SkyEarth (Reborn) Book 1: Stratos Rising

Chapter 8: Welcome to Granoden

Bays are curious and very mysterious. They're fragments ranging from all kinds of sizes, but instead of mountains and forests or just land in general, bays mostly comprised of oceans, like a layer of salty, watery icing on top of a rocky cake. A strange and mysterious force held the seawater back from the edge, keeping it from spilling. On most occasions one may find islands, some with villages, towns, and even cities inhabited with people. There are plenty of such bays in both Tramontana and Ostro. Shaun heard the captain saying through the PA that they're passing the island of Porta del Faro on their starboard side, a long strip of sand and jungle and a lighthouse atop a rocky outcrop.

It's been two days since the airship Lady Poniente left Oracion. She's now crossing the vast northern bays of the Tramontana, made more evident by the flag (a blue crescent moon, a blue albatross flying above and three wavy lines below on a clean white field) waving high from the flagpoles of inhabited islands. As nice as the view of the bays and islands, Shaun didn't feel so relaxed. Mostly it was because the words Cecilia last said to him still haunted him. The scenic view of the bays from the window, travelling on real airship, and even the airship's complimentary crew hat and badge wouldn't make Shaun forget those five words.

A war threatens to reawaken...

Shortly after boarding, Persephone had asked him what her mother's words meant, but Shaun couldn't hear her question or was afraid to answer. It was later that night in the cabin, when his family was asleep, that he opened Melody's journal, an old and thick leather-bound notebook with thin but rough page like parchment, just as he promised.

It was just a bunch of artistic hand-drawn pictures and unknown calligraphy.

In his childhood, Shaun had been taught by his father about codes and ciphers. The Voynich ciphers were the hardest to read and Shaun managed to read and write in those confusing scripts. But the ones written in the journal was an entirely new script. One he had never seen before.

The calligraphic cipher, written in ink, looked like loopy pieces of spidery string like cursive, but there was the bold thickness and accentuates in the lines and dashes. There were times that the calligraphy took the form of animals like birds fish, predatory cats, horses and insects, and even flowers and trees and fire. "Zoomorphic calligraphy. This is amazing!" Shaun had commented upon first seeing them.

As for the illustration, they were beautifully etched colored. Watercolor and ink seemed to have been used in creating the illustrations, all of which about fragments, trees, strange animals, and people and culture. It also included some strange things too like keys, what seemed to be portals, and fantastical creatures, in which the last few pages contained a sort of bestiary. Some of the creatures looked whimsical and harmless like cute stubby-looking plant creatures, and a few others looked weirdly bizarre like the squat and fat-looking bipedal elephant with a wild mane.

There's also some astronomical folios. Star charts, zodiac wheels, constellations, illustrations of suns, phases of the moon, the Yggdrasilian zodiac and their associating stars and symbols. Notes in these pages were also written in the same zoomorphic calligraphy, their meanings unknown to Shaun.

Even with all the beautiful pictures, Shaun still couldn't figure out what the journal's about.

Of course you can't read it said a familiar dreamy voice. Melody. There's only one person who can understand the journal. Curious looking boy. He awaits you in the Wall City.

"You put the lives of people in danger just because of something that I couldn't even read?" Shaun kept his voice soft as he vented his anger at Melody for endangering his family for an unreadable journal. "Just explain to me what's happening or tell me the contents of this journal. You're the one who wrote it." But Melody didn't answer. In his frustration, Shaun stashed the Journal in the drawer, almost breaking it, before going back to sleep.