Unchosen Champion

Coop had been treading water for the better part of two entire days. The sea was an unforgiving opponent that Coop would never defeat in a test of endurance. The continual procession of waves firmly established the constant struggle of remaining above the surface. There was no end in sight. Fighting to keep his head above water was an extreme challenge that intensified when the largest swells rolled through, forcing him to dig in and exert himself unceasingly lest he be dragged down.

The sun didn’t provide any solace. Its burning presence was just as uncompromising. The heat on his exposed skin threatened to sap his strength, teaming up with the ocean as if the two forces of nature were in collaboration to deliver him back to the depths. Coop powered on, kicking his feet with an unending rhythm to avoid slipping into the dark deep ocean. Every third swelling wave required another burst of energy, yet there was no chance to relax in between.

Paradoxically, he was freezing cold. The shivering began after only a few hours in the tropical ocean. Coop clenched his jaw to stop his teeth chattering, but the cold seeped into his bones. He was thirsty, tired, and growing increasingly stressed as time slipped by, but he had grown stubborn during the assimilation. He wouldn’t quit. He wanted nothing more than to mistjump his way back to land and resume his dutiful grinding after a long nap, but the mission hadn’t had a satisfactory ending.

When he was engaged with the High Priestess, Ak-Hau, inside of her submerged cathedral, he assumed they had been dragged into the deep ocean by mana-manipulated underwater currents. Chetumal Bay was simply not deep enough to provide the depths he had experienced when he was first dragged down.

His suspicions were confirmed when he emerged from the wrecked enclave amidst a large debris field in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. He wasn’t sure if they were 50 miles, 500 miles, or 5,000 miles off shore. The horizon provided no clues. Just an endless ocean full of tormenting waves.

After the Priestess’s death, the solid structure had broken apart, collapsing like the glue that held it together had disappeared, letting the water rush into the empty space. Coop hadn’t been very careful with the integrity of the sunken fortress in the first place. He had been relying on Sierra’s ability to create another pocket of air around them if he completely destroyed the structure, but she hadn’t been capable of helping when the time came.

Luckily, the cathedral had risen from the terrible depths as they fought with the owner. When the structure shattered into pieces, Coop was able to swim to the surface before his burning lungs compelled him to test just how much his body needed oxygen and how much breathing was a force of habit remembered from the pre-mana days. Still, he was pretty confident that he had set some records for the deepest free dive, though his extra Strength and general physical resistance probably disqualified him from fair competition.

In any case, it would have to be a joint record since he had dragged Sierra on the trip to the surface. Ever since, he had been keeping his head above the water while making sure she was able to rest as much as possible. The environment wasn’t exactly conducive to healthy recovery, but he did his best lifeguard imitation, preventing her from drowning, at the very least. He couldn’t take her with him when he mistjumped, so he tried to nurse her back to a state where she could travel with her own strength.

Coop expected Primal Constructs or aggressive animals to attack them. He did his best to stay vigilant, but kicking his legs beneath the surface with his arms occupied with holding the Cloud Dancer left him feeling extremely exposed to anything that lurked below. If there was anything, it never made its presence known.

Coop supposed the particular section of ocean was similar to the area around the Avatar of Huracan’s domain, the Mushroom King’s Cavern, and to a lesser extent the Voice of Kukulkan’s Thunderstruck Tree. Once the Cultists established their domains, everything else was excluded, perhaps because they were deliberately trying to establish what the system designated as Infestations, or maybe it was simply the default result of a powerful entity occupying a specific area. Either way, it meant that the ocean was as empty as it seemed from his perspective bobbing upon the waves. If not, Coop’s aura appeared to be enough to scare away the curious predators that investigated their presence. Naturally, some caution was necessary for animals to survive in the wild, and Coop would represent an unknown quantity that might not be worth the effort.

Most of the time, Sierra was barely skimming the edge of consciousness. Coop had been feeding her Elder Olani’s latest iteration of the healing tinctures. Every hour, he gave her another until she had consumed the entire batch by herself. While they were definitely effective, they appeared to taste much closer to a proper medicine with the way Sierra scrunched her face up with displeasure each time he gave her one. They smelled nice to him, but he didn’t waste any on taste testing.

Coop didn’t let Sierra’s obvious aversion to the tinctures discourage him from providing them every time the cooldown reset. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before mana’s natural recovery would improve the Jaguar Warrior’s health, he did his best to make sure that she didn’t succumb to any lingering consequences of taking damage. However, even as her health improved, it grew more obvious that the injuries were the kind that lingered through debuffs that would take much longer to dissipate.