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Salt and Blood - Chapter 14
🕑 Added 2024-09-24 01:25:31 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 13 | Table of Contents | Chapter 15 >>
1.14 - Castaway
The only thing worse than being lost at sea is being stranded on an island. At least if you’re on the ocean, with no food or fresh water and in constant danger from the deadly beasts that lurk below, there’s a level of certainty you hold towards your fate. When you have shelter and food, you have hope. And being hopeful is a slow and painful way to die.
-Excerpt from ‘Lost in the Wet Desert’ by Kalamir Icefinger
Rose could hear the rhythmic lull of waves washing in and out of the shoreline. A seagull squawked in the distant sky and she could feel the heat of the sun against her skin as she stirred awake.
It took her a few tries to open her eyes. The light was blinding and her first attempt had seared an image of the sun onto her retinas even when she closed them once more. A dull ringing in her ears was a reminder of the brutal battle she had survived, though she wasn’t quite sure how.
The last thing she remembered was being blown off the Unrequited Love as it was decimated by the pirates’ cannons and then seeing the pirate ship explode in a brilliant cascade of flame. She wasn’t sure she had survived.
Bits and pieces of the battle were coming back to her. What had knocked her out was an errant piece of the pirate ship slamming into her head. She reached up and felt around her scalp, wincing when her fingers prodded a swollen bump and sent a dull aching wave of pain through her head.
It still didn’t feel real. Rose opened her status. She wanted to be certain that the events of the past week had happened and weren’t all part of some hazy fever dream induced by her dying of thirst back on the little fishing boat.
Name: Rose Everblue
Race: Human
Occupation: -
Title: -
Available Titles: Murderer
Skills: Cleaning 10, Reading 9, Fishing 12, Swimming 8, Writing 6, Butchery 6, Cooking 5, Herding 2, Focus 9, Drawing 11, Sailing 7, One Handed Weapons 3, Blades 2, Pistols 1, Firearms 1
Traits: Sensitive Line, Deft Hand, Good as New
The tide was ephemeral and yet seeing that screen in front of her made Rose feel more security than anything else could have offered in its place. Murderer. The title jumped out at her, forcing her to relive the worst moments of her time on the Unrequited Love.
She had killed a man. He had been trying to kill her, so she felt the title was rather unjustified, but philosophical musing didn’t help lessen the disgust and confusion that were churning within her.
Rose wondered what had happened to the other members of the crew. Had they survived the destruction of the ship? She didn’t think any of them had fallen in the melee before that, but her focus hadn’t exactly been on the others while she was fighting for her own life.
Not only the crew, but the captain’s books. All that knowledge. The history of the ship and its crew and the stories of their adventures, consigned to the depths for eternity.
For the first time since waking up, Rose took a look at her surroundings. The fact she hadn’t done so already made her worried about the severity of her head injury, but without proper medical supplies or another person to give her a checkup there was little she could do about it.
White sands stretched for about five hundred metres in front of her and half that behind. She would have to do some exploring to be certain, but it seemed as though this was a tiny island. There shouldn’t even have been any islands anywhere near the ship’s course.
None that were mapped, at least.
She flinched and pulled back her foot as something skittered across it. Looking down she saw a little blue crab prancing across the sands towards the seafoam. Along the length of the beach there were plenty more of the cute crustaceans.
A couple of them were even engaged in duels. The losers limped away, missing legs and always a claw. The winners took them as a prize and ate them on the spot.
Odd behaviour, but Rose spent nearly half an hour watching the crabs. Wondrous marvels of nature like this were the reason she had always wanted to set sail instead of being stuck on Emerlan Isle for life.
Inland, beyond the white sands of the beach, there was a sprawling forest of lush trees. Ten to fifteen metres tall, with thick trunks and a few large branches leading out to verdant canopies. An unusual sight for this part of the world.
There were forests back home, but they tended more towards the evergreen variety. Hardy and built to survive on a rocky island with sparse nutrients to be found in the soil. With nothing else to do but explore, Rose made her way towards the inviting woods.
The soft white sands gave way to wet earth blanketed in a mix of blue and green moss. Rose smushed the mud between her toes and let out a high pitched giggle.
It felt different to the rocky clay of the Emerlan Isle. Even to her untrained eye it was obviously far more fertile. The fact that such a vibrant forest existed on this island was proof.
Rose reached out and touched the bark of the nearest tree and gasped. So soft. Unlike the rough and hardy exterior of the evergreens back home, the trees here had velvety bark that raised goosebumps as she ran her fingers along it. And that wasn’t the only surprise they were hiding.
Following the path her finger had traced was a splattering of blue. The bark had changed colours in response to her touch. It was a behaviour she had never even heard of in a plant, let alone be blessed enough to witness.
It also brought another thought to the front of her mind, one which had been dancing around the entire time she had been exploring the island. Almost everything here was blue. Bright, bold blue like the sky on a hot summer’s day.
From the cute little crabs to the moss and the colour shifting trees. Even the mushrooms are blue. Rose crouched down and reached out to the flat mushrooms nested in a crevice of the tree trunk.
At the last moment, she pulled her hand back. It was better to be safe than sorry when it came to mushrooms, especially such vibrantly coloured varieties.
For now she would treat the flat mushrooms as the beautiful decoration they were and not make rash decisions, at least where her health was concerned. Her still ringing ears were a constant reminder of the injuries she had already suffered and until they healed she wouldn’t take unnecessary risks.
Beyond the first trees and into the depths of the forest a collage of cerulean, azure and all manner of blues was splattered like the careless strokes of a child painting.
It was utterly breathtaking. The most beautiful thing Rose had ever seen, but she knew that exploring it further would have to wait. She hadn’t done it before, because the shock of waking up somewhere so unfamiliar and magnificent had thrown her for a loop, but she needed to set up some kind of signal so that passing ships might be able to see that there was a person in need of rescue on the island.
And just below that on her list of priorities was preparing for nightfall. Even if all that meant was constructing a rudimentary shelter and lighting a fire.
Now that she considered it, lighting a fire should be her number one priority, since it would take care of both pressing matters in one go. Now I just need to remember how to start a fire.
Her mother had taught her once. It wasn’t often she helped to shepherd the doori, given how boring she found it wandering around the rocky hills all day while running after the wayward bovines who strayed from the herd. However, she had a clear memory of the time she had felt most at peace during her childhood. A brilliantly clear night where every single star in the sky shone brightly upon the world.
They had needed to camp out in the hills because it was mating season for the doori, which involved a complex and ridiculously loud ritual between the animals that sent grunts and groans echoing across Emerlan Isle. Each year the citizens would hold a festival to celebrate it.
It was a time of joy that represented new life, and more importantly more milk for the people of the island. That evening her mother had imparted a far more useful skill to Rose than knowing how to cajole a hulking beast– how to start a fire with just two sticks and a healthy helping of willpower.
It didn’t take long to find two suitable sticks. Unlike the adamant evergreens back home the trees here seemed to cling to their branches less stubbornly.
Plenty littered the mossy forest floor and while many were unsuitable for the specific task at hand, they would do just fine to fuel the fire itself. She did her best to break apart the smallest pieces for kindling and then arranged the rest of the sticks in a triangle above that, save for the two she had selected to create the essential spark.
Rose had carved out a little divot in one of the sticks using a sharp rock that had been lying on the beach and she squatted down on the balls of her feet while pinching that stick between her knees. Then she took the other stick, slotted it into the divot and began rapidly spinning it between her palms. Nothing happened at first.
About an hour of unrelenting effort later, Rose heard a splash and grew excited.
Skill up!
Focus 9 > 10
You have earned a new trait!
Tunnel Vision: You lose some awareness of your surroundings when focusing on a single task but gain an equal measure of proficiency toward whatever you are doing.
Water was the polar opposite of what she had been trying to achieve, but another trait was not something to complain about. This one in particular would help her get the fire started quicker than before. Whether it made an impact was questionable though, given that it took another couple of hours before something finally changed.
Little wisps of smoke rose from the contact point of the two sticks, gently increasing in density until all of a sudden there was a crackle and the little shavings of wood inside the divot flashed orange. Rose hurried to shove the hot dust into the kindling before it burnt out and she lost the fruits of her labour. Her speed proved enough and the kindling burst into flame, licking at the base of the triangle she had built.
She leapt into the air and yelped in fright as a hand clamped down on her shoulder. “It’s about bloody time,” growled the unseen assailant. “I thought we were going to be here all night.”
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