Chapter 13-361: The Triangle Marks the Spot (2/2)

That meant that wherever this vortex led also had to be opened by the Shroud, and was open Right Now. All this vortex was doing was opening another pathway, so there had to be another way in or out of wherever it was going, connected to the rest of the place.

I assumed that this dimensional leveraging effect was a way for the undead to spread into every little nook and cranny of a world and ensure that there were no hidden surprises anywhere, sacrificing every last little speck of life to Death so that they could abide forever in their own version of Hell.

With that in mind, being sent to wherever this crazy maelstrom, a roaring whirlpool extending over a mile down towards the sea floor while a whirling cyclone circled counterclockwise at the heart of it to drag down anything in the air, was going, didn’t bother me much at all.

The Old Steed was unafraid, and rather excited, instead. He leapt over the edge of the maelstrom and fearlessly headed right down the side of it, hooves burning as we headed for the churning heart of the effect below.

Gravity and space were going wonky, and we ended up sliding sideways to follow the flow of the effect, just moving a bit faster than it was designed to send anything down. I felt the dimensions stretching and warping around us, passing us right through the mantle of the world and plunging down and away as the storm howled madly about us, lightning crackled as dimensions protested against the treatment, and I ignored everything as we rode the hurricane-force cyclone to the end.

We shot out the far end, actually using the wind to outrun the wind as we shot out of any captivity or shackling effect pervading the vortex, and found ourselves out in new and dark seas, looking around in interest as a great waterspout extended up into the churning mass of a very unreal cloud cover above us, writhing and spinning with chaotic forces fueled by elemental rage.

I reached out and snuffed the storm I’d built up above.

It collapsed with incredible speed, and the vortex above us almost seemed to hiccup in shock as its power supply evaporated with speed every bit as unnatural as its own existence. The waterspout spun itself out, receding back into the sky, and then those clouds almost tore themselves apart, spitting themselves across the sky as if freed from imprisonment.

A sullen red sky peeked through the rapidly dispersing clouds, and we looked up at the world rising on all sides of us, far into the distance.

There was the black dome of a Shroudzone rising to the northwest of us, and another one in the distance to the south and east.

-Holy Shit!- Legion /exclaimed in the distance, a third of the way around the Hollow World from us at this point.

The Bermuda Vortex was an alternate way for large-scale entry into the Hollow World!

The seas here were calming down with supernatural speed now that the magical energy kicking up a fuss was all gone away. I looked around coolly.

Ships. This was a graveyard of ships.

The most obvious ones were all of metal: freighters, warships, and personal yachts crashed and broken onto the reefs and sandbars of this place, grounded and obviously unable to move. There were hulks and skeletons of other vessels around too, including a couple old bombers. Not far off the beaches and rocky cliffs I could see, the great trees of this place also started to rise to their improbable heights, which might well have claimed the lives of any airplane pilots not expecting to run into a tree when they were still a couple thousand feet in the air.

More to the point, I could see lights leaking here and there behind storm covers, hints of motion moving between dark little holes in the storms, and two ships that had been driven well up onto a beach seemed to have people moving over them.

More to the point, I still had Commune with Nature up, and bid the Old Steed get off the surface of the water.

He hopped a hundred feet into the air lazily, and the mosasaurus raging up to take a bite of him ended up a good fifty feet shy of the effort, glaring up at us sitting there beyond his reach before falling down to splash into the shallow waters. It swam away, disgruntled after watching us just sitting up there in place for a bit, realizing we didn’t have to come down and get eaten, and surged away, heading further out to sea.

I turned my attention to the ships and the people there, and the Old Steed began to move in that direction.

Shipwrecks probably meant survivors. Survivors meant people waiting to be rescued and return home.

Search-and-rescue was one of the nobler endeavors of the human race, and if there were people trapped down here, they had likely given up all hope of being rescued. On the flip side, they were possibly mobilizing to help out any newcomers who were hurled out of the Vortex, and so rescue any other survivors like themselves if possible.

Either that, or local scrappers were preying on the ships and crew who landed here. I’d find out soon enough.

Environmental damage had attacked all of these ships, and I couldn’t see any names or identification on any of them, the paint long since peeled and battered away by time and the elements. However, I could easily scan all them and send them off for comparisons to ships believed lost in the Triangle, and match them up that way.

In addition, accessing records of the missing crew of each of the ships was totally within my ability. Or rather, the abilities of the hackers in Heavenbound Hall, now on the job.

Thus equipped with the potential positive identification of survivors, I proceeded towards the ships closest to the rising cliffs and shallow beach there, wondering what I was going to encounter.

If I didn’t meet any survivors, well enough. I knew exactly where to go to get out of here, and I could certainly ride a Lived-Line through the place and see what was here...