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Salt and Blood - Chapter 23
🕑 Added 2024-09-27 16:13:14 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 22 | Table of Contents | Chapter 24 >>
1.23 - Nothing Like the Ocean Breeze
That first breeze you feel on your skin when you return to the real world. The Kiss of Salt, we call it. The most beautiful sting you’ll ever feel.
-Quoted from Captain Quett, of Minenblum
Attempting to harvest [Direwolf Fangs 19]...
Harvest success!
[Direwolf Fangs 19] obtained!
Rose grinned. She hadn’t damaged the treasure this time. It was far lower level than the antlers had been, admittedly, but it was a victory nonetheless.
However, that wasn’t all the alpha had to offer. There was still a tingle on the back of her neck. The second treasure was even more potent than the first, but she was confident.
Her fingers brushed against one of the webs of light as she stretched her arms wide. She giggled at the slimy sensation.
Just another of the marvellous little wonders she would’ve never seen, had she not decided to run away from home that fateful night. One of the fishermen had told her about it once—the butterfly effect.
A single decision could spark a long chain of events. Plucking a single flower could cause the death of a king. Stealing a little fishing boat could land you in the middle of a collapsing convergence.
Attempting to harvest [Direwolf Pelt 26]...
Harvest failed!
[Direwolf Pelt 26] has been damaged!
Attempting to harvest [Direwolf Pelt 22]...
Harvest success!
[Direwolf Pelt 22] obtained!
One little failure couldn’t dampen her joy. She returned to Trent and together they made their way out of the clearing, in search of the exit.
Trent said he knew where he was going. That he could smell the way out. And she believed him.
The forest seemed to have reached a limit on how blue it could become. The blue fuzziness at the edges of her vision had grown larger. Maybe it hadn’t reached the limit just yet.
“Trent, are you seeing the blue as well?” she asked. Her knuckles were wrapped around the hilt of her dagger, not that it would do much against the magic of the forest.
“Yup. Convergence. We’ll be fine when we get out,” he replied. He sounded certain, but Rose didn’t know if she believed him this time.
***
They stood in front of the green tree.
“That’s… not blue,” said Rose.
“It’s not,” agreed Trent.
They had been walking for almost two hours, or so she thought. She was judging by the position of the sun, but Trent had long warned her not to believe what she saw inside a convergence.
Just a minute ago they had stumbled upon something strange. A green tree. Now that she thought about it, that was quite a normal thing to see. It was the rest of their surroundings that was strange.
Even weirder however, was the fact that the air around the tree seemed to bend. There was blue forest beyond it, but when she moved to the side it seemed to… flatten?
“Please tell me this isn’t more convergence nonsense,” she said.
“Good news, my dear Rose. This is utter nonsense. It’s also the exit. Sometimes you can’t have it both ways.”
She practically leapt at the tree the moment she heard his confirmation. It had been a terrifying, mystical and also downright thrilling experience, but she was glad it was over. She wanted to be back in the real world.
Just like the azure webs of light, the tree was viscous. She fell into its embrace and was ungracefully plopped out the other side, right into the cold, crystal clear waters of the Bluestone Sea.
A gust of salty wind blew past her ears when she surfaced, spluttering for breath. Salt tingled on her lips and lightly burned her nostrils.
She was home.
Splash. Trent fell from the air beside her and made far more noise than she had when landing in the ocean. He was a lot more elegant when he broke through the surface of the water.
The man began to hum a tune. One she hadn’t heard before.
“Oh, there’s no fair maiden’s kiss,
Which can touch my soul like this.
All that I desire,
is the salt upon my lips.”
A rather touching sentiment. One that echoed with Rose’s own deepest desires. To traverse the world’s oceans and conquer their secrets. A huge smile crept onto her face.
She had conquered one of the world’s mysteries. A convergence. Plenty of seafaring folk didn’t dare to even approach them, according to Trent. And she had escaped one on the verge of breaching.
Not just escaped, but made it out with treasure. Her first loot. She was truly a pirate now. All she needed was a ship of her own—and a crew.
Wait, are we even safe yet? “Trent, what’s going to happen with the convergence? The tide said it was in danger of breaching. That sounds dangerous,” she said.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I harvested the tidestone, so the rest of the energy should dissipate in due course. They only go really wild when there’s more than one. Or nobody finds the core,” he replied.
The crashing of water came from behind her. Trent’s eyes lit up with greed, or perhaps it was just joy. He was difficult to read.
“It seems as though our ride back to shore has arrived. Stick close and let me do the talking,” he said.
Rose turned around and saw a huge cargo ship. Double masted with eight sails and easily fifty metres from stern to bow. A magnificent vessel. A fitting ride for the pair, after what they had accomplished; what they had survived.
***
“Cheers to us!” hollered Trent as they clinked their mugs together.
Ale spilled across the table and down her shirt. It was sweet and tasted a little grainy. Her head grew fuzzy from the first sip. She loved it.
Rose had wanted to drink rum in honour of their successful return to civilisation, but Trent had told that was a little bit too much for a fifteen year old girl. All of her heroes drank rum, in the stories.
She would taste it one day. Today, she would drink ale. Two whole mugs of it. Three would knock her out cold, Trent had said. And she believed him. Just three sips had made her lightheaded.
Looking back, Rose wasn’t sure of the exact moment she had begun to truly trust the pirate. They hadn’t started out on a positive note.
It was difficult to trust someone who had raided your ship, blown it up and sent your comrades to their possible deaths in the depths of the ocean. Then again, the explosion hadn’t been part of the plan, according to him.
They’d had plenty of time to talk about things on the island. In the convergence.
And yet she trusted him implicitly now. With her life, even. They had been through a lot together. Trent had lost one of his arms, even.
He still sported the stump, but it was healed now. It actually looked bigger than before. I must be imagining things. That wasn’t possible.
“So, what will you do now, little Rose?” asked Trent, slamming his empty mug on the table and waving at the barmaid to bring another. He had claimed this tavern was the best in Highbream.
Fate had seen fit to bring them to the city she had been travelling to aboard the Unrequited Love. If any of the crew had survived, she might have a chance to see them again.
It would be a heartwarming reunion. One she wanted to have. However, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue with them on their journey, if that was what they intended to do.
Fighting for her life in the convergence had been harrowing. It had also been a brief moment where she had felt truly alive—it had been the closest she had felt to achieving her dream.
“I want a ship. Do you think I could afford one if I sold these treasures?” she asked. Her eyes gleamed with excitement and she placed her mug on the table with far more care than he had done. And she said please when she asked for another. The barmaid had beamed at her. She’d blushed.
Trent cackled loud enough that the nearby customers turned to stare. Rose hunched her shoulders. She wasn’t used to getting this much attention.
“It wouldn’t be a grand one, but if that’s what you want then I say go for it. Follow your heart. You’re still young, so live like it,” he declared. A few rowdy cheers erupted around them in response. He was rather charismatic. “However, I have a proposal for you. If you still want to run off and buy a ship afterwards, I won’t stop you.”
The barmaid placed her second mug of ale on the table and cleared the first away.
Rose took a sweet, grainy sip and let her shoulders loosen as it warmed her throat and then her belly. She liked Trent. He was decent folk. “What’s your proposal?”
“Let’s start a pirate crew together. You’re smarter than any bastard I’ve met in this tiny corner of the world and I trust you to have my back. You learn scarily fast and frankly, I’m excited to see where you end up. And…” he paused to take a massive gulp of ale. Plenty of it ran down his chin. “I know where we can steal a fantastic ship.”
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