Ahari Azda - The Abyssal Chasm

Inspired by Spooktober Prompt #6: Chasm

You will know it when you see it. The water does not look right. The air does not smell right. The animals do not sound right. Nothing is right in that place.

— Local describing the Ahari Azda

Disasters always leave behind scars of one kind or another. Some cannot be seen with the naked eye, while others will mark both earth and people alike. The Great Calamities go above and beyond even in this regard, leaving behind scars that dominate both nations and continents alike.

Brightflame Hour

When the youngest of the Great Calamities hit Anidara in 3199 DA, it shattered the entire western side of the continent. A once sprawling land of hills and lush forests was turned into a broken desert of stone and dead trees. In the center, where that eerie green blast once shot up into the air, now lies a titanic caldera. Rain and river water have filled it in the century since the event and created an inland sea: the Ahari Azda, the Abyssal Chasm.

Cursed Sea

Aside from being utterly monstrous, its coastline alone is nearly 2,000 kilometres long, the Chasm as a whole presents a rather unnatural sight. Its water appears almost black in colour and is heavy to the touch. The smell it gives off is strange, mixing pleasant with putrid. Standing along its jagged shore, one cannot help but feel terror at the black abyss that opens under them.
Within that chasm is movement, however. Streams and currents of colour. High concentrations of metals, salts and certain stones that, either through their own reaction to each other or tectonic movements within the caldera, are pushed out into the sea at differing speeds. These currents can even reach the surface and their unpredictable nature makes traversing the sea a dangerous undertaking. If it were possible that is.
The unique mixture of chemicals, metals, salts and earths within has given the sea a rather peculiar toxic nature. Drinking it seems safe for humans and animals, even if it comes with rather strange consequences, but prolonged exposure, such as the week it takes a ship to cross the sea, will cause even metal to disintegrate. This makes sea travel basically impossible, not even mentioning the freakwaves and "blue holes" appearing with some regularity.

You call it scar. The Jinniki call it eye. It is neither of those. The Ahari Azda is nothing but a festering wound. A mark of the wrath of god that we have drawn on ourselves.

— Khosrow Asani, Sasani Warlord

Alternative Name(s)

Altar of the Brightflame
Womb of Demons

Type

Crater / Crater Lake / Caldera

Location under

Anidara - The Southern Daughter

Contested By

• Cetaran Covenant
• Kha'ali Rushtra

Living with Madness

Despite all its horrors, the Abyss still bears life. Strangely deformed it may be, but alive it most definitely is. Trees and other plants still grows along its shores, although the leaves hold curious colors and seem almost as if from metal when seen under sunlight. Humans stil dwell here, but few would have good words to say about them. On the northern shore, the followers of a doomsday cult have emerged in the days following the cataclysm. And in the south, the apocalyptic hordes of the Kha'ali Rushtra wander among ashen fields.

by Filip Pandzic