Storm Strider

Marisol was prepared to skate for her life, but she wasn't prepared to drink fermented mushroom wine out of a conch while being surrounded by forty half-naked, merrily chanting sailors.

It wasn't the open barrel of mushrooms she was sitting on, nor the smell of the pungent wine she held in both hands that was making her dizzy, no—just the fact that she was sharing a drink with a bunch of old geezers inside a giant sea bug was a bit too much for her exhaustion-addled brain to accept immediately.

“Who’d’ve thought we’d spy a lass this deep in, eh?” Captain Enrique said, the giant of a man laughing and shaking her shoulder as he raised a toast with his conch. The others cheered back, downing their wine in single gulps; they’d taken off their black ant helmets just to make her feel more comfortable, and Enrique jabbed a finger at the wine in her hands, raising a single drunken eyebrow. “Ay, swig with us in the gut o’ the leviathan. Ain’t every day ye taste mushroom grog from the Attini Empire, right? It’ll warm ye up real quick.”

She chuckled nervously and took a small sip—it really was quite warm, like ginger ale, but more meaty than she liked. The crew watched her drink so tentatively, though, that she had no choice but to down the rest of it in one go; they cheered and roared and got back to drinking around the bonfire, rambling chatter filling the air as though she were at a normal night’s out with some of her friends back in the desert town.

… Harbour Guards, huh?

As she tried to ignore Enrique chugging an entire barrel of wine next to her, she stole a glance at the torn flag dangling from the mast of the sideways ship they were all sitting behind—it bore the emblem of a nine-headed serpent twisted around itself in the shape of a shield, the emblem of the Whirlpool City’s naval fleet.

The Harbour Imperators may be the more famous group of bug-slayers defending the city on the inside, but the Harbour Guards patrolled the seas outside the city, fending off Marauders and leviathans and acting as the de facto enforcers of the great blue. Most commoners probably knew more about the Guards than the Imperators as a result.

In other words, they were men to be trusted.

[The Worm God’s Hasharana work closely with the Harbour Imperators to defend the Deepwater Legion Front, so, considering the fact that Harbour Guards are a subsidiary faction of the Harbour Imperators, these men are technically subordinates of the Hasharana,] the Archive said. [Please refrain from trying to order them around, though. As things stand, you are neither a registered Hasharana nor somebody capable of rounding up this sozzled bunch.]

Of course she wasn’t going to try ordering them around. She didn’t even think they could understand a word she said the way they currently were, red to their ears and barely capable of sitting upright on their barrels.

You don’t think they could be lying about their story? she thought, tipping back in her seat as a man stumbled past, mumbling something about roasting more mushrooms over the fire. I’d like to trust them, too, but… how’s it possible that they’re all still alive here? Ain’t it already a miracle that I survived?

The Archive thought for a moment. [For what it is worth, their story aligns with your sailing experience,] it said. [Ten days ago, they were simply sailing from the mainland’s shoreline to the Whirlpool City when they noticed the rain clouds and the fog. Since they were on a patrol round, they sailed in to investigate, found barnacles stuck to their hull, and when they tried to cut them off, the giant remipede attacked—this and that happened, blah blah blah, and they ended up here just like you. It is a reasonable story.]

She sighed under her breath, eyeing the gunports and the massive cannons strewn all around their little camp.

And I’m sure they tried to fight back against the giant remipede with so many arms. They’re Harbour Guards with actual firepower, after all.

[Well, they are no common mercenary band, but I am certain all of their cannonballs bounced off the giant remipede’s chitin like rubber balls nevertheless.]

But if even the Harbour Guards couldn’t get rid of the remipede, then what chance do I have?

[Well, the Harbour Guards are no Harbour Imperators, either,] the Archive said pointedly, wagging a little leg on top of her shoulder. [It is fortunate they are here with you. Sooner or later, the rest of the Harbour Guards in the Whirlpool City will realise they are late to return from their patrol and send Harbour Imperators out here to investigate. If all of you can simply hold out inside the giant remipede until that happens–]

Are the Harbour Imperators strong enough to rescue us?

[... On second thought, the Harbour Imperators are unlikely to bother with matters outside the city,] the Archive muttered. [They are almost permanently entrenched within the city to deal with the whirlpool. Even if the rest of the Harbour Guards realise these men are missing, it is unlikely they will do anything about it. I do not believe help will be arriving.]

She couldn’t help but twitch a brow. What could be more important than saving forty men? Forty! That’s–

[It is largely irrelevant to you and your upbringing in a small desert town, but you forget that here, further out into the great blue, humanity is waging a losing war against the Swarm,] the Archive said plainly. [In most cases, launching a rescue operation deep within Swarm territory is a massive waste of time and resources. Even a Hasharana is not worth rescuing if they are stranded in the middle of a Swarm nest, surrounded on all sides—it is better to let them die a martyr than to weaken the defences of an important fortified outpost.]

Marisol looked around at the drunken men, her lips thinning into a line.

But a Hasharana wouldn’t leave anyone behind, would they?

[... The Harbour Imperators and the Harbour Guards are not Hasharana,] the Archive said slowly. [Whatever the case, expect no outside assistance. What is here is what you will have to work with–]

The ground shook. The fleshy walls undulated, their bioluminescent bluish-purplish glow dimming for a brief second. The Harbour Guards were unperturbed as they kept on chatting, drinking, feasting themselves mad on their mushrooms—Marisol jumped to her glaives, peeking past the edge of the ship to confirm there was a massive wave of water rushing towards them, but the men showed no fear whatsoever. It was like they didn’t even care that the wave was going to smash into their sideways ship, thereby crushing all of them in the process.

“Brace the ship already!” she snapped, tossing her conch as she skated forward, stabbing her glaives into the ground while pressing her back against the deck of the ship. “Help me out here! All forty of you bracing against the ship should be enough to keep the wave from knocking all of us back! You can drink all you want afterwards, but right now–”

“We ain’t need to do all that, lass,” Enrique mumbled, burping with his back still turned against her, roasting a stick of mushrooms over the fire. “Why don’t ye come here and have ‘nother swig with us, eh? We’ll cook ye up a right fine mushroom skewer on the side. Ye ain’t never had a skewer like this before.”

“What? The wave’s gonna crash into us! We’re all gonna–”

[You will be fine, Marisol,] the Archive said calmly. [As with all Harbour Guards, their insect classes are sokolova ants. You might as well sit down and share another drink with them.]

And what the hell’s a sokolova ant–

The massive wave of water slammed into the hull of the ship, making her knees buckle, throwing her entire body forward, and just as she braced the back of her head thinking the ship was going to crush everyone under its weight… no such thing happened at all.

Instead, she raised her head and watched incredulously as the wave of water bent around the ship, washing past all of them as though an invisible bubble were wrapped around them. Bluish-pinkish light refracted through the water above her, casting a mesmerising pattern down on her. The roar of the water, too—which was supposed to be a deafening, chaotic cacophony—was now muffled and distant, as though she were listening to waves churning from behind a thick pane of glass.

The air within this bubble was oddly sweet, in stark contrast to the foul, acidic stenches of the remipede’s natural air—and her eyes eventually landed on the Harbour Guards again, noting the fuzzy hair-like spines standing up straight on their bare backs.

Looking at them from behind, she could easily mistake them for large and cuddly bears, but they were definitely human. Unlike the Blackclaw Marauders, they didn’t have any chitin plates growing on their skin, nor were any of their body parts replaced with ant appendages. Their natural body hair was just white and fuzzy, fanned out in every single direction like normal hair whenever lightning was about to strike nearby.

[... Sokolova ants are known to nest in marine zones, and they are very capable of surviving massive tidal waves,] the Archive explained, and the men kept on drinking and feasting like they weren’t surrounded by rushing water on all sides. [They have laminate spines across their entire body, which, in their case, functions almost identically to your hydrofuge spines. One sokolova ant cannot readily survive tidal inundations, but when there are forty of them gathered together like this, the water-repelling effect of their laminate spines is ‘amplified’—they can vibrate their spines in sync to create a water-repelling bubble like this.]

Her eyes brimmed with a mix of awe and relief as she looked around her. You don’t say.

[With them here, you can rest assured the wave of water itself would not pose any troubles. However, the bigger problem remains–]

“You guys are incredible!” she breathed, clawing to her glaives and sliding forward until she was directly behind Enrique. The old man glanced around, handing her a mushroom skewer with a giant grin on his face. “If all of you together can tough through the waves, then that means the only real obstacles standing in our way are the barnacles near the mouth and the remipede itself! We ain’t out of this yet! Get on your feet! I wanna try making a break for–”

“Nah.”

The captain cut her off so abruptly that, for a few seconds, she simply stood there with her eyes wide and puzzled.

The wave of water moved past their ship; the Harbour Guards let their fuzzy white hair settle, and cold droplets started dripping down from the giant flag they were using as a tarp over their heads.

“... What do you mean ‘nah’?” she asked, frowning as she looked all of the Harbour Guards over. “You’re amazing! All of you! You’ve defended your ship for ten days straight simply by sitting here! Together, we can–”

“We’re tired, lass,” Enrique said, giving her a weary smile as he handed her a conch of wine. “We're cold, we’re runnin’ out of food, our ship's fallin' apart bit by bit with every wave that comes crashin' in, and we can't keep our water-repellin’ spines up forever. Ain't none of us had a wink of sleep these past ten days since the waves come in every half-hour, and at least thirty of us gotta be awake at any given time to shove the water away. If it ain’t for the grog, we'd have knocked ourselves out long ago.”

She blinked. Of course it drained them to raise their hairs like that. “But, still, you’re well enough to drink and party like this. Why not help me out with the barnacles, at least? I bet we can eat them if we really try! If you guys distract them while I climb up and cut them off, that’s the food problem–”

“We’re probably hundreds and thousands of metres deep beneath the great blue, wherever the bug’s swimmin’ around,” Enrique continued, giving her a dismissive wave of a hand. “We ain’t got no ship, we ain’t got no more fresh water, and even if we can get outta this bug? How are we gonna reach the surface? Ye know how tough underwater pressure’s outside? We’re lucky we survived ten days, but what ye just saw there was our last try at repellin’ the waves. We ain’t got the strength in us no more, so we’ll just, ye know, lay down, fall asleep, and let the next wave take us.”

“I mean, I don’t know how we’ll reach the surface either, but… you’re all alive, aren’t you?” she said, gesturing wildly at the lot of them. “You still have some mushrooms left, eh? Stop drinking, then! Ration! If we all just put our heads together and think, I’m sure–”

“Sorry, lass,” Enrique mumbled, and all of them lowered their heads at once; the chatter died completely. “Yer still young and bright, and I ain’t got a clue how ye even got mixed up in this, but… it ain’t matter how rich or luxurious a life you’ve lived on the surface.” Then he turned slightly and gave her a small, wistful look. “This here’s the Deepwater Legion Front, where humanity wages a losin’ war against every water-type bug in the world. Sometimes, the bugs win—that’s all there is to it.”

“...”

Marisol would’ve kept on snapping at them if she hadn’t noticed how tired they all really were. They must’ve been putting on a merry act just so she’d be less worried, but about half of them were already knocked out cold on planks of wood, having been awake the past ten days straight just to keep the waves from smashing their skulls in. The other half bore half-lidded eyes, sunken cheeks, heads swaying left and right as they drifted in and out of consciousness where they sat—it was only Captain Enrique who managed to look her in the eye as he apologised with a grim, painful smile.

For her part, she couldn’t say anything.

She only stood and watched as, one by one, the rest of them began to fall. They rested against barrels, lay on top of cannons, and some even made themselves comfortable in empty crates lined with straw mattresses. Even Enrique’s head lolled down as he slept sitting upright on his wooden beam, the bonfire’s flames beginning to sputter and die.

In twenty-five or more minutes, another wave of water would come crashing in, and they would all be crushed without so much as a dying scream.

[But what are you going to do, Marisol Vellamira?]

Balling her hands into fists, she around the ship and hopped onto the hull, facing four hundred metres’ worth of wreckage in front of her.

It really was quite the intimidating sight, seeing the teeth of the giant remipede in the far distance, but…

… When I was a kid, I used to practise sand-dancing at night so nobody could see me fail, she thought. I’m sure I told you this before. In the morning, I must be graceful, and I must be perfect, but at night? I can fall and hurt myself as many times as I want.

And part of being a Sand-Dancer is being unbreakable.

We dance from dawn till dusk, then dusk till dawn, that’s the least a Sand-Dancer needs to be able to do.

[...]

I have hydrofuge spines, too.

How many points do I have, Archive?

[Unallocated Points: 48]

And how many more can I get before the next wave hits?

[I spied several crabs skittering about the nearby wreckage,] the Archive said. [Catch them, eat them, and you can probably get at least twenty more points within twenty-five minutes.]

Good.

I’ll do it, then.

I have an idea.