In the Gloaming
Story Emits
Under the direction of Lady Skye Blackshore, Sparte Fatchforth has put together a team of explorers to see whether anything can be rebuilt on the island so horrifically devastated. Financed and provided with information and maps by Princess-Consort Alarissa Thrax, Baron Silas Whitehawk, and Lady Aislin Ashford of the Society of Explorers, the expedition sets sail. They number many - Lady Skye is watched over by Lord Archeron Tyde. Sparte is watched over by everyone else - Princess Reese Grayson, Prince Aiden Grayson, Calaudrin Estes, Dame Thena of the Knights of Solace. Seraph Ailith for the Faith, and Lady Aislin for the Society of Explorers in the stead of her late cousin, Killian Ashford.
What they find is the Seat of Blackshore, burned to the rock beneath it. It will be generations before this specific place could be rebuilt. But there is yet life on the island, regrowth happening on the rest of it beyond that five square miles of hideous devastation. And so they find a new place, and build a new dock. Seraph Ailith leads the dedication of a new shrine to the Pantheon so that even if Lady Skye does not choose to rebuild Blackshore will continue to be a place that honors the gods.
With scouting reports and exploration notes and surveys in hand, with the docks and a shrine established, with the expedition to the burned Seat of Blackshore hopefully bringing Lady Skye some comfort now they set sail for home. They sail back across calm seas with good winds, until the gloaming of the final night before they're due to make port. Then a sudden storm blows up, terrible in its ferocity. At once, the sailors are terrified - there was no warning! No creaking of once-broken bones, no red in the morning sky. What is this! To and fro the ship is tossed, and the creak of the mast is a nightmare sound. Will it break in the tempestuous winds and leave them stranded in the middle of the ocean?
And then the storm ends as abruptly as it started, the wind dying down to a gentle breeze. The sailors diligently check the rigging, the lines, the masts - everything is sturdy. They heave a sigh of relief and start heading into Arx, but in the morning when the expedition group gathers in preparation to disembark they realize to their horror that Aislin Ashford is nowhere to be found.