News-A-Roo here with an update about the latest goings on in Maraqua. As you all know, the other day a tense meeting between the King of Maraqua and an unidentified pirate led to some cross words, a few harsh insults and a thinly veiled threat against the kingdom's well-being. Then, less than one day after this exchange, a vicious storm was unleashed on the fair kingdom. Though the extent of the damage remains unknown, there are some who now speculate that we may have seen the last of Maraqua...

Joining me today are two eyewitnesses who claim to have seen the storm's arrival. Could you give us your recollection of exactly what happened?

LOCHREN: Well, we were just out here, doing a little fishing. It was a beautiful day, there was a soft breeze coming from southeast of us. The sun was out, not a cloud in the sky. And then, all of a sudden things took a turn for the worse.

DUNBARRIE: I'll say! Next thing we know, these dark clouds begin forming, it's pouring rain, the waves start to get real choppy, and that "soft breeze"? Why, in no time it had turned into a bone-chilling gust. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen...

LOCHREN: That's when I started thinking, "Hey, maybe we should get back to shore." But no matter how hard we paddled, it didn't seem like we were making any progress... the current was just too strong for us.

DUNBARRIE: As we paddled for our lives, I briefly looked up to catch my breath, and saw nothing but the black sky and the freezing rain that stung my cheeks. That's when I realised just how much trouble we were in...

LOCHREN: Luckily, we managed to somehow stay to the left of the whirlpool, and our lives were spared.

DUNBARRIE: But that didn't mean we were safe yet. On the contrary, at one point the waves got so bad that we were thrown overboard. Why, if it hadn't been for our lifejackets, we might've been lost in the storm.

LOCHREN: Now that I think about it, we were really quite fortunate. You'd have thought that some nasty sea creature would've found and eaten us, but we managed to safely tread water until the Coast Patrol found us drifting offshore the next afternoon.

Well there you have it, folks. According to our witnesses, the storm began with a sudden gathering of black clouds, turbulent gusts of wind, and a burst of tempestuous waves that soon became a gigantic whirlpool. Though nothing is certain yet, let's hope that the Kingdom of Maraqua has managed to escape the whirlpool's wrath, just as our eyewitnesses did....