The Etched Pass Part 1 [One-Hour Story]
Today's entry for OHS was inspired by a prompt by FA: WyvernKnight. I'll be posting Part 2 to end the story tomorrow! Currently I have my status as "Confused" due to a patron choosing to withdraw their pledge from my page, but in looking back on it I don't think it's the most effective means of building this habit for myself to delay the release of content for you, so I'm looking at changing up that particular piece for OHS.
For details on the "OHS" system follow this link:One-Hour Story System Rules
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On a distant shore lived a woman who dreamed of fortune and fame. She was an explorer by trade, traveling to all manner of uncharted lands across the open seas. However, the woman was focused squarely in this pursuit, sparing little time for the pleasantries of life. She was scoffed at by other burly sailors, and time and time again enjoyed proving herself amply capable. She discovered from announcement of the king's royal guard that the king was looking to expand the reach of his navy, and was looking towards the Inli Islands to the south where vast stretches of valuable spices and other resources grew in ample abundance. Travel to the islands was treacherous, with stormy, choppy seas enveloping the area with many reefs and tall, dark spires of rock that made travel there difficult. Many a vessel that had forgone the circuitous route around the broadside of the mainland returned damaged or were simply lost to the amorphous grip of the sea.
The king offered any person who could devise a route of relative safety to the islands a place in the king's court as his navy's lead navigator. Their proof would be that of a purple flower that grew only on the islands, still bright and vibrant with fragrance of the islands about it. The flower was notoriously difficult to keep over time, and rarely survived the typical route back from there. The woman could not pass up the chance and ran immediately home to plot a course to the Inli Islands on her charts. For several days she studied the patterns of the sea and gathered knowledge from the people who were willing to divulge at least a scrap of a nugget of knowledge to her. Even with all that she learned, it seemed that The Etched Pass was the only possible way to achieve her goal.
The pass was notorious for its rocky outcroppings projecting up near the surface of the water that tore at the hulls of unwary sailor's boats. Navigating the waters felt kin to traversing a labyrinth at best and a death trap at worst. However, the woman was confident in her abilities and at first light the next day, she departed. Strangely, the skies grew cloudy and angry the closer to the pass she approached. She considered turning back, but that would only give room for someone else to swoop up the glory that was rightfully hers. Upon sighting the dark, pointed sentinels rising up within the water, she readied her blank chart as pounding winds began to buffet her small boat. She adjusted her sails to match the dance of the wind, and in between brief respites jotted down small marks on her chart as she narrowly avoid spire after spire. A drizzle of rain soon began to pepper her boat which built in minutes to a blinding torrent. The sudden deluge caught the explorer off guard, fearing she had misinterpreted the clouds somehow. As she neared the end of the pass, her chart was suddenly caught by an updraft, snagging on the ship's mast.
She clambered up as quickly as she could to reach the valuable parchment that held the rest of her future with it, but just as she closed her hand around it, the ship wailed with a sickening crack as it scraped against an unnoticed pillar, splitting wide open the ship's underbelly. The boat leaned heavily port-side then overcompensated with the rushing push of the water filling it until it flung over with a mighty heave, sending the explorer tumbling through the air and landing into the churning water.
The explorer only briefly saw a flash of white darting between the rocks before her head banged hard against one of the jagged spires and all went dark.