Zensuon: Crystal Age

No Rest For The Soaked

Where we return to our favourite halfling and his orc companion, to see how they manage to mishandle themselves in Break City.

Mica woke up from his sleep. He was kind of grumpy when he emerged from his slumber. He had the most vivid dream, which is probably the best part of pushing yourself to exhaustion with magic, only to be woken by droplets of water landing on his face.

"...What?" He asked in that groggy I'm-still-half-asleep voice, to no one in particular, before looking left to Nuraka... Mmh?

Looking right to Nuraka? No...

Forward?... He ended up glancing at the previously timid humans now talking louder and giving him very prominent side glances in return.

He afforded a look behind him too, in case they were looking there, and he was right.

He could see the shore and two other smaller boats that reached safety, managing to escape from the destroyed ship. Alongside the people who fled the destruction there were other humans in grey-blue clothes, a lot of those, lined up on the dock. He almost didn't notice them from how they blended into the stone-built pier. There were about twenty of them in number, it seemed. This is very obviously some kind of uniform, and one of them was holding a spear upright with a flag dangling from it with the same colors-

Oh. Break City colors. They are guards. A lot of guards.

That shouldn't be a problem. They had nothing to do with the ship's explosion, that was those constructed things. Everyone saw them, and they wouldn't know about my history, right? Besides, every halfling should look the same to humans, because they sure look the same to me.

Wait, where's Nura-

Mica's eyes widened in horror, something snatched his face, suffocating him, wrapping over his mouth, holding his jaw with uncomfortable force.

The halfling's thoughts spun fast before his arms weakly tried to dislodge whatever was tightly locking his mouth and preventing his ability to scream.

Was this a sea monster? Is that how he's going to die? They had those here? So close to the shore? Am I going to die? Did those golem things come for revenge? I swear I only attacked one, it was the orc! Don't kill me!

But no sound came out.

The halfling's small body was pulled down below the water's surface with a splooooo...sh.

A moment after, a gasp.

He somehow pulled up to the surface of the water, though not by his own power. He started gasping for air, as he was grappled across his arms, and around his chest, by something monstrous. Something big. Something violent. Something -

"Grrrgghhh"

Oh, it was Nuraka. The halfling visibly relaxed, and looked up at the orc carrying him with one hand, while swimming with the other. He tried to respond, but as the orc started to speed up the water started splashing into Mica's mouth.

"GggnfffHhgg" Mica objected. He tried to flail free, but the orc gripped him too tightly.

He was no match for Nuraka in strength, and he could- Splash- Not - Splash- Concentrate - Splash - Long enough to- Splash - Try any magic- Splash

Mica tried to struggle all the way to the shore, but eventually as his joints started to ache and he was hard of breathing, he finally accepted his fate: filling up on salt water over and over was part of his existence now.