A story has been told throughout the ages, of a mysterious garden in the vast desert sands of the Uhimba islands where one could gain immortality. While there are records containing details of such a garden, most of these records were considered fictional tales made by different individuals due to the absence of said islands. This was the case for a long period until the discovery of the Uhimba islands by an explorer called Khimba Bolgi while sailing in the 12th Millennium. The following is a retelling of the accounts given by Khimba Bolgi in his exploration of the islands and his quest for eternity.
1st Entry
On the 24th day of Merka, in the year 1210 of the 12th Millennium, Khimba noted that it had been 26 days since they left their hometown. Expressing displeasure at not having fulfilled their goal of finding new lands, he reported that their supplies were enough to last them another month. He mentioned that if there were still no signs of land the next day, they would need to start changing their course. Khimba concluded his diary entry by stating that he needed to start looking at the map to prepare for a new course.
2nd Entry
The next day, in the early afternoon, Khimba and his crew spotted a piece of land from their ship. Excitedly, they sailed towards the unknown land. Each crew member was filled with wonder about what the land would contain. As they got closer, they were surprised by a sandy introduction. Instructing his scout to look around the area before landing their ship, the scout morphed into an eagle, flew into the sky, and around 15 minutes later came back to the ship. He reported that the land they had discovered was a desert and that there was not just one land, but a bunch of islands closely grouped, each of them a desert. This report immediately caught the attention of Khimba, who upon hearing the report recalled a story he had heard back in his hometown about a group of islands called the Uhimba islands, that contained a garden where one could obtain immortality.
While at first, he was skeptical of the concept of immortality, regarding it as just a mythical concept unattainable by mortals, this discovery started to develop doubts inside him. These doubts soon got the better of him, and gathering all his crew members, he declared that they had just discovered the mythical Uhimba islands. Hearing this news, some members were doubtful, but a vast majority of the crew were jumping up and down in joy at having discovered what was considered a mythical location.
Quickly restoring order among his crew, Khimba and his men docked their ship and landed on the island. The first thing they did was set up camp a short distance from the coast, unload their supplies, and properly set up the camp. It took them the whole day to set up camp, and he ended his diary with joy and excitement for the exploration of the new lands.
3rd Entry
The 26th day of Merka marked the second day of their time in the Uhimba islands. Upon waking up, Khimba and his crew first had their breakfast before conducting a meeting on how they would operate. During this meeting, they decided that 23 crew members should stay on the island with Khimba while the rest returned to their homeland to report their findings. They made this decision with the belief that they could fully explore the islands within the time it would take for the returning party to reach home and come back with the help of Khimba’s Survey ability.
With the resources appropriately split and the members carefully chosen, the remaining crew members parted ways with Khimba and started their journey back to their hometown. Now that the other members were gone, the first necessary action was to create a suitable area of land where easy-to-grow, edible, nourishing, and durable plants could be planted. To do this, Khimba ordered the only druid of his crew to create a patch of fertile land under the protection of the camp. He then planted Driculri seeds in the soil, which, through the power of the druid, immediately grew and bore fruit. The Driculri fruit is well known for its ability to grow in any area of the world and for possessing fruit that nourishes both hunger and thirst.
After this, of the 23 members left on the island, Khimba selected 10 individuals to stay and guard the camp, including the druid. The rest were to follow him in exploring the desert. Instead of venturing out, Khimba stated in his diary that they properly distributed the supplies first and also constructed acceptable fortifications for their camp the whole day. And with this, he ended his day.
4th Entry
On the 27th day of Merka, Khimba noted in his diary that after eating breakfast, they immediately went out to explore. After hours of walking on the hot desert sands, Khimba and his team discovered nothing. Even with the help of his Survey ability, which he used to scan their surroundings as they explored the vast desert, Khimba did not manage to detect anything. In fact, he expressed confusion in his diary because, according to him, the Survey scan showed gibberish.
Undeterred by this, he and his team continued moving, each member looking out for anything—be it creatures that might attack them or structures and ruins that might guide them to treasures. However, such efforts turned out unrewarded as the sun began to fall, and they had to search for a place to make camp for the day. For this, he instructed one of his crew, called Tulu, to use his ability ‘Farsight’ to search for a high and smooth surface. Once he found such a place, Khimba and his team moved to the location, and using the Auto-Camp devices they had packed with them, set up five camps: one specifically for Khimba, and the other four mid-sized camps capable of holding four people each.
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They then set up a barrier with the help of four mages and one technician who was in his exploration team to protect them and detect anything that came close to them while they slept. After setting up everything, they started a fire, sat around it, and conversed with each other while eating. Khimba stated in his diary that every member of his team was full of energy and without a hint of fear or doubts before ending his entry for the day.
5th Entry
The 28th day of Merka was similar to the previous day. They first checked the ripeness of their Driculri fruit before consuming their regular food supply. Afterward, they packed up their camps and barrier poles, continuing their exploration of the desert island. Despite Khimba’s Survey scan still showing what he thought was gibberish, they pressed forward into the desert, conversing while remaining vigilant.
After a few hours of walking, Khimba and his team reached the edge of the desert islands. They were confused and surprised at how quickly they had reached the coast. The island appeared much larger when viewed from their ship during their approach, creating an expectation of a more extensive landmass. With a hint of suspicion from Khimba and some team members, the two metamorphs on his team transformed into birds and flew high into the sky to gain a top-down view of the islands. This perspective confirmed their suspicion that the island they were on seemed much larger from a distance than up close. Flying down, they relayed their findings to Khimba and his team, who were resting by the coast.
Upon hearing this information, the team shared multiple speculations about the reason for such a distortion of perception. After a minute of brainstorming their ideas, they all agreed that this was likely due to a large-scale application of illusion magic, which amazed them. Instead of wasting time discussing this topic, they immediately resumed their journey, this time following the coast to completely circle the island and utilize the team’s abilities to fully explore the surroundings. A few hours later, as the sun started to set, Khimba and his team set up camp and rested for the day again.
6th Entry
On the 6th day of their stay on the island, Khimba noted that they still had enough supplies to last for a while before mentioning that they had managed to reach their base camp on the coast just before noon. After taking a short break and engaging in small chats, they quickly continued moving along the coast. This time, to their surprise, they reached their marked location within an hour.
Causing confusion among the team, Khimba called their cartographer, who had been mapping their entire adventure around the island, to clear up their confusion. The cartographer informed Khimba and his team that what they had just done was impossible through normal means. Either the island experienced terraformation, or they had been warped forward a few distances without them knowing. Both suggestions seemed impossible, especially with four mages on their team. Khimba and his team dismissed such ideas as highly unlikely. Although they were confused and startled, they continued moving, this time toward the center of the island.
As they moved towards the center, peculiar things started happening to Khimba and his team. Firstly, Khimba’s Survey started detecting trees in places where they didn’t exist. Deeper toward the center, the desert sands began to randomly change colors, noticeable to those with a keen eye. These occurrences happened just rarely enough for the team to calm down before being surprised again and again.
Hours later, tired both physically and mentally, and with the day growing darker, Khimba and his team set up camp again and stopped for the day
7th Entry
On the morning of the seventh day, the team of 14 people who went to sleep the previous day without discussing the strange events sat together for breakfast and started talking about what happened.
One of the mages, Jabo, who was among the few who witnessed the changing sands, asked an intriguing question - “Should we continue our exploration, Sir Khimba?”. This was immediately followed by another mage, named Tuli, who said - “Exactly, Sir Khimba. I too saw how the sands changed as we moved through the desert. Such a feat is not possible even using the latest technology we know of. This, no, these groups of islands surely belong to the ‘international level’ category.”
The other team members started to voice their opinions on stopping the exploration. However, Khimba managed to convince them to continue exploring for one more day. As such, Khimba and his team prepared to embark on their final exploration of the Uhimba islands. They immediately set off after packing up their camp and went further into the center.
An hour or so later, they started to experience the same weird events again. Trees and foliage randomly appeared on Khimba’s Survey skill, while the sands randomly changed colors, this time noticeable to everyone. The team started to feel anxious, but Khimba managed to calm them down by telling them that they were just harmless illusions trying to deter them from finding the secret of the island.
Journeying closer to the center of the island, Khimba and his team saw a sandstorm approaching them. Quickly telling his team to put on goggles and cover their faces, they advanced inside the sandstorm which subsided after a few minutes. As the sandstorm stopped, Khimba asked his cartographer where they were possibly located on the island. The cartographer told him that if he was correct, they were only a few hundred meters away from the center.
Hearing this, Khimba and his team continued moving forward with the sands still changing color every so often, and Khimba no longer saw trees on his Survey. Convinced that the absence of errors on his survey meant that they were now very close to the center, Khimba quickly climbed the hill of sand in front of him to see what was beyond the hill. What he and his team saw was a flat valley positioned deeply at the bottom of the hill.
Filled with false hope of finding some clues about the garden of immortality, Khimba and his team quickly traversed the sandy slope; however, they were met with an unpleasant surprise as they slid down.