Something heavy lies over this island. Whether it’s the air - thick with heat and plant pollen - or the water - saturated by ocean salts and subterranean gases; the lone, rocky landmass possesses a languid, verging on fetid aura. The ever-present miasma of sulphur doesn’t help.
Apart from a small number of scientific expeditions and foraging stops by seafarers, Cardiac Island has remained very much on the edge of human knowledge. As would indeed be expected from such an isolated speck of land. And yet, parts of its unique landscape are featured in a surprisingly wide host of mainland folklore. Early 16th century records left by both Spanish and Portuguese sailors tell of witches’ covens in the night, by the oxidizing shores of Lake Hemate; its waters bloodied by animal sacrifice under a Harvest Moon, and naked feet dancing across its surface. Rumor and records of unknown origin together hint at ancient, shaped statues buried under the slow flood of lava from Mt Coriolis. And early legends on both sides of the Pacific describe a solitary island which rises and sinks every three-thousand years, they claim, to the pulsations of the Earth.
On the Western edge of the island, the caldera of Mount Coriolis gapes an open wound. It hemorrhages molten rock, slowly but ceaselessly into the lapping waves below. Black grass grows where the lava temporarily stagnates. And out of the thick fog banks, new land rises: scabbed-over rock cradling poisonous pools.
Despite its exposed location in the open Pacific Ocean, with the harsh climate this entails, the heaths and highlands of the island sport an abnormal array of flowering plant life. Great clouds of flies and bees buzz between tufts of grass, keeping close to the ground lest the unpredictable ocean winds should steal them away forever.
Cardiac Island, South Pacific Ocean
Artography - Maps of places not real - Vol. 01
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