[ IP ] Sea of ghosts

My friend, this stretch has many names. Some call it the red sea, or the black. Others name it the sea of the dead, or of corpses. They're all true names, and many, many, others are, -for this sea has seen countless, certainly uncounted and taking a serious shot at, uncountable, battles, which have on many black days run red. And its seen crimes, countless crimes, hidden in its vastness, or there ensconsced. 
 
 And it's seen other things too, not just breaking bones and drowning men and both; though it leans, heavily, that way: no, it's seen a great deal of things altogether. It's a lodestone of sorts, a place people, or events, are drawn to. 
 
 You know, some few name it in awe, or respect. The sea of madness is one name spoken, or more often whispered, not always as a curse -not quite. Sometimes, as a blessing; by those who aspire to great power, and great ambition admire, who wish to slough off shackles, or chains, or delusions or whatever else- of morality, sanity, concern, or sometimes hope. 
 
 There is even a name, a well known one, spoken usually as a blessing -as usually as its speaking can be, that is. Some sailors or soldiers have taken to spitting it with contempt of late; the ones who feel brave or mad or lost enough not to fear a name the sea might choose for itself, if it were inclined to self flattery. -Which is a vice, so of course it would. They're brave men and damned who spit the name: Sea of Battle. 
 
 And I hate to admit it, but they're usually brave men and damned men who speak it in awe or reverence, who look up to blood and combat as a grand or beautiful sport, or game or dedication, or a glorious necessity, or otherwise relatedly view violence. And I do n't mean sport or sparring, I mean being lucky to watch a friend literally, literally, broken in half, like a twig or a tree trunk, and later a hundred men drown. 
 
 And I hate it all the more, for many of those who speak that name, -they're rarely whisperers- have seen it for themselves. Among them are sportsmen and sparrers and fighters who think the blood and the bone and the endings upon endings, detours into full stops, of lives, lives, are a fair price, or worse, a worthy one, or.. sideways and askew, some wonder and ponder and dwell and meditate on the question: what could be more, more exciting, on top of this, *the* rapturous game, than higher stakes? Are n't we lucky, some ask themselves, in tears of joy, or solemnity, or even in detached appreciation, -that things are so? And others, otherwise. 
 
 And some were mad, or driven mad. Some, rather than break down, broke around. But I'm telling you, I've known men as sane as the average person, which is n't saying a great deal, I know, but men as sane as that, or almost, for whom it is simple personal preference; aesthetics: They went in talking of sacrifice and fear and struggle and death, death, death, and came out talking louder, and smiling. And of them, I swear, the ones with missing eyes and wooden legs smiled the brightest. 
 
 -They're another lot, who call it the sea of madness. Not ambitious, or in a very different way. 
 
 Which reminds me, I was speaking of violence, and I am sorry I illustrated, for brutal deaths hold little relevance, even in war. They're too important rather than not important enough. If you dismiss them from your mind, as you should, then unless you're mad you'll still have some sort of awareness, enough, some avoidance, likely desperate and hopefully determined. 
 
... Desperate is n't a bad way 
 
 And yes, of violence... It's not the kind people were thinking of when they named that stretch, *battle*, but there's another kind of violence. It's the hand signing the treaty, the voice fluttering in deceit, the heart betraying its world. 
 
 Or if its not violence, then whatever word there is or is n't for what I mean, deserves to be spoken with at least the same solemnity. It's a bad thing to turn astray from rightness, or straining for it. ( or it to find, if one does n't have its bearing, or does n't tend that way. ) 
 
 And listen, I will tell you something I hold secret, have held secret, for I am drunk, and feeling not exactly grand, or perhaps, exactly grand, but not grand! For life is grand, in the former sense and these are grand matters. One.., or rather I, must approach them with solemnity and respect, for the only other approach I see is to fall into them and call them, normal, in my heart. I suppose that is I, not one, others might have other ways, but I, must be grand. 
 
 And it is a grand evening tonight, this is a grand and important topic, and so this is a grand conversation. And this, is a grand drink in the other sense, and that's a grand lass there, in the same. So I am feeling grand in a way, I know just the way I mean, but perhaps you do n't, perhaps no one does, which is to be expected or perhaps accepted.. and I think it would be grand, just-grand that is, and also grand, I do apologise, or rather I do n't, alright, alright, -I assure you those are addressed wholly to myself, -to be grander still, so this drunken two time soldier, or more, we'll see, has something to tell you: 
 
 There is one name I believe is truer than the rest. It relates to rest, and to the rest, the others who are n't with us.. or anywhere, some believe. Those others, the ones not here, who left here, this whole place, land, planet, perhaps more. -The ones who left here, *here*, who left here *there*, -I do n't think most of them are at rest. I feel it in my bones and I felt it there first, but I've come to be convinced as well in speaking to mages and priests, that the dead do not rest easy there. That it's worse now, but that they never have: there's been for some time a rift in the planes here, ripped not open, but apart, to shreds, by the sheer weight, but also the sheer.. thrashing of the souls who've left this world here. You see that weight, and its nature, would be enough anywhere to destroy certain fabrics, but this sea is a crossroads of energy, it is a place people and places, and plots are attracted to, not just naturally and subtly, but actively, for there are things of great value here, of which the energy which here pools is not the least. So for the same reason, or a great part of it, for the density of events here, and for the type if one is cynical, or rather bitter, for the same reason, this is one of the worst places for such damage and turmoil to occur. Is n't it terrible?... 
 
 This sea of hosts, has become a sea of ghosts. That's what I call it, because that's what it is. 
 
 And, I'll tell you one more thing, because you seem a solid fellow, or something, some kind of fellow. I'll tell you something you must n't pass on, for there's nothing to be done but fear, which is n't something to do. I'll tell you that I'm fairly sure something is gon na happen here, something BIG. It's a critical mass. 
 
 Thank Pellea that the white guild are mobilised; it might be contained, relatively, but they've, *we've*, I've been so busy with the event in Seromicia, so tenuous, that there's not going to be enough, we're not going to be organised enough, and it's going to be bad. 
 
 On the bright side I'm sure, -I feel it, almost in my bones, - that there could n't possibly be enough, because it's going to be one of those events, -where there ca n't. Like the one in Seromicia. 
 
 Alright, I'll admit, come to think of it, or look right at it. I do n't know which, I am drunk after all, that much is true. I'll admit that probably was n't the only reason I told you come to think of it or observe it or... I do n't know... 
 
 -I can see you're a mage.. very good, very... nonplussed, but I can tell all the same, it's one of my talents, perhaps i could teach it to you... You're not just a mage, you're a necro, or you can necro, and we need all the help we can get here... 

