Taol's Compendium of Nent

Chapter 14: Sediment Stream (Petram)

The Sediment Stream was known to be one of the dirtiest spots in all of Nent, hence the name – whatever cleanliness this river once had had long since gone, and instead, a current of dirt, soil, and eroded material now languishes amongst the once clean waters. It could be found just mere hours away from the jungle that we eventually managed to get through, but in order to get through it, one would have to follow the river current themselves to reach a waterfall that could provide a makeshift bridge of boulders and rocks in order to cross the dangerous waters – it would be hard for on to make a raft to pass through the river manually, and this was mainly because the river itself was huge, and the contents of the river range from the soluble to the insoluble. Pair that with the fast currents and you may be dead halfway through.

Swimming, of course, wasn’t an option – it was basically a suicide trip if you even tried. If you didn’t drown from the overwhelming current, then something in that river will definitely make you, one way or another, without hesitation.

Be it a heavy tree branch that would snag you by the foot or the arm, or probably some rogue crocodile that will burst out from the water and make your body into mere slush as their jaws crush your bones – it is a river of death for anyone that is reckless and stupid enough to try and cross it in any other path than the safe route, which unfortunately was the long and arduous one. But at this point, I knew that if this was going to take long, I had to move quickly. She had the same thought process as I did, too.

Of course, we knew we had to maintain a fair distance away from the stream, because if we got too close, there was this possible chance that something might just burst out from the natural embankment and grab us into the waters. Sounded ridiculously outlandish, but after everything that I have been through, outlandish seemed almost normal to me.

The journey it took to reach the end of the river, where it met the waterfall, would take weeks. I, for one, was curious on what lied at the bottom of the waterfall, but given the nature of the river itself, and knowing that I would have to commit to a fall down tens of feet to get down there, I knew I would rather die some other way. Besides, I was somewhat dealing with a race against time as I mentioned before so…that wasn’t an option.

At least I wasn’t in that humid hell of a jungle…one part of me hoped that this would mean the end of those disgusting little leeches that kept trying to get on me during our daytime treks, but considering how we are literally near a river…I didn’t have my hopes up. I should’ve invested in some earmuffs that were sold in Novus…how stupid I was…

To add insult to injury, I knew that fishing wasn’t exactly an option here when it came to any semblance of ‘hunting’ around this place – the fishes that probably used to live in those waters had long since died…and even if some are still alive, they must most definitely be unsafe to eat, considering how the water looked so brown and awfully unsanitary by even low standards that someone might possibly die from being poisoned if they even stick their tongue in there.

Much like the Tempestas Pass however…this place, too, was relatively static and stagnant. For the most part anyway. Because we were forced to take the long, grueling route to avoid the danger of crossing the river directly, there was very little danger to be found, save for the usual insects trying to test my patience.

Maybe this was what the Void Servants were talking about…ridiculous.

Speaking of them, I was already thinking about what would happen if I were to totally siphon all of the corrupt magic that were lingering within the remaining three continents of Nent – what I found even more strange was the fact that I didn’t even come across anything which could mean as ‘corrupt’ within Novus as well…perhaps Novus was unaffected? That sounded odd, sure, but even when I checked on the map which was given to me by the scholar, there were no detectable traces of unidentified magic on Novus’s parameters…

Anyways, back to my experience of the Sediment Stream – it was from this particular area where we realized that villages and towns in the lead up to the capital were few and far between. After this painstakingly long journey, we still had to go through the second mountain range of this expedition so far along with a desert which may well be as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than the Auris Circle – while the Circle was deadly in terms of temperature, nature could not touch the vicious cold that rendered most life near impossible to thrive in.

The Haranae Desert was not like that – the scorching wasteland of Petram was akin to the ultimate trial of the human spirit and a test of wits. To get out of that desert meant that you would be immediately brought to Petram’s capital, which was known as the City of Iron. I myself never knew why they even gave that one specific city such a title, but I intend to find out, and there is no way I will deny myself of a sight or an answer.

There was little to be said about the stream itself other than the dangers that lied within the depths of the river – all it did show was a terrible reminder that the jungle was only the start of our troubles and suffering. The stream was a realization of what was to come, and the mountains as well as the desert would be the biggest challenge yet. Petram’s mix of humid and high temperatures meant that, for the most part, most people would be tested in their heat resistance. Not so bad for Tirza, considering how dark elves had a decent resistance to heat, but I’m no dark elf, after all.

If this magic wasn’t going to kill me, my gradually declining mental health or the heat would, at some point in time. Maybe even a leech or two would have just a bit too much of me while I’m at my weakest to finish me off. The leadup to the City of Iron was going to be the ultimate test to my own exploration and adventuring skill – I had to reach that place.

Alive.

Whether I liked it or not.

Day after day, night after night, we kept moving along the embankment of the constantly swirling and twisting arcs of the Sediment Stream, and through my very basic knowledge of geography, I had to remember this one important fact.

If the stream started to lose speed along the way, it would mean we were getting close to the end of the river and towards the start of the waterfall, where the makeshift boulder bridge was. Weeks had passed, and we could see, slowly but surely, that we were making progress. We were fortunate enough to not find ourselves at the very start of the stream, for if we did, chances are it would take twice as long to reach the other end.

So at least Lady Luck was willing to be fortunate with this part of the journey, but it would seem that all of our luck had just run out just cutting this journey short, because everything from here on out was going to be pure, visceral rage, fury, indignation, and suffering for both me and Tirza. Especially me…

The Sediment Stream was also an occasion where my mind was put under a grave strain. On the day before we reached the end of the river, we had set up camp, with the both of us falling asleep – however, I was awakened by a voice. A voice that I, throughout my entire adventure, had never heard before at all. Still, the voice had caught me in a total trance, and I was effortlessly awakened as I brought myself up and slowly got out of the tent and out into the open. I didn’t know why I even did that, I felt…compelled to.

My sight was…greatly tampered with. It was almost as if everything around me was surrounded by haze – I couldn’t see the floor beneath my feet, nor could I see the sky. I was completely encircled by this…thick grey fog that felt almost suffocating to be within. I wasn’t just overrun by the smoke around me – I heard voices too. Voices that sounded all too familiar…my family, my friends…Lord Bell…the Exploration Team…everyone. And they didn’t have anything nice to say about me. If anything, the voices began berating me and insulting me, with them getting louder and louder by the second.

My parents exclaiming how I have disappointed them and filled them with an indescribable amount of anguish by leaving for this ‘stupid journey’, Lord Bell saying that he had regretted sending me of all people out with the Exploration Team for this journey, saying that I was too ‘pathetic’ and ‘useless’ to his plans…the team themselves saying how they thought they had found a great recruit to their team, only for them to say that mercy was the only reason why I was even brought here, and that they expected me to perish soon enough.

All these terrible things…those words coming out from nowhere was almost too much for me – my eyes went all over the place, desperate to find anything which could get me out of this living nightmare…I even tried to cover my ears and closing my eyes in a desperate attempt to silence everything which were assaulting my hearing, and yet they still wouldn’t let up. They were just too loud…almost as if covering my ears meant nothing to them.

My breathing grew more and more erratic, and it felt like the smoke was beginning to whirl and spin around me in a suffocating tornado while the noises grew almost deafening, as if my eardrums were about to explode any moment now. It felt like I was losing control over my legs, with me just stepping about in place while my back arched forward, as if slouching with my face staring down into the ground would do anything.

It just got louder…it just got harder and harder to breathe…I was almost at my wits end.

I didn’t know where I was walking to, but I was moving towards something. I was moving towards somewhere – but I couldn’t even see it, I couldn’t even hear it…it was almost as if they wouldn’t let me see just where I was taking myself to.

I was so close to finding myself breaking down in an emotional fit, but all of a sudden, a hand burst out from the smoke as it grabbed the back of my bodysuit, and just like that, the voices ceased and the smoke cleared – it was Tirza…and right in front of me was the river bank.

I soon realized I was about to jump into the river depths to try and run away from it all.

I immediately turned around to see her, and sure enough, her eyes would widen in shock at the current state that I was in – my hair was frazzled, and utterly unkempt. My eyes, at least when she told me at the time, were completely red with tears coming down my cheeks. I looked like as if I had never seen the light of day…and maybe for that whole experience…it honestly felt like I was going to be denied of the light, too…

Just taking a look at her was enough to swamp me with so much unstable emotion that I just flat out embraced her – I just didn’t want to let her go at all. Out of all those terrible things that I heard from those voices in that hallucination, I didn’t hear her at all, and honestly, that was enough to stop me from being struck with any form of paranoia…

While I was there, hugging her as tightly as I could, I could see something just out of the corner of my eye as I slowly gazed what stood before me – the Void Servants.

Their mouths were unmoving, but I could hear everything they could say…she couldn’t. But I could, clear as day. While they took pity on me after watching me go through such mental turmoil, they knew that there was little that they could do about it – everything was going to be my own uphill struggle, and not even my closest companion could help me. This was the only occasion where her own involvement was able to pull me out from a murky death, but they warned me that I cannot hope for this to repeat again.

With that, they would disappear once more, leaving me more distressed than before…

So, this is just going to be the start of my worst voyage yet…the worst part is that I’ve never felt more unconfident of this journey in my entire life.

With the both of us unable to sleep on the grounds on what had happened, with me being too paranoid to knock myself out while Tirza flat out decided that she couldn’t just sleep after what happened with me, we decided to just pack up and leave while we were late into the night. I guess it would be better to say that it was too early into the morning.

Either way, by the time it was sunrise, we finally arrived at the end of the river, and from there, we would go through the makeshift boulder bridge that separated the river from the waterfall, where the waters came cascading down. I tried my hardest not to look down, knowing that my already fragile mind would try to play a trick or two on me to make me jump down to a certain death. With that, we were past the Sediment Stream.

With the jungle and the river now behind us, we would get a move on to the next major obstacle that was stopping us on our way to the City of Iron – the Scopulus Mountains. As far as I remember, this particular mountain range doesn’t have the ‘spike spots’ which made the Ingentes Mountain Range a hell to go through during the first half of the journey. However, what made this Petram mountain range difficult was the fact that there was no mountain trail at all – it was almost as if those silent, mountainous lands were rendered completely unexplored by the people that ultimately inhabited this continent. Where did they even come from for them to not even explore Eastern Petram?

There was also something else which bothered me as we walked – what if there were a much easier way of navigating around this continent? Which was why this part of the realm was relatively untouched by the people? In all honesty, if they were using an immensely efficient form of transport to get through places like these…the amount of rage that would overpower me would be almost terrifying to behold, and here I am, already at my wits end about everything that has been going on over the past two years.

Either way, at least we were through that stupid, murky mess of a river…but honestly, I wished the jungle and the Sediment Stream were the last two landmarks that we had to get through instead of the first two. Because I know this was going to be a disaster for me…