Death of Amir
Amir awoke to the discovery that he was dead. In front of him was his own body, which his attackers had left floating atop the Void Ocean. In the waters below, he saw his own reflection: it was as if he had taken the form of his skeleton, but light blue in color, glowing, and semi-transparent. This was his soul.
The Black Hole
Suddenly, the waters began to swirl and a whirlpool opened. Out from the whirlpool came a tiny figure shrouded in a dark cloak, aboard a small wooden boat. It drifted toward Amir before stopping just in front of him. Then the figure and its boat began to grow rapidly until they matched Amir’s size. He now noticed that the figure was hollow, as if the cloak were wrapped around nothing. He also saw that it held a hook, and that the boat bore a figurehead shaped like a magpie. Then it began to speak in a screechy voice that seemed to come from within Amir’s head:
“I am the fisherman, and I am here to claim the dead.”
“Who are you?” asked Amir.
“I’m the fisherman. I am a wraith from the Underworld and I ferry the dead. You are my first client.”
“But why am I your first client? The Great Pine died before I did.”
“The Pine’s soul was captured by the one you call ‘Augustus’. You are simply the first soul we could get to on time.”
“What is the Underworld and what is that whirlpool?”
“The “whirlpool”, as you called it, is a gateway between the Underworld and the Void. We like to call it ‘the Black Hole’.”
“But what is the Underworld?” Amir asked again.
“You’ll see it soon enough, just board the boat.”
Amir hesitantly got into the boat, and the Fisherman drove it back through the Black Hole.
The Underworld
Through the Black Hole was an expansive cavern with walls of a brownish stone. The ceiling and floor were dotted with stalagmites and stalactites, and though they were massively far apart, an observer standing on the floor could see the ceiling above them. This could not be said about the walls of cavern: from one end, the other side was so far away that it couldn’t be seen at all. Amir even thought it was possible that the cave could go on endlessly. In a great waterfall from the ceiling fell the Void Ocean’s waters from the Black Hole. The water gathered and started to flow as a gigantic river. It winded on for a long stretch before depositing into a deep basin, and soon it filled to the top, creating a sea bigger than any other (besides the Void Ocean). The cavern was filled with an uncountable number of wraiths with different sizes and shapes, and from the ceiling hung an odd, branching structure. It was like a huge, upside down tree without leaves, and from the tips of the branches billowed smoke.
“Where are we? What is that on the ceiling” asked Amir to the Fisherman.
“We are in the Underworld. Welcome. That on the ceiling is the roots of the Great Pine.”
“And what’s with the smoke?”
“The smoke from the Great Stump’s fire gets funneled down the roots and exits here. If you are worried about suffocation, don’t be: you are already dead. However, that smoke might act as a worthy deterrent against any living creature trying to sneak down here.”
They rode down the river on the Fisherman’s boat. Amir noticed in the far distance a massive mountain range that seemed to semi-encircle him. He was going to ask about it, but he was interrupted by the boat suddenly stopping.
“We are here, get out of the boat.” stated the Fisherman.
“What do I do here?” asked Amir.
“Because you are the first soul in the Underworld, you can do whatever you desire.”
Blue Sun
Amir started out by naming the many land forms he had observed. He traveled to the mountain range that he had seen earlier. He climbed up the peaks to find that the range had a massive valley spanning end to end through the center. The valley was wet from a river that ran through it’s middle, and all the dirt and earth of the valley was muddy. It was so muddy that the river was flowing with mud, so he named it the ‘River of Mud’. He also named the valley the ‘Valley of Mud’ and he named the mountain range the “Stalagmounts”. When he returned from the mountains, he named the river flowing from the Black Hole the ‘Grim River’ and the waterfall from the ceiling, he named ‘Grim Falls’*. Then he named the massive sea ‘Wraith Waters’. After naming everything he wanted to name, Amir realized how dark the Underworld was, so he collected smoke from the Great Pine’s Roots and compacted it into a ball. He then set it ablaze, and it burned so hot that it appeared blue.