The shark lunged, rifling through the air as though we were submerged. I hopped to the right, holding out my scythe to catch the shark’s flank as it passed. The force should easily pull my arm out of its socket, but the blade glided through flesh with nothing but the resistance of still water. Several feet past me, the shark turned for another lunge. Floating above in perfect sync with its motion was a purple rectangle ticking down by one-fourth of its maximum length, the shark’s stamina bar.
Barring its rows of serrated teeth the shark pushed in. I leaped out of its path again, but the gnarling predator stopped mid-way, a feint! Locked into my leap, I was helpless as the maw snapped like a steel trap into my side. The shark wretched past me, trying to pull my guts with it. My stomach lurched till my mind realized it was being subjected to false signals. The bite left no indication but an unpleasant tingle, a prod of feedback. My stamina indicator appeared in my peripheral, hanging there wherever I looked as it ticked down. These special fish could be punishing if faced alone.
I danced around more advances before the shark kicked its tail and swam above my head. It took to circling, a stalking maneuver, and a tell for its most damaging attack. This was also my opportunity. The beast was outside my reach, but not outside my range. I held my right arm parallel to the ground and pursed my lips. With no air and a thought, my lips produce a clear whistle, full and trilling.
SWISH! A wide blade of alabaster from above shot through the sea hunter, shocking it from its attack and leaving it briefly stunned. The raptor-like form lands on my gauntlet’s perch as its radiance fades, revealing my companion, the seagull Dulce. Technically a gull, his wings were like an albatross, massive and, tinged with periwinkle streaks. His talons dug into the perch, hooked and sharp.
The shark recovered and resumed cycling through its attacks. Dulce propelled outward at my pointed finger’s command, intercepting the predator’s advances before returning to be launched again. Our foe’s stamina bar drained with every strike, reduced to a fifth of its maximum at which point the rectangle’s hue shifted from blue to a contrasting gold. This was the moment I’d been aiming for.
I dismissed my scythe into a puff of bubbles and commanded my gull to fly beside me and make a goading call. The shark responded to the taunt, transferring its aggression to my companion. The beast lunged, jaws hungering. Just as it passed, I sent Dulce straight up and threw my fishing line. The line landed with a puncturing whip crack. I tugged the wire taught. Golden energy extended from the gauntlet down the line, capturing the shark in arcing sparks. With the satisfying ding of a ship’s bell, the light compressed the animal into a glowing orb. I retracted the line and caught the orb in my palm. Text shimmered above the sphere, a rundown of the shark’s statistics.
VAULTER SHARK, LVL 85. +8
Influence
My inventory was filled to the brim with the components Vaulter Sharks offer, all immaterial next to the exhilaration pumping through my body. I breathe in and out, in and out, then toss the orb into the water surrounding the arena. The sphere breaks and the shark splashes into the sea, its eyes freed of the glowing delirium and skin scarred over where the minerals once protruded.
The arena dissolves around me, revealing Alupac’s dock behind it. Dulce lands on my gauntlet, pressing his head against mine, cooing affectionately. His neck bends into my hand as I scratch and brush head feathers, the soft plumage inviting another touch with every stroke. Satisfied, I raise my arm. The gull straightens and with one mighty push takes off like a rocket into the boundless blue, vanishing in a trail of down raining around me. I close my eyes, opening all other senses to the world, its salt and moisture, sun and bounty. Cooling sheets of wind carry the ocean’s spray across my skin. Another breath in and out. Slower. Deeper.
Time was a lost concept until the vibration on my left thigh wretched my attention. I press harder against the spot this time and it ceases. Behind me on the dock rests the Wandering Atoll’s famous schooners and caravels, flags in a tango with the wind, a siren’s call to adventure. Purifying the shark, frisson in a simulated battle, this was one of this world’s thrills. Another awaited at the end of the dock, amidst the waves. It was time to break out the boat.
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The wood planks of the dock creaked under my boots as I ran across the panels. A stack of crates looked to me like the perfect ramp, so I hopped atop and leaped over the heads of the dock workers oblivious to my antics, though I imagine their eyes on me, threading through the crowd, smiling as they ponder what wonders awaited the eager adventurer. I slid to a stop in front of a timberhead outlined with a faint glow. Placing my boot upon it caused a rope of light to weave outward into the water. A horn blew a powerful note as the light hit the surface. My longboat breaches the water, summoned to the dock. Narrow and sleek, it was three meters of the perfect design for steering at high speeds, a labor of time and persistence. My heart rate jumped at its sight, and the memories it restored of collaboration with a friend I’d not heard in-
Without realizing, I’d crossed my foot into the gap between the dock and my boat and darkness enveloped all sight. I was at a total loss. Was something wrong with my Dive? Then I recalled the vibration in my thigh, and I knew what was coming.
My vision returned, only not to my head. I was looking at myself as though I was seated in the boat while Delta tossed the mooring line aboard. My POV cut closer to my character’s face. Delta caught the side of a plank as a low rumble shook land and sea. Boxes, food carts, and people toppled over as the quaking intensified. The sea darkened to a sickly green. Spray from the growing waves landed on Delta’s clothes and where it touched discolored and sizzled. My vision yanks back from a close-up of Delta’s face, darting between the spots of disorder on the dock. A plank bulged from something pushing underneath. Through the cracks emerged a finger-like protrusion, pale grey like stucco and with a similar rough texture. My vision leaped to a close-up. At this distance, the porous, rock-like protrusion was easy to identify as coral, though its proclivity for movement had me doubting. Pink speckles and streaks dotted the rim of a recess on the “fingertip”. Another finger of coral grew at accelerating speed from the recess, followed by another on its own.
The ramping growth reached an explosive point, splintering planks, and cutting through the dock. Delta ran as the colony grew some five meters high, ten meters high. All around coral chased the dock workers like a fire feeding on oil that fell behind them. A burst of coral cuts off Delta’s path, trapping him between two advancing colonies. He flung his fishing line. It spun up towards the topmast of the nearby schooner. The hook wraps around the rigging, then yanks Delta up and away as the coral consumes the dock where he stood, every second of action preceded by my vision transitioning, cutting to the most exciting angle. I follow Delta up to the topmast. He wraps himself around the narrow rigging and hoists atop it. His balance is tested as the ship teeters in the continuing quake. In the split second of sure footing, Delta unravels the length of line wrapping the rigging and then whips it around the topmast, his lifeline above the dock.
Wood crunches and strains echo all around. The perspective cuts to a push-in close-up of Delta as the tension of his escape is replaced by fear. My view over his shoulder now, we look to the caravel across the dock. Like a rapid parasite, a tower of coral builds itself in the ship’s innards, bursting through portcullis, hull, and then snaking up inside the main mast. The infection peaks at the Jasteran flag on the main mast. Punched from its lofty perch, the flag descended into a mass of coral, a putrid rainbow of spongy growths spawning in the corpse of the caravel. Much of the dock shared this fate. The thriving port was in moments ravaged into an above-sea reef. The rumbling finally subsided. The Jasterans slowly returned to their feet, friends cried and families held together amongst debris.
Delta drops into my view from above, grappling down from the mast to the schooner’s deck. He is an ant dwarfed against the trees of coral. We lingered on that shot for a moment before fading to a bird’s eye perspective of Alupac, peppered with coral growths. The intention of this sequence was clear; shock, terror, a challenge, and a mystery. Delta was frightened, we were anxious, and I was thrilled. This cataclysm promised adventure.
Point of view is returned to my head, positioned so that I’m met with the tower of coral that ate through the caravel. The scene around me was chaos, but I felt like I was looking at a theme park tempting me with sweet danger. Control of my body is returned and the tingle in my left thigh with it. It had pestered me enough, so I conceded to the notification. I swiped three fingers up my thigh and a leather chart unfolded in my hand, the crunch and bend of its fibers exaggerated in a way that felt satisfying.
An elaborate etching like an Elizabethan tapestry recalls the scene on the dock in front of me, coral overcoming the Wandering Atoll. Filling my ears as though I were wearing headphones was the crashing of waves, panicked screams, and a reverberating sound I couldn’t place. Maybe a whale call, but deeper, unsettling. It was layered with grunts almost human. The ambiance faded as the rendering completed and text appeared below it:
PATCH 6.0.1, FINAL SEASON (6) - Solicitations of the Depths!!
This is what I came for, the beginning of the end of SiltSea.
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