Tales, Scripts, and Accounts

Navika's Legacy

Anyone who's ever sailed on the south eastern seas has heard the name Navika. Renowned for her ship designs that dominated both the sand and the seas, she was widely regarded as the finest ship designer in the entire Earth Kingdom, if not the whole world. Merchants, pirates, and nobles all wished to own one of the beasts she put on the waters for they were all massive, yet fast and agile. To say they were in high demand would be an understatement.

So these ships sold for quite a lot. After all this success, their designer was supposedly running out of room to store all her profits so it's rumored she started to stow her funds in her personal ships. To our knowledge, there were only two. One she called Schachuan and the other Baochuan. And she did a damn good job of hiding both.

Not a soul knows where either are and it's not from lack of looking. Ever since the legend passed, explorers have ventured all across the southern Si Wong and Milu Bay in search of the lost vessels. The mountains and cliff sides were scouted endlessly for caves or hideaways. The sands have been combed and waters wrung dry. No luck, no clues.

The world forgot about them. I forgot about them too. Never would have thought about the legend again if I hadn't been chased down to lead the expedition. Normally, I would have brushed off a random rich fellow trying to hire me to find a secret treasure, but he threw out a name that's fame eclipsed mine by a long shot. Almost as respected as Navika herself, funny enough. Vibood of Neilu. Known to have countless eyes and ears scattered across the map and more intelligence than the whole Council of Ba Sing Se. It would'ave made sense that he was the one who stumbled upon some useful information that no one else could find. Now he's just finding the right person for the job.

I was never actually sure if I even could have even denied his request, but it took a whole four seconds for me to consider the consequences of saying no and the compensation I might obtain by working with him. We left immediately- as in I didn't even pack my stuff or sit down. From Gao Ling to Neilu in under a week. The moment we docked, I was led off the boat with half my meal still in hand. I followed the messenger through the winding trails amongst the trees until the sun had mostly vanished from the direction we came.

Neilu was smaller than I had expected, but I didn't have much time to really look around. The messenger dropped me off at the front door of a large pristine house, wished me well, and grumbled something under his breath as he walked away. I waited a few moments, as if I expected the door to open on its own for me. To my disappointment, it didn't.

At the end of the long hallway was a lady who sat behind a dark mahogany desk. She greeted me and offered a meal and room for the night. Normally I would be the last person to pass up on food, but my body had just remembered the last few days were nonstop movement. So the kind woman showed me to my room and shut the door on the way out. I was beyond dazed and still catching my bearings when I turned around and nearly shit myself. Some creepy looking homeless dude was sitting in a chair with his elbows on his knees just lookin' at me.

We stared for what seemed to be a few minutes. Then he cleared his throat and I felt my heart sink like an anchor into my stomach. The man didn't ask if I knew who he was and didn't need to introduce himself. Instead, he flashed a piece of folded paper, laid it on a desk against the wall, then told me if I could figure out where this was, we would talk in the morning. Also added that if I tried to steal it, I wouldn't leave the inn alive.

So instead of sleeping like I had planned, I unfolded the gift left for me on the table and tried to make sense of it. Multiple pieces of parchment that were either torn apart or never together in the first place. Lots of small dots and lines littered the pages. Curiosity had most definitely gotten the best of me. I lit a candle because the moonlight wasn't enough to aid my situation and proceeded to run through every generic idea I had. Aligning the dots on one paper with the next, checking to make sure they weren't major cities... I almost instinctively held the paper up against the flame to check for light inscriptions, but there was nothing.