Storm Strider

A volley of cannon fire exploded from the Whitewhale Marauders, breaking the sky like thunder, and the Harbour Guards returned fire—relatively slow-moving cannonballs connected by metal wire nets to intercept the arriving shots.

Both vessels had an equal number of cannons. The giant whale may be a bit larger, but that only made it a bigger target; the warship’s sleeker design gave them more manoeuvrability. Captain Enrique bellowed for reloads as he spun the helm, making the ship buckle rightwards and forcing the whale to turn along with them. That extra ten seconds before the Marauders could line up their cannons again bought the Harbour Guards enough time. The sky cracked once more, cannonballs shattering mid-air as they sailed towards the edge of the Dead Island Straits.

They only had manoeuvrability advantage because they were in the air, and the giant whale was obviously not used to swimming anywhere outside of the water. Ten minutes—that was how long they had until they’d reach the edge of the Dead Island Straits and plummet to level waters once again.

[… Stimulating release of perception-enhancing compounds.]

The Archive shoved a dagger of ice into the back of her head and made her spine arch. She’d never get used to it, and she didn’t want to; it was a horrible sensation that forced her to see the world through a bug’s curved, wide-lensed eyes, and if she had this type of kinetic vision twenty-four hours a day, she’d puke her guts out, no doubt.

But she could do ten minutes.

“I’m going, cap!” she shouted, skating back to the other end of the railings as the Harbour Guards on the upper deck noticed her moving. Four of them immediately retrieved an ultra-long plank and stuck it onto the railings, raising it like a ramp… and she clenched every muscle in her body, expelling every last breath of air in her lungs.

The world became blurry lines of light as she kicked off the railings, speeding off the ramp to take flight in the skies.

A hundred metres between the warship and the giant whale.

Wind shrieked in her ears, a sharp, cold howl that drowned out all other sounds. Her gliding wings fanned outwards with a crack, catching the air, and—the wind was overpowered with deep, resonant booms of cannonfire. She wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t really looking, either. She was feeling; she tucked her arms in and rolled, dodging a cannonball as it whipped past her, and then jerked her wings up to soar over another few shots.

The muscles in her back burned, her arms trembling from the strain it took to stay on course. The Marauders’ town on the giant whale’s back may be an intricate tangle of wooden structures, ropes, and sails—a ramshackle fortress soaring through the clouds—but what she saw was just a single, narrow point: the little building at the tail-end of the whale that looked like a harbour for smaller vessels.

She clenched her jaw, keeped her eyelids peeled open, and focused. Her heart was a wild drum. Every pulse sent a jolt of electricity coursing through her veins, and the Marauders’ town was so, so close. There was no stopping. No slowing down. A Sand-Dancer lived their entire lives on the edge between life and death, and with this speed she held so dearly in her heart–

She smashed glaives-first into the wooden harbour.

Wooden planks exploded around her, splintering into a thousand shards. Her impact sent a shockwave rippling across the entire harbour, making even the giant whale buckle for a second, but she stood firm. Her wings snapped shut behind her as dust and smoke billowed up, swallowing her and the harbour in a thick, choking cloud.

For a few more moments, everything felt quiet. Everything felt still. Dust swirled in the air, debris rained around her, but eventually they cleared in the wind to reveal the destruction she’d wrought: the pier she’d landed on was reduced to a jagged ruin, wooden beams jutting out at odd angles, and just beyond the pier was about a dozen Marauders, all standing in ragged lines across this end of town.

Their cutlasses gleamed in moonlight, and their faces were hardened, weathered by the seas—but she met their gaze with a cold, steely calm, two glaive-like blades jutting out of her elbows

[T3 Core Mutation: Preapical Claws]

[Brief Description: You will grow retractable bones alongside your forearms, which can extend from your elbows. Scales with strength and toughness]

Her eyes twitched slightly, and the Marauders hesitated, shifting uneasily. Their blades trembled just a little in their hands… and if that wasn’t her cue to go, she didn’t know what was.

Archive.

[Go ahead, Marisol.]

[Overriding previous objective.]

[Objective #10: Defend the warship and outrun the Whitewhale Marauders]

[Objective #10: Destroy the Whitewhale Marauders on the giant whale]

[Time Limit: 8 minutes]

[Success: Rescue of all slaves and Damselfly Oracles on board]

[Failure: Death]

She launched from the wreckage, skating up towards the first Marauders standing in her way, and they swung—they missed. She didn’t even bother kicking them. Speeding past them, she dragged her preapical claws through the nearest beams of wood and tore through them, making the flimsy building collapse as she sniffed out the locations of everyone that didn’t smell like they had blood on their hands; there were none in this end of town.

[The captives should all be near the other end of town, where the Marauder captain is pulling the reins of the whale,] the Archive said. [Everybody here is a true Marauder. None are being controlled by their whale louse.]

…

There was no need to hold back, then.

Her claws and glaives carved through the wooden planks around her as she tore across the town like a storm, sending splinters flying, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. The town erupted into chaos. Marauders who were manning the cannons turned to see her skating at them, and they’d try to swing at her, shoot at her. Sometimes, they’d get close to hitting her, but they were never planned attacks. She was a blur. Her cloak fluttered after her as she cleaved through the shoddy buildings in swift, heavy blows, and she wasn’t skating in a straight line towards the whale’s head.

She zigzagged across the town, weakened as many wooden beam foundations as she could, before tossing coloured pheromone flares into the sky every so often—pill-shaped bombs the Harbour Guards had given to her—and they were the go-ahead signal for the warship to fire on her location.

To her far right, the warship’s cannons thundered, and a second later the metal projectiles smashed into the town she was still skating through. Dozens of buildings buckled under the assault, roofs caving in, walls splintering, ropes and sails whipping out in every direction. There was always a five second delay between her tossing the coloured flare and the ground being decimated where she stood, and that was long enough for her to skate along, moving to the next section of town.

If nothing else, skating through the explosions was exhilarating.

Archive! How long until we exit the straits?

[Three minutes,] it replied curtly, and she launched a spinning jump over a dozen Marauders as they charged at her; cannonfire annihilated them in her stead. [Start smelling again. You are close to the head of the whale, and we do not want any misfires on innocents.]

Got it!

It was difficult picking up a particular scent with so much smoke and ash and fire in the air, but as she skated across the rope bridges connecting the tail and head-end of the town, she saw the wooden cages physically; they were just sitting out on the streets, dried blood caked around some of them, mounds of broken and dismembered corpses lying inside others.

…

Among only a few, she spotted imprisoned Damselfly Oracles huddled together and bracing themselves from the cannonfire, so she cleaved through their cages as she skated by and narrowed her eyes in disgust. Her heart burned with energy. She saw dozens more Marauders trying to intercept her from the giant pointed fortress at the head of the whale, and she charged straight through the main street as she tossed out the remainder of her pheromone flares. She did so only after seeing the imprisoned damselflies flutter away from the whale, and she did so because she could tell: any slave on board had already been fired towards the warship as part of the invading force, and those who’d not been chosen were dead, devoured by the Marauders for more strength.

If she’d been a little faster—if they’d all been in a bit more of a hurry towards the Whirlpool City—maybe she could’ve saved them in time.

As things stood, though, there were no more souls left on the giant whale without the putrid scent of blood bled into their very skin; there really, really was no point in holding back anymore.

So it was, that by the time she practically flew through the giant wooden gates and made the entire fortress at the head of the whale rumble, her heart was pounding with an aggressive, murderous rhythm like it’d never before.

Emerging into the single, enormous hall shaped like a fighting pit, she skidded to a halt and scowled at the grotesque skull effigies lining the walls. Torches jutted from the floor like bone spikes, and the air was thick with salt, sweat, and old blood. It was obvious more men had perished here than anywhere outside in the crumbling town… and the person who was responsible for all the deaths was standing right in front of her.

In the centre of the cavernous hall was a single thirteen-armed man: a monstrous, towering body with skin like gnarled oak. His crab head and pincer were garishly orange. He may be missing a right arm, but his twelve whale louse arms held chipped cutlasses, and his protruded eye stalks gleamed with cruel, dark amusement as he sneered at her.

Marisol felt she recognised those eyes from somewhere as she panted for breath, letting her muscles cool down for a second.

“... Yer the water strider girl, ain’tcha?” the Whitewhale Marauder captain rasped. “The skies have ears and the seas have mouths, ye know—the whale lice tells me ye killed my little brothers.”