The System Seas

As if hearing him, the winds picked up again. Marco jumped up, ignoring his friends as he made his way back to the wheel. He forced every bit of non-wind-assisted power he could into the ship, surging the boat forward towards the stormfront just as the horror breached the water where the ship had just been.

Marco was never sure how to describe what they saw as the monster breached the surface. It was like the living form of a cut, a slice that sawed away at reality. It was almost without color, not white but no tone his eye could make sense of at all. It wasn't just that he didn't know if they could beat it, anymore. He didn't even understand how they'd go about trying.

The storm saved them. As the thing hung overlong in the air, the winds and rains kicked back into gear just as suddenly as the hurricane had when they entered the first time. The beast lingered near the surface of the water for a moment, as if regarding the storm, then seemed to decide the death it had wrought in the waters below was enough to sustain it for the time being. It sank, and the crew clung to the mast as they spent the next few minutes in suspense, wondering if it would come back.

It didn't. In its place, the second half of the storm came. And the second half of the storm hit harder than the first.

The crew retreated before it really got underway, just taking enough time to tie down his ankle again before retreating belowdecks again. Marco was glad they did, that they didn't have to face what he was facing. It hurt. The wheel nearly broke his arms when the gusts slammed against the hull, wrenching control of the rudder away from him. He forced it back into position at the cost of his body, sending every muscle in his arms screaming.

Hours bled together. The ropes cut deep into his ankle until he lost feeling in his foot. His back ached. His head pounded. Eventually, he had no idea if the ship was still on course. He only knew he had to keep the ship floating, fighting the storm until it finally blew past them.

At last, the winds began to ease. The waves grew not exactly small, but survivable. The rain slackened to a steady downpour, then ceased. Through the fog of exhaustion, Marco realized he was still alive. More importantly, the ship was still afloat.

His friends were safe. His wife was safe. His paper pulper acquaintance was safe. Even the chickens were probably fine. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ NoveIＦire.net

He slumped against the wheel, trembling. His eyes burned with salt, and his throat was raw, but he managed a hoarse laugh. The storm had thrown everything it had at him, and he had held on. Barely. When the crew finally emerged, they found him pale, mostly drowned, and still lashed to the stake. He managed to croak out words, if only two.

“Still here.”

—

Elisa and Aethe sent him to bed, but it was Riv that carried him there. He was stripped and dried, and he never knew by whom. He slept for at least an hour before he was able to shake himself awake and found Aethe there beside him, holding on to him.

"Hey," he said. "Did I miss lunch?"

"You missed three meals." Aethe said, squeezing him to her body. "That's how sleeping for an entire day works."

"An entire day?"

"Yeah. And you snored. Loudly." She smiled and snuggled her head into his chest. "A manly snore. I think I like it. You should do it more often."

"I feel like that's the kind of thing that gets old sooner rather than later."

"I'll let you know. Are you ready to get up now?"

"Not quite yet. Give me just a bit."

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, they emerged from the captain's cabin to a completely blue sky and sea. Riv saw him, shook his head, and walked straight to their deck-top cooking equipment to fry him some eggs.

He told everyone else the story of the storm, such as it was. It was hard to do it justice. They already knew he had gotten wet, but there was no way to impress on them how he had almost drowned with his feet on the deck in the open outside air. He told them about the wind and all it took to fight it, but there was no way to make them feel what it felt like when the wind was winning that battle, how close the ship had come to capsizing.

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"I honestly don't know how anyone else would have survived it. Those rune blocks did most of it," Marco said.

"The rune blocks only amplify," Kuzai said. "They can't do most of it. I'm sure they helped, but there's only so much they can help."

"Even so. We'd be sunk without them. Or any number of Conquest skills."

"It's too bad you didn't get a Conquest skill from that," Elisa said. "I bet it would have been a doozy."

"Huh." Marco actually hadn't checked. There was no reason to think he would have achieved anything the system recognized by simply surviving a storm. Unless, of course, the storm had been a system-related monster in the same way the whirlwind had all those months ago. He checked for kicks.

For once, it wasn't a reward. It was something different.