The 9th Emergence

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. But the reality flux over the ridge has an ‘irregular’ stability and what it brings with it is luck of the draw! All that’s know is whatever happens there, the creatures that spawn are here to stay. They filter over the mountainous crest of the North Valley, most of them confused and erratic, forcing the villages of the Island to take the brunt of whatever emerges.

Nine years ago, before the first Emergence, the eight villages of Karatok Island were bustling trade locations within miles of or along every shoreline. Rich with visitors and with easy access to distant lands.

Then, in the light of the most unusual lunar eclipse, the ground quaked and the North valley illuminated the skies with a violet hue. The people of Karatok didn’t know it then, but this was the dawn of the first emergence. With it an eruption of sand and silt filled the skies and spilled out from the Valley and down the mountains chasing the natures tree lines to the seas. It consumed most of the forests and engulfed every shore. Four villages were lost in the spill without any chance of survivors, leaving the remaining villages divided, severing their access to the sea, causing instant panic and devastation of their lands. But more than that, the sands brought with them a hoard of creatures, creatures from a distant world that haunt even the bravest souls’ nightmares. The people came to call them Ozomashi. They flow through the twenty-foot-high sand walls that devoured most of the woodlands and punish anyone who veers too close.

Assuming all islanders had perished in the unexplainable disaster, The rest of the world labelled Karatok as a ‘Black Zone’ and no one attempted the voyage again leaving the four surviving villages of the island permanently cut off from the world and split from each other, forced to depend on themselves for sustenance and survival.

LIMA

With the ninth emergence only a week away the villages are firmly into preparation season and doubling down on their individual efforts to help the collective. In the village of Lima, the most Northern Village, and there for the closest to the Emergence Valley, a young boy bursts through the door of his modest log home, fear plastered on his face.

“I sawed it, I sawed it!” He screams at his father. His father looks with a raised eyebrow at boy. He puts his witling tool and an unfinished handle down on the table amongst the curlings of shaved wood. He scrapes the chair away from the table as he stands to approaches the child.

“You saw what lad?” He takes a knee to get to the boy’s height and places his hands on his shoulders to comfort him. The boy looks at his fathers’ hands as he always does, taking note of the gashes and scars from many mistakes made and lessons learned in his work before looking back.

“Ozomashi!”

The man smiles for a moment thinking the comment is spoken in jest, till the recognition of fear in his sons’ eyes registers. Not a boy to play pranks he acknowledges his son’s sincerity and fear.

The father’s attention is suddenly drawn to a commotion outside his door. He looks over his sons’ head to see crowds forming at the eastern sand wall.

“No one alive has ever seen one fully!” He hears someone say as they make their way to join the crowd.

“I wonder if the tales of its million tentacles are true!” Another is heard saying.

The man takes to his feet. “Jacob, there is some soup in the bowl for you there, get it down you before it gets too cold.”

Jacob’s belly grumbles and he scuttles to the table as instructed. Now distracted, the father goes to their bedside and draws a large chest from under it. He unlocks it with a key held by a chain around his neck. The key seemingly produces a light as it enters the keyhole and unlocks the chest. He draws open the chest to reveal a brown belt with a large silver buckle. Attached to the belt is a swords scabbard. Which would easily house a blade more than double the width of an average sword. Atop the scabbard lies a metal hilt and a beautifully calved wooden handle shaped like a roman numeral II.

He throws the belt over his broad shoulder and fastens the buckle on his chest. He then pulls his loose shirt down, so it doesn’t gather, brushes himself off and takes a deep breath before walking towards the door.

“Jacob!” He says firmly. “Please stay inside!”

“Ok Papa!” The boy replies while slurping another spoon full, chin dripping with soup.

He turns back to the door, steps outside and begins to walk towards the crowds. His eyes catch the tail end of an overhead dragon before it flies out of sight as he scans the village with awe today like every day taking steps off his small porch. He appreciates and notices the undeniable beauty of the village as it has come to be the last nine years.

It can’t be denied that the islands Villages look more ‘magical’ than ever, especially Lima with the warm glow emitted from the beautiful and friendly Chohito that arrived three years ago, and the addition of the floral and fruit producing Hanabira’s who’s arrival two years ago created a faction of optimists in the Southern village of Saiyad that create rituals to the annual emergence to please the lunar ‘gods’! Most of these cohabiting creatures decide to house in Lima as it is always the first village they encounter after an emergence. These two species have been most useful to the locals for co survival and communication between the other villages, but ‘magical creatures’ come with the cost of the not so magical monsters that bracket their arrival!

“Jobe” A gruff voice calls. Jobe Spins his head to the left. “So you heard!” He is met by an older man with a greying beard limping towards him on a beautifully calved wooden crutch.

“Mark!” He acknowledges. “In a way, Jacob came in terrified, so I’m gonna see if I can help with anything! Go watch him I’ll handle this!” He waves off Mark and continues to walk towards the crowd leaving the old man to struggle up the steps of his porch.

Jobe moves people aside and makes the crowd part to make it to the front. The crowd ended a sensible distance from the sand wall, and on the floor lay a twenty-foot monster. A tree of tendrils sprouted from its mouth still writhing and the rest of its flat body lay still bearing fur covered spines that scatter over its armoured skin.

“Is it alive?” A voice asks from the crowd.

A brash teen takes a step towards the body with a machete. “Even if its not it will be now!” As he brandishes the blade above his head a tendril darts towards him. Jobe notices the movement before it starts, inches away from the boy’s heart the tendril end drops to the floor. The boy looks down the sheathed blade covered in black blood that saved his life and follows it to the hilt to find Jobe wielding it. Another tendril darts towards Jobe’s back, he grasps the second handle of his blade and with a key like glow the blade splits in two. He turns and swipes at the second tendril, dismembering it from the Ozomashi’s mouth. He then lunges towards the creature and thrusts his blades through its body covering himself head to toe in its blood.

He turns to the boy and the crowd with the tar like bile dripping down his face. “It wasn’t dead, but it is now!” He begins to walk through the crowd, parting it once more. He suddenly stops in his tracks. “That Ozomashi, was a youngling! Its mother will look for it, so stay at least fifty feet away from the walls!”

He continues on his path till he reaches his home. He walks through his doorway grabbing a towel of a hook in the kitchen area and wipes his face.

“Papa, you’s mucky!” Jacob says as he jumps off Mark’s lap. “Isn’t he Gramps!”

Mark looks a Jobe with a smirk. “No more than he deserves, little man!”

Jobe replies with a disgruntled noise, leans against his kitchen counter and points at Mark. “You ready for the double threat this year?”

“Of course, I am, I ain’t no novice!” He adjusts his straw hat and picks up his crutch as Jacob runs to his side to help him to his feet. “The whole of Lima knows. I just hope those soft ass Saiyad villagers are prepared; they don’t have the likes of you to help them!”

SAIYAD

South of the island, the ever-optimistic people of Saiyad are preparing a large feast and practicing ritualist dances and song. Every year Saiyad prepares for the lunar convergence in very different ways! These peoples celebrate with ceremony hoping the energy of the moon god can be interluded with the positive vibrations of their song and dance.

The Shamans of the village prepare an energetic sacrifice and pray to the four corners of existence for a bountiful emergence. Although many in Saiyad follow this ritualistic thought pattern, there are a few pessimists amongst them that prepare for war. These are the few that keep the many alive the years when the emergence ‘bestows’ the island a bad hand.

For nine years the Aruma of Saiyed have had to bear arms to protect their loved ones, five of those occasions’ blades were brandished and lives were lost.

A woman sits in the far corner of a logged cabin as people rush around serving mead and elixirs in a very busy and festively harmonious bar. Unable to stand straight she stumbles to the bar edge to top her Kuksa. The Kuksa, much like the woman waiting for its fill, is a vessel that once held celebratory wine as a symbolic object of a moment of happiness. The cup now only a container of bitter meads and coarse memories of an Emergence many years past. The barmaid takes the kuksa without a word spoken and turns to the bar back to grab a jug of elixir from the highest shelf.

“Alright luv!” A man starts as mead dribbles down his oily beard. Her dark hair continues to mask her face as she stares at the bar counter unfazed, her mind in a different world to the one her body occupies.

“Leave her be Udre!” His younger and much wiser friend urges while lending a hand to his shoulder.

“Fuck of Knit!” He snarls pulling his shoulder away. “I’ve been meanin’ to ask you for a dance for years now, you up for it?”

The woman ignores the advances as the bar maid aproaches. “You Okay over here Tornu?” She asks handing her the full kuksa back.

“Tornu is it, hey Tornu, you fuckin’ deaf?” He bitterly spits as he grabs her arm. Upon contact Tornus gaze darts to the corner of her eyes, instantly locking on Udre’s. She turns to look him in the eyes, one drunk to another.

“You would like a dance would you, Udre, was it?” She seductively gestures as she twists his beard around her fingers. Udre smirks to his crowd of friends before Tornu yanks at his beard and his jaw is drawn towards the bar top. The impact sends teeth airborne and blood from his jaw and chin drip onto the stone floor. With eyes in the back of his head he collapses in a heap joining the blood from his face. The music draws flat to a stop as the population of the bar halt their conversations and turn to look at the result of his advance. “Nice to meet you Tornu!” Knit stutters as he and another friend cautiously gather Udre!

She brushes strands of hair behind her ear before turning and downing the contents of her kuksa. “I’m fine babe, another please!” She urges, smiling sweetly as she hands it back to be refilled.

“Ain’t you the lil’ tuff nut of Saiyad!” A voice is heard through the silence. “Who else wants to lose their teeth!” She confidently slurs as she spins on her heels. She is met by an old man standing in the doorway of the bar. His kind eyes are shadowed by a straw hat and nested over a greying beard as the man hobbles in on his beautifully crafted crutch.

Her eyes crease as she greets the old man with her first smile in days. “Hello Mark!” She calmly greets.