Who hid in an iceberg they’d fled.
“With disaster unseen,
I’ll stay in between,
And hope it’s all just in my head!”
- Goldie Honorhide.
We waited for a long time.
Felix slept in my lap.
The tall sides of this ice creation provided shelter from the wind, which had picked up, and the sea was now quite rough.
The Map was tracking my position, but it was not updating our surroundings because I couldn’t see out. The sides were higher, so we were being blown further. The clouds were low and thick, and my Clearsight couldn’t pierce them enough to see the sky.
We waited.
We rocked in the wind and waves.
We waited.
I was just thinking of climbing up and looking around when we hit something solid. Then the wave backed us off, and we hit again, and some ice chipped off. I climbed the side and looked. It was a set of rocks that were probably only visible because it was low tide.
It was a large area of low rock, followed by what looked like a small channel and more rocks at the base of a cliff.
“This is our stop,” I said and climbed out onto the rock. The spray from the waves quickly made me wet, but I pulled out one of Goldie's axes and chopped through the wall of Ice while freezing more water, securing our small ice cocoon to the rocks.
Soon, we were all on the rock, and I left the waves to break up the ice. Godie was the only one with a pack on. We walked over the rocks, and I froze enough water for us to walk over to the cliff. Goldie hugged it.
We worked our way along the base of the cliff until it opened into a bay, and we could walk inland and find a sheltered place to camp. We were along way along the coast from where our gear went under. Goldie had some basic supplies, including her axe. Yoboc had his bow and a half quiver of arrows, although the bow string needed to be dried out. We all had knives, and I only had my knife and claws.
Once we had a fire going, I said, “I would like to retrieve the ore.”
“That chum of a Mer may have already taken off with it,” Yoboc said.
“Won’t the Taniwha still be around?” Goldie asked.
“Maybe it will, maybe it won't,” I said. “You hurt the Mer pretty bad,” I said to Yoboc.
“It will take a day hiking for us to get close to where it went under,” Yoboc said, “How will you do it?”
“Swim out there and dive down. If it is there, I will create a small ice platform to cart it back,” I said.
“And if you get attacked by the Taniwha?” Goldie asked.
“Or the Mer?” Yoboc added.
I shrugged, “I don’t know. I will go slow and quiet and try to see the taniwha before it sees me and then back off as a lost cause if it is still there. I probably won’t see the Mer coming for more than a few seconds, but I have a day to think something up.”
“It would be nice to think he died from his wounds or the Taniwha, but I doubt we are that lucky,” Yoboc said.
The food was meagre, but the dwarves found comfort in the fire. I switched to my bear form to sleep.
We are getting more defined days as we travel south and as summer comes. It was light when I awoke. Goldie was on the last watch, and she had the fire going with fish cooking. The ground was frosty, but only patchy snow lay around.
I let the dwarves share the fish. Felix and I went down to the shore, and he chased the penguins into my claws. We both ate penguins for breakfast. I never liked the feathers in my food.
We walked along the coast until we were opposite the place where the gear was dropped, and then we found a camping spot. Goldie set up camp while Yoboc and I spent a few hours watching the ocean.
We didn’t see anything outside of normal. His sight skills were better than mine.
I had thought up several ways to confuse a sea creature, but I had the equipment for none of them. All I had were my Skills.
My Cosmic Aura went to 6, so I could sense out to over 15m. 30m if I pushed it all in one direction. The more volume I had in my aura, the more energy it took to fill it with Frigid Void. Keeping the volume smaller meant less energy was used.
The events of the last few days were enough to level my Guard Class. I guess I was guarding the others.
This gave me a total of 5 attribute points I could use. It also increased my Physical Perception to 40 so I could acquire another perception skill. I decided to address Perception first, as I could do that without allocating any points.
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My choices were several. First, should I get Darksight? It overlaps a lot with my Nightsight and will make Nightsight redundant. Nightsight is almost at Master level and needs very little light. I need it most under the ground and deep in the ocean. I won’t be spending a lot of time deep in the ocean, but it was frustrating in the mine. I am not a miner, though.
Farsight is another option. I have wished for it several times. It syncs with my Map Skill and ranged weapons. I don’t really use ranged weapons, but it is an option, especially with my Explorer Class.
Then there is Hearing Aid. It enhances my hearing and helps blunt sonic attacks once they reach higher levels. A lot of underwater creatures have good hearing and smell to identify threats. It could help identify if the Taniwha is still around. Even at level 1 the Taniwha is a big creature and should make a lot of noise. Hearing is an excellent early warning ability. That has possibilities.
The Commander recommended Keensight. It has a lot of overlap with Clearsight, but it focuses on seeing small details. It will enhance my tracking and exploration.
I rejected getting Sensitive Skin and Tasty because they were not for me.
Those were my options at the moment. If I rule out Darksight and Keensight as they overlap too much with my other skills, that leaves Farsight and Hearing Aid. Farsight syncs with the Explorer Class and Map, which is attractive. Hearing Aid is more useful now in the water and as an early warning and area awareness skill. Both are useful for the Guard Class.
Exploring the Subterranean environment did not include a sight skill. Hearing Aid would have been more useful there. One thing I learned underground was to be less reliant on sight.
This is a hard choice. Both will be useful.
“Farsight, no question,” said Yoboc.
“Toss a coin if you really can’t decide,” Goldie said. She got out a coin, “Kings it is Farsight, Queens it is Hearing Aid.” She threw the coin into the air and let it fall on the ground.
I hope I have not made a mistake, but I added Hearing Aid to my Skills. Yoboc thought it was a mistake, but I am not a ranged fighter like him. Time will tell, and everyone should aim to make the best use of their skills, regardless of the skills. Honestly, I mostly chose Hearing Aid as it would help me know if the Taniwha was around.
All the sounds around me became clearer, a bit like when I got Clearsight, and it was like a veil had been removed. The same goes for my ears. The novice level increases clarity and distance. From the Apprentice up, I can start focusing my hearing and tracking with it.
“We can just leave the gear,” Goldie said. “We will make it to Worlds End without it.”
“It's the ore I want,” I said.
“Most of our coin is at the bottom of the ocean,” Yoboc said. “We need that coin and what ore we can get to sell.”
Right, Physical Perception was the easy decision. I have five attribute points to allocate. I really need something to help here. I want to focus on my affinity, which almost certainly means my Spiritual Attributes.
I focused on my Identify Skill and what it could tell me about how close I was to a new skill. I knew I was close to a sensing skill, and I needed more Spiritual Perception for it. I probably had enough free points, but I really wanted something to help me escape or fight if I got caught in the ocean.
Frigid Void was good, and I sensed there was the same for the Heat of the Sun, but it was going to take me a while to learn. Frigid Void took weeks, even with Felix’s Team Leader's ability to help.
Cold, heat and void is what I knew, although I am sure there is more.
I scan my Skill list for inspiration. I have Subterranean and Arctic Camouflage. There must be an Ocean version of that. The trouble is the ocean is always moving, and the Camouflage Skill kicks in when I am still. I can’t breathe underwater, so I can’t stay still on the sea bed. Floating like debris or an iceberg might work. I look along the shore, and there are washed-up logs and seaweed. That might work. I would have to disguise my smell, definitely no urinating in the water. The less I disturbed the waves, the less I would be heard.
I really wanted some sort of movement skill so I could run away if the Taniwha was still there. Some testing is required.
I started with camouflage. I collected a washed-up log and seaweed and waded into the water in my humanoid form. Shrinking my Aura to my fur and freezing the water gave me ice fur armour and added to my buoyancy. I waded out to waist-deep and arranged the log and seaweed and held it together with some selective ice.
Lying in it was tricky. Lying on my back was the easiest, but I needed to see underwater. I needed to be able to have my head under to see, smell, and hear, but I needed to be able to lift it to breathe. That would break camouflage.
I needed a breathing tube or something. I stripped one of the branches of seaweed and shaped one end of the stalk into a U bend. I then submerged it and shaped my aura to freeze it. Unfortunately, I froze the seaweed stalk as well, so I couldn’t extract it and leave a tube of ice like I intended.
Can I shape my aura to leave a tube space? And the answer was… sort of. My aura was a volume, so it needed a continuous boundary. So yes, I could shape a tube, and I found it easier to follow the outline of an object like a seaweed stalk, but one end would be frozen over. I just used a claw to finish the hole at the blocked end. Making my aura do something so precise gave me another level in it. Experimenting and pushing the boundaries is the key.
Once I had a breathing tube, I practised floating camouflaged on the surface of the sea, using small foot movements to direct my floating. I haven’t achieved the skill yet, but I feel I am on the right track.
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