A man stands abreast to the greyish shoreline upon a rocky island. He lets out a deep moan that smells of whisky from behind his unkempt pepper-salt beard and lifts his spyglass to a baggy eye. Seabirds call in the distance, swooping over one another in play. The air smells of salt and diesel, and is rife with moisture which forms a heavy fog. In the distance, the man sees a spiralling beacon of light. Behind him, the island's lone oak tree groans slightly in the wind and crackles with ozone.
He licks his filthy teeth and steps onto a waiting piece of mechanical flotsam, a large chunk of engine with barnacles along its pistons. He works his way through hulls claimed by verdigris, past corpses impaled upon the brackish spikes, past ship's …show more content…
A red rusted old flintlock rifle rests upon an old pelt sack, from which a few black iron kettle bombs unceremoniously loll out. Beside these, a pack of survivalists gear, and a more interesting object, an old scroll capsule, dinted and aged yet perfectly sealed. Slinging the sacks of black powder bombs and tinned lime water over his back, he reveals a small clam knife from his belt pouch and whittles it along the cases seal. He flicks the knife up and down a few times, wiggling it between the cracks, trying to shell his …show more content…
One of them pegs him in the shoulder, and he lets out a hoarse gasp whilst barely hanging tight to his attachment. He flies on ever faster towards the point of landing, and so unhooks himself to fall into the sea and avoid a deadly crash. Oily water forces itself up his nose and he struggles to right himself, gasping to the surface and dog-paddling quickly through the foamy waves, to the island with the oak tree.
He slumps up against the black, crackling plant and slides the capsule from out of his pocket. Victim, he notices, to a wayward shot, the capsule pops open without a fuss. Out he slides a moist scroll of thick parchment, branded with countless speckles of ink. Holding the document in his palm feels almost completely encompassing, like a lighthouse in the middle stormy ocean. It reads as