Greater Skorbak
The mysteries of the Skorbakan Sea are known throughout the land. Brave explorers, sailors, and suicidals have attempted to go beyond the coastal waters of our land. Those who've made it back never explored far enough to find anything significant. The grand majority of those who have travelled in the beyond, never return. From the few accounts we have, we can ascertain a few facts, but from the people, there are hundreds of uncorroborated stories, myths, fears and superstitions. In this journal entry, I'm going to recount what we know of the Greater Skorbak, the ocean beyond our Skorbakan Sea west of Mbali, and even give some record of the more popular but unproven tales told by griots in the west.
Now, let me address what might be a mystery to those who attempt to read my and my assistant's journal entries in chronological order. As you know from our first entries, we have been given charge by the king of Qatar to fill the Qatar Archives with stories and facts throughout the Land of Mbali. It is the first ever large scale attempt of a written record of our land. Many are untrusting of the Jami, who are our commissioned collectors of stories traveling across the land. Because of this mistrust, some accounts take longer to come in. Most of our early accounts have come from the Kingdom of Ghan. Queen Ogechi is one of the first monarchs to give us kingdom-wide permission to collect stories. Most of the other leaders keep their griots to themselves. Most knowledge is kept by griots across the continent, but we hope to capture that knowledge in perpetuity. Just like the traditions of the griot over millenia, but without reliance on the human storyteller. Well, sort of...it is not lost on us that recording these stories does depend on our individual human perspective in writing all this down...but back to the main subject of this entry, the Greater Skorbak.
In most of our accounts we have to compile information that originate from the griots in Ghan. Indeed, the Ghanaian monarchy in many kingdoms past, attempted to commission explorers to travel Greater Skorbak dozens of times. Much of those attempts ended in tragedy...as far as we know, because most of those commissioned, never returned.
On the edge of the Skorbakan Sea, the naked eye can view Greater Skorbak as an endless gray beyond. Eyes see nothing past where the sky meets the edge of the water. Seeing that much is a good day, for it is reported that most of the time fogs, both thin and thick, impede the vision of those looking beyond. The first known sailor to return was found on a dinghy, dehydrated and dying. This sailor is known as Taiwo. It is disputed that he was the first to return from Greater Skorbak, but the dispute accounts are all riddled with superstition and tales of horror meant to scare children. Taiwo's account was collected by the Masanii of Ghan and reported to the royal family, even though some of it has been dismissed as the ramblings of a mind going mad. From Taiwo's account we gather that beyond the fogs is truly an endless span of water. Taiwo reported that the ship he served on exited the fogs and sailed into a beautiful blue ocean with the sun lighting open water for hundreds of miles ahead. All of the sailors looked forward to a grand adventure to see what lay on the other side. But the clear skies quickly gave in to a monstrous storm. The winds and rain were heavy and massive. It was as if buckets of water were being tossed onto the ship by Jind looking above. The crew was not unfamiliar with storms, they focused on their routine of bailing water and riding the waves with flattened to no sails. But this was no ordinary storm. Bailing the water became a battle that over time they would lose if the storm did not dissipate. Water was dumped on the ship much faster than they could remove it. Thunder roared constantly, and the real danger of lightning was the captain's greatest concern until the waves changed. At first the ship battled waves that are common with major storms. Storms are scary for all sailors, but the captain and crew were not novices, they had lived through some bad conditions in their time. The waves coming from the west grew larger and larger the further the ship floated into Greater Skorbak. Soon...and this is where Taiwo's account gets quite foggy...a wave that touched the sky came rolling towards the ship. Taiwo must have exaggerated, but how can you blame the man after experiencing such a horrifying ordeal. The captain attempted to turn the ship around, hoping to escape the worst of the giant wave. Taiwo said everyone braced for the crashing of the wave. The towering water proved too much for the ship. It snapped the ship in multiple places, tearing down the masts, and devouring the entire expedition. Taiwo recounted that at the end of the wave crashing, in the corner of his eye, the back of a great beast protruded from the water. He concluded this was a beast because it seemed to roll or move in the ocean. This glimpse was less than a second, for Taiwo was also swallowed by the wave, falling into the water and expecting to die. He recalled swimming for his life, reaching the ocean's surface, and finding the dinghy, along with other broken pieces of the demolished ship floating on the open water. He was so exhausted he couldn't bring himself to look for other survivors. He passed out on the dinghy. He didn't know how long he was out. When he awoke, he lay on the coasts of Ghan with Masanii looking over him. Taiwo died not many days afterward.
I know that this is only one account of a handful of so-called survivors. But the Masanii in Ghan take great care in recounting Taiwo's story. It has survived the rule of dozens of Ghanaian monarchs. There are other tales that have preceded and come after Taiwo's account and some are variations of certain aspects of his story. For instance, many believe that the storm was Jindh's warning to stay away from Greater Skorbak. Some have taken Taiwo's account as proof that there are giant beasts in the ocean, and until we can tap into the tsun of those beasts, we can never explore the great expanse. Other's say that the beast that Taiwo encountered was probably an island, rather than the back of a giant sea creature, and that powerful Masanii lived on that island and used magic to conjure the giant wave that took Taiwo's ship. I believe there is some credibility to this perspective, as it better coincides with the world we know and what's possible within our understanding.
Other accounts, including those that precede Taiwo's, speak of other survivors that told tales of mystical weather, ship-eating creatures, and even the dragons of ancient times. As I said, those have mostly been dismissed as tales of entertainment. There are some that hold quite an inordinate amount of detail, and I'll share some of these in later entries. I believe my assistant, Barika, will also want to record a few entries on some of these details. But they'll come later. It's suffice to say that we really don't know much about Greater Skorbak, and what we hear, has too many holes to make complete conclusions.
-Dulamah
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