Sea Sick (Doran)

[Niv]

43 day of Ymiden, 714

The forest of Makubwa Lori was more dark and misty than Niv was used to. The heavy fog that blanketed the forest floor was so thick that the untamed vegetation seemed to be rising out from the clouds. Niv wasn’t even sure there was solid ground anywhere to be found and leapt from mossy tree root to mushroom top in an effort to get somewhere. Niv wasn’t sure exactly where she needed to go, but she knew she was needed somewhere and had get there as quickly as possible. While the tree tops would be a quicker means of travel, the very act of looking up gave Niv vertigo. The trees stretched on to impossible heights and blocked the blue sky with their foliage.

Niv squatted and focussed her eyes on the mossy rock that she needed to leap to. She breathed in and tensed her legs, before springing forward with all her might like a frog. She landed on the sloping edge of the mostly round rock, holding on tight to the few foot holds available. Niv carefully moved her leg up and tried to feel for a another foot hold. Soon enough Her foot encountered something that felt substantial and Niv began pulling herself up. The object was simply a pebble held in place by a crack in the stone and not nearly as sturdy as the Tunawa hoped. It fell and threw Niv’s balance off completely, sending her into the fog below.

As Niv suspected there was no ground for Niv to fall back on, the fog was in fact clouds in the sky. This of course meant that Niv was left to fall like a shoot star. Niv forcefully twisted her body around to face what she would fall into, all see saw was a deep blue. It was quite possibly the biggest puddle Niv had ever encountered and like the trees before, it had no end. As she got closer to the end of her journey she saw a strange looking house. The house was floating on the water and was crafted using foreign methods. The top of it seemed to be covered in laundry handing in the wind, as good as method as any to dry ones blankets but still seemed strange. Niv finally landed directly on the head of one of the homeowners and bounced off finally landing onto the wooden floor.

[Doran]

It was cold, much colder than it should have been in Ymiden, and mist rose from the waves, making it hard to see anything that was more than a few metres away. Thick, grey clouds obscured the sky. The rays of the sun barely reached Idalos. The Mortalborn wrapped his cloak tighter around his body before he went back to his work. Since the ship had left the harbor of Ne’haer he had spent most of the trial sitting on deck as the cabin he had rented had begun to feel suffocating, going through his research notes.

He was close to a scientific breakthrough, he could feel it, something that would revolutionize the field of chemistry and enable him to finally become more than another one of Ziell’s countless bastards. But as he tried to take a closer look at what he had written, the sentences became blurred and started to rearrange themselves until the face of a woman looked back at him. No, it was not a woman. It was a demoness, winged and clawed, with eyes that burnt like embers, like the one that he had given himself to.

Around him the sailors were growing agitated. He closed his notebook abruptly and focused his attention on them. They looked strange to him, as if they had stepped out of another time. They – and the entire ship – reminded him of a time long past. They reminded him of the ship that he had been on when his mother and he had first left Rynmere, almost four centuries prior – or maybe he was just imagining things. Who knew how eternal life really affected people? Maybe, he considered, he was finally losing his mind.

They were shouting now and pointing at a shape that had begun to appear from the mist, another ship that sailed under a black flag. “Pirates!” one of the sailors yelled, and the Mortalborn immediately jumped up and reached for his sword to help them defend the ship and save them as well as himself. It was just then that he felt something hit his head though.

At first he thought that the pirates were shooting at them and that he had been hit with some sort of contraption that was filled with dangerous chemicals, but as he inspected the deck in front of him where the mysterious missile had landed, he realized that it was not a new weapon.

It was a tiny girl, made of bark and vines and flowers, one of those creatures that he had only read about in books so far and sometimes seen for sale at the slave market in Rynmere. They were rumored to have abilities that almost seemed like magic. A part of him wanted to examine her and find out how she functioned, but he realized that he had none of the instruments that he would need with him.

And thus he simply extended a gloved hand towards her to pick her up if she permitted it and take a closer look at her. “Careful, little one”, he warned her. The tone of his voice was a hint cool, but calm and not entirely unfriendly. “You are not safe here. The ship is about to be attacked and you might get trampled during the fight.” He paused briefly and narrowed his eyes somewhat as something occurred to him. “You are far from land”, he observed. “How did you get here? Did you just fall out of the sky or did you fly here on a bird?”

[Niv]

As Niv picked herself off the ground she noticed that it was made of solid wood instead of the mossy dirt or the weaved fabrics Sev’ryn would line their huts with. Odder still was the way the ground seemed to constantly teeter, causing Niv to stay partially crouched with her arms stretched out to maintain balance.

“Oh sorry.” Niv finally noticed the man she fell onto, as his voice bellowed from above. “ I didn’t fly here, I just missed my jump and fell through the ground is all” Niv shook her head before muttering “what is attacking you?” The concern Niv showed was better suited to a common woe than the life or death situation put before her. There were large feet stomping about as they hurried to man the cannons but being trampled was never a dire concern for Her as any damage Niv sustained would recover. She still didn't enjoy the pain involved, so she wobbled towards the base of the nearby mast to seek refuge.

A thunderous boom came from the distance that gave Niv a jolt. It was followed by a haunting whistle in the air that drew her gaze to the sky. Before she could see what ever was causing the commotion it crashed into the water and violently pushed the ship to the side. Niv was thrown right into the mast and ricocheted past into a tumble. She rolled all the way to the other end of the boat finally stoping with a hard slam. The ground was wet with salty water underneath her, which served to remind Niv that the vessel she was on was out at sea.

Out of the mist emerged a frightening wreck of a ship, heading directly for its prey. It seemed like the pirates were ready to bash right into them and knowing pirates it wouldn’t be a stretch. Instead grappling hooks were thrown onto the deck of the ship preventing its escape. A Harpoon followed that pierced through deck easily. The first of the blood thirsty scoundrels slid down the rope attached to the harpoon, landing boldly on the deck. He smiled a sadistic grin as he readied his sharp blade for the blood shed he would soon induce. .

[Doran]

The Mortalborn opened his mouth in order to reply as Niv asked him who was attacking, but it was just then that a loud boom could be heard. A moment later the entire ship shook violently, and the air was suddenly filled with the smell of smoke. He held onto the mast so that he wouldn’t fall. Around him people began to scream. The passengers tried to hide somwhere or flee below deck while the sailors raced towards the ship’s rail to meet the pirates that would arrive soon. Somewhere somebody moved to fire a cannon, but the pirate ship had arrived too suddenly and was already too close.

Just as the pirates threw the first grappling hooks onto the deck, the mist began to clear, as if by some sort of strange magic. The pirate ship looked as if it had just risen from the depths of the ocean where it had been lying for arcs, and the men and women that moved to jump over the railing seemed savage and bloodthirsty, more like beasts than human beings, as if they had been touched by a dark immortal – just like he had once been.

The Mortalborn lost sight of the Tunawa momentarily in the ensuing chaos. As the first pirate entered the ship, he gripped his blade more tightly and approached. “Professor, you should go below deck with the rest of the passengers”, one of the sailors told him, but he firmly shook his head. Those people only knew him as the scholar that was on his way back from a research trip, but he was so much more than that. He was likely more experienced with a weapon than most of them and could handle himself in a fight.

The pirate who had been grinning sadistically before suddenly began to choke on his own blood as he swung his sword and was lying on deck, staining the planks red with his blood a moment later. Another pirate had been luckier though. He had managed to wound one of the sailors and was now grabbing one a female passenger that hadn’t run quickly enough by her hair and dragging her across deck, towards the pirate ship. She screamed in panic while the pirate cackled madly, as if her fear were music to his ears, revealing a mouth full of half rotten teeth in the process.

Within trills people were fighting everywhere. The pirates were getting closer and closer to where Niv was hiding. It wasn’t too long before she found herself facing a female pirate, a wild looking woman with red hair and arms that were covered with a multitude of tattoos. She looked at the little Tunawa for a moment before she grinned and reached for her, in order to steal her or maybe squeeze the life out of her with her unwashed fingers.

Meanwhile Doran faced another pirate near the mast. The man seemed to think him an easy opponent for he smiled confidently and attacked without hesitation as he gestured for him to come closer. Arrogance, the Mortalborn thought, was one of mankind’s greatest flaws. He raised his sword again. As he did so, it flashed crimson, like a flame, like the flame that he sometimes felt just below the surface since she had come into his life.

[Niv]

► Show Spoiler

Sorry this post is a little over due.

Niv wore a pained expression on her face as she rubbed her back, which took the blunt of the hit. She used her arm to push herself up of the ground and winced as a spark of pain shot up it. After a bit of struggle she was standing up and could feel the full extent of the damage. It wasn’t just her back but most of her extremities that had taken a beating. Thank fully they weren’t painful enough to keep her down, just enough to make things difficult.

Niv’s ears rang with a scream of distress and her head darted about to find the source but there was too many bodies moving about on deck and clashing their metal tools together. The concept of violence was new to Niv but even she got the idea by the facial expressions and aggressive actions she saw that no one was being friendly. She didn’t know what they were fighting about and she didn’t care, her brow lowered in determination as she boldly walked towards the squabbling giants.

Before Niv could voice her concerns a black leather boot stomped down in front of her. The tunwawa looked up to protest but quickly found herself in the firm grasp of a lady pirate.
“Lookie wat eye found,” The Pirate chuckled to herself “y’ll catch me a pretty Nel in the old slave market, ya will.”
“Unhand me!” Niv cried as she tired to wiggle her already aching body free.
The pirate pulled Niv up to her mouth “Nope!” The pirate yelled obnoxiously then cackled like she had said the most hilarious joke.
Niv scowled at the unseemly women then began to squawk loudly in defiance.
“Oh shut it!” the women placed her thumb over Niv’s head to muffle the sound but it was too late. A group of four sea gulls swooped down from the sky in Niv’s defence, going to work on the harsh looking features of the lady pirate. In her alarm the Pirates grip loosened just enough for Niv to slip out. The moment Niv hit the ground she looked for the woman’s boot, it was flailing about as the pirate tried her best to slash her sword up at the pesky birds. The opportunity presented itself when the boot stomped in front of Niv, the tunawa wasted no time in jumping on it and crawling up the pant leg. The coarse leg hair provided excellent conditions for climbing, as well as an excellent way to teach a valuable lesson. As Niv made her way up the women leg, she tugged at the occasional hair aggressively. The pirate screamed obscenities and flailed about making her an easy target.

Meanwhile the female passenger who was being dragged away from the pirate, was lucky enough to get her hands on a bottle of wine. The women was no fighter but she wasn’t about to make it easy for her kidnapper. She swiftly smashed the bottle on the ground and blindly thrust it back at the pirate holding her hair. The pirate was quick to dodge the attack but still suffered a bloody gash on the fore arm and lost th grip of his victims hair. The distressed women desperately scrambled along the deck to reach any form of safety she could find with a enraged pirate hot on her trail.

[Doran]

The pirate that was attacking Doran clearly hadn’t expected his opponent to have any sort of combat experience. He laughed stupidly as the Mortalborn swung his sword, expecting him to accidentally stab himself, fall over his own feet or do whatever else it was that people that didn’t know how to handle a weapon usually did. Contempt quickly made way to shock and surprise though as Doran’s blade severed his hamstrings. He let out a scream, abruptly dropped his weapon and fell to his knees. The Mortalborn looked at him thoughtfully as he suddenly started to sob and beg for his life, and then he swung his sword a second time. The pirate immediately stopped begging.

Doran allowed himself a few moments to catch his breath and look around now. It had been a while since he had been in a fight like that. His heart was beating a little faster now, and he was warm, despite the chilling wind. The crew, he noticed, slowly seemed to be getting the situation under control again, although there were still fights going on everywhere on the ship. He was relieved about that. He didn’t care particularly about most of his fellow passengers, but they were far better company than a bunch of unwashed pirates or the fish at the bottom of the ocean, although he was capable of brewing a potion that allowed him to breathe underwater.

A scream pulled him out of his thoughts abruptly, and he spun around. He could see a pirate – he assumed she was female, although he wasn’t entirely sure as she had more body hair than any woman he had ever seen – holding the Tunawa he had briefly spoken with before the attack. No, she wasn’t merely holding her, she looked as if she was trying to squeeze the life out of her while a couple of sea gulls attacked her. He briefly considered the possibility that the Tunawa had the ability to control birds, but then dismissed it all as coincidence.

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he noticed how the Tunawa escaped from her captor’s grasp only to climb up her leg a moment later. He considered the situation for a few trills, before he thrust his blade into the pirate’s back. The look on her face as she suddenly found the tip of a sword sticking out of her chest was priceless.

“I told you to be careful”, the Mortalborn warned Niv as he pulled his sword out of the pirate again and wiped the blood off on her clothes. The only one that would be allowed to sell Niv at the slave market was him, but he had come to the conclusion that she would be more useful to him if he kept her nearby and studied her as much as he was able to. “Are you hurt?”

In the meantime the female passenger who had been in so much danger before had found a saber that one of the pirates had dropped and faced the angry pirate with the blade in one hand and the broken bottle in the other hand, daring her attacker to come closer. The pirate paused for a moment, looking a little unsure, before he grinned and advanced again.

It was just then that the thick clouds that had covered the sky so far disappeared, and the ship was suddenly bathed in sunlight that momentarily blinded both parties and made them pause. Sunlight reflected off the surface of the water that was much calmer now and made it look as if it were made of a multitude of tiny, shimmering crystals.

[Niv]

“I was being careful,” Niv retorted back at the man, after crawling out of the women’s pant leg. “This rude women grabbed me so I taught her a lesson.” Niv walked a short distance to get a better vantage point at the hairy pirate women who was now laying motionless on the deck. “hrrm strange it looks like she fell asleep,” The Tunawa shrugged her shoulders. “She was pretty likely a minute ago.”
Niv’s eyes did come upon the blood pooling under the Pirate, but she figured the pirate had simply fallen on some kind of large red fruit. It hadn’t even crossed the Tunawa’s mind that the red fluids were coming from the pirate women, at this point in her life she figured humans bleed the same golden sap as her.

“Oh I’m not hurt,” Niv shook her head in reassurance. “I wasn’t playing any of the silly games like the others were.” Her glassy eyes shifted to the left and she placed her fists on her hips in judgement. “Don’t they know they could cut an arm off that way? My friend Puka, got her arm bit off by a badger and it took seven whole trials to grow back!” She held up one hand of spread out fingers, demonstrating her lack of math skills. “I told her not to pester that badger.” Niv slowly shook her head side to side in disapproval. “I mean that poor badger just wanted the nu-“ Niv’s rant was interrupted by the blinding light of the sun.

“Ah so bright!” Niv shielded her eyes from the blinding assault. “Where did the clouds go?”
The arm was hesitantly pulled away from her face but Niv continued to squint as her glassy eyes adjusted.
“Though..things do look much nicer.” her head scanned around the boat to see everything in a new light. The fighting began once more but it seemed more elegant and less brutal. Even the rugged pirates seemed to be doing more of a theatric performance than a life or death battle as their snarling faces softened and their attacks became slower and more methodical.

The Passenger women bounced onto the tip of her toes with the ease of a trained ballerina as the Vulgar pirate charged at her. She easily pirouetted out of the way and kicked him in the face as her foot shot up into the sky. The pirate fell back but not as a stumble but a staged fall, as his one leg was bent in a way that clearly eased the decent. The pirate lifted himself up using only the strength in his legs as his hands slowly racked along his stubbly face and down his chest. He did a spin and then lunged at the women like an elegant Gazelle. His attack was blocked by a dashing sailor who had the stem of a red rose in his teeth. The sailor and the passenger shared short blissful smiles at each other before the sailor parried the Pirates sword with a bold swing of the arm.

Just under the glimmering surface of the water a herd of Mer swam past. They came in various shapes and sizes, from long eel tails and tentacles to legged mer clinging to the backs of monstrous sea creatures. With the bright light of the sun they were easy to spot and a few were daring enough spring out of the water as they swam. Behind them was a leviathan that took on the appearance of an enormous jellyfish. The creature was so big it created a small wave in the water as it moved that caused the boat to rock as it went past. It lace like tentacles dangling about elegantly in its wake.
“What was that?” Niv said in alarm as she was pushed to the ground by the sudden turbulence. The turbulence became so much that Niv was taken out of the dream and woke up to fine her bird jostling her awake with his beak.

[Whisper]

Doran

Awarded Points

Story: 4/5
Collaboration: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
These points can/cannot be spent in magic

Awarded Knowledge

Dreams: Battle Aboard a Ship
Dreams: Sharing a Dream
Niv: Not the Best at Hiding
Psychology: Coping with Eternal Life

Awarded Extras

Loot & Losses	Injuries
None	None
Fame	Devotion
None	None

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Niv

Peer Review

Story: 4/5
Collaboration: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
These points can/cannot be spent in magic

Awarded Knowledge

Humans: Cause Pain Through Leg Hair
Dreams: Battle Aboard a Ship
Dreams: Sharing a Dream
Doran: Thinks You Should Pay Attention

Extras

Loot & Losses	Injuries
None	None
Fame	Devotion
None	None

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Comments

Points knocked off of Story because of how unfinished this thread feels, I'm afraid :/ I'm sitting here wondering, like Niv - what it was..!

I was reading it and being like "what on earth is going on here?!" and then I remembered it's a dream XD very good, enjoyed this Unfortunately, as per the posting guidelines, Knowledge in specific skills are very hard to give, therefore I could not adhere to your request for Combat Knowledges here..

If you have any questions, comments or criticism about your review, feel free to send me a PM and we can discuss it.
Thank ye.