[Maplore] Cragshell Isle

[squakhawk 14038]

 

Cragshell Isle

The Nightmarket and The Visitors of Moruuna

 

 

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The Resting Giant

 

Laying adrift in tranquil waters, Cragshell isle to the southwest of Azuras as it basked in the sun nearly year-round. To it's east the dry and arid Godsrend canyon, and the north, the fertile and large River's expanse, Cragshell Isle was a paradise found scarce amongst southern Azuras. From afar, unmistakeable ridges and cruves that told story of The Greatturtle Moruuna who has entered her final slumber beneath the open sky.

 

An unshifting warm calm endured through every season, the central spine of the island rising to high ridges as broken plates of the turtle's carapace thrust upward into peaks veiled in mist. Below, the extremely fertile basins flooded by orchides, vines, and canopies of palm and fruit trees. Moss blanketed boulders and tree trunks alike as a veridian green painted the land in the colour of wild life. Small reptiles and insects littered the land as bountiful fish were found around the island. Upon it's southern shores, the broken remnants of the infamous Nightmarket which oft took place there.

 

Despite all it's beauty, Cragshell Isle often avoided colonization or visitation by any but the bravest and most dubious of adventurers. Beneath the undergrowth roamed Screechwis, a small and flightless bird - curiously, one of the very few birds among all of Azuras, a creature who's piercing cry would ring out like a banshees wail. Among all of Moruuna's travels, travellers swore to avoid the great island due to their terrifying call, many a legend spreading of a wandering isle of angry and furious spirits. With so, Cragshell Isle was fertile, vibrant, and tranquil - remaining largely untouched as it now rested a living garden growing atop a great lifegiver's corpse.

 

 

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The Legend of Moruuna

 

In legend of sailors and traders alike, told in the storybooks of children who’s parents had dared ventured to the side-less-travelled, was that of a small turtle. This turtle was a greatturtle - though the runt of her spawn, hardly able to crawl to the shores from the egg whence she came. This turtle’s name was Moruuna, though it is unknown where the name had come from, or what exactly it meant, if anything. 

 

Moruuna grew sluggish unlike the other spare greatturtles of the sea, slow to hunt and poor at diving. She could swim, but her little lungs could not carry her nearly as deep as the others. She had felt doomed by circumstances she could not change - a body she could not train, which would not grow, which she could not feed. Destined as the runt to be discarded or left behind, perhaps miraculous she’d made it thusfar to begin with. 

 

It was one day that she floated upon the top of the sea, the sun bright as it shined upon her craggy shell. Though the sun bathed her in light, warmth residing upon her shell, air in her lungs and the watertides gentle, she felt only sorrow. These were things she would all miss once she was dead - things which the greatturtles of her spawn would take for granted as they grew only size and size larger. But then she heard the cry of gulls - pushed lightly into the water as a flap of wings fluttered above her. A seabird had stood upon her back, weary from a long flight. Too was it lost, and hungry, unable to feed upon the shores which surely she was far from. Perhaps it was lost. 

 

Moruuna thought it was perhaps nice to provide some use. The seagull was warm, lost, perhaps afraid. And though the two were wordless, there was an agreement. Perhaps he could rest for some time upon her back, and it would not matter. She navigated the seas until the winds blew favourably with the scents of dust and land - and the seagull flew offward.

 

It was nice to have use, for once, she may’ve thought. But the joy faded, and soon again was she alone and soon to starve. That was true, until the seagull returned. Perhaps returning a favour, perhaps to establish a symbiotic relationship, the seagull had brought with it seagreens that came along the shores. Though it’s wings struggled to beat hard enough to carry the netted flora, it did so. And Moruuna ate - perhaps more than she had ever eaten. 

 

It was than that the greatturtle Moruuna found her friendship, and her purpose. Perhaps she was no diver - nor would she need to be. She could be a sanctuary thousands of miles from any shore for those lost, wandering, or upon adventure. And thus she was - though it took decades, ships had begun to notice the moving island, and with it, the flora and fauna which had grown upon its back that helped sustain it. And they too saw the novelty and use of such a curiosity.

 

Now comes the part less savoured in the stories - an extension shared from father to mother, sailor to sailor as they regale their childrens love of Moruuna and her lifelong tales.

 

Most curious of all were the sailors of Berillia who saw an opportunity - that to skip tariffs, tax, and most important of all, the sticky fingers and scornful gaze of the lawman. Establishing upon her back a small town (More akin to an accumulation of driftwood shaped as shelter than establishment) did The Nightmarket form. It’s word spread as a place where one could buy any and all, claiming prizes and treasures of lands afar and ships lost to their maidenport upon return. Without law nor land did Moruuna provide a location one-of-a-kind upon Eos. 

 

As time went on, this port thrived, The Nightmarket open upon rare and random occasion with great fare as a place of great wealth, experiences, and wonder. Peddlers of fortunes both artificial and true, sailors as far from Rh’thor to Aeldin would venture to The Nightmarket to buy, sell, and share all of their wealths. To this day, when the winds are just right, The Nightmarket opens even still.

 

Though the story tells glory and wonder for any a seafarer, all stories come to an end.

 

As millenia had passed, Moruuna grew old. Slow, titanic, truthfully no amount of food could sustain a beast of such size. She knew this as well as the seas which she grazed. She’d noticed the areas which she fed, and fed from, were often left bereft of life. Barren of seagreens and fish, the ecosystems she and those symbiotic to feed her were more damaged than she would allow. Minnows would swim by her great eye to feed off the kelp that grew by her face, and she saw them small. Anemic and underdeveloped, she saw herself long ago with creatures that perhaps could not be afforded the same luxury she did not understand.

 

So Moruuna ventured home - though it had been countless years, she returned to the shores from which she was once spawned. Resting upon the shallow shoals on the coast, she had finally stopped. She breathed air from her lungs which blew bubbles that spilled out along the shallow shores, and her eyes shut. And as the greatturtle Moruuna drifted off, she knew peace as she returned to the nothing from whence she came.

 

And though it took decades, her remains had provided for the sea and life nearby, as well as the unique flora and fauna compared to the rest of Azuras. Though sailors stayed wary of the unknown jungles of Moruuna’s back, her craggy shell remained as the earth surrounded it - embalming her scute in dirt, sand, and brine as she gave to the earth back what she took from it.

 

 

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