The Tutoritees adapted to their new subaquatic lifestyle, making great technological leaps in the fields of waterproof paper and sea dragon slaying. By far their greatest advancement had been the norkel: a powerful face mask capable of delivering fresh, clean air to the wearer through a complex filter of air runes and other rather strange do-dads. The norkel was seen as a sign of change for the Tutorites, and they abandoned their old ways, taking on a new name for the sunken island: The Grand Domain. Years passed, and the members of the original island, including Terrova himself, passed on or faded into retirement in their flooded bungalows. Great adventurers still rose up from the Grand Domain, however, and they
literally
rose up. To the surface. These Watchers would spend days floating on the gentle waves, seeing ships and birds pass. They were waiting for a sign.
And it came to to them in the form of a giant space pig.
When Tuska, known as “The Swine Sign* to the Grand Domain, passed overhead in a fiery inferno, the people of the Grand Domain knew the end was coming. The Deep Lords met, and, in a unanimous vote (mostly due to those who voted against it being killed on the spot), Rend Sul’damane, the youngest of the Deep Lords, was elected to take on the mantle of Herald of the Return. He would take with him the Damane, an elite group of soldiers tasked with utter aloofness on actually important matters, to the surface world in order to save the drynoobs
*
from their fate.
*from the words “dry”, referring to how not-wet they are, and “noob”, the first word ever spoken on the original Tutorial Island.
