I had lots of fun writing this chapter, probably won’t write another for a couple days as I’m working a bit more on my other ongoing story, Forum Curses Entr’acte.
Hopefully I’ll continue developing the relationship between Arish and Tobias Cynthia (And Aiedail). Chapter 3 hopefully will have some good wholesome moments with the Trio, then Chapter 4 is where stuff’s going to get serious.
[Abyss Sea] Cirrus Chapter: The Alliance.
I hung onto the ropes, pulling down on them to try and move the sail. Winds whipped at my face, lashing out across the small skyship. Something was stuck in the rudder, stopping us from turning.
The storm struck Cirrus hours earlier, right as Arish and I left. We weren’t expecting it to be so bad. With enough force to knock me flying, and enough cold to bite at my hands - turning them numb - the wind continued to blow, and blow. He was crouched at the bow of the ship, low down in front of the mast, clutching to some ropes, shouting at me.
“Land ahead, it must be the Djin Ruins.”
Sure enough, the shape of an island was emerging from the clouds. It was far to our right, and we weren’t turning.
“Arish! This isn’t working. We need to get the rudder turning.”
He smiled at me, and I nodded.
Standing up, Arish Vista threw himself off the edge of the boat.
It’s only been two weeks since this all started: admittedly at the start I thought it would last a few days at most. But now we’re concerned that it’s just getting worse. The defences on Cirrus held up well over the first ten or so days, but yesterday one of those creatures: everyone’s been calling them Atlanteans, broke past our array of stakes and walls and made it up onto the first bridge.
Arish launched it down to the waters below with a blast, however its presence was still worrying. After consulting with other warriors, Arish made our movement official. The North Bronze Defense Alliance. Alright, there’s barely tens of us right now. But once we’ve connected with Redwake, possibly also Frostmill - I don’t know what’s going on over there, it’s too far to be seen with all the fog recently. - and Palo Town, we’ll be quite a good bunch. He then challenged all of us to a duel to see who was worthy of what rank. I did alright - he’s a strong fighter indeed and none of us won. In short I’m now officially an Officer Commander of the Alliance. Fancy title, not much power as of now. That brings us to now at least,
I launched four chains over the side of the boat, hooking onto his soul. In theory everyone’s soul is directly connected to their body, and taking hold of said soul will stop him from falling. Although experience suggests there can be anomalies to this rule, sure enough he was suspended there by the spirit chains.
I heard some laboured breathing as he struggled with the wind, climbing up to the back of the ship.
“There’s a pinecone stuck in it!”
“Really? A pinecone?” I yelled back.
A creak and snap later, the wheel of the boat spun wildly, and the sail flicked over to the side in violent want. The ship almost capsized itself in this action, which would have been disastrous, however we caught against land, stopping us from turning and tangling all the ropes in trees.
“Damnint. At least we’ve made it.” Arish grunted, jumping up onto the solid rock, holding out his hand. “Come on, get up here, we don’t have all day.”
The island was littered with shards of rocks, broken pillars and the like. A small arena stood out on a cliff above a small camp, where a few figures were milling around, their fire sheltered by a wall from the gale.
One of the figures, a man with two scimitars, looked up at us.
“Oh, look what we have here.”
A flash of lightning later, and he was standing where I was moments before, scimitar drawn.
I laughed, balancing on one of the arena pillars.
“Hey there, not the best at first impressions I see.”
He snarled, taking a spear and throwing it at me. It flew through where I was, yes. But not where I am.
Arish reached for his arm, freezing it to a tree with snow magic.
“Wait. We mean no harm. We want you to join our alliance. We need warriors, strong ones.”
“The Order doesn’t need you. They’ll come any day now. Any day… any…”
I spoke up. “There is no Order here. Only chaos. Those things have swarmed up the Stepstones, nobody is getting up or down to save you as of right now. Every day they’re going to come closer and closer, wreak havoc on the Sea, until it’s just you and your posse starving to death on this depressing little island.”
For a moment, silence hung in the air awkwardly.
“You’re no mage. That was Ekrix, but not how I’ve ever seen it. My sister always admired soul manipulation. They killed her.”
A few of the others on the island appeared in the trees, watching.
“Those Atlanteans killed her. The Order told me about them, said they were nothing more than weak monsters. I guess if the Order lied to me then…”
Drawing an amulet from his pocket, one which looked as if it displayed a candle of some sorts, he kept speaking.
“I have nobody to trust. Men, change of plan. The Baron won’t be returning anytime soon.”
He threw the amulet, it bounced off the edge of the island and fell.
“I don’t know what you want to drag me into, I don’t want to work with you, but hell. If that’s all I can do to avenge Carina.”
The cloaked figures were shocked, some just stood still. One of them drew a knife and tried to attack the man, who just knocked them back.
“Lord Elius. We cannot betray the…”
“This is no betrayal. This is for our good, then once everything is back to normal. We can continue our mission.”
After waiting for the storm to calm down, the group lent us a skyship since ours was out of order after the slight incident. As we sailed calmly back through the sky, we passed the other small island. I haven’t been this close to it before: interestingly there was a boat docked by it, a woman standing at the edge. I recognised her: she was in the town a few days earlier, just who I thought to be a resident of Cirrus, I only remember that she got into an argument with one of the Alliance Swordsmen.
“Hey there.” I shouted. “You shouldn’t go near that island, it could be dangerous!”
She didn’t reply, only stared at us as we sailed past.
Cirrus island was busy: people ran about this way, that way. Shouts were heard as our ship touched against the bridge, and we jumped off.
“Commander Vista, we’ve done it. We made contact with Redwake. The leaders of their defences agreed to come and talk to us.”
“Good. We can set out to Redwake at once. Tobi, can you stay here?”
As Arish left to meet the leaders of Redwake, I got a chance to sit back in the centre of the town, to drink some water peacefully as the clouds came past. The guards on watch over the stepstones strolled back and forth in a repeating march.
“Atlantean!”
Blasts of magic, and the sound of swords being drawn came from across the bridge.
I ran up towards the commotion, as from the stepstones leapt a figure.
The guards surrounded it, attempting to attack - but they were pushed backwards in a powerful shockwave. Runes, seemingly carved out of space itself appeared, floating before their chests. They were all instantaneously thrown into the ground, and the attacker approached me.
What first shocked me however, was its lack of soul.
It looked humanoid: however no human could live with no soul, and although most Atlanteans at least had remnants of humanity, this thing had nothing.
I assumed it was some sort of puppet by the dark magic which filters the seas nowadays. Some beast.
Initially, it didn’t attack. So I extended my spirit energy outwards. Most manipulators of the soul would use the extension of energy as a barrier as they moved through it at speed, however even that was too risky for my liking.
So I sent my soul to the edge of the energy, taking my body with it.
“Teleportation, fool.”
Appearing behind it, I laughed and sent a dagger of spirit energy towards it. The dagger passed through without harming flesh. Of course, it had no soul to attack.
Then I would just have to…
Runes flashed through the air… runes… Rune…
No, not the time to be distracted. I couldn’t make sense of what they said, but they circled around its fist, spiralling into some pattern. My enemy thrusted their arm forwards, a wave of air and the mysterious glyphs with it. I extended the energy outwards, appeared right in front of my opponent.
A thousand emotions flashed across his face.
This was no Atlantean.
Late that night I sat in my house, or at least the one I took to sleep in. On my bed lay the man, unconscious as far as I was aware, they hadn’t stirred since the battle.
Their hair was of a longer length, pure black like the night. His eyes shone like gemstones.
He was wearing an archaic, waterlogged, semi armoured outfit, looking as if he had to fight through a storm and an ocean to get up here.
I smiled, perhaps I was mistaken, and I had just found another anomaly in the soul, as I had two and he had none.
I’ll sleep by the fire tonight. I need a bit of space.