climbed on top of the wood and laid down breathing hard.

Then I heard the sound of the something below move through the water again this time eating all the dead or dying sailors nearby. It was like not like anything I've seen before, this creature was one from a nightmare or child's story. It must have been at least 40ft (12M) long while looking like an eel and an octopus had a child together. Its underbelly was orange-pink, while its topside was sea-green. A little bit back from the head were four long tentacles, two sprouting from across each other on the top, and two more of the same on the underbelly. Its head was roughly triangular-shaped, with a spherical, somewhat beak-like nose. Above the nose were its three eyes, each one set atop the other. Tendrils and a few shorter tentacles dangled from the bottom of the head. Four blue-black slime-secreting orifices lined the bottom of its body.

(AN: This is a creature from DND, let's see who can guess it right first.)

Thankfully it was preoccupied with eating the sailors, as I tried my best to use another piece of wood to paddle myself away. With each tense stroke of my makeshift paddle and the sounds of death behind me, I felt my heart about to explode from my chest from the stress. Though after what felt like hours of paddling from the sheer stress, I managed to escape a few hundred feet from the now-sunk ship. Feeling even the littlest sense of safety I dropped the paddle on the small wooden raft I was sitting on. I then lay down and cried as the realization of my current situation took hold of me.

All alone, in the world's most deadly sea, which now I understand is for good reason. The extremely high possibility I will never see my daughter again, to see her grow into a young woman or be there for her on her wedding day. That I will never see anyone I love again, that I will die on this open water or be eaten by that monster roaming the sea. After what was maybe an hour of crying, I sat up and steeled myself. I could not tell which direction was which, what time it was, or where I was, as all around me was fog and black water. So picking a random direction I began paddling.

'I will not die! I will live! I will see Joy again!' I say to myself forcing myself to have hope that one day I will see my daughter and family again.

Eventually, I felt the physical exhaustion take hold of me, knowing that my survival depended on my ability to reach land I took a quick nap to regain some lost energy. I woke up still unsure of anything about my current whereabouts while paddling in the same direction I chose earlier. From my best guess, I was lost at sea for almost three days now, with my dehydration reaching its limit. I almost drank the seawater in desperation, but every man who sails knows that is a death sentence.

Then just as I was starting to lose hope about finding land, I saw a very large black spot in the distance. Much like the rocks we avoided earlier, hope filled me as I paddled quicker toward it. After another couple of hours of paddling the fog faded, showing a huge lush jungle island and what I can only assume is the lost city of Valyria. It was in a terrible state of ruin as one would expect, but either way, I was just happy to have found land.

Once I reached the now broken-apart dock of the old city I scrambled to the shore and fell to my knees crying in joy at my survival of the Smoking Sea. I gave a quick prayer of thanks to the seven, before struggling to stand and search for water and food to remain alive.