Storm Strider

Marisol jumped onto the rocky railings and swallowed a hard gulp.

The leviathan’s shadow was still swirling under the wreckage, and it was still raining, thundering, the storm a violent, starving beast that couldn’t be calmed. In less than five minutes the ship was going to sink, so it was do or die. Jump or fall.

… She chose to climb down the hull because her legs were still a bit shaky standing on the railings.

[So you are brave enough to challenge the fairy shrimp on its domain, but not brave enough to jump ten metres down?] the Archive muttered. [The chances of your success are less than five percent. If you wish to abort your objective, you can still–]

“I’m just a bit seasick, ok?” she mumbled back, using the protruding cannons as handholds, stabbing her legs directly into the hull for stability. “Also, you could embellish the number a little to give me more confidence, you know? Do you have to say I only have a five percent chance of success?”

[You have a ninety-five percent chance of failure.]

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “See? At least the number’s bigger now, right?” she whispered, chortling lightly, doing her best to dispel the tension festering in her shoulders without losing her grip. She probably would’ve accidentally let go of a cannon if she’d forced herself to laugh too hard.

Quickly, she reached the bottom where the waves crashed against the hull and seawater doused her cloak, completely soaking her from top to bottom. The sea was cold. She wanted to bite her teeth and hug herself and climb back up, but instead she recited the Sand-Dancer’s tenet over and over in her head: ’grace above all else, fearlessness and recklessness hand in hand’.

She closed her eyes and sucked in a cool, slow breath.

Then she let go of the cannon and dropped.

For a second, she was worried she was going to sink straight into the abyss, but she landed on the tip of her glaives and immediately started wobbling around. It was a sickening sensation, like standing on quicksand, but the ‘quicksand’ here was frothy and salty and wavy, immediately pulling her away from the relative safety of the hull. Biting her tongue, she shot her arms out as she tried to find her centre of balance—’grace above all else’—and thankfully managed to stay upright.

With her heart hammering in her ears, she swallowed another gulp and squinted out at the wreckage.

[... You really can balance on glaives for legs,] the Archive said, sounding quite in disbelief. [But the real test will be moving. Will you ride the waves or let them pull you around? Will you outrun the leviathan or let it swallow you whole?]

She managed a small, quivering smile as she glanced at the little bug on her shoulder. “Why do you sound like you’re having fun watching me trying not to fall?”

[I apologise. But the fairy shrimp is charging towards you from the left.]

Thunder cracked far away. Her smile turned into a dark scowl as she looked and saw waves splitting in half, a dozen armoured legs breaching the surface and kicking upside-down towards her.

… Oh.

No more hesitating. No more thinking. She whipped her head forward and took her first step towards the closest shipwreck in the distance, carefully raising her thigh, then her lower glaive, then the tip of her glaives before– no, that was too slow. What am I, performing for a crowd? She broke into a mad skip and kept on the tip of her glaives the entire time, only careful not to slam her legs down with too much force lest she pierced the surface, but otherwise she was just skipping, prancing across rolling waves of water.

It probably looked ridiculous to an outsider, and it certainly felt ridiculous, but this much was nothing for a Sand-Dancer. She’d practised walking only on the tip of her toes for weeks on end just to train her balance—a Sand-Dancer couldn’t afford to fall, after all—and all her practice was paying off now in the most unbelievable situation.

It’s… almost just like sand-dancing.

You put one foot ahead on the other, focus your weight on the tip of your toes, and then–

A particularly violent wave threw her off balance and onto a floating plank, her chest slamming hard into the wood. She groaned and clutched her stomach as she kicked her legs out of the water, frightful there were other things lurking just beneath the waves, but when she looked behind her she saw the leviathan only beginning to pick up speed; she had to move, and she had to move now.

[Not fast enough, Marisol,] the Archive said, shaking its little head on her shoulder as she crawled to her feet, desperately trying to balance on the plank of wood. [Walking on the sea is not like walking on the desert. If you fall in the desert, you will hit the ground, and you will climb to your feet. If you fall into the ocean, you will sink into the abyss, and you will not be able to stand ever again.]

…

Of course. She already knew that. One misstep on the seas and she’ll never find her footing again.

She’d simply forgotten ‘grace’ in her steps.

Steadying her shaky breaths, she clasped her hands together before pulling them apart, infusing elegance into even the tip of her fingers as she began her most basic dance routine—one that began with a single step forward, and then down a windy slope of sand.

On the seas, that slope was a wave.

As the leviathan charged her from behind, the waves it pushed served as her launching board, and she leapt off her plank to land on the tip of her glaives—this time, she wasn’t walking. She wasn’t skipping. She was skating, dragging one leg before the other, hands swinging free and wide, her body leaning low and forward to reduce air resistance.

The ‘Storm Stride’, she thought. It was a skating routine she’d seen her mama do a whole decade ago, and, as its name suggested, it could only be done in a sandstorm when the winds were strong and turned the desert into a golden sea. The townsfolk used to run out of their houses just to see her mama sliding up and down, across the crest of the dunes, riding the storm and performing a routine where the focus was on… the fingers. Fanned out evenly, moving like they were paddling through water, her mama’s fingers were the most elegant and graceful ones she’d ever seen; she couldn’t believe her first time performing the Storm Stride routine would be on the open seas.

I’m… I’m doing it!

Ain’t this ‘skating’, mama?

Great Makers, she knew how much danger she was in with every wave she rode, but there was something magical about froth bubbles parting in front of her, the winds funnelling past her face, and the speed. Her lips twisted with wicked delight as she zoomed towards the first shipwreck, eyeing a few frayed knots connected to the half-broken mast.

Without slowing down, she jumped two metres over the railings, onto the deck of the sinking ship, grabbed the frayed knots, and then vaulted over the railings on the other side—the leviathan smashed right through the centre of the ship mere seconds later, rumbling with what could be hunger, what could be the thrill of the chase. She wouldn’t know.

[Focus on the plan. Hold the ropes tight.]

Bending her knees, she looked in the direction she had to turn and twisted around, leaning on the very edge of her glaive to skate a full half-circle towards the second shipwreck. The leviathan’s tusk-like antennae shot out the surface where she was just a moment ago. Laughing nervously, she exhaled coolly and rode the waves, launching onto the second ship to grab her second set of ropes.

Alright! She thought, vaulting off the second ship as she headed for the third. Just one more to go!

It was difficult working her arms while skating up and down—only the Great Makers knew how many times she came close to losing her balance—but she managed to tie both the first and second set of ropes together as she reached the third shipwreck. This time, she decided to add a little flair. She launched, spun, and then grabbed the third set of ropes off the deck at the same time she landed; backflipping over the railings and over the leviathan as it smashed through the ship.

[That was wholly unnecessary. Please refrain from–]

You said five percent, right?

Skating back towards the water-logged crates and barrels all clumped up in the centre of the shipwrecks, she jumped onto one of the bigger crates and stabbed her glaives into it for stability. Rain smashed into the back of her head, constant thunder making it difficult to focus. She bit her lips and looked for anything she could secure her ultra-long ropes onto, and found metal hooks jutting out the side of the crate—they were perfect for what she needed them for.

‘Marisol.’

While her hands scrambled to tie the ropes around the hooks, securing them onto the crate as firmly as she could, she heard massive waves splitting behind her. The leviathan was fast approaching. Shaking wet hair out of her face and pushing through the rope burns on her palms, she gave each rope a hard pat just to see if they’d hold. Thankfully, they did.

‘No matter what sort of stage you’ve been given, and no matter what unreasonable demands have been made of your routine…’

With a heavy heart, she exhaled and rose to her feet, puffing out her chest as she whirled to face the charging leviathan. The dark shadow may be terrifying, and its dozen upside-down legs cleaving through the surface may be eerie beyond compare, but she’d seen scarier. The desert during a sandstorm was scarier. The deep sea itself was scarier. Her mama, bedbound for the rest of her life, never to see or smell the brine of her homeland ever again… that was scarier.

What was one measly bug in the face of all that?

Right as the leviathan was about to smash into her wooden crate, she jumped, higher than she’d ever jumped, and time slowed to a crawl. She heard the leviathan swallowing the crate she was standing on. She heard it dragging the crate down, down, and down into the abyss, taking the impossibly taut ropes with it—and then the half-broken masts the ropes were connected to snapped, three giant stakes flying inwards to impale the leviathan from three separate directions.

She’d jumped so high—and with such flourish, such elegance, such a joyous beam on her face—that when her glaives eventually landed on something, she was perched atop one of the wooden stakes, staring down at the dying leviathan.

She watched its legs twitch, its antennae swish around, its tail kick up and down… and she watched it die, its fleshy abdomen rising to the surface as it became something akin to a buoyant raft.

‘... A Sand-Dancer always ends her dance with a bow.’

Then, she stood up tentatively and bowed to the storm, to the seas, and to her enemy; it may be dead in the water, and it may not be deserving of her respect, but the fairy shrimp had been the sole witness to her first dance on the seas.

She would give it a bow, and nothing more.

[... I see,] the Archive murmured as she hopped off the wooden stake, landing and stabbing her glaives in the giant shrimp’s abdomen. It was a bit wobbly, but she felt she could stand on its carcass longer than any of the surrounding sinking ships. [Percentages and calculations mean nothing in the face of a Sand-Dancer as unpredictable as you. Henceforth, I will adjust my advice to better fit your… recklessness. Or courage.]

Two sides of the same coin, she thought. Now, you said something about… rewards? And shrimp parts? What did you say I’d get if I killed the shrimp again?

[Ah, yes. One moment.]

[Objective #1 Completed: Slay the fairy shrimp]

[Reward: 15 points, 12x fairy shrimp phyllopodia, 4x fairy shrimp antennae]

[You have around fifteen minutes to rest before even this ‘vessel’ will sink,] the Archive said, and she looked grimly down at the fairy shrimp. Her glaives were already half-submerged in the wavy waters; the Archive wasn’t lying when it said she’d lose this foothold sooner or later. [However, now that the most immediate threat to your wellbeing has been taken care of, that is fifteen minutes you can use to increase your attribute levels before you must depart. Please consider how to spend your points carefully. As with the class selection, you cannot undo any decisions you make.]

She blinked pointedly, flicking hair out of her face as she looked down at the little bug on her shoulder.

Attribute levels? she thought. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.

[I apologise. Allow me to explain.]

The Archive hopped off her shoulder and landed on the surface, just a few inches above the fairy shrimp’s fleshy abdomen.

Then it started tapping the water, as though telling her to kneel down to its level.

[To claim your rewards and get the points,] the Archive said, [you must eat the bug.]