Sailing on a stormy ocean was always an endeavor for those who weren’t prepared. And despite his best efforts to plan for the worst, Calem was still struggling. His small, crude wooden boat thrashed against the rising and falling wave crests, battered and bruised from the powerful currents, thrashing twisted maws biting up at him from the deep. Lightning had yet to make its appearance, something for which Calem was grateful. 

But even so, the heavy winds and downpours were more than enough to create an obstacle. It had been clear skies and sunny when he departed from the beach early in the morning, but by now the sky was painted overcast and any traces of land were long behind him. 

Keeping his hands tightly clutched to the oars, he cast his gaze out towards the open ocean ahead of him. He tried scanning for any signs or traces of what he was looking for to no avail. The water was choppy and he could barely make out anything below the surface against the frothing sea foam kicked up by the waves, the spittle of angry gods fighting a much bigger quarrel as Calem merely struggled to stay afloat. 

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for when he set sail, only vague rumors and bits of knowledge here and there. The craftsman who sold him the map only offered him limited knowledge of its contents but glanced at him with an almost pitying look as he purchased the old thing, a reaction Calem had assumed was because the man didn’t believe it was real. 

The map itself hadn’t been much help either. The paper was yellowed and withered, the edges frayed, painted lightly blue to represent the large ocean it depicted the real-life counterpart of. The only real thing of note was the strange symbol crudely drawn in the center of it. While the drawing itself left much to be desired, it held a strange aura to it, one Calem found himself drawn to when he stumbled upon it in the mix of archaic wares. It depicted a cerulean-colored serpent placed strangely in the center of a giant ocean. 

When he asked, its former owner merely shrugged. He spoke of strange tales and sightings but dismissed them as nothing more than local folktales to prevent young ones from wandering too far off into the ocean. 

But Calem had been too intrigued by that drawing, enough so that he handed over the seventeen coins for it on the spot. The man merely clucked his tongue and shook his head, muttering something about eager-eyed adventurers, but fixed Calem with almost haunted eyes as he left his shop. 

And while it seemed like a good idea at the time, Calem was starting to question his decision. He was now half a day’s journey from any sort of land mass, and he began to waiver against the strength of the rising storm. 

He freed one hand from an oar, took out the map, glanced down at it, and felt the old shriveled paper dampen between his fingers. Sure enough, he was in the right place. But all he could see around him was open waters, with no sign of the strange drawing that had been shown on the map. He was cold and weary, and as the rain kept pouring down his clothes clung to his frame from the moisture. He was beginning to wonder if the map was even real at all. If he traveled all this way for nothing.

 He searched desperately across the horizon. But there was nothing around for distant miles aside from the stormy ocean horizon. Unless… A cold, sinking feeling began to wash over him as if the icy raindrops had suddenly pierced into his ribcage and froze his heart. He glanced down at the map one last time before he turned his head not toward the horizon, but the surface of the ocean itself. He had a new feeling. A very bad new feeling. If what he was looking for wasn’t above the waves then there was only one other place it would be, where any remnants could be found. 

He let go of the battered oars completely and removed a necklace from the bag placed securely at his feet, a silver chain with a small blue gem hanging from it. He fumbled with the clasp for a moment, struggling in the rain, before he slipped it on. He suddenly felt like the wind had both been knocked out of and into his lungs all at once. While he hadn’t been expecting his expedition to lead him underwater, he was prepared for any sort of overboard situation that would have befallen him, and as such made sure to cast this necklace with runes of water-breathing. It had been a costly investment, but now it was quite possibly the one thing saving his expedition. 

Brushing his water-strewn hair out of his eyes, he stowed away the map safely into its container and onto his belt. Carefully clutching one hand to the side of the small boat, he took a deep breath and plunged into the icy waters. 

Immediately he was hit with the freezing sensation of currents against his clothes, his skin, and his very being. He felt like he was plunged underneath the ice of a frozen lake. As the storm raged on around him, he felt his grip on the vessel weaken, as every wave pushed him and pulled him in nearly every direction. His fingers began to slip, and for a brief moment, he wondered if he did know what he was doing. And then like, as if an act from some creature or god, he lost his grip entirely. 

For one frightful moment, the currents had him completely, his whole body thrashing as he was threatened to lose any sense of control. And then everything was calm. Much too calm. He felt the currents still and stopped fighting. He could see the surface of the water from where he was, and he was fortunate enough not to be stuck too deep. 

Even with the ability to breathe underwater, it was not indefinite, and the fear of fatigue being too much for him to get back to the surface was one he was all too aware of. He also needed to be aware of other dangers around him, such as any currents swirling around the bottoms of the cursed depths, or the trick-playing games of schools of fish who would occasionally pass through. 

And yet, despite his knowledge of these fears, his unease seemed to stem from something else entirely. Everything felt off. And taking in his surroundings, he figured out what it was. There was nothing. No creatures or sea plants were anywhere in sight. Even the currents themselves were still. It was unnerving. It wasn’t silent, more like silenced, as if the collective ocean had chosen this spot to hold its very breath. 

As he came to this realization, he flinched as a sharp hum suddenly rang out from somewhere behind him. It sounded different than most things Calem had heard before, more pristine. A clarion call that for some reason rang out sinister, as if a choir of angels had been played over the sound of a blade scraping against metal. He was suddenly reminded of old wives' tales of sirens the occasional pirate or drunken sailor would claim to have run into on their travels. 

But this didn’t feel luring; it felt like quite the opposite. And Calem was certain that if the storm wasn’t currently raging at the water's surface, he would have heard this warning to stay well away. Calming his nerves and drawing his hand to the hilt of his sword for as little comfort as it would offer him at this current moment, he gathered the courage to turn around. 

Despite the churning water around him, almost every hair on his body stood up at once. What was laid out before him was almost certainly the structure that had been simply designed out on the map. An unnerving, stark blue pyramid carved out of rock sat calmly on the ocean floor. It was one of the largest structures Calem had laid eyes on, towering up intimidatingly towards the ocean surface. Soft glowing lights swirled and floated around it like a complicated pattern of moving lanterns. Carvings of tridents and strange creatures could be seen etched into the rocky surface even from Calem’s distance, with one notable repeating pattern of what appeared to be a winding serpent wrapping its maw around what looked like bones.

It looked ancient, and almost inhuman, as if it was placed there by something else. It made Calem uncomfortable to look at it against the rough untouched landscape of the surrounding ocean. And for some reason, the longer he looked at it, the longer his gaze fell upon it, the more he was filled with a sense of dread. 

He was not supposed to have seen this. He could feel his heart begin to pound. This was not meant for mortal eyes. He felt blood rushing to his head and his heart hammering in his ears. He should’ve turned back. His throat felt tight and despite the runes laid into his necklace, he felt as though he could sense the water rushing into his lungs. He felt frightened before, but never like this. This time, it was as if every dark piece or part of him, every cowardly instinct was meshed into one distinct voice, threatening to swallow him whole. The hum was still present, growing louder, and louder, as if the edifice could sense his presence, his unworthy gaze. He felt helpless, frozen against the fear laid out before him. The hum felt more like a screech now, like incredibly loud metal scratching against a stone. And everything else around him was quiet. Too quiet. Except for the sound of his heart pounding against his ribcage and his attempts to breathe against the current closing in around him. He couldn’t breathe, he had to breathe, he needed to breathe, he needed to-

When his half-rotted corpse washed up on the shoreline of some distant landmass months later, there would be whispers. Of the rusted necklace clutched deathly tight in his palm, as if he was the thing that removed it. And of the strange symbol of a serpent carved into his chest as if he was branded by a sharp blade. And most of all, the weathered map found in its watertight container still attached to him, seemingly untouched by whatever events had unfolded. There would be whispers swirling around for quite some time, as the story passed from mouth to ear, a ghost tale echoed in the wind and rising tide of coming storms. 

And the mapmaker who had led that young adventurer to his death would eventually shake his head and have it claimed all unto pirates or bandits, having reassured any tall tales into mere folklore. But he knew. And eventually, when another adventurer came poking around, he sold that map again and watched as another fell to that song of ancients. And some nights, when the rain fell in torrents and the sky remained overcast, he would feel the satisfaction of the god as another fell victim to his call. As he unsuccessfully prayed for one more time that it would fall on deaf ears.