Parting the Waves
Darkling Tides, Act III
 Timestamp: 76th of Winter, 512 AV
A lone boat beat against the current, moonlight its only guide. A figure huddled in its shallow, wooden carriage. Cloaked, his face and body were masked, only the faintest glint of the moon revealed pockmarked flesh, the colour of death.
He wielded one oar, a queer sense of water navigation, and yet still he moved against the gently lapping waves. The bonesnapper winds of the day had died to an eerie stillness this night.
The boat was bound for one of the obelisks, cloaked in shadow. The monoliths had become part of the landscape, almost forgotten by the Zeltivans. And yet tonight, their part would become clear in the third act of this stranger's dark play.
Buried in his cloak was the fragment of the obelisk. The very same fragment taken almost a year before, during the Winter Ball. Was he the thief? Or was he the overseer, the thief of the past just a pawn?
As his boat neared the fragment, something made the old Nuit turn, nearly revealing his cloaked face. A disturbance in the water. Another boat. Borrowed eyes fell upon the azure uniforms of the Wave Guard, brandishing lanterns upon the water.
"Who goes there!?" one of the guard called. The other shouted after, "identify yourself!"
The Nuit made a low growl of dissatisfaction before raising his hand. Djed swelled, before projection threw the two guards from their boat. The wooden vessel twisted, the lantern light extinguished as it hit the water. Projecting still, the Nuit forced them further down, holding them submerged until he was satisfied they were dead.
Obstacle gone, he turned to the obelisk, moving the boat finally to its surface.
It was time.
He rummaged in his cloak, procuring the fragment. There was an immediate magnetism at play, the microcosm reacting to its macrocosm. Withered hands held the fragment, reaching upwards out of the boat. And finally they touched.
The sound erupted throughout the entire bay, small waves charging outwards towards the shore. Whale song. Eerie screaming, laughing, crying, drowned by the waters, the noise cascading over the entire city. Lights flickered on the horizon as Zeltivans awakened to the sound.
The Nuit smiled.
Still he held the fragment there, and back toward the shore the water reacted. Suddenly, the strangest sight manifested. In certain points the water dropped into sinkholes. But the surrounding water did not gush in to fill the gap. It held, suspended, everything around the gap normal, and yet the sinkhole remaining explicably dry and open.
They weren't random holes either. The parted water revealed ruins. Ancient buildings long thought lost. Colonnades. Pillars. Collapsed temples. And nearest the Cerulean Pier, the biggest hole of all. A labyrinth. Still in tact, twisting, spirally, not staying on one level. It was as beautiful as it was enigmatic.
Finally, the Nuit released the fragment from the obelisk. The water held. An ancient quarter to Zeltiva lay exposed, the trumpetting sound finally abating. With that, he covered the fragment again and sailed away into darkness. In his wake Zeltiva was reshaped, its face changed forever.
And still the cloaked stranger's motivations remained murky, unclear. What drove him, and to what ends? Soon, the city would know...
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