The Storm
The storm arrived without warning on the third day, nothing like the resistant, elastic cloud barrier she'd once cut through with a Damascus pickaxe, this was ordinary, violent weather, wind and rain and sudden, brutal shear that caught the zeppelin's envelope hard enough to tear a long, ragged gash along its upper seam.
"WE'RE LOSING PRESSURE—" Claire's voice cut through the chaos, already moving toward the failing seal.
"Wind's pushing us off heading, hard—" Bram, gripping the gondola's frame as the whole vehicle lurched sideways, fighting to keep the wheel steady against gusts that seemed determined to fling them wherever they pleased.
Bram caught Arista's arm before she could move to help him, staring at her with sudden, sharp alarm. "Wait, Strawberry. You still haven't touched your stat points."
"Not now—"
"Especially now." His grip didn't loosen, voice uncharacteristically urgent. "You've got the HP of a wet dishrag. If this envelope tears further, if we go down hard, you're one bad hit away from a permadeath screen, and I am not doing this again. I am not watching that notification pop up because you'd rather stay stubborn about a menu you decided you didn't like a year ago."
Arista opened her mouth to argue on reflex, the old, familiar instinct rising: I build my way through problems, I don't lean on raw stats, and then caught the genuine, unmasked fear in his expression, the same fear she remembered from the moment Bram had gone silent over the comm right before the hydra swallowed him whole.
She stopped.
"...Okay," she said, quieter, already pulling up her character panel with hands that shook slightly, whether from the storm's turbulence or something else entirely. "Okay. You're right."
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She didn't spread the points across everything, didn't suddenly reinvent herself as some combat-ready fighter she'd never wanted to be. She dropped every single one of them straight into Vitality, pure survivability, HP pool and regeneration, nothing that changed how she solved problems, only how much punishment she could actually absorb while she did.
[Stat Points Allocated: 1,000+ → Vitality][HP Pool: Significantly Increased][HP Regeneration: Significantly Increased]
The gondola lurched again, hard, rain lashing sideways through the cracked observation window as Claire fought the torn seal with practiced, desperate speed.
"Done," Arista said, voice steadier now, panel closing. "Vitality only. I'm still not a fighter, Bram. I'm just not going to be stupid about surviving a storm I didn't ask for."
Bram let out a breath, some of the raw fear easing from his expression, replaced by simple, grim focus. "...Good. Now help me hold this heading before the wind decides for us."
Colm, gripping the navigation table hard enough to whiten his knuckles, called out over the roar. "Current's pulling us east, hard, faster than anything I've charted so far!"
"Let it," Arista called back, focus narrowing entirely onto the immediate, physical crisis in front of her instead of any lingering pride. "We ride it out. Hold the frame, keep the engine steady, and let's see where this storm actually wants to take us."
The zeppelin bucked harder through the driving rain, the torn seam widening with a sound none of them liked, the whole envelope groaning under stress it was never quite built to withstand.
"...Seal's not holding," Claire shouted, abandoning the repair, bracing hard against the frame instead. "We're going down, controlled or not, brace for impact regardless!"
Arista didn't hesitate, moving straight to a storage locker bolted near the gondola's rear, wrenching it open and pulling out four bundled shapes.
"Equip this—"
The gondola lurched hard, rain lashing sideways through the cracked observation window, and the whole scene dissolved into chaos — shouting, the storm's roar, Claire fighting the failing seal, the ground and sky trading places somewhere far below them.