Quest for the Eye of Nyoka

[Heart of Darkness]

[glow=yellow,5,530] Quest for Treasure[/glow]"Nothing is hidden that will not be made known,
or secret that will not come to light."
~

Explorers chart through the unknown, always searching for something, their next discovery lay before their feet in the path ahead. Some seek truth, others adventure. Following fables and legends, risking their lives and scouring lands in hopes of finding lost treasures. To these men... every map reveals a jewel.

Nearly thirty years have past since Shaba, an geographer, was killed during an exploration deep into the equatorial jungles that took him further than any white man had been at that time. After his death there was a wide distribution of his maps and notebooks to those of his caste, however, some of those records fell into the hands of men with less than honorable desires. Pestilent men who would stop at nothing to find what legend perpetuated as the largest load of sapphires any man could dream of.

While geographers eventually returned to the ancient city discovered by Shaba finding no evidence of this treasure, or what is now called the hidden city, there were rubbings etched into his notebook that suggested otherwise. The script was of an inland dialect, a tribe that even Shaba did not know how to translate, but under the carvings written in freehand was the phrase, Eye of Nyoka. There was speculation on what the eye was, a stone, many had said, a jewel as large as a man's fist. Men searched the ancient lost city near Lake Shaba for the place the inscription was rubbed from and came up empty. In the years since many have given up hope in finding the key to this hidden place.

What they did not know was the markings did not come from the ancient city but the gateway to a hidden cave, a place that was only discovered by Shaba when he had the Tahari ring.

"...the ring which I obtained in the Tahari,
that ring which projects the light diversion field,
which renders its wearer invisible in the normal
visible range of the spectrum."
-Explorers of Gor-

Krakatoa, a guide and translator during the original expedition of Shaba, has become obsessed with finding the treasure. He witnessed much of the Ancient City's exploration, near a lake now named after it's founder, but never saw a single sapphire. Still, he believes that Shaba found the lake and the clues to finding it were left in his notebooks and maps. Over the years he has collected the maps distributed through the caste of geographers, but has never been able to find the last journal, the one he is certain shows the way.

There have, however, been copies. Hiring another explorer by the name of Ramus to study these documents and charter a new expedition. The results provided him with yet another clue and still no treasure.

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ONE YEAR AGO...

The sparse rays of the sun that filtered down from the heavy canopy overhead were ineffective against the damp mist that hugged the surface of the Nyoka River. The two matching skiffs cut soundlessly through it as the morning light brightened their paths up stream.

The Jungles of Gor were not the tropical paradise the man had dreamed about and feverishly he documented this, scribbling the tips of writing stick across the damp rence of the pages in his ledger. He had been disappointed many times now since the departure of the bustling port town of Schendi. Disappointments had been handed out like candy was passed around to pacify panther girls. Besides the giant trees, trunks so thick five men with interlocked hands could not span the girth with the chain of their arms, there was surprising lack of foliage beneath them. The ground was root-laden by the massive trees that crowded each other close enough to nearly block out the encroaching light altogether. This massive root network must leave little topsoil and bleaches the nutrient as well, leaving little to feed the undergrowth. Around the rivers the plant life nearly makes it impossible to disembark...

Stolen from his detailed transcribing, the man ran a hand across his sticky forehead, glancing over to the whispers of the guides. The easy jibing of the men in the long boats had been cut off. One of them, pointed to the etching carved into the side of trunk of a tree. It was quite obviously a depiction of an eye. The pupil was too slitted to be human. "Nyoka watches." Whispers on whispers from the paddlers..and it was almost as if the forests picked up the words. Whispering them back.

Eye of the Serpent

Deep in the swamplands, the overgrowth of vines working as a veil to conceal the heart of unexplored territory, as the canoes were abandoned and men moved on foot through the jungles. They were no longer in the upper cusp of the jungle, Ramus studied the transcribed version of Shaba's notes and theorized the rubbing had been taken while they were still on the Nyoka River, a place others had not been looking.

Years of searching finally paid of, though only in a small token. Ramus found the destroyed remains of stone Shaba had taken his rubbings from, the first of many clues to trace the steps of the dead explorer. Once these pieces were taken back to Schendi and examined closely Ramus discovered the ancient script was not broken to keep others from reading it, but to reveal a hidden article. A compass, according to Ramus, that will lead them to the treasure.

...but where was it?

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Quote: Luke 12:2-3

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