The Glass Souls Sea

There are other names for TCOSA's southern ocean, but the Sea of Glass Souls is the one that is most frequently mentioned in bars and along the docks.

Ships have disappeared on their seas for centuries--not in fire or storm, but in quiet. Crews disappear as if the waters have opened their mouths and swallowed them whole, even though the weather is calm, the heavens are brilliant, and the stars are bright. Every deck is vacant, the sails are unharmed, and the ropes are neatly tied when the tide spits their ships back onto the shore. No body is ever found.

The first people to notice were fishermen. The sea seems to shimmer on nights when the moon is low and fat, now with light but with shapes--pale, swaying people that float just above the surface. Although they make no sound, some float as if they're dead, while others walk upright across the waves with their mouths open as if they are calling. They are known as the Drowned Choir by sailors.

They are known to have lovely, almost welcoming gestures. As if they are yearning for companionship, they extend their arms wide. Additionally, people who are stupid enough to dip their oars into the water or lean over the rail are never seen again.

According to the Calyra's official position, it is "optical trickery," a mirage created by fatigue and salt mist. However, the stories are not so easily written off. Whole crews claim to have seen their deceased shipmates among the ghosts--recognizable faces smiling and whispering silently as they rose with the moon. Desperate to embrace his missing wife, one skipper flung himself into the sea. Half-dead, his lips torn as if gnawed by too many and too small teeth, his soldiers dragged him back. He didn't say any more.

Why the Sea takes who it takes is unknown. According to some, the ocean itself is living and thirsty for people. Some claim that the drowned were destined to stay caught in the middle and never die. A darker rumor, baited by their likenesses, maintains that something lurks beneath.

We do know that the sea's surface becomes as smooth as glass when the tide is low and the stars are in alignment. And the faces of the drowned gaze up in that mirror, bright and alert, their eyes unblinking.

Before each trip across those waters, TCOSA's sailors drop offerings of salt and black money. However, the Sea of Glass Souls continues to take its toll.

Because the sea is not satisfied with the dead.

It is constantly seeking more.

The ship Aurathane is the subject of the most notorious story in the Sea of Glass Souls.

It was a floating palace constructed for show rather than for trade or conflict. Its cabins were dripping with velvet and wine, its decks were marble, and its sails were embroidered in gold. Every night, the artistocrats on board feasted, their laughter resonating across the water at a volume greater than the waves. Servants muttered that they offered complete chalices of wine to "their own reflections" in mockery of the sea.

The port was never reached by the Aurathane.

The ship just disappeared on a moonlit night when the seas were calm and the stars were unbroken. There was no storm. There were no illuminated distress signals. Only splinters of golden wood piled up on a strand in the morning, the gold leaf dissolved by seawater as though ages had gone by in a single night.

There were no floating bodies. Bones were never discovered.

The Choir was brighter than ever, according to sailors who passed by the location following the incident. Gowns and jewels shimmered as if they were frozen in mid-dance, and scores of pale individuals hovered above the waters. Some report that the Aurathane's nobles were taken, their spirits purified, and they were shackled to the sea they mocked. Others believe that the ocean merely swallowed them whole because it could not stand their contempt.

The Aurathane is described as "a coastal tragedy of unknown cause" by the Calyra. Whispers on the dock, however, are harsher:

"Their laughter was enough for the sea."

Even yet, sailors claim that on some nights, the drowned aristocrats rise from the waves, still laughing--but the sound is hollow, empty, and bears the promise of a feast from which no one makes it.

The Aurathane no longer sails as a result.

Its joy is drowned, its wealth is ash.

TCOSA endures.