My hunt had begun early in the morning, leaving the pod-hut well before anyone had begun to stir. Not even the first light of dawn had broken on the edge of the horizon as I hopped down the rocky ledge where my home village sat. The short sword that I had newly forged the previous day was firmly gripped in my hand, secured in its scabard. I waited until the woods had obscured the view of the village before strapping it to my waist with the pouch that held a small vial of a crimson liquid and a few simple linen bandages. I made my way to the old stone bridge that connected the two main islands. The incident during the night that had inspired my very early morning adventure played repeatedly in my mind as I made my way to the crossing.
My restful slumber during the night had been interrupted by a sudden loud, booming noise. Originally, I had attributed it to thunder from another storm that was not uncommon for the area. They seemed to blow in at random sometimes dumping a deluge while other times passing by dropping only a barely noticable sprinkle of rain but filling the sky with lightning and deafening rolling thunder. This night was one of the latter. Dark clouds had shrouded the sky during the night obscuring the stars and moon. It justified my assumptions that another storm had rolled in.
Looking out of the open window, my sleepy eyes descerned what I had originally assumed was lightning leaping through the clouds. I was about to lay back down and shut my eyes when I witnessed a small point of light fall from the overcast like a stray spark from a gnomish skyrocket during the Lunar festival. I rushed to the wIt appeared to fall beyond Azure Myst and somewhere upon the neighboring island. I recalled no discernable sound of impact as one would if it had been a sizable crashing object.
The rest of the night had been spent replaying the sight in my mind to the point of an unhealthy obsession. What was it that had fallen? I kept telling myself to forget about it and rest for the coming morning. There would be chores that would require my attentions. Despite my efforts to quiet my thoughts and let rest have me, the spark kept shining in my mind. That was when I made my decision to find it.
The sound of waves crashing against the massive marble pillars that supported the bridge were loud despite the air being so calm. Maybe the mysterious object had crashed into the water beyond my reach. As I did not see where the strange object had landed, it was possible there would be nothing to find. That would be my luck if such were the case.
Much of the cloud cover that was present during the night was beginning to disapate revealing the purple hues to herald the coming of dawn. The original goal of mine had been to find what had fallen during the night and return home before my absence was noticed. Mother would not have objected about me being awake so early. My father would see it differently. This meant that my time to search would be relatively short. I had to hurry!
The normal patrols were light on the path to Blood Myst Isle that morning. What patrols I had encountered passed me with but a nod in my direction. Many of them were familiar faces, warriors that father commonly associated with. Whether or not they would speak of my early morning adventures with him was another detail I had overlooked. That will be an encounter I had better steel myself for later.
"Interesting starfall tonight," one of the patrol said as they passed me. I stopped for a moment to listen. Starfall? Or were they referring to the strange spark as well? Maybe I would gain a clue of what it was that I was hunting for.
"Wonder if it was another piece of the Exodar," the second pondered. "It would only be our poor luck that something else would cause another mess of the island."
"I would have thought anything that was left from the Exodar would have either crashed with us or have been destroyed with its descent,"the first had noted.
"Either way, it appears it headed past us, thankfully. I just hope that it didn't cause any issues near the Exodar. I'm actually looking forward to some levity this coming evening."
"Agreed," added the other as their voices began to fade into the distance.
To the west towards the Exodar. That didn't bode well for my hunting prospects. The beach would be the best place to start the search even as I was beginning to think that this early morning hunt was starting to sound like a fool's errand. Who was to say that the mysterious spark had not fallen into the sea?
Though much of the island was still uninhabited, I wasn't so naive as to not expect trouble from the other wild creatures that roamed it. Some of the flora could be just as aggressive as the animals of the island. Either way, I kept my sword at the ready as my ventures took my farther from the well traveled path. The sun finally began to peek barely over the horizon as I came closer to the shore. Though most of the crystal debris from the original crash of the Exodar many years before had been cleaned away, the island still retained the red hue to must of its plant-life. The supple grass beneath my hooves, that lined the sandbar, were a bright crimson hue in the faint morning light.
As I passed the tall barrier of grass concealing my view of the beach, I was somewhat surprised by what I discovered. A portion on the beach appeared to have been carved away into the sea. Water had already filled in the crater left by the resulting impact. The remains of small stilted huts were also scattered about with the bodies of a handful of murlocs among the debris. I kept my blade ready as the last thing I wanted to explain were injuries from murloc claws.
I could only assume that the impacting object had killed them and would be lying to myself if I didn't begin to question making this venture to find the mysterious item from the sky. My eyes scanned the length of the beach for any other sign of life. Scavengers were starting to appear as the sun began to cast its light along the red sand. Seagulls were the least of my concerns and there were no obvious threats about. I still kept the short sword at the ready should anything else have decided to come exploring the area. It would be foolish to expect all of the danger to have passed or kept itself at bay. Who knew what else could also be searching for the object from the night sky?
I was unsure whether this was a moment of luck or fate that smiled upon me this morning. In the swallows of the water, my eyes were greeted by the shimmer of light in the wet sand. I knelt down as my free hand easily sank into the sand wrapping about the source of what had captured my attentions. I could only assume that this item, a single shard of crystal, was the spark that I had witnessed during the night. It was nearly the same width and thickness of my thumb. Unlike the majority of crystals on the island, this one lacked any color or visible flaws at first glance.
I held the piece up to the rising sunlight allowing the mysterious shard. There were no visible flaws therein or any hints of color deviations present. Though my overall knowledge of precious stones were limited, this particular piece was a beautiful specimen to behold.
A hint of the refracted colours gleamed into my eye filling my vision with a blinding light. There was no pain or discomfort though it was soothing and yet alien. What was this? Where...? The light faded away as suddenly as it had appeared.
I looked around unsure of my surroundings for a brief moment. The cool breeze off of the sea carried the scent of the dead across my nose. The dead murlocks, I reminded myself.
I placed my find within the small pouch on my hip alongside the other items that I had brought with me. My continued search was short as the other items about the area appeared to be more mundane compared to my first find. Most of what remained appeared to be mostly wood from destroyed huts, shattered pottery, broken crude weapons murlock bodies.
"Better make myself scarce before something larger comes out to be nosy or hungry."
I retraced the path back to the main road and wasted no time traveling back to the village. The sun was just hovering over the horizon as my home village came into view just over the treetops. My family's pod was on the edge of the village and it was no real shock to see movement through one of the windows. So much for sneaking back into bed. It would be no surprise find both mother and father about. There would also be no feigning that I was out hunting or fishing since I lacked a bow or a firelock much less a fishing pole. Last time that I had wandered off in the early hours of the morning, my father gave me quite the lecture followed by leaving a sizable knot on my head. My hand gently rubbed the long since disappeared wound to my boyish pride as the virile crest of bone was already at its full size upon my head, or so I was told.
The path that I chose to take though the wooded area at the base of the cliff where my home village sat was lush with the familiar silvery leaf shrubs that I often saw my mother and others in the village harvesting from occassionally for the healers and the scribes. Admittedly, my eyes aren't as keen as the others for gathering the perfect leaf, but if I show up empty handed... I was careful to pull the larger leaves from the shrubs recalling many times when my mother would scold me for pulling the much smaller, more tender leaves when my smaller hands weren't so precise. Beyond those somewhat painful lessons, my working knowledge of herb gathering was barely beyond that basic step. My pouch was almost completely filled with the silvery leaves as I came to the cobblestone pathway leading to the village.
"Good morning, Gavril!" came the unexpected greeting that pulled my attention from my goal. It was one of the village protectors at his normal post. I was a bit surprised to see it was my father's closest friend.
"Good morning, sir Mikhail," I returned the greeting though quietly cursing a blue streak under my breath. There was no way that I was going to avoid the coming punishment at home at this rate. In our conversation, I had discovered that he and my father would both be working patrols in the city with the coming festival this evening and that his son, my closest friend Aethon, would also be there. Here is hoping that my parents don't bury me in chores for running off this morning.
"Ahh, so eager to see the city again that you woke up early to beat me to the edge of town, son?" came the all too familiar voice of my father. I didn't even have a chance to turn around when I felt his large, solid hand landing a stinging slap right between my shoulder blades that even the weight of my tail could not counteract for my loss of balance sending me stumbling forward. "Morning, father," I finally managed to blurt out once I was finally able to get my hooves steady beneath me. "You know that I always enjoy the sites of the city," I added, straightening myself and regaining my footing.
"Good, then you can also help with the preparations for this evenings festivities," he smirked. "I'm sure that the elek handlers can use a helping hand or two."
Wonderful! I've been conscripted for work elsewhere instead of home. I guess that it was better than the potential punishment that I had been dreading during my journey back from my hunt. But helping the elek handlers already seemed like an unfair punishment for the crime of being out before dawn.
Mikhail placed a firm but much gentler hand upon my shoulder as he and my father approached. "Don't worry too much about the labor, my boy. Aethon has already gone ahead of us to help with the setup and there might not be much left for you to do when we get there," he assured me.
Not much was said among us as we traveled the path to Exodar City. My father and Mikhail talked among themselves as I followed a few paces behind them. There would be occasional question directed my way, but my thoughts were preoccupied on wanting to examine my recent find... and possibly what to do with a pouch full of silverleaf. Maybe during a break, I could take a closer look at my new treasure and maybe catch a nap.