Chapter 1 - The Light Before the Dawn
The SeaLord docked at the makeshift jetty. There were no people to greet it, nor was there a town or village overlooking the ocean. The desert island of Vaneda hosted no settlements of any kind. A vast expanse of black sand covered the island's entirety, the dark grain anathema to any foliage rooted in its sandy depths. No one could explain the unusual environment of this inhospitable island. Even the waters coasting the shore were mildly toxic; which is why the SeaLord was a necessity.
A cargo ship, it was the only link between the Eternian mainland and the campers on Vaneda. Water, food, tools, every need had to be shipped over. The vessel itself was not that sizable, just large enough to carry supplies for a group of fifty or so people for a month. Soon the ship would depart yet again, not to be seen again for another month, leaving behind those who remained in complete isolation. Isolation was good; it's exactly what Teela had been looking for.
Here, she found the peace of mind she so desperately yearned following her ordeal seven months earlier during the Battle of Ilandra. It was a confusing time for her, she once thought she had loved the King, but time had allowed her the benefit of hindsight and put things in perspective. She realized she had some affection for Randor, but love it was not. It was so easy to believe otherwise when you spent time close to a man of great power, charisma and wisdom. The other man in her life, Adam was still a puzzle to her.
After his return from Skeletor's captivity, Adam had been withdrawn and sad. It made getting close to him difficult and that didn't help Teela overcome her personal conflicts. In the end the palace had seemed a prison, a stifling place where she couldn't develop and grow by sorting out her problems. So she did what she thought she must do; leave. She had traveled to the North of Eternia looking to get as far away as possible from the Royal Palace. Her self-imposed exile had taken her to Gephantide, a province in the north-west of the Eternian continent. There she had heard of a crown-funded archaeological expedition that was looking for experienced swordsmen. Jorans, then head of the guards didn't even want to give her the time of day. He soon changed his mind, by her sword-point. Jorans had left after that, unable to deal with the humiliation of being beaten by a woman.
As for what they were supposed to find here was a complete mystery to her. After He-Man had chased Skeletor from Aohre's Peak some texts belonging to the fleshless freak had been procured from his possessions. In it a reference was made to 'a place of great power' built by the Ancients, supposedly containing a momentous secret of some kind. The text referred to 'Derren-Ma' as the tomb of this awe-inspiring site. Derren-Ma was supposed to be in itself a paradise, a stretch of land covered in fresh, colorful flora from border to border. After some more research it was revealed that Vaneda, in the all but forgotten Eternosii tongue, meant 'lost garden'. Teela looked at the black, coarse sand surrounding her it was hard imagining this place as a paradise, there was nothing blissful about this island.
She watched as the men unloaded the SeaLord, it was the only break in the monotonous routine of guarding dust that occupied the other thirty days of the month. That was not entirely true, occasionally a member had a little too much to drink and became unruly, or they were affected by the sun. Those situations were all too easily dealt with. There wasn't much sport to be had in quelling a boisterous academic. Endreas came walking over too her with a smile on his face. An Ornean, Endreas had become the camp's official storeperson. It was he who ordered their supplies and made sure rations were used carefully.
"Any problems?" Teela asked.
"None." The Ornean replied.
"Are you sure? There aren't any coffee beans missing; we're not short a head of lettuce?" She asked again with mock hope.
"Nay lady, but if you're so eager you can beat them just on general principle." Endreas laughed.
"Perhaps they charged us too much?" she offered.
"We're on royal commission, they gave us a discount."
"Bah! Spineless fools!" Teela said with feigned disgust. "What am I supposed to do for entertainment?"
"I'm sure there are a few men on this island who would care to entertain you." Endreas ventured.
"And such a pretty bunch of men they are too," Teela remarked "I do wonder how I keep my virtue intact around such distinguished company." There were two types of men on this dig: The first being the enthusiastic archaeologists searching anxiously for their buried treasure. They loved to talk endlessly about how the bones of a thousand year dead sparrow could teach them so much about life a millennium ago; 'What food was available?', 'What the climate was like for such birdlife to be able to exist here?' It was thrilling stuff, to someone. Then there were the guards and the sailors whose idea of wooing a woman meant letting her suck the beer out of their beards.
The last parcel was hoisted upon the camel driven wagons and the supply train soon left the makeshift little port. Teela mounted her beast and rode ahead of the lead cart; one never knew when the sands might rise up in rebellion and steal their supplies. They had ridden for less than an hour when a commotion snapped Teela out of her boredom induced trance. There was an air of excitement about the campsite; people ran to and fro, babbling incoherently about something. She surmised they must have found a five hundred year old stick insect carcass. From the milling mass Melaktha, the head archaeologist came running towards her. "You've got to see this! It's incredible!" he shouted before running away again. Teela spurred the camel after him, hoping to see the source of this exuberance.
She rode through the throng before she saw Melaktha standing at the rim of the largest excavation. "Down here, look!" he demanded. Teela hopped off her beast and strode over to the edge of the pit. She looked down to see a network of beams crudely constructed into a scaffold to hold back the sands. She looked further down to see Melaktha scurrying down a ladder to the bottom. Teela noticed several others down there standing on a hard, circular surface. She looked around some more and for the first time she started to become as impressed as the academics. They were standing on a man made surface, a seemingly flawless granite battlement. They were standing atop a keep of some kind. It was incredible; the circumference looked to be three times as large as the battlements crowning the Royal Palace. She looked again at Melaktha who was motioning for her to descend with him.
Teela made the long climb down. At ground level the magnitude of the structure was awesome, but it lacked something. She soon noticed that there was no hatch to the keep's interior, a fact she related to Melaktha. So it wasn't for defense then; perhaps it was an ornamental castle. She knelt down and brushed away some sand. There appeared to be no seams or mortar holding it all together. Whatever its purpose, this keep was a place of great intrigue.
Melaktha appeared beside her. "There is no way we can uncover all of this with the crew we have here now." Teela agreed, they had taken this long just to scratch the surface, so to speak. 'A place of great power' the texts had written. Teela had the feeling that might have been underestimating things somewhat.
If there had been no thought, then maybe the pain could have been bearable. But one still had their wits, or what one had left of them. Instead there was only sensation, of hunger, thirst and emptiness. How much time had passed since their imprisonment? Each passing moment felt like a day, each day was indistinguishable from the last. What were days? Did a day exist when there was no sun nor moon by which to tell time?
All Mekasha could do was remember 'the Last Day' as he had come to call it; the last day he had ever seen sunlight. In his mind he saw over and over again his folly, his failure to see the trap laid before him. When the images became too much to focus on he would create his own outcome, an outcome that saw him defeat his enemies. He could see He-Ro within his grasps, his hands around his throat feeling the warm blood coursing through the jugular before he squeezed that spiteful neck, squeezed the life out of it. He could hear the crackling of the bones as they snapped from the pressure and the gurgling sound he would make as he choked to death. He imagined taking Eldor and peeling back his flesh from head to toe. He would be kept alive so that Mekasha could enjoy the high-pitched screams of agony that only such a fate could induce.
And then he felt it.
It was like the lightest tremor. It was the first sensation he had experienced in only Serpentius knows how long. Perhaps whatever power held him here was weakening, or maybe his gaolers had come for him after all this time. He began to tremble with anticipation, he could not recall the last time he felt hope. The smallest sign; yet before the dawn broke, a pitiful beam of light would herald its coming. He and whoever else remained alive in this forsaken prison would be free again and soon. That much he was sure of, as sure as the night would pass and dawn would come, ushering in a new day.
The SeaLord docked at the makeshift jetty. There were no people to greet it, nor was there a town or village overlooking the ocean. The desert island of Vaneda hosted no settlements of any kind. A vast expanse of black sand covered the island's entirety, the dark grain anathema to any foliage rooted in its sandy depths. No one could explain the unusual environment of this inhospitable island. Even the waters coasting the shore were mildly toxic; which is why the SeaLord was a necessity.
A cargo ship, it was the only link between the Eternian mainland and the campers on Vaneda. Water, food, tools, every need had to be shipped over. The vessel itself was not that sizable, just large enough to carry supplies for a group of fifty or so people for a month. Soon the ship would depart yet again, not to be seen again for another month, leaving behind those who remained in complete isolation. Isolation was good; it's exactly what Teela had been looking for.
Here, she found the peace of mind she so desperately yearned following her ordeal seven months earlier during the Battle of Ilandra. It was a confusing time for her, she once thought she had loved the King, but time had allowed her the benefit of hindsight and put things in perspective. She realized she had some affection for Randor, but love it was not. It was so easy to believe otherwise when you spent time close to a man of great power, charisma and wisdom. The other man in her life, Adam was still a puzzle to her.
After his return from Skeletor's captivity, Adam had been withdrawn and sad. It made getting close to him difficult and that didn't help Teela overcome her personal conflicts. In the end the palace had seemed a prison, a stifling place where she couldn't develop and grow by sorting out her problems. So she did what she thought she must do; leave. She had traveled to the North of Eternia looking to get as far away as possible from the Royal Palace. Her self-imposed exile had taken her to Gephantide, a province in the north-west of the Eternian continent. There she had heard of a crown-funded archaeological expedition that was looking for experienced swordsmen. Jorans, then head of the guards didn't even want to give her the time of day. He soon changed his mind, by her sword-point. Jorans had left after that, unable to deal with the humiliation of being beaten by a woman.
As for what they were supposed to find here was a complete mystery to her. After He-Man had chased Skeletor from Aohre's Peak some texts belonging to the fleshless freak had been procured from his possessions. In it a reference was made to 'a place of great power' built by the Ancients, supposedly containing a momentous secret of some kind. The text referred to 'Derren-Ma' as the tomb of this awe-inspiring site. Derren-Ma was supposed to be in itself a paradise, a stretch of land covered in fresh, colorful flora from border to border. After some more research it was revealed that Vaneda, in the all but forgotten Eternosii tongue, meant 'lost garden'. Teela looked at the black, coarse sand surrounding her it was hard imagining this place as a paradise, there was nothing blissful about this island.
She watched as the men unloaded the SeaLord, it was the only break in the monotonous routine of guarding dust that occupied the other thirty days of the month. That was not entirely true, occasionally a member had a little too much to drink and became unruly, or they were affected by the sun. Those situations were all too easily dealt with. There wasn't much sport to be had in quelling a boisterous academic. Endreas came walking over too her with a smile on his face. An Ornean, Endreas had become the camp's official storeperson. It was he who ordered their supplies and made sure rations were used carefully.
"Any problems?" Teela asked.
"None." The Ornean replied.
"Are you sure? There aren't any coffee beans missing; we're not short a head of lettuce?" She asked again with mock hope.
"Nay lady, but if you're so eager you can beat them just on general principle." Endreas laughed.
"Perhaps they charged us too much?" she offered.
"We're on royal commission, they gave us a discount."
"Bah! Spineless fools!" Teela said with feigned disgust. "What am I supposed to do for entertainment?"
"I'm sure there are a few men on this island who would care to entertain you." Endreas ventured.
"And such a pretty bunch of men they are too," Teela remarked "I do wonder how I keep my virtue intact around such distinguished company." There were two types of men on this dig: The first being the enthusiastic archaeologists searching anxiously for their buried treasure. They loved to talk endlessly about how the bones of a thousand year dead sparrow could teach them so much about life a millennium ago; 'What food was available?', 'What the climate was like for such birdlife to be able to exist here?' It was thrilling stuff, to someone. Then there were the guards and the sailors whose idea of wooing a woman meant letting her suck the beer out of their beards.
The last parcel was hoisted upon the camel driven wagons and the supply train soon left the makeshift little port. Teela mounted her beast and rode ahead of the lead cart; one never knew when the sands might rise up in rebellion and steal their supplies. They had ridden for less than an hour when a commotion snapped Teela out of her boredom induced trance. There was an air of excitement about the campsite; people ran to and fro, babbling incoherently about something. She surmised they must have found a five hundred year old stick insect carcass. From the milling mass Melaktha, the head archaeologist came running towards her. "You've got to see this! It's incredible!" he shouted before running away again. Teela spurred the camel after him, hoping to see the source of this exuberance.
She rode through the throng before she saw Melaktha standing at the rim of the largest excavation. "Down here, look!" he demanded. Teela hopped off her beast and strode over to the edge of the pit. She looked down to see a network of beams crudely constructed into a scaffold to hold back the sands. She looked further down to see Melaktha scurrying down a ladder to the bottom. Teela noticed several others down there standing on a hard, circular surface. She looked around some more and for the first time she started to become as impressed as the academics. They were standing on a man made surface, a seemingly flawless granite battlement. They were standing atop a keep of some kind. It was incredible; the circumference looked to be three times as large as the battlements crowning the Royal Palace. She looked again at Melaktha who was motioning for her to descend with him.
Teela made the long climb down. At ground level the magnitude of the structure was awesome, but it lacked something. She soon noticed that there was no hatch to the keep's interior, a fact she related to Melaktha. So it wasn't for defense then; perhaps it was an ornamental castle. She knelt down and brushed away some sand. There appeared to be no seams or mortar holding it all together. Whatever its purpose, this keep was a place of great intrigue.
Melaktha appeared beside her. "There is no way we can uncover all of this with the crew we have here now." Teela agreed, they had taken this long just to scratch the surface, so to speak. 'A place of great power' the texts had written. Teela had the feeling that might have been underestimating things somewhat.
If there had been no thought, then maybe the pain could have been bearable. But one still had their wits, or what one had left of them. Instead there was only sensation, of hunger, thirst and emptiness. How much time had passed since their imprisonment? Each passing moment felt like a day, each day was indistinguishable from the last. What were days? Did a day exist when there was no sun nor moon by which to tell time?
All Mekasha could do was remember 'the Last Day' as he had come to call it; the last day he had ever seen sunlight. In his mind he saw over and over again his folly, his failure to see the trap laid before him. When the images became too much to focus on he would create his own outcome, an outcome that saw him defeat his enemies. He could see He-Ro within his grasps, his hands around his throat feeling the warm blood coursing through the jugular before he squeezed that spiteful neck, squeezed the life out of it. He could hear the crackling of the bones as they snapped from the pressure and the gurgling sound he would make as he choked to death. He imagined taking Eldor and peeling back his flesh from head to toe. He would be kept alive so that Mekasha could enjoy the high-pitched screams of agony that only such a fate could induce.
And then he felt it.
It was like the lightest tremor. It was the first sensation he had experienced in only Serpentius knows how long. Perhaps whatever power held him here was weakening, or maybe his gaolers had come for him after all this time. He began to tremble with anticipation, he could not recall the last time he felt hope. The smallest sign; yet before the dawn broke, a pitiful beam of light would herald its coming. He and whoever else remained alive in this forsaken prison would be free again and soon. That much he was sure of, as sure as the night would pass and dawn would come, ushering in a new day.