Sea of Death

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Dark clouds covered the heavens, smothering both stars and moons, leaving the sea blacker than night, blacker than sin. The wind howled like the wailing of a thousand lost souls crying out their misery to a cold, uncaring world. A sleek sailing vessel-a one-masted sloop mounted on runners-moved swiftly across the dark water, cutting through the turbulent waves with ease and grace, as if she traveled over solid ice, her runners fitted with razor-sharp blades. Though the sloop traveled against the wind, her sail nevertheless billowed full, thanks to a torrent of air issuing from a metal containment ring mounted behind the sail. The ring glowed with an aura of sizzling blue-white energy, and the scent of hot metal lay acrid on the salty sea air.

At the prow of the vessel stood a figure draped in darkness, bone-white hands gripping the railing, ebon fingernails long and sharp as bird talons. She faced the wind, and though the frigid sea-spray struck her like pellets of ice, she didn't wince, didn't so much as blink, for her dead flesh felt nothing. She appeared to be cloaked in living shadow, tendrils of liquid darkness trailing behind her, undulating in the wind like the fronds of a strange undersea plant dancing at the mercy of a strong current.

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