About Atropa Glacialis

"Have you ever heard the voice of God?"

After the cataclysm event known only as the Nexus, the face of the world was changed forever. The laws of physics have become optional parameters, the flatists are apparently right, and logic has left the chat.

Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, a certain archipelago appeared. According to some, it has been there since the dawn of time while for others, it was not there 5 years ago. All agree, however, that its antiquity is only one of the smallest mysteries surrounding this place.

To the north of this famous archipelago lies a certain icy country. A veritable wasteland filled with creatures hostile to all life, including their own. One might well wonder what human beings with all their mental faculties do there and yet, defying all logic, thousands of explorers went there every year. The reason? A rumor, some shady story. Someone would have found gold there, black gold hidden under thick layers of ice. A veritable sea, as they were told. It was said that there were so many of them that the ice there was black. It was also said that whoever had found this place had come back richer in self-destructive ideas than in drachmas. They told, they told, but they didn't see. The land remained a hostile place, more dangerous than rewarding, except that he gave a very brutal lecture on the effects of hypothermia.

But, it was Arca.

An unverified rumor? An expedition of which only oral traces remain? Frozen oil? How many believed in it? That's what it was like in Arca - all it took was enough people to believe in it and the legend had become true. It was enough for people to believe in it enough to launch expeditions in which they often lost their minds if not their lives. Madness? Maybe. But remember, this was Arca. Logic doesn't apply here. Moreover, man's greed has always impelled him to commit acts that go beyond common sense. Oh, of course, man is not defined by his desire to always have more than he has. Greed is often blamed, poor it, while a simpler and more visceral feeling is often the cause of madness. Yes, it's boredom in all its forms.

Henry Windshire was a profoundly happy man and like all happy men, he eventually grew tired of the everyday. A loving woman with whom he was less annoyed than with another, which is ideal for a couple. A bit of a demanding job, but nothing he couldn't take without a couple of complaints on Sunday nights. Children who were doing well at school were sometimes adorable enough for him to wonder if they were his, and had not yet committed stupid things big enough for him to justify his very, very, very slight desire to disinherit them. Drama? There were. Some arguments, some deceptions, the realization that he was getting older when he saw that he couldn't take an interest in some of these children's hobbies. Nothing too fancy.

He didn't have a life without needs, but nothing he couldn't put off - a decade or so for this new car, for example. However, everything changed with the appearance of Arca; Or did everything change when he realized that Arca had always been there? Who knows. Still, he discovered that he had the soul of an adventurer. He told his wife of his desire to move to the strange archipelago with her and her children.

"You can see that I don't get paid enough here. I'll probably get the promotion I'm aiming for when I'm just an old man," he said. "But look, if we go to this island and find this oil, we'll be rich! I could finally give you and the children everything I've ever wanted to give you."

A tempting offer, but any adult – or anyone with common sense to be honest – would refuse to leave the comfort of their life for such a perilous adventure. One of the benefits of greed – who knows how many people have been saved by aversion to loss and fear of change?

"For exploration, I don't know. This is not possible with children. But if we can find a steady job on that side, I'll be happy to follow you."

However, there are other fears in the life of an adult – or anyone with common sense to be honest – one of them being that of abandonment. Until now Jessica Windshire, Jessie to those who knew her in high school, turned a blind eye to her husband's infidelities. She'd known him since middle school, not necessarily the most remarkable boy of the lot, often forgotten in reality, but present. It was this presence that had seduced the impregnable fortress Jessy as she was known. A classic story, worthy of a bad teen movie, but whenever she thought about it, it seemed like something out of a fairy tale.

However, she eventually discovered his penchant for adventure or exploration. Oh, he was relatively respectful compared to others; he had the decency to explore only distant lands. It might well be called indolence, but she understood that a man could not eat bread every day. If she didn't gut him or imitate him, she could at least take note of his respect.

Except, recently, he seemed to have grown weary of faraway lands. Or was that he had come to find it painful to have to deploy such logistics to satisfy his need for novelty? Surely their neighbor must have known – young and beautiful that she was. A danger to the old continent that was this woman with the long features of a former beautiful girl. Mrs. Windshire saw no way out of her predicament—no peaceful one, at least—and so it was then that her husband proposed that she travel to these faraway lands. A godsend, a miracle even. Isolated away from that flirtatious neighbor in a place where they could make up for it.

And so the Windshire family set off on a new adventure in the lands of Arca. Their children, teenagers old enough to agree with nothing but not old enough to act on their own, had to follow them reluctantly. Unsurprisingly, they were the ones who acclimatized to Arca the fastest – the island was like a fantasy world that had been lost in reality. Their parents soon followed, and when life in Arca seemed natural to them, Mr. Windshire revived his idea of exploring the icy North.

At first, Mrs. Windshire was against it, but her children seemed to be excited by the idea, especially as her husband's plan became more and more concrete. It was no longer a question of an uncertain quest, its stages, means and objectives were becoming clearer. She always nodded her head, already very happy that her husband had returned to her and wanting nothing else, yet she sometimes found herself imagining an adventure in these isolated lands. Finding the famous treasure and returning triumphant. Her name becoming associated with one of the greatest recent discoveries and coming out of the shadows into which her marriage had plunged her.

She wasn't saying no anymore. She had discovered the soul of an adventurer within herself. Besides, she was already capable, without really understanding how, of standing up to creatures that were only a nightmare in the eyes of the old her. The impregnable fortress had been reborn and its nickname had taken on a whole new meaning.

And so, two years after their arrival in Arca, the Windshire family made their way to the icy lands that had come to be known as Atropa Glacialis. Together with their fellow travelers, they had probably the greatest adventure of their lives; the kind of story that can easily be embellished later to make it seem more epic than it really was. Well, as long as there was someone left to tell it.