I thawed snow in my gloves and ate the slush as I went to collect embers from the burning middle section of the ship. I got a helmet from one of the dead - lot of good it had done him - and scooped in a mixture of hot rocks and wood crawling with small, intensely hot flames. As I did, I heard a groan from somewhere inside the hulk, not far away. A human groan.
“Hang on in there!” I called out, pulling away with my precious cargo of hot wood. It felt callous, but without fire warming the snow cave, anyone I managed to free could go into shock and die. Most games didn’t go that far, but I wasn’t willing to assume Archemi did anything by halves.
Once the fire flickered to life, I dusted out the hot inside of the helmet and put snow in it, leaving it to thaw beside the fire as I stumbled back to where I’d heard the voice. There, I pulled a tattered coat off a body and used it to dig out around the edge of the ship, ignoring the warning flashes of my health ring. “Can you hear me in there!?”
“Nngh... yes?” A woman’s voice.
“Can you move?”
“... I... I think so?”
I dug harder, shuddering with exertion as snow and dirt flew aside. Eventually, I broke through and stuck my head in to look around at what was around the other side. Through the smoke and dust, I saw a head stir from under a pile of debris. Long silver hair, lean pale limbs. Her clothes were torn, but... “Rutha? Is that you?”
Chapter 11
“Hector?” Rutha looked up at me in shock, and her eyes darkened. It was like she was seeing me for the first time.
“Sure is.” I grabbed a broken timber and started digging around her. “Can you feel your legs?”
“Yes.” The elfin woman grimaced. “Unfortunately. But something’s caught… I’m stuck.”
“That’s good. I’m going to need you to start wiggling from side to side, okay?” I scraped away soil and snow, sweat pouring down my forehead. “One, two, three. Wiggle wiggle wiggle!”
Even with the dire circumstance, the order was still funny. Rutha choked back pained laughter, wiggling as commanded, and the trench began to widen around her as I scraped with the timber. When she began to be able to inch forward, I wedged the timber in beside her until I felt it jam, then linked arms with her and pulled her free. Rutha yelped as cloth and skin tore, but the cut she took was better than what happened once the wreckage was destabilized. It crumpled and crashed in where she had been laying, a giant bear trap made of splintered wood.
Rutha had been wearing rough fabric trousers, which were now torn from just over her knee all the way to her foot. Pulling her out had drawn a long gash up her calf. Before I could intervene, she seized the ripped cuff, and tore it around, using the cast-off material to put pressure on the bleeding wound.
“Tie it on. We have to get out,” I said. “There’s other people here and not much time to get them free. Think you can walk if I help you?”
“Yes.” Her voice was tired, but firm. She held out an arm, and slung it around my offered shoulder. “Are you-?”
I shook my head. “I really need something to eat and to sit down. But I’ll live, and so will you.”
“You’re Starborn,” Rutha murmured. “Aren’t you?”
It was the first time anyone other than Matir had mentioned it, and I glanced at her sharply as I helped her to her feet. The god’s whole ‘born under a dark star’ part of being Starborn probably wasn’t necessary information. “That’s what I’ve been led to believe.”
“Then it’s true. The Starborn are returning.” The sorceress winced, but she had an iron will, and she was more than capable of keeping up with me as we squeezed out of the wreckage and picked our way to the now-warm snow cave.
There was only 40 minutes left in the quest. I tried not to worry about the timer as I helped Rutha to sit. “Can you find a way to make some water here?”
“Yes, go help the others.” Huffing with effort, she found a way to make herself comfortable. “Hector, be careful. Don’t overexert yourself. If you feel weak…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back.” I nodded, and scrambled out again.
Rutha had a point, though:
My stomach was gnawing at itself - and at me - leaving me nauseous and lightheaded. I steeled myself, and trudged over anyway, scanning the scattered cargo for anything edible. As I focused on my search, item tags came into view around me. Shattered trunks, boxes, crates... wait. Crates and boxes were lootable, weren’t they?
“Hold on! I’ll be right there!” I called to the other rescuers, turning toward the tattered trail of broken wood, torn cloth, and smoldering cargo that led to the edge of the cliffs. Sure enough, the containers had loot in them. I found string, wire, linen, and then, to my great relief, food.
Hard Tack
A hard, plain cracker made of compressed flour, water and salt. Slightly more palatable than wood, but about as nutritious. Prevents starvation. Heals 2 HP.
Dried Fish
Chewy, salty, and very fishy. Heals 10 HP
I inhaled three fish without tasting them as my nausea turned to ravenous hunger, and then stuck a piece of hard tack between my teeth and gnawed on it as I looted what other food I could carry. I didn’t have a pack, so I was only able to take a half a dozen fish and three or four pieces of hard tack - all that could fit in the pockets of the [Ill fitting clothes]. That put me bac to 52/180, which was a lot better than I had been.
[Warning: 20 minutes left in Quest: Rescue the Survivors!]
Feeling stronger, I ran back to the gaping hole in the side of the ship and joined in the search and rescue, helping the two strangers dig out whoever and whatever we found. I was able to pick up an [Iron Dagger], which I used to dig. We pulled out five people in nineteen minutes, three of whom were alive. The sixth was an unconscious man trapped face-down underneath timbers that were hot to touch. The fire was almost on us, and I was hot inside of my heavy clothes.
“Come on! We can get him!” I called to the others, leaning all my weight down on a heavy beam we were using to lever the debris on top of him. “Grab his hands and pull!”
There was a crash from back inside the belly of the ship, and then the roar of flames as something flammable burst and accelerated the mana fire. The ozone fumes of magic clung to everything like bleach.
[Quest Warning! One minute left!]
I growled, hauling down until my shoulders popped as the others clambered in around me, grabbing the unconscious man’s hands and pulling him out on his belly. I dropped the lever once his feet were clear, and that section of the wreckage simply collapsed. Panting, I wiped my forehead, and then yelped as a gout of blue-tinged flame erupted from the tangle of broken wood and metal in front of me, stumbling back. I turned that into a run through the path we’d cleared, jumping a broken chair. When I landed, the hulk moaned... a sound followed by the crumpling sound of shattering charcoal as the ship caved in on itself.
“Out out out!” One of the other rescuers - a thin man with big teeth, his face deeply lined with soot and sweat - shouted as we hauled the survivor out into the open and jumped with him to the ground. The timer ran out while I gathered myself for the leap from the hole, and I was alarmed to feel the hull move under my feet, turning inward like a dying spider as the magic-fueled fire consumed the wreckage.
Quest Complete! Rescue the Survivors
You have managed to rescue 7 people out of the wreckage of the Arabella!
Reward: 140 EXP
Bonus: Talk to Rutha.
Congratulations! You reached Level 3!
The mission could have gone better. We’d only pulled out four living people. Plus me, the pair of men I was working with, and Rutha, that made eight adult survivors out of a couple hundred. Blah.
My heart sank as I watched the ship cave and burn. “Bobayer... Wikati. God dammit.”
I tried telling myself that they were just NPCs, but the feeling of loss was real. I hadn’t even really gotten time to get to know them, but they’d been brave and willing and…
other than Rutha, I was alone.
Memories of Steve and my family were trying to fight themselves in past the fatigue and the necessity of being disciplined, cold, rational. Frustrated, I turned away and joined the other survivors, who were trying to get the unconscious man to wake up. “Hey, guys: I’m going to go get some of those scattered planks to use as sleds. If we take a body each, we can get everyone together in the shelter and plan our next move.”
“As you say.” The second rescuer was a Lysidian man with long pointed ears. He held up a hand with his thumb and middle finger pinched together, some kind of ‘okay’ symbol, and got back to what he was doing.
Rutha was tending the fire when we got back, helping the other stragglers with sleds and improvised crutches. There were more people near the shelter now - three women who huddled together around the fire.
I pushed my makeshift sled all the way inside, and turned to the women. “Any of you able to help me with these? Some of these men are wounded.”
Without a word, the women picked themselves up and began to assist. They were mute with cold and shock, but like me, they worked mechanically, dissociated from their feelings by the needs of the moment.
“Hector, we have to go back out as soon as we can,” Rutha said. She had made a splint for her leg out of torn cloth and broken wood. “I need your help to find the ship’s engines.”
“One of them is completely screwed,” I said. “Cracked open and on fire. The other is... uh...”
I wracked my memory for the other engine, but couldn’t actually recall having seen it.
“It has to be close by.” Rutha shifted with a grimace, and held up her good arm. She was still wearing the intact glass, metal and leather gauntlet she needed for magic. “If I can find some mana, then I can call my kingdom for aid.”
That’s right: she’d said something about being the Court Magician of the Regency of Something-or-Other. “Aren’t we like... really far north? Like, middle of nowhere territory?”
“As I understand it, yes.” Rutha gestured to the sled. “If you can use that to get me to the other engine, I can siphon the mana and use it to bring help.”
I regarded her blankly for a moment, then shrugged and sighed. “How far away is help?”
“Ilia is quite far away, but physical distance is irrelevant,” the sorceress replied crisply. “The light is growing shorter, Hector, and we risk being swept out to sea by the wind at night: if we are going to do this and survive, we should go.”
Chapter 12
After ten minutes or so of experimentation at base camp, I managed to find a way to get rope on the sled so I could pull it along behind me instead of pushing it over the snow. Rutha was done with her fish and crackers and one other survivor had arrived by then, bringing more looted food with them. Rutha got on board, and I got my first real look at Archemi.
There were a number of things that told me that this truly was an alien world. Archemi’s sun was not yellow: it was blue-white, and looked much smaller than the Earth’s sun. The temperature felt about the same, but the light was a very pure white. I could see in the snow without any issues, but Rutha covered her eyes and grimaced as we left the shade of the snow cave. That white light was the reason Archemi looked as clear and vibrant as it did. I knew fuck-all about astronomy, but I’d worn blue-tinted glasses before, and remembered how the lenses had made trees and grass look greener.
Even more striking was the moon. It was rising over the land-side horizon from what I assumed was the east like a giant yellow eye. It was huge compared to the blue pin-point sun - easily four or five times the size of the moon I was used to seeing at night, and it was rising while the sun was still up. I slowed to a stop to get a better look at it, and realized after a moment that the moon had clouds.
“Hector? Is something the matter?”
“Woah,” I said, looking back. “Archemi is a moon?”
Rutha blinked. “Pardon?”
“That.” I pointed at the edge of the massive planet shimmering over the snow and gravel. “That’s a bigger planet than this place, right? Like a binary planet, maybe?”
“That’s Erruku,” she replied, “Archemi’s moon, the Palace of Kyrie.”
I sighed. “Alright... never mind. So, where do you think this engine bounced off to?”
I expected a snarky answer, but instead, Rutha pressed the palm of her good hand against her brow and concentrated, eyes closed. “Toward the north-west. Closer to...”
“What?”
Rutha shuddered. She drew an hourglass symbol across her chest, like how a Catholic would cross themselves. “The ocean.”
“What’s the matter with the ocean?” I caught the sled ropes and resolutely dragged her toward the edge of the cliffs, looking around for anything resembling magical engine parts. “I mean-”
“You’re from the high mountains, aren’t you? I don’t suppose you’ve ever really seen the ocean before.”
“In my, uh, other lifetime, I saw it plenty of times,” I said. “Blue, lots of waves. Kind of salty. I liked to go to the beach and swim or surf.”
“You ARE Starborn,” she said, with what might have been a touch of awe. “You do not fear death.”
“It’s more that I don’t associate the beach with death.” But I trailed off when we crested a small hill, and I finally got a view past the cliffs to the source of the thunderous noise that had been my constant companion since spawning in the guts of the Arabella. “Oh. Wow.”
Monstrous. That was the only word for what I saw raging beneath the very high, very steep granite cliffs where we’d stranded. The water was a blue so dark it was almost black. My eyes tried to trick me into seeing a snow-capped mountain range that was bobbing up and down, because the waves that were lashing the sides of the cliffs were at least a hundred feet high. They peaked into charging white volcanoes of water that folded into yawning black pits, which in turn snapped shut like jaws rimmed with white teeth. Whirlpools raged wherever the waves and downdraft converged, sending up huge vertical plumes of foam. The waves smashed icebergs together further out, mashing them into pale blue rubble. Even the toughest aircraft carrier would have been ripped apart in that water.
“The ocean is a place for the dead.” Rutha hunched her shoulders. “And Erruku has only just begun to rise. Once it is at its peak and the tide comes in…”
“This is low tide?” The waves were already reaching most of the way up the cliffs as it was.
The sorceress nodded grimly.
Guess that explained why there wasn’t a huge amount of snow cover up here, and no trees or... any plants, really. “So! You were saying about that engine? How soon can help arrive?”
“Hopefully soon enough. Otherwise, we will have to trek inland until we find sanctuary from water.”
I shook my head, scanning the field of debris, and paused as a flash caught my eye. Searching for items in an environment created a kind of augmented reality state, where highlights appeared around items of note. In this case, it was a breadcrumb trail of metal shards sparkling in the sunlight. The ground had been torn up around them, skid marks leading into a bank of powdered snow over a large disk-like shape, like a huge ice-hockey puck.
“Is that it?” I pointed.
“Yes. The resonance is strong enough.”
I pulled Rutha in that direction, kicking things out of my way as we made our way there. I dropped the rope, and was about to close the distance to brush the snow away when her voice halted me.
“Wait! Hector, come back!”
“Huh?” I turned, confused, and then alarmed as I watched her struggle up onto her uninjured leg, face contorted with pain. “Wait, what’s the matter?”
“Magic is dangerous.” She was huffing through her nose as she hopped over. “The engine runs off a late system.”
“What? You mean it doesn’t run on time?”
“L.A.E.H.T.” She spelled out the letters. “A Liquid Azurine-Emeraldine Hybrid Transmutation system, if I’m
sensing everything correctly.”
I squinted. “Just so you know, I heard you say something like: ‘The engine probably hurped an azurine transmajiggy’, okay? Just so we’re clear on my level of magitech literacy.”
“Azurine is… well, don’t worry. The point is there could still be volatile mana gas trapped in the crucibus. Stay back.”
“I hate it when I get gas stuck in my crucibus.” I didn’t like leaving Rutha in agony like this, but I was willing to admit I didn’t know a thing about magic - or magical jet engines. “Seriously, though. What’s a crucibus?”
“A crucibus is an artifact that can safely combine azurine, which is highly refined, neutrally-charged liquid mana, with ground emeraldine, which is a crystallized form of mana contaminated with copper,” Rutha said distractedly. “Umm... the higher the purity, the more potential animus in the mana, but the more difficult it is to attune with and control. Because of the alchemical properties of copper, emeraldine has lower animus but is highly responsive to a mage’s control, so it holds well in runes and sigils. A longhauler like this ship needs the power and sensitivity of azurine but also a great deal of control to be able to keep it flying, so it uses a hybrid engine.”
I blinked a couple of times. “Every part of that is above my paygrade.”
Rutha limped to the edge of the disk and brushed the scattered snow and dirt off the surface, revealing a pane of cracked quartz that crawled with acid-etched sigils. “This is the crucibus, which processes azurine and emeraldine into liquid fuel and gas. The gas is mostly azurine, so it’s the most psionically active form of mana the ship expels. That’s how the Navigators feel the air around the ship and adjust the position of all the rudders and flaps.”
Dragon Seed: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (The Archemi Online Chronicles Book 1) Page 10