Vikas Tan had not been standing idly by and watching while his sisters and brothers fought and suffered, but he had not been able to bring his hand against the other clans either. Instead, he had been secretly working in the nights on a project of his own. Scouring the land far and wide, Vikas Tan had been recovering the remnants of our forebearers, previously cast aside by the people of the Coast in the belief that they had been agents of our ill fate. But Vikas Tan was no longer concerned with curses or destiny, if it meant another day of life he would use every scrap of forsaken metal he could find. He had reclaimed these vestiges of our past and forged himself empowering armaments, a set of trappings to bestow him with strength beyond that of any mortal, so that he might survive the unknown terrors of Kul’dri Vas.
It was clad in these armaments that he single-handedly dragged the largest piece of timber he could find across the shore while his astonished clan gazed in silence. It was a wide, flat, dilapidated plank, large enough for twenty people to stand on. It was barely useable for any kind of construction, but it would serve Vikas Tan’s purpose. He fastened a single lantern to a rod on one end, a symbol of yielding recognized across all the clans. He carried with him a long rod of metal, ripped from a dilapidated ruin and fashioned as a spear, as well as a long wooden plank, roughly carved to serve as an oar. He placed on the boat only his makeshift spear, a single pouch of water, a sack with three loaves of calcor dough, and a large coil of rope.
Vikas Tan stood before our people, who had watched his preparations with a blend of curiosity and dread. He pointed once more to the silhouette of Kul’dri Vas, calling out to his clan for the last time before his departure.
“Out across this water I will find our new hope for survival. In one week’s time I will return from my voyage, bearing the fruits of Kul’dri Vas upon this boat, and we will live on!”
With that, Vikas Tan shoved his crude raft off from the shore, slowly oaring his way across the still water of the Muted Sea. Slowly he shrank into the distance, fading into the mists that shrouded the coastline. As Vikas Tan drifted away from the Coast, he was not stopped nor intercepted. For all who laid eyes upon him saw his lantern and his bearing, and knew that where he intended to go, none was ever known to return. Only the lone glow of his lantern was still visible as the sun eventually set on the Coast, and eventually, that too disappeared.