Riding the Storm (solo)

[Alister Whitecrest]

The 1st of Spring in the year 512 AV

Alister tightened one of the ropes on his ship and looked nervously at the horizon. His heart hammered in his chest with the familiar mixture of fear and anticipation that every Whitecrest pod member felt just before a storm. And this would be his first. He had never piloted a ship in a storm; though his podkin had intentionaly ridden into many of them, he had always merely been acting as a deckhand.

When he had heard Laviku's warning only a few hours ago, he had known that this would be the perfect opportunity. Many of his podkin had epic tales of their first storm, but he would be able to say that for his first time, he rode the storm even Laviku feared. He smiled at the thought. He could picture his kin up north preparing to ride this too. No one would pass up such an opportunity.

He looked around. The wind was strong. There was a foul feeling in the air, though Alister couldn't quite place it. It must, he surmised, be related to his Reimancy Training. After all, it made sense that a storm large enough to make Laviku cry out must be beyond ordinary. He was disappointed that his tavan, a playful dolphin named Tori, had dived down underwater. That did contribute to his nervousness. He pushed it aside. All that was left now was to wait for the storm to break.

[Alister Whitecrest]

Suddenly, the storm had come. It wasn't upon him, but it was only a few miles away, flinging down not rain, but a strange, ethereal veil of light. What was it? Suddenly Alister began to feel more and more like this was a bad idea. He knew this wasn't a normal storm, but he expected the difference to be one of magnitude. This though...Alister didn't recognize any of the storm...the waves were very abruptly larger, rivaling the ships his podkin in the north rode. Instead of rain, this strange glow. He steeled himself. Whatever it was, he would ride it out. This was his storm.

He walked over to the wheel, planting his feet firmly on the deck and grasping the wheel hard enough that his knuckles grew white. He could see the front of the storm coming in, and measured it's pace as it came nearer to his ship. When it drew within a mile, he could hear the fierce hissing. Another strange thing. What was it? He knew everything about storms, and yet this was completely alien to him. Then his eyes grew wide as he could finally make out what that glow was.

It was raining fire. Perhaps it wasn't as simple as that--it bore a marked resemblance in his mind to his own Res when he created, so it was obviously some magical construct...but that knowlage was unlikely to help him. With an effort, he kept his heart hardened and didn't move his ship an inch. Instead, he leapt up to the rigging and scrambled to remove the sail, reaching over the side and dipping it in the water. Then he draped it over as much of the ship as would fit, even soaking his clothes for good measure.

Then the storm hit and he realized the sail was unnecessary. The clouds covered the sun. The resulting darkness would have made it like night had it not been for the rain of fire. But the waves tossing the ship around washed away any flame that caught. He thought that perhaps he would need to put the sail back in place, but that too proved both unnecessary and impossible. The waves collapsing over the side threatened to wash the sail away into the water, and the wind nearly picked the boat up into the air as it was.

But Alister was grinning ear to ear. This was a storm. No, this was the storm. None in living memory had been half so bad, and none were likely to be for another twenty lifetimes. So what if the rain burned his skin? So what if his ship were tossed around like a plaything? This was what he was born to do. He did his best to keep his wheel steady, but the wind and the waves turned it sideways on its course. He felt a moment of weightlessness as his ship was literally thrown out of the water, and then his legs buckled and he was forced down to one knee when it landed with a splash. There was a crackling as his mast bowed, but it was almost inaudible over monstrous hiss of water boiling as it met the fire rain.

Then there was a massive gust of wind, and a wave many times larger than his ship. His ship literally flew for a moment, twisting and groaning in midair, flipping entirely upside down. Then it landed, hull in the air, deck under the sea, his mast twisting and breaking, and his arms nearly torn from their sockets as he grasped the wheel for dear life and he held his breath, hoping he would survive past this moment.

[Alister Whitecrest]

Under the dark, rushing waters, Alister could see still-glowing embers sink through the water, the remains of the firestorm above. There were many flashes of light, and barely a heartbeat later, the muffled and water-warped crackle of thunder. Under the water, the turmoil of the ocean seemed...peaceful, almost. The water slowed all movements, and a mass of bubbles marked the distant surface. With the light flowing down, he felt like his ship were riding through the sky, the world slowed around him. With a start, he realized that it was actually safer under the water than it was on the surface. Perhaps if he could stay down here, he would be safe. But the tightness in chest and burning in his lungs suddenly reminded him that this was impossible. He pushed away from the steering wheel and swam for the surface, his lack of air sending pain and exhaustion through his limbs. But only a few feet from the deck, he was jerked back, his leg entangled in one of the ropes he had untied to remove the sail. With a surprising lack of regret, he realized that he'd overestimated his sailing abilities and underestimated the storm. He would likely die here, he thought, as his vision began to fade and his willpower gave out, letting his lungs fill with the salty sea.

He was shocked out of his dying thoughts by the rope around his leg jerking him backward, upward, through the swirling foam, and up out of the surface, carried with the ship as it was flipped over again by a massive wave. He hung upside down against the hull, coughing spitting up water that got over his face and his eyes. Then he just hung there, his limbs weak with relief, not even noticing as the waves crashed against the side and made it hard to catch his breath. He was brought fully back to his senses what seemed like an eternity later by the heat of the rain against his skin. When he looked, his saw burns appearing. But now he had hope again. The tossing of the monstrous waves made it easier than he had expected to grab the rope he was on, and he began to climb back up to the deck.

When he made it up, he didn't waste any time resting. It would only drown him. Still coughing, he surveyed what remained of his ship, and was dismayed by what he saw. His mast had been snapped off, and was hanging on barely by a few wood fibers and the ropes of the rigging. The deck was splintered and slightly burned, and through the holes, he could see water pouring it the ship. It wouldn't survive much longer, and without it, neither would Alister. He could only pray to Laviku that there was land nearby. It was a meager, but desperate hope. There was another massive gust of wind, and his ship's bow tilted, sinking partway into the ocean, until another wave threw it up into the air. A heavy coil of rope fell towards Alister, and numbed his shoulders when it hit him. He barely noticed. He wasn't quite sure where the sail had gone. The ship was hit again, and turned in the water again. Alister began to untie the rope from his leg, but it proved unnecessary, as the ship righted itself again. Perhaps his life would be safer without the ship. But then he would be openly exposed to the thunder and the fire and the wind and the waves. But he remembered his earlier observation, and a solution came to him.

And so, Alister pushed nearly all his Djed out of his body, creating a sphere of Res around him, and began to draw air around him. He could feel exhaustion setting on already. And then he dived off his ship and into the churning brine.

[Alister Whitecrest]

It took only a few minutes to lose sight of the ship. Through his own Res and the bubble of air around him, the dark shape of his hull was lost in the foam of the surface as he sunk deeper under the ocean. He looked around at the magical air supply he had created for himself. It was smaller than he had hoped. Initially, he had intended to stay down here for the rest of the day, but based on the size of his bubble, he could only spend a couple hours down here safely. Considering that he didn't particularly care about overgiving--he would do whatever he needed to survive--he would only have a few hours. He tried to keep his breaths shallow and few in between, but the terror of his recent situation kept his breathing fast and hard. If he didn't make precious use of his air...

But even now he was smiling. Yes, he had been forced to abandon his ship, and yes, he would probably overgive and still drown, but if he survived, this was sure to be one of the greatest storm tales ever. A Whitecrest Svefra of the Reimancy line being forced off his ship in the storm the gods feared and taking shelter in a magical pocket of air under the sea? He would be a legend for a long time to come. That knowledge combined with the beginning of the overgiving euphoria kept him quite happy in his bubble. And this was just the tip of the iceberg. The sphere of Res was bigger than he safely should have made it, and he kept producing Res at the fastest rate possible--frankly not very fast at his inexperienced level. Given that he wasn't exactly an expert at Reimancy, the early outburst wasn't quite his maximum amount. It took more time to create much more, and over the next few minutes under water, he watched the size of his Res bubble expand, leaving open the channel from his mouth and nose to the bubble of attracted air he had created. Even when he began to hear the now totally redundant Sweet Whispers, and his mouth tasted like he had been sucking on nails, he kept forming more Res around him, knowing it probably wouldn't be enough.

He watched his bubble slowly shrink, and kept desperately adding more and more Res around him. Even as the bubble began to shake as his grip on the Res and the air grew unsteady. He knew he was overgiving, but at this point didn't care at all. The euphoria had set in in its entirety, and he was looking around at the world outside the bubble, fascinated by the deep, dark blue of the water. He felt giddy. He was going to be a Whitecrest legend, nay, a Svefra legend. He felt lighter than the precious air around him. His body began to spasm. His air was almost gone and he would have to use his Res reserves soon. But he didn't care. His Pod's three ships were drifting up from the darkness of the water, ready to take him home. He was quite aware that this was merely a hallucination brought on by the amount of Res that was slowly trickling out of him, which he was aware would appear pitiful to powerful men like his father. Even so, it would give him a few hours more of life. He felt his skin open up along his arm, and another old wound on his right flank opened too. It was another affect of the overgiving. He was suprised how fast it had set in. Of course, he also wasn't sure how long he had been down here anymore. The surface was visible, but didn't look any lighter or darker than before, and there was nothing else to signify time passing. It could have been a few minute, hours, days, or an eternity.

Finally his little air pocket ran out and his began to change his Res into air. If he were in his right mind, he would be startled at how much he had created--with overgiving not being a hindrance anymore, he could form nearly double what he normally could. Of course, his body was spasmming, bleeding as wounds spontaneously opened up. There was an intense pain in his head, and yet the euphoria kept him happy, even through the pain. His little bubble of Res was shaking and jittering, threatening to disperse as his control fell apart. Everything he had felt, he knew in some distant part of him mind, was an effect of overgiving. His father had told him to look out for signs like that. Of course, this went way beyond the signs he was told to look for--this was within the realm of the stories his father had told him to scare him from ever trying to use more Res than he had the capabilities to. He was just waiting for one of the final two. His symptoms continued for a period of time somewhere between a heartbeat and a lifetime, and then his vision began to fade. With his last conscious thought, he transmuted most of his Rei into air, leaving only a little to hold the bubble together.

[Alister Whitecrest]

Alister awoke to the roar of the storm, pricks of intense heat over his entire body, and the damp, gritty sand across his face. He hurt everywhere, and was too exhausted to even lift his eyelids. He could hear waves crashing up, and could even feel a few hitting him. The hissing of the djed-fire meeting the water was still present, though seemed less urgent somehow. Flashes of light shone through his eyelids and cracks of thunder followed closely. Strangely enough, he heard groaning sounds near him, and even once heard a resounding clatter. He counted his heartbeats, trying to remember exactly what had happened. When he finally remembered, he barely felt the shock of realization and relief. He was just too tired. Every part of his body hurt intensely, especially his head. He resolved to open his eyes at the count of ten. He counted, got to nine, and then fell asleep again.

When he awoke the second time, he felt marginally better. Better enough, at least, to open his eyes, slowly and wincing from the light that flooded in, making his already terrible headache worse. It took a moment before he could really see very much, his eyes unused to the light after however long he had slept. It had to be a while, for when he awoke, the sky was a clear blue, not a cloud in sight, and the sun shined on him warmly. He closed his eyes briefly and offered a silent prayer of thanks to Laviku. Somehow, he had survived the storm, riding it out in his little bubble under the sea--or possibly, he realized, memories slowly resurfacing of his first awakening, perhaps a little here on this island. Then he noticed the pale blue, torn, battered, and slightly singed wreckage across the beach from him. He closed his eyes again, sending another, even more grateful prayer to Laviku. He had been carried by the storm to the same beach what was left of his ship had. Admittedly, the damage was severe, and there was no way he would be back in the ocean anytime within the month, even ignoring the damage to his own body. He struggled to get up, finding that his joints barely moved, and only then with great pain. He could move a few inches at best, every movement exhausting him and adding to his headache. After a few minutes he gave up and closed his eyes again, falling back asleep.

When he awoke again, it was night. The moon was high in the sky and all the stars were out, creating a beautiful array of light above him. His headache had receded enough that he could actually lift his head and look around. From here, he couldn't tell if this were mainland or just an island. But what he really noticed was about his body--his throat was dry and his lips were cracked. It had obviously been days since the storm, and without water here would die. He still had his waterskien on him, and he reached painfully for that, taking a short, unsatisfactory sip from it. If it had been days, already, there was no way to tell how long he could be stuck here, not fit to search for water. With what would have been a groan had he the strength for it, he sat up. Just that made him gag--he would have thrown up had their been anything in his stomach. He still had a few rations, but would save them until he really needed them. He saw his earlier celebration had been a bit premature--there was still a very low chance of him leaving this place alive. But at least it was not as low as before. He looked up at what was left of his ship. As soon as he could stand, he would try and find wood to mend the holes in his ship. Frankly, it didn't have to be great, it just had to carry him to a port, where he could likely find someone leaving enough money around to help pay for a real repair job. He gently lowered himself back onto his back. He knew he would need to get up soon and find water, food, wood, and some means of defense against any possible wildlife on the island. He was relieved that today wouldn't be that day. With that thought, he fell back asleep.

[Trident]

Alister Whitecrest Skills: Sailing +3 Reimancy +2 Swimming +2 Observation +1 Lores: Laviku's Cry Effects of the Djed Storm: Northern Suvan Sea Sailing a Ship Through a Storm Abandoning Ship Transmutation: From Res to Air Other: As a result of sailing through the Djed Storm, Alister's casinor is completely wrecked and non-salvageable. Some driftwood and a couple of the supplies left on board might wash up on the coast, but you will be able to find little more than that. In creating the air bubble Alister has overgiven. The effects are moderate to severe, and Alister should be able to hear the Sweet Whisper much more clearly now. His reimancy will also be spotty and prone to backfire over the next couple of days, and if Alister overgives again there is a distinct possibility he will go mad. Also as a result, Alister is now stranded on Oyster Island. Comments: Good thread! I liked hearing about Alister's experience during the Djed Storm. Hopefully the rewards are appropriate. If you have any questions about my ruling, feel free to PM me!