The Night when Water Burned

The burning of the Ziggurat fleet along the coast of Core Vandal almost 400 years ago did more than keep the country free; it was also the genesis of a sort of religion.

During the early 1900's of Vault's recorded history, the land now called Core Vandal was mostly unpopulated. Galdarion had founded her new home, and a cadre of power magic users shrouded in secrecy worked on unknowable pursuits in the western hills, but the majority of the country consisted of small villages and roaming bands of nomads.

And so it was a mystery as to why Ziggurat, a nation of warmongering zealots from across the Farewave Ocean, chose to bring the full might of their armies to bear against a small fishing village on the western coast of Core Vandal. To this day, historians argue over the reason. A handful of capable warriors could have marched to the doorsteps of Galdarion Forest without incident. But Ziggurat sent their entire fleet.

And it never returned home.

Sabrina Sharp was a young woman barely out of her teens who had a good life teaching children the ins and outs of life near the ocean. She spent much of her day exploring the countryside, being late for community gatherings, and adding to her collection of pressed wildflowers in a journal she kept. The idea she'd massacre thousands of people in a single night was beyond anyone's wildest belief.

Yet one evening, as she sat on a cliff overlooking the Farewave, humming to herself a song about how to trick bees into giving up their honey, she spotted the sails on the horizon. Initially curious, she didn't raise an alarm. It wasn't until she counted fifty ships that curiosity became concern. By the time she reached the homes of her family and friends, the ships numbered in the hundreds. And every prow pointed to her home.

The obvious answer was to run. Abandon the insignificant and mundane domiciles and escape into the hills. Hills where they knew they'd be safe. Every person in that village agreed and began to gather their things. Every person except for Sabrina Sharp. Stories of that night tell of how the decisions to leave changed something in Sabrina. She became stubborn, even confrontational. She argued against the wisdom of fleeing to the point of becoming violent. The elders attempted to restrain her, believing her to be suffering from some affliction, but she lashed out and fled back to her original perch on the cliffs above the sea. Unwilling to leave her behind, her friends and family chased after, hoping to force her to leave before the first small boat landed.

They needn't have worried.

Sabrina Sharp ensnared the sounding sea
It boiled at her command and claimed the lives of hundreds three
The flames she fathomed finally were stopped
Burned alive and left to die were the lives of Ziggurat
-- A Sailor's Rhyme

Those who witness Sabrina atop those cliffs claimed she became fire incarnate. Some have posited she was actually a Phoenix taking mortal form. Some believe she became the avatar of a vengeful god. But no one actually knows how that young school teacher raised her hands and the ocean began to boil. As the ships of Ziggurat came within a league of the land, each and every one erupted in gouts of iridescent flame. Those who watched spoke of fire that had purpose. It was alive. It came after the people aboard the boats, not just burning the boats and catching the sails, but striking out at them and trying to catch them before they abandoned ship. But even those who abandoned ship found the water a worse fate.

The people of that small coastal village watched throughout the night as Sabrina channeled whatever power she had found into the thousands of lives aboard those boats. Not a single person survived. Including Sabrina Sharp.

After her feat she collapsed and later succumbed to the power still welling within her. On her deathbed she muttered feverishly about a lack of control and not wanting to hurt anyone else. In the end, she asked for her pressed wildflower notebook and to be alone. She passed before morning.

That small village became the city of Queen's Meet, and Sabrina Sharp became more than a legend. She became the center of a ideology that spawned a religion. The core tenets of which are never backing down from those who would take peace from you, and burning as bright as possible, even if it means burning out.

The Ziggurat fleet smoldered for days. But whatever Sabrina Sharp channeled on those cliffs has been smoldering for centuries.