“Every single night, the sun would set in fire red engulfed by the blue sky and sea. Every night a hope stars were the only shine to be seen, for the enemies beyond mountain and sea would rain light from above. When a sun would rise where it should not, even lighthouses would be silent to the eyes, risking wood in ships die in water so the wood in pines wouldn‘t to flesh alight. Howsoever, the high towers in darkness would always stood watch, for if the water was no grave for dragons, a black tiger from the flowers would claw their last breath over the earth.“

The Northeast Watch is a series of harbors and lighthouses used for trade by the Diarchy of Adália. Only famous by trade until they became the first line of terrestrial defense against airships and navy during the War of Flames. It lost much of its strength during the first years of the war, almost becoming a desert town where only a few merchants would rush supplies in and out without daring to sleep on it. However not long after the sieges of the north were over, whenever the Akaryuu Empire would chop wood for a boat it would think if it would ever last, for if they avoided the lighthouses, the sea was relentless and full of horrors.

While the bay itself was not famous enough before the war… a particular tale was, older than the name Northeast Watch, but not as its towers.



A Chronicle of Dusk and Dawn

In a time before the Kingdom of Adália was even dreamed by the people whose feet touched the shallow waves of those shores, and before the tree that turned into its wooden crown sprouted, the islands of floating corals underwater the bay would nest a King. The King of the Bay would come out of the water taxing fishermen in pinenuts from the araucária high and dry.

Once upon a time, a family brought sunflower seeds expecting they would fool the giant sea otters that collected the seeds, but that did not work, for they were cleverer than humans believed them to be. To escape a harsher punishment, the family sold their youngest son to the King, and accepted its banishment from the bay of floating corals.

Some say the boy had skin as brown as trees, others say his skin was so black from soot it stayed that way, yet songs from far east claim he was no human at all, with a skin as smooth as dolphins, oiled by shadows that reflect stars. The only thing they all agree is that the soul left behind became known as the Nailer, and the whole bay loved the Nailer.

“To every nail a polish, for every nail is special. To every tale a little magic, for every story needs details”, he would say.

Craftsmen loved to envy him, bards memorized the tales he spoke, for he would tell them only once. They would come fresh and new as the nails and get mixed up along the others. Legend says the skinny boy grew strong and fat from so much profit he achieved to his king, and from so many other things people asked him to cast and forge.

He made swords, he made amulets, he made rings. His jewelry was rough and brute until one took a second look. People asked for him to work on silver or King’s gold, some even brought black iron and star glass doubting his skills, but he amazed them all. His works became more complex over the decades, to the point even so small nails were foliated by darkness and gold, strong and layered, as if they were stripped cliffs, being marked the cycles of day and night that took to make them.

People from every horizon in the sea would sail seeking to see the lights in high towers, bringing King’s gold when all the King wanted was pinenuts. The slave outgrew his kingdom, but he was still bonded to the towers, forging metal in there, and hammering down sparks for the so glorious flames that brought ships to land, and take his work farther than he would ever see.

One day a soul of skin as white as stars can get, with bones and a tail thick as her thigh, came to visit him. She, like every soul like hers, was curious about this Nail’s steel even monsters would talk about. She wanted something special to be made from this iron of dusk and dawn.

She wanted a book of iron, written in copper. He was proud to begin, yet ashamed not to finish, would overlay the thick compressed metals, but never thin enough one could turn a page yet sturdy enough not to shatter. The first days were feverous, the following weeks were a nuisance, the last few months were dreadful.

Not even the King of the Bay could make him stop from trying the one work he never finished. Songs claim whenever overlaying the thick compressed metals, he would cover a cast of gold and blood flour. There were talks of few exchanges made for black iron, talks about casting it over pages, talks about candles made from honey and glass… but nothing came of it.

At first there was impatience surrounding the Nailer, then there were protests, then there were riots, violence from all the people that came far away… blood, until only curiosity remained. Eventually, people would only stop there simply to know if progress was made.

As stories stopped being told, and only vents were to be heard, the people around the towers of lights started making their own. So many chronicles surrounded the white carver and the blacksmith of the bay. Chronicles that claim love, or simply them being lost on each other’s worlds.

It is not truly known for sure what the carver wanted with such a heavy and complicated book. However, tales about her growing plants inside the furnace came around, her doubt about the trees growing in such a harsh environment would be argued against the results and the words spoken by the Nailer, “if I sprouted from rust and ash, souls inside seeds can sprout as well”.

Instead of tales she would take the life of the plants she grew with so much care, so their wood would become staffs and wands and handles. Only death can bring liberty to rooted beings, they may spread beneath the earth, but new horizons can only be seen when their flesh is turned into smoke. A whole new set of rites from a witch that sowed and carved seemed to be made every day, and when she would quench the wood leaves would grow as if their death was simply a hold of breath.

The Nailer saw the wooden items go away and he wanted that for himself. The Carver said they could just walk away whenever they wanted, but he would always claim he swore not to, not until his last breath. He could not leave the towers or give up on his work. Even though by living with her he knew one could not learn everything by always seeing the same horizon.

The Carver then once said, she could free him from the oaths he was bound to, not for breaking them but by fulfilling them. That she would carry him to the end of the land and where the sun meets the sea. However, he was reluctant, for he would never touch his hammer again, only by her hands, only by her breath.

The poets say it took a couple eclipses for him to decide. He lit the fire of the towers of lights one last time, and was laid down by her slowly pushing his forehead and chest, so the last push of his lungs would make him asleep instead of bringing him agony, leaving his flesh and hammer on the ground. Uninterested of picking it up again, not until he knew how to forge a book.

Nobody could pick up that heavy hammer of his, layered on steel of Dusk and Dawn. Some would say it is due to the many times he had to fix his hammer, he would hit metal so strongly it would compress the area he needed to work properly and needed to make up for it. Others would spread that the relic was loaded of the stories he told and the stories that the materials it touched brought along with them, only someone with equal force could pick it up, a soul that could emote iron and fire.

As myth shrouded the metal, statues carved from the plants left around were put around it, all upside down. The Nail’s Steel on it was so heavy some started to say it supported those lands instead of otherwise, kids looking and grabbing it upside down were a common sight.

Of course, it was not just rumors that made the hammer mystical in nature. People would light a fire on it just to show that the eyes of the statues would be set on white fire as well, but never burn. Almost if reminding them of the forge would ascend their souls once again. When the towers were rebuilt with the same stones filled with rust and melted iron, it is said that if one burned the metal dust, ashes would be blown into text, sketches of spells and tales untold.

Generations were born and perished around this hammer, until the description of the souls involved differed from one household to another. Yet dreamers tried all they could to pick up the hammer, they wanted to be the next slave of the towers, the next forger of nails, a job once so little deified by the one in gaze with a piece of iron of dusk and dawn.

Every ear would eventually enchant its owner into comparing oneself and all the others to the Nailer of the Lighthouse. Like moths to a flame they would spend their lives trying to be someone else, like ships whose captains were too distracted by the light in towers to mind the reefs. The corals would not even float outside water anymore and yet all that passed above wanted to be the new master of craft, all wanting to pick up one tool between the towers of the bay.

Until one day, without ceremony, someone did.