• Solo • Plying the Currents

[Rorom]

Ymiden 1st 717

Rorom skipped the previous season of fishing. He'd had a bad time of it the last time he took a boat out with a net. The pirate attack in the waters of Bayward had soured him to the experience. Even when the suns began shining again, Rorom couldn't bring himself to push off from the pier, taking his boat off of drydock. His boat The Crag Dodger. It wasn't truly his yet. This was his last chance to make a haul to bring in enough nels to pay off his loan for good. He didn't have any longer than the current Hot cycle. At that point, he'd be sailing someone else's boat to fish, if he was even that lucky.

The wound he'd received at the end of a pirate's club was healing up nicely. He was thankful that his head didn't ache a few weeks after his treatment by the Sev'ryn woman Sel'ma. If only he could procure a dedicated healer for his boat, but then it was a tiny thing. Meant to be sailed by one man, and maybe one more. Its size didn't justify the increase in the crew. He'd just have to hope the next time he got his head cracked, there was another kindly healer about.

On the bright side, he'd gotten himself a brand new, small fishing net. The hemp of its cords was well knotted into a latticework that would get him a good deal of fish. Or so he hoped.

U'frek be good, and Chrien be calm.

He made the prayer as he untied his boat from the pier it had been lowered next to, and pushed off with gusto. A soft, gentle breeze hit his face, and all negative thoughts and memories fled to the background. He was at home again on the sea, with the current pulling him out from the wharf.

Now he'd find out if he'd lost his sea legs, or if he was every bit the biqaj he'd been before getting stuck on land for several seasons.

It was the last haul, and it'd have to be a good one, or else he'd need to give up the Crag Dodger, his home for nigh on several years now, to the bank of Ne'haer. So it was, he was a mess of nerves and energy as he busied himself with the rigging, making sure it was set and that he wouldn't run into the quay on his first excursion in over an arc.

The ship was running along fairly well for a few breaks. Rorom merely busied himself with some whiddling on the side of the rail, watching for signs of schools passing beneath the surface. He thought at several points that he saw a pair of glowing eyes in the water. A mer? Were the folk of the sea following him?

He shook such paranoia from his thoughts. If they were following, he'd offer them tribute such as they always took when he went out on such trips.

[Rorom]

He spent a few nights out at sea, trying in vain to spot a school of fish. There was nothing, less than nothing. It appeared almost as if the fish were spooked by something. More than once, Rorom thought he felt the caress of a tentacle slipping beneath the railing of his ship. In the periphery of his vision, Rorom could've sworn he saw a mer head popping up out of the water, watching him at his work. But then, he was too absorbed and hungry, and exhausted by his work that he chalked it up to imagination. An odd shape formed by the lapping waves against the hull of his ship.

Finally, one night he rested in the cabin of his sloop, swinging in his hammock. He didn't dream, but was comfortably resting. Far too exhausted and tried to even entertain the dreaming. He swung with the flow of the current, the Crag Dodger a watery bed that shifted and rocked with every lap of a wave.

His eyes were tightly shut when a pair of tentacles wrapped around the latch leading into his cabin, and silently opened it up. In walked, or rather crawled on all eight tentacles, a mer woman. She went undetected for a break or so, just observing Rorom, watching him intently with her dark eyes.

After another few moments, his eyes did flutter open. He would've started, but dismissed what he saw as a figment of his imagination, another trick of the failing light and shadows at play. But no, the longer he stared the more concrete the Lady of Limbs' presence became. And when she noticed that he noticed her, she approached.

Her rubbery arms spread out, while the skirt of her lower limbs carried her forth.

Rorom had heard tell of the Lady of Limbs, and always thought it was a mere tall tale, told to him to scare him into bed by his parents. The Lady of Limbs had stalked the waters of Ne'haer and its undercrofts for centuries, they'd told him, taking new forms like and shedding them as they aged like a snake sheds its skins.

Now, to see the mer woman before him, he reacted in a way that was quite unnatural to Rorom. He was ordinarily friendly toward mer, always giving tribute, but the way she fixed her eyes on him set him ill at ease. She watched all the while, and only made a move when his hand darted to the rusty trident on his wall.

She was on him in moments, her many limbs grasping and holding him still. He felt her voice in his mind, not a voice actually, but a series of concepts and thoughts, such as mer were accustomed to speaking to biqaj sailors like him. Although this was not a mockery or an attempt to frighten him. She was trying to calm him, as his arm still reached for the trident.

Peace, satisfaction. Come and we will share our boon. A boon? Was this a follow-up reward for his actions in diverting the mer from the deadly current, in seasons past? Had she even heard about that? Was it her tribe he'd saved?

[Rorom]

1st of Ymiden 717

He didn't have long to ponder these questions before her forceful restraints upon him were tightened with almost unearthly skill and strength. She dragged him bodily from the hammock out the cabin and onto the deck. Once there, she pulled him along like a ragdoll, off into the blue. She threw him first, and then swiftly joined him in the water.

Wait! What are you doing? Peace?! He sent the thoughts to her, but she didn't answer with anything but an expression of mirth.

He saw her enter the waters above him as he began sinking down. He tried to flail his arms to gain purchase and find his way to the surface, but something was pulling him under. He felt nothing on his ankles or legs, but it was as if the water had thinned to the consistency of air and wouldn't allow him to find purchase through the quagmire.

Then, she descended on him, just as he was running out of breath, and put her mouth to his. He could have sworn that something entered his mouth then, and it wasn't any part of her, such as he'd expected. The kiss lasted but a few moments, and then the water began to coalesce and swirl all around him.

He prayed to U'frek and Chrien, to any Immortal that would hear him. But none answered before he was blacking out, and carried off into the currents. He never saw the Crag Dodger again.

The next morning, he was propped up on some flotsam. How he'd managed to grab a hold of whatever wreckage remained of the boat was beyond his reckoning. Had that encounter with the Lady of Limbs been a mere dream? What had she done to him, and more importantly, why was he spared the Crag Dodger's watery tomb?

He floated for what seemed like breaks before a ship sailed by. Weakly, he called out, waving his arms. They might not have seen him but did notice the wreckage of the Crag Dodger. The Schooner turned around to investigate.

By the time they were upon him, he was spotted, and thrown a rope and a man to pull him up out of the drink. A crew of men pulled them both up through the pulleys, and they swung onto the deck.

"What happened to yer matey?" Said the biqaj man to Rorom. Rorom sat dazed on the deck of the ship.

"I... I don't know. The Crag Dodger must have gone down sometime last night, while I was dreaming..." He muttered, dismissing the encounter with that woman as a dream or else the byproduct of the upheaval of the ship running against some rocks while he slept. Although, how he'd managed to swim up to the surface and find a piece of flotsam to swim upon gave him cause for doubt.

"Are there mer in these waters? Perhaps..."

The salt shook his head at Rorom, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "No, matey. They've left the bay for the season, on south to chase the schools of fish. This sea is as empty and lonely as a desert wineskin."

Rorom gazed at the sunlight, as it reflected off of the back of his hand. He noticed that it rippled, as the light was shining through water, and distorted against his skin. What had happened to him?

Whatever it was, the dream was swiftly forgotten as the ship was bound for Rharne, and took him away from his troubles and the debt of the Crag Dodger. Inside him, the Defiance Spark slept dormant. Rorom never knew or suspected that he was a mage, for all the arcs following. Only the way the light played on his skin and clothes gave any hint to anything strange about him.

[Doran]

Rorom:

Knowledge:
Defiance: Initiation by near-drowning.
Navigation x 2
Seafaring x 2
Swimming x 1

Loot: Defiance Initiation. Explanation for the Crag Dodger's disappearance.
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 5, for surviving a shipwreck.
Magic XP: Yes, for Defiance.
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.

Points: 10

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Comments: I enjoyed the way that you set the scene and described Rorom’s fishing trip. I like that you didn’t have the mer appear right away, but had your PC wonder about the glowing eyes in the water.

Anyway, this was definitely an interesting and rather unusual initiation (even if Rorom didn’t recognize it as such). I wonder if he will ever find out that he’s a mage now – and if he’ll meet the Lady of Limbs again …

Enjoy your rewards!