Storm Strider

The fifty-metre-tall wave of water smashed into the warship’s bowsprit, and right before it could crush all of them under its weight, Marisol kicked it with the full might of a prideful Sand-Dancer.

Immediately, her legs threatened to snap.

It's still as heavy as ever, huh?

She hissed as her hydrofuge spines vibrated, her kick sending out a ripple that bent the water around the ship… but, thankfully, she wasn't alone this time. The ‘hold’ command was given, and Captain Enrique shouted at his men to raise their laminate spines—including her, they were forty-one souls pushing back against the wall of water, and with her standing at the very top of the ship, their combined water-repelling force kept the wall at bay.

It was like they’d built an invisible wall of their own.

Okay! We’re holding it!

And now… we turn it around!

The wall of water may be wide and tall enough to encompass the entirety of the giant remipede’s stomach, but it was still water at the end of the day. Its shape could change. Its flow could change. It was in no way different from a dust devil of the desert, able to be kicked away by a single Sand-Dancer with enough conviction in her toes—it could be sent back the way it came, and all Marisol needed to do was dance.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she spun in place and kicked again, then again, then again; a dozen ripples pounded through the top of the wave of water, the bottom supported by the water-repelling face of the Harbour Guards below her. This wasn’t like any of the other times she’d simply redirected the water around the ship. She needed to reverse its momentum entirely, and so she had to take the lead, because controlling the top of the wave where the water was heaviest—in much the same way the human head was the heaviest during a dance—was the only way she could get it to go back.

Deposit all my remaining points into strength!

[Strength: 4 → 5]

[Unallocated Points: 17 → 1]

The speed was back. The exhaustion, the exertion, and the exhilaration was back. Stars swirled in her eyes as she spun and kicked in place, the tip of her glaive drilling through the crow’s nest she was standing on, but she knew she had the strength to send the wave back. She had to do it. This was life or death, and for a Sand-Dancer who lived on the very edge between life or death… water was the absolute last thing that was going to stand in her way.

With a heaving groan, the wall of water changed directions. She knew she’d done it when she kicked and the tip of her glaive just barely missed scraping the surface. The moment she missed, she peered down the crow’s nest and shouted at the Harbour Guards to rush forward as well, pushing their water-repelling force towards the bottom of the wave—and they did so in perfect unison.

In an instant, the wall of water collapsed and turned into a low, churning wave in front of the warship.

“... FIRE!”

Captain Enrique bellowed his order from the helm, and at once, twenty bug-slaying cannons roared out the back of the ship. The shots propelled the ship forward with a sudden lurch, just barely managing to push it onto the wave of water, and then… they had the initial momentum.

Marisol screamed down at the Harbour Guards—‘fire’—and the next cannon volley fired out the back again, making the warship jolt forward. Suddenly, they weren’t just moving in sharp, lurching movements. The wave of water was beneath their ship, and now that they had their own, consistent momentum, the water was no longer flowing to the back of the giant remipede.

The water was flowing forward.

The order was given. The last remaining moor lines were hacked off. The fish scale sails were flying at full force. The Harbour Guards raced across the upper and lower decks to reload the cannons at the back, and while Marisol slid down the ratlines, Captain Enrique laughed at the helm; a bubbly, childlike sound, completely unbefitting of a man his age and appearance.

“We have our own wave, boys!” he cackled, as all of them lowered their fuzzy laminate hairs; they didn’t have to repel water anymore. Water was on their side. “Aye, boys! Ten on the starboard guns, ten on portside, and fire at will! Blast this thing from the inside-out and make it writhe like the scurvy bug it be!”

As Marisol touched down on the upper deck, the cannons on both sides roared to life, the deep, deafening sounds echoing through the confined space like thunder. Fleshy walls exploded into geysers of blue blood where the anti-chitin cannonballs punched through. The giant remipede squirmed and rippled, making the Harbour Guards laugh as they reloaded their guns, and more cannons fired in a chaotic cacophony of booms.

[Anti-chitin cannonballs fired out of anti-leviathan cannons,] the Archive mused, [works wonders against a giant remipede from the inside, at least.]

The giant remipede buckled, and Marisol grinned. It was trying to surface, probably in an attempt to make all of them slide back down, but they already had the momentum. The ship tilted sharply upwards, but the Harbour Guards simply fired more of their back cannons, using the propulsion force to maintain their momentum. They’d gathered more than enough anti-chitin cannonballs to fire for days on end—they could blast the walls of the remipede with a full volley every twenty metres they sailed, because that was just how fast the Harbour Guards could reload.

And now, for my part!

Three hundred metres. Two hundred metres. The bioluminescent walls around them throbbed and pulsed as the remipede spasmed, their continuous barrage of cannonballs hurting it greatly, the wave of water they were riding picking up speed from all the propulsion. The prow of their ship cleaved through the water like a knife on butter, and Marisol skated up onto the bowsprit, balancing on the very tip of the ship with her arms spread out; she had a stupid, stupid grin on her face as the winds whipped past her hair, her eyes locking onto the field of barnacles a hundred metres in front of her.

As the first barnacles fired at them, determined to hit something—she exhaled coolly and spun in place, vibrating her hydrofuge spines so violently that the sprays of water in front of her shot back towards the barnacles at ultra high speeds, shattering the spiny projectiles mid-air.

“… Sometimes, the audience is too dazzling. Sometimes, they are too loud. Sometimes, you’re trying out a new routine or a new technique you haven’t mastered yet, and you don’t want people to see how ungraceful you look while doing it. When there’s any reason at all you don’t want the audience to see you, just use this technique that is as old as the sky is blue—spin in place and make a miniature sand tornado, you little rascal.”

“Blind your audience for a short moment, and what they cannot see will be manifested in their imaginations instead, and what they imagine you are doing will always be a hundred times more impressive than what you are actually doing.”

“Ironically, what they cannot see is oftentimes far more entrancing than what they can see.”

The Blackclaw Marauders had shown her the strength of water as projectiles, but it was her mama’s ‘Whirlwind Spin’ technique that reminded her—there were plenty of times when her mama had spun sand into the audience’s eyes, and she’d never understood why. All she remembered were kids laughing around her, adults chuckling in amusement, and everyone’s attention being diverted by such an expected move that her mama’s next move made all of them forget that sand was actually really uncomfortable in their eyes.

Maybe—just maybe—her mama wasn’t as infallible of a Sand-Dancer as she’d thought.

There were times even when her mama made mistakes during a routine, and there were times when her mama had to cover them up with a quick Whirlwind Spin to distract her audience.

Only now, she wasn’t spinning sand, and her audience could use a little bit more than distracting.

To spin fast enough to make a small whirlwind, stand on the tip of your feet, cross your arms in a ‘X’ over your torso, and twirl your heavy head in a circle!

If you ‘become’ the whirlwind yourself, the sand will spin around you in jealous mimicry!

She spun and spun and spun, faster than even when she’d done the War Jump, and she became a living water turret; any droplet that even neared her was violently repelled by her hydrofuge spines, and they were sent flying every which way. Some smacked the Harbour Guards behind her on the head, making them yelp in pain. Some bounced off the fish scale sails, some ricocheted off the hard wooden railings, but some shattered the barnacles’ projectiles mid-air… and she was repelling a lot of water droplets simply by spinning on the bowsprit, the very front of the ship.

For every projectile that fired their way, she reflected a thousand tiny droplets with the speed and strength equivalent of five men. Only one of those droplets needed to hit the projectile and it’d be intercepted.

Ha! I’m doing it!

I’m doi-doi-doi–

But she was spinning way too fast, and her teeth chattered as she found herself spinning only faster and faster, quite unable to slow herself down at this point. She didn’t want to slow down, though. She wanted to keep going, keep pushing her limits—the only reason why she was still able to balance atop the narrow bowsprit was because of her ‘segmented setae’, the tiny microscopic hair mutation responsible for letting the tip of her glaives stick to the wood. If not for it, she’d have spun herself overboard the moment she even tried this technique, but she did have it, so she wanted to keep going.

How fast could she spin?

Could she actually spin up a water tornado if she kept at this growth rate?

Ar-Ar-Ar-chi-chi-chi-ve-ve-ve!

Lo-o-o-o-o-k!

I’m goi-oi-ng-ng rea-a-ll-ll-ly fa-as-as-as-at–

[Please focus.]

Ok-ok-ok-ay-ay-ay–

“Brace yerselfs, lads!” Enrique bellowed, cackling at the top of his lungs as the warship reached speeds it’d certainly never reached before, and Marisol spotted—it was really just a blur of light in her spinning eyes—what seemed like the giant remipede’s teeth in the near distance. “We’re closin’ in on the bug’s maw! Fire everythin’ we’ve got! We’re crashin’ through in ten, nine–”

[–eight, seven–]

–si-ix-ix-ix-x-x–

“Five!” the Harbour Guards cheered, more cannon fire joining the fray. “Four, three–”

[–two–]

One!

Marisol released her segmented setae, letting herself spin twenty metres backwards into the door of the captain’s cabin, and at the same time—the warship slammed into the giant remipede’s teeth, chitin and flesh exploding into splinters and shredded muscles.

With one more thunderous boom, every cannon on the warship fired at once as they burst through the giant remipede’s mouth.

…

For a brief, glorious moment, the warship was airborne, suspended in the sky like a levitating dragonfly. The sensation was… surreal. Marisol had never been weightless before. She felt like she could fly as golden sunlight bathed all of them in its warmth, the stifling, acidic air of the remipede’s insides replaced by the fresh, salty brine of the open seas. The natural light was almost blinding after a month in bioluminescent gloom, but it was a welcome discomfort—somehow, Marisol managed to scramble up and belt out a laugh, eyes glowing at the sight of the crystalline blue sea surrounding her in every direction.

She may have hated being surrounded by nothing but water a month ago, but oh, how dearly she’d missed the sea without even being aware of it until now.

Then the warship started to fall.

The Harbour Guards screamed, grabbing whatever they could reach to stop themselves from being flung overboard. Marisol panicked, stabbed her glaives into the floorboard, and somehow managed to keep herself stuck to the upper deck. Wind whipped through the silver sails as the sensation of weightlessness turned into a stomach-churning drop, and with a final colossal boom–

The warship crashed down onto the sea, kicking up a towering wave of water that drenched the deck and crew alike. The impact rattled the ship from prow to stern, the hull groaning under the immense strain as the ship settled in, wobbling left and right. Marisol spotted Captain Enrique flying overboard with a scream, several Harbour Guards tumbling over the railings, and about a dozen unanchored miscellanea flying everywhere. A plank of wood even snapped off the mast and smacked her in the face, making her fall over with a pained yelp… but when all was said and done, she was lying flat on her back, staring up at the sun she’d thought she’d never see again.

Swallowing a mouthful of seawater, she let out a heavy sigh of relief and laughed.

… I kinda wanna do that again.

[Please refrain.]

I’m kidding, I’m kidding, she thought, groaning as she stood up and pushed herself to the railings, staring out at the open seas.

The first thing she did was check on the people who’d flown overboard—two, four, six of them, excluding Enrique, were all paddling safely back towards the ship, cheering with their fists shaking in the air. The Harbour Guards who’d not flown overboard rushed to the upper deck, cackling as they threw ropes into the sea. Marisol was a little different. She doubled over and threw up into the sea, the Whirlwind Spin finally catching up to her head, and she shooed laughing men away as they tried to pat her on the back. She was going to be alright.

The second thing she did was look over to the left, where she spotted Captain Enrique swimming away from the ship, heading towards a tiny rowboat a hundred metres out onto the sea. Marisol squinted for a good few seconds, thinking that couldn’t be it… but it was the rowboat she’d laid the pregnant lady down on, and judging by the tiny figure that waved back at Enrique, her decision to leave all the provisions with the lady wasn’t the wrong decision.

How lucky is it that we surfaced near the rowboat?

Like, seriously, that’s–

[The giant remipede never moved far from the fog in the first place,] the Archive said plainly, pointing far, far forward in the direction of the Whirlpool City’s shadowy silhouette. [Now that we are out of the fog, according to my navigation data, we are right where your previous ship was destroyed. We have neither made any progress nor backtracked any progress in the past month.]

… And the fog? Where’s it gone now?

[I imagine the remipede was responsible for it somehow, whether by way of its barnacles or something else. I will inquire the Hasharana to investigate more about the remipede’s symbiotic capabilities once you become a registered user, and I am reconnected to the other Altered Swarmsteel Systems.]

Marisol gave the Archive a tired smile, wiping her lips as she leaned against the railings.

You still can’t contact the Hasharana to give me a hand because I’m not a ‘registered user’, huh?

[Yes. As long as you are an unregistered user, I cannot communicate with the other Archives nor access any real-time information, such as up-to-date navigation data that would tell me whether or not the weather conditions are safe enough for sailing. After you retrieve a vial of healing seawater and cure your mother, please attend the Hasharana Entrance Exam and become a registered user.]

You said it had… what, a ninety-eight percent fatality rate? That only ten people pass it out of a thousand participants every year?

What makes you so sure I can pass that exam?

[...]

The little water strider gestured broadly at the five-hundred-metre long carcass floating right in front of them, shrivelled and curled up like an artificial island.

[Objective #9: Slay the giant remipede]

[Reward: 5000 points, 500x remipede phyllopodia, 4x remipede venom mandibles, 2x remipede olfactory nerve centres]

[... Including you, only three people have been recorded to slay a giant remipede of this size,] the Archive said plainly. [Now, five thousand points’ worth of bug flesh is impossible to consume and digest in under a month for an untrained human, but if all you eat is ten points' worth of remipede flesh every day for the next sixteen months, I am quite certain you will be able to blow through next next year’s Hasharana Entrance Exam with ease.]

Marisol squinted at the Archive.

I don’t wanna eat just remipede for sixteen months.

[Then eat more at a faster rate, and you can be done in eight. The maximum number of points a soldier can gain in a single day without poisoning themselves in the long run is twenty, making an average of six hundred points per month for soldiers at their absolute peak strength. Now, you are quite talented, so you can probably be done in six months if you eat just a little bit more every single day–]

No. I’ll just eat it at my own pace without poisoning myself.

[But the Hasharana Entrance Exam is in nine and a half months–]

No.

Whirlpool City first, and mama’s ailment first.

Then… we talk about exams and stuff.