(This is more or less non-canon--kinda a what-if or sidestory for people. And PLEASE join. This should be EPIC)
Arca. Jewel of Serendipity. The greatist port in the world--gateway to the wide world.
Arca. City of Death. Sea of Darkness, Black Mire Town--Hell's Kitchen.
The city was no longer what it once was. Where Arca existed once now was an immense hole--like the ground had sunk away into black waters. Indeed, it was a bay--the blue ocean turned dark and black as it entered the ruins of the city.
The churning dark sea was dotted with the ruined and wrecked remains of what were once buildings. The dark waters had splattered and hardened about the more stubborn structures, covering them in dark webs. The buildings were slowly sinking into the swamp-like mire. The black sea was thicker than water, and once you fell in...it swallowed you.
The ruins and floating bits of rubble grew more numerous as you got closer to the center of the black bay. The buildings formed a spiral, circling around the center like a whirlpool. The tallest structures were closest, and many buildings were suspended in the air, held aloft by unseen powers, bits of pieces of them crumbling and falling to the inky depths beneath them. The main attraction, however, was the Center.
An enormous cyclone dominated the landscape, filling the center of the bay with a twisting torrent of wind and water, swirling about a central spire with hideous fury. The wind was silent--unnaturally so. In fact, not a sound rose from the ruins. The bits of floating buildings that approached too close to the cyclone were quickly ripped to shreds.
Strange shapes haunted the black ocean. Some rose up from under the surface, bulbous eyes and misshapen forms breaking the stillness below before vanishing beneath once again. Even more bizzare--in some places, like holes in the ground, the black seas fell into even darker crevasses...and a wary eye could see, below this cursed place, lay some unseeable, unknowable madness. And from those holes, one could see movement. Something lived down there.
The central storm was not completely cut off from the mainland. The high, jagged cliffs that now encircled the land where Arca stood had a new addition as well. A patchwork of steel and iron, ripped off the ships that once decorated Arca's harbor, and twisted together into one long, unbroken bridge. It thrust into the lip of the cliff like a spear impaling fresh meat, and stretched all the way across the black sea, into the swirling storm.
This was the road. A road to a world nobody could possibly explain or describe. A lone fisherman, returning home from a trip to the capitol, stared at this horror, and at the one person who had dared to cross that bridge. A single shape, limping, clutching a crutch in one hand and a sword in the other, had crossed over the bridge, vanishing into the thick, swirling mass of wind and water. A golden XIII was stamped on his back.
What drove him there? The fisherman couldn't figure it out. That had been almost a day ago. The place hadn't changed much. No sound arose--nothing new could be seen on that bleak horizon. Who else would come?
Who else would challenge the Abyss? Who else would desire to save Arca from itself.
Welcome to Arca. Welcome to the City of Lost Dreams--where sorrow meets horror in a bed of erotic nightmares, endless dreams, and insanity is the only thing you can count on.
