-You Found a What?-

Though the navigators were trepidatious, they had indeed found some semblance in the stars and plotted a hesitant route home. With full supplies and a rested crew, the ship found its way back in a moon's time with only a few extra days spent on replotting and course changes. This to us would be a little over a month.

The Homeland rejoiced at the return of the sailors, who many had given up for dead, and Logan soon found himself reporting to the Regent herself. The conversation did not go well.

Logan at first was sentanced to imprisonment for blasphemy, but when the people wouldn't have that, he was brought before the Regent again. This time she had a better plan. Logan was to return to the new island with a shipfull of people. These people had been handpicked by the Regent to start a new life and begin to colonize this new island. Looking over the list Logan noted that, although there were many trusted sailors he had worked alongside, there were twice as many scoundrels, crooks, and criminals in the mix. Logan, however, was an honourable chap, and agreed to do what his homeland wished.

Logan returned to the colony and lived a long life helping it flourish and grow. The mix of ruffians and good sailors seemed to work out remarkably well, and most generally wished to start anew and blessed their good luck anyhow. Many also died in the first few years, but overall the new colony did decently for itself. In time they built a lighthouse and cleared away some of the northern forests to make way for farmland and crop fields. Slowly the colony grew from a boatload of hearty hardworking Aiians to a little under two thousand such individuals in total.

We join the colony a hundred cycles after Logan first returned. All those who were young at the time of the colony's inception have since passed on. Many who now live there today came in later boats with new skills and supplies. Grey Harbor is beginning to fend for itself quite capably and Suraal, as a result, is becoming, for all intents and purposes, that much more distant.

As the people become bolder and needs turn more to local supplies and less to imports, a new Dark Horizon begins to show itself: that of the unexplored forests and rivers inland. How big is the island exactly? Why is it here? Why is there no mention of it in any religious or historical text? Such questions echo slowly through the minds of the settlers at night in their beds. What exactly is out there? And do we really want to know?