Rise Of Pandora

Rise Of Pandora: XV. Only They Who Shone

"The past has a strange way of making the future admire it."

-Prometheus

I. Brotherhood, On The Cresent Shore 

In the distance, faint figures walked along the Crescent Shore. There were three of them and they were approaching a small boat where Alastor and Mors were waiting patiently. Sensing their arrival, Alastor and Mors looked down the shore and saw Erebus, Pontus, and Chaos walking side by side. Alastor waved at them. The three of them started to run down the hot shore, ready to rejoin them and finally set off beyond the Hephaestus Sea, a sea hot enough to kill, and so dangerous that only able personnel with permission from the emperor himself were allowed to cross it. Even in the larger ships which were anchored by the shore, many who voyaged across this sea felt their lungs overflowing with smoldering steam hot enough to melt flesh clean from the bone. 

The boiling sea was known as the 'Hephaestus Sea' to the people of the north, the 'Red Bight' to the four great empires of Pangaea, and to the people of the world, it was called the Whispering Sea because its steam sounded like droned whispers. The Hephaestus Sea was rumored to be home to an ancient sea beast, a wrathful creature that was said to be large enough to swallow ships whole. These waters had always brought challenges for those who dared tread it, but the Rare Men were of a grade their own. They did not so easily bend to the rules of the world; where men had to abide, the Rare Men stood tall against any challenge. 

"Aye, brothers!" Alastor shouted with a smile glittering over his face his, hand waving in the air.

Walking at a quick pace, Chaos and Pontus were holding two glimmering weapons. In Chaos's right hand was this conspicuous black spear and in Pontus's grip was this scythe that was white at the handle and dark at the blade. They were no longer accompanied by the Sundarians and in a similar event, Mors and Alastor were no longer in the company of the two king's guards. It was now only them, only they who shone like fire. 

They were walking down past a row of ships, some large and some small, that were anchored along the shoreline. These boats were conditioned and built to sustain the scorching heat of the sea and they all belonged to the emperor. No one ever knew how this ocean came to be, the simple and common explanation being that it was something of divine workings. Even the brightest minds of the world could not justify its existence. It was a phenomenon that had no earthly business being in the north; but alas it endured for hundreds of years.

"Is that the special boat?" Erebus questioned whimsically as they finally approached Mors and Alastor. "It's a piece of junk."

"Courtesy of the emperor himself," Alastor laughed off. "But, it will get us through."

"My scythe," Mors called out to Pontus as Pontus approached him. Walking over to Mors, Pontus handed him the scythe and the two hugged one another tightly. Pontus let out a sigh.

"Are you ready, brother?" Pontus asked Mors.

"As ready as I will ever be," Mors laughed. 

"Let us be off then," said Alastor as he was pushing the small, unsightly boat which made a rickety sound as it was being pushed out to shore. They all leaped in the boat and grabbed oars which were lazing on the floor of the boat and began steadily rowing. The steam sizzled like whispers. Now adrift out into the smoldering waters, they each wore faces of serious expressions.

"That was him wasn't it..." Erebus said with gloom downtrodding his expression. "The prelate?"

Pontus sighed glumly to himself while still rowing.

Alastor looked at Erebus from the corner of his eye and nodded slowly. "Yes, Erebus. That was him. The Immortal Man."

There was a brief silence which lingered soon after. In the silence, Pontus felt free to continue where the two had left off, "And here we are rowing in a boiling sea..."