Page 184 - Chronicles of Darkness

of everything from alien abduction to magnetic anomalies.
One group that believes they know exactly what is going on
is the Black Tide.
The Black Tide is a secret occult organization (they
disdain the word “cult”) that is dedicated to the study and
exploitation of the Bermuda Triangle. The founder of the
Black Tide was a man named Sava Vaselko, captain of
the trading vessel, Bagrem. Vaselko plied the waves of the
Caribbean during the mid-1800s and supplemented his
income with a bit of casual piracy.
During a trip to Florida during the American Civil War,
Vaselko sought to outmaneuver the Union blockade by de-
touring into the Bermuda Triangle. The night turned foggy,
and although he had previously scoffed at rumors about the
area, Vaselko’s blood went cold when his clock first stopped,
then began to run backward. For what seemed like hours,
the Bagrem floated along in the fog, drifting with the current.
When lights appeared on the horizon, Vaselko pointed
his ship directly toward them and ordered his sails rigged to
capture every gust of wind. As the Bagrem inched toward the
lights, the captain began to make out a landmass. At last, the
wind began to pick up, blowing the fog away and revealing
an island shining with illumination.
Great buildings towered into the sky, conforming to no
architecture Vaselko had ever seen during his many travels.
Strange sigils painted on the sides of the buildings glowed
and flashed in every color of the rainbow, but, as the ship
drew closer, he couldn’t hear a single sound coming from
the island. Without warning the Bagrem gave a lurch, like it
had hit a reef, and the air was filled with flames.
Two more explosions followed and the last thing Vaselko
remembered before being tossed into the sea was the sight
of his ship sinking fast, crew scattered about it in the water.
Vaselko awoke two months later in a sanitarium in Cuba. He
had been found clinging to a piece of the mast just offshore.
No other sign of his ship or crew were ever found.
Although he was never certain of what had happened
to his ship, Vaselko believed he had seen the lost island of
Atlantis. The style of architecture he had witnessed matched
with many descriptions and paintings of the legendary island.
He believed Atlantis never sank, as the stories insisted, rather
it had been placed just out of time with the rest of the world.
As he investigated Triangle lore, Vaselko became certain he
detected a trend in disappearances. Times of great bloodshed
and death in the area coincided with an increase in reports of
missing ships. In the aftermath of hurricanes, these disappear-
ances would be blamed on the storm, but Vaselko thought he
knew better. He theorized that whatever was keeping Atlantis
hidden out of time might collapse if fed enough death.
Vaselko gathered associates that were equally intrigued by
Triangle lore and even more so by the possible riches to be
had by claiming Atlantis if it could be forced to reappear. He
called the fledging organization the Black Tide, as a reference
to the wave of death that would precede Atlantis’ emergence.
In 1870, ignoring the laughter of bureaucrats and clerks, he
filed a series of claims to Atlantis with every nation within
20 nautical miles of where he believed it would appear.
183
Regional