Cursed Draw

It is this adventurous soul’s firm opinion that should you choose to brave the Silver Sea, bring a crew of oarsmen with you. The winds there are as fickle as they are strong.

-The Audacious Deck Builder's Guide to: The Ocean, The Silver Sea

Chapter 22: Wind

Alabaster

Alley felt bad that one of their rescuers had to die, he really did. There just wasn’t much choice in the matter. Hooked to the ship’s mast the struggling dragon would eventually tear the ship apart.

The MuckDwell which Darius harpooned had eventually twisted free of the embedded weapon leaving scales and flesh behind as it swam away. Both boys had needed to work together pulling against the chain to stop the monster from ripping the winch away entirely, before the spear had finally slipped free.

Getting a hook out of a mouth was a very different proposition. The pair of dragons had already dragged them far enough off course that Alley could no longer see land. So rather than spend the rest of the quickly waning sunlight trying to wrangle the creature while praying the mast didn't break. They had simply thrown Darius’ spear into where the back of its head met its neck, waited a few minutes for the spasming to stop, and then dragged the floating corpse over to the little ship.

Neither boy wanted to spend too long with the body of a dragon attached to the skiff. Not with it bleeding into the water and attracting who knew what? The Silver Sea had already been more than happy to produce horrific monsters that ate the MuckDwells. There was no reason to risk a second round.

Still, with their supplies devastated and the amount of damage The Bay Runner had taken still unknown they could hardly pass up the resources the slain dragon represented. Even just its meat might prove vital with how the pork and fish barrels had plummeted off the deck. Working as quickly as they could, the pair used Darius’ spear and a long belt knife to hack a rough path to the Water Resonance crystal inside the dragon.

Usually, they would have removed several organs but lacking the time or storage capacity the crystal and some rough-hewn flesh from the monster’s flank would have to do. As soon as the crystal was cut out the dragon began to sink. Which was Alley's cue to get the hook out. Already having been working at it the tool popped easily out of the slack draconic jaw.

Alley had also taken the time to turn the Dragon's corpse into a card. It was virtually unplayable for him but there was no reason not to add a Muck Dwell River Dragon to his collection….again.

Letting the corpse vanish from sight the pair of boys finally had some time to take stock in a meaningful way.

“Well.” Called Alley while hanging over the edge of the stern. “ The rudder is shattered.”

“Shattered?”

“Yep”

“That is worse than broken?”

“ A lot worse.”

“Sooo we steer how?”

Righting himself, Alley shrugged. “ The Sail I guess. I’ve never done it, but I don’t think it’s impossible. We just have to kind of…” He made a loose square with his hands and tilted it back and forth. “Manage when we catch the wind.” Alley finished without a whole lot of certainty.

“One More question?” Inquired Darius.

“Mmm?”

“Where the hell are we?”

That Alley didn’t have a precise answer for but seeing as they had not been smashed into the cliffs of the mainland it stood to reason wherever they were it was east of where they had started.

Which meant they wanted to go West, South and West.

Unfortunately, the wind who in the end had the ultimate say in the matter wanted to drive them South and East. They could always just raise the sail and drop the anchor while they waited for the wind to change but with the sun setting soon Alley did not want the skiff to be sitting idly in the water. It felt far too vulnerable, especially with the supposedly nocturnal krakens having already demonstrated their willingness to break the surface not so far from here.

On the other hand, leaving their direction up to the elemental force would send them even more drastically off course in no time. Left at an impasse the boys resorted to the only logical way to resolve the issues.

“Sword, Hammer, Canvas,” Both boys said simultaneously, as they shook their fists at each other in time with the words. After seven draws Darius’ play of Sword eventually Defeated Alley’s choice of Canvas.

“Alright.” Said the red-headed boy. “ With the wind it is.”

Unfurling the sail once more the pair of boys organized their food for the evening. They had departed Cursed Isle with a small stove that made cooking aboard the ship both simple and less of a risk. This item was among those that were no longer in their possession. So it was time to get creative, as he always said Alley would do his best to use every resource.

He had already confirmed his dealer was still secure in the chest locked to the deck beneath the bench he’d previously manned the rudder from. That Alley concluded was about to change. Once it was empty the iron inner layer would allow them to use the little box as a firepit.

He didn't have somewhere better to store the ratty old cloak, so Alley supposed he would just wear it. The moment he had the thought the dark cloth appeared over the top of his fisherman's wool. His silver bracelet had never done that.

“I guess this is just my new normal” He muttered to himself.

“Huh?” Enquired Darius from across the deck.

“Nothing, here help me get this chest free.”

After several hours of trying to manage the sail to drive them west rather than southeast. The boys concluded that ‘Sword, Hammer, Canvas’ had potentially let them down and they should just drift until more favorable winds presented themselves. While drifting would still send them off course it would be a lot slower and neither boy was particularly comfortable with the skiff being stationary at night.

Despite its earlier failure they played ‘Sword, Hammer, Canvas’ again to determine who would cook. This time Alley took the victory after only three draws. Forced to cook Darius got to work carving up the massive dragon steaks into more manageable fillets that he could roast over their impromptu fire pit.

Climbing atop the mast, Alley did his best not to look at his friend as his legs dangled from his little perch. If Darius was cooking Alley would act as a sentry, so he wanted to preserve his night sight. Once the red-headed boy was finished with his task it only made sense that the one of them with Pursuit Resonance pumping through their veins did most of the watching. For now, though Alley took the job as seriously as he could.

“ That was a hell of a throw,” Said Darius from below. “ When you hooked that dragon at the last second.”

Alley froze in place at that, his friend was a lot more right than he knew. As little as a few days earlier Alley wouldn’t have even attempted that throw, wouldn’t have attempted it today if not for the rumbling voice only he could hear. It had been insisting he do it with a fury that had seemed to border on panic.

Even as he had spun his body to whip the hook and chain out Alley had not expected to actually hit the MuckDwell. It wasn’t the difficulty of maintaining accuracy as the boat had tilted vertically and bucked wildly. It wasn’t even timing the throw to hit the dragon as its head broke the surface. While both of those things were significant challenges to overcome, the Roes had been fishers of one sort or another for generations. Manipulating his bladed hook was second nature to the dark-haired boy.

No, the issue had simply been one of power and distance. The throw had been near the limit of Darius’ range. Alley should not have been able to send the hook that far, he simply wasn’t strong enough...or hadn’t been strong enough. If he had increased his rank that would be one thing, but the source of this unexpected power was a mystery.

“Yeah, I'm not really sure how I did that,” admitted Alley after a few seconds of silence. He hadn’t told anyone that the voice that had tested him in the castle below Cursed Isle had seemingly followed him. It seemed pretty likely the voice and his newfound strength were somehow connected. A musing that Alley couldn’t actually share with his friend.

It wasn’t that he thought Darius wouldn’t believe he was hearing a disembodied voice. Alley just wanted to find out more information about this phenomenon before he started spreading around that he was experiencing it. A little confirmation it wasn’t all in his head would also go a long way to getting him to open up on the subject.

“Maybe your new Deck made you stronger?” Suggested Darius, clearly having been thinking the range should have been beyond Alley as well.

“I guess, but True Decks aren’t like Trials Decks. The Resonances counteract each other and stop them from changing the way our bodies develop. Instead, it grows our natural talents and the physical attributes we work on as we rank up.”

Alley could hear the eye roll in Darius’ voice as he replied, the eldest Knots boy had never been one to tolerate a lecture on Resonance effects or anything else for that matter.

“Yeah, I know how it works. We both get harder to kill but you get to pick your powers and I don’t”

That was a massive oversimplification but correct in a general sense Alley knew.

“Besides “ Darius went on “You don’t have a True Deck anymore. Who knows how a Cursed Deck works?”