Storm Strider

Another week passed by where Marisol was no longer confined in her room, but it felt like she was still trapped ‘somewhere’ in some sense—her mama’s technique book and her Swarmsteel had all been returned to her the day after she beat the new Imperator recruits, so she spent most of the week lying on her bed, catching up on some much needed rest while going through the fourth technique in her mama’s book.

…

Judging by the length of the book, there were maybe two, three more techniques left. After that, she’d be sorely left alone in the Whirlpool City with nothing to call home on her back. Victor had told her she could walk around and unwind until he called for her, but the past three months of having overstuffed on points and insect flesh was starting to catch up on her. As she lay on her back reading her mama’s book, her stomach was still throbbing, her head was still pounding, and her muscles, frankly, felt like sand-jelly; she supposed she was lucky she didn’t get a cramp while fighting the recruits underwater.

They’re still coming by every day to give me ten points’ worth of bug meat, though, she thought, glancing at the cleaned plate by the study desk. The innkeepers were diligent about keeping her well-fed this past week, regardless of the symptoms of her point poisoning, and it was rude to leave her plate full even if she didn’t feel like putting anything in her stomach; so she’d eaten all of it. Everything. Grilled sea bream stuffed with shreds of lobster, fried squid with crabs stuffed in the tendrils, and loads of other seafood she’d never tried before—at the very least, they were all novel dishes she wouldn’t get tired of eating anytime soon.

[// STATUS]

[Name: Marisol Vellamira]

[Class: Water Strider]

[BloodVolume: 5.0/5.1 (98%), Strain: 153/750 (20%)]

[Unallocated Points: 19]

[Strength: 5, Speed: 8 (+2), Dexterity: 6, Toughness: 7 (+1), Perceptivity: 6 (+3), Strain Limit: 747]

[// MUTATION TREE]

[T1 Core Mutation | Striding Glaives]

{T1 Branch Mutation | Storm Glaives}

[T2 Core Mutations | Ripple Sensors | Hydrofuge Spines]

{T2 Branch Mutations | Ripple Returner | Filtrating Gills}

[T3 Core Mutations | Preapical Claws | Gliding Wings | Segmented Setae]

{T3 Branch Mutations | ??? | ??? | Recalibrated Weight}

[T4 Core Mutations | Suppression Elasticity | Ether Discharge | Sonar Translation | Corrugation Armour] 450P

{T4 Branch Mutations | ??? | ??? | ??? | ???}

[// UNIQUE SWARMSTEEL LIST]

[Ghost Crab Scarf (Quality = D)(Spd +2/2)(Tou + 1/1)(Strain +76)]

[Remipede Olfactory Nerve Centre Earrings (Quality = E)(Per +3/6)(Strain +67)]

Still wish they’d let me lay off the points for a bit, though.

Great Makers, Archive, can’t you do something about my stomach ache–

The windows opened from the outside and the light morning drizzle blew in, drenching the desk, floor, and the corners of her bed with cool water. She immediately jolted upright and clutched her book close to her chest, blinking rapidly—she’d increased her perceptivity level by a fair amount, but whenever it came to Victor and his peculiar brand of entrances, perceptivity was quite the pointless sink of points. His bandaged hands flew over the window frame as he climbed in, dripping wet from feathered hat to pointed toe.

“... Get up, lass,” he said, thumbing out the window. “You're going to school.”

For her part, Marisol stayed cross-legged on her bed and scowled at the living mummy.

“What am I doing?”

“School.”

“Now?”

“Ye.”

“Well, I gotta brush my hair and wash my face first, then. Get out. I’ll be done in, like, thirty minutes–”

“The wind will straighten your hair, and the rain will moisturise your skin. We're going now.”

He allowed her to let go of her book, but he didn't wait for her to climb off the bed and hobble to the bathroom. Instead, he picked her up by the collar, threw her out the window, and just before she could soar over the adjacent roof—caught her by the collar again.

Her brain rattled in her skull, and there was little time to comprehend just how fast she was getting dragged across the roof, and to where. She felt… maybe they were descending into the lower city? Or maybe they were going up towards the Imperator lighthouses? It was still bright and early in the morning, she'd just barely woken up; she rubbed her eyes groggily, not even bothering with trying to see where Victor was taking her.

How's he moving this fast, anyways?

If I look down, maybe I'll see eight tentacles instead of two legs–

He came to a sudden halt, and the deceleration combined with her being let go of sent her flying down the roof, slowly rolling to a stop.

Ow.

[Your body is remarkably tough, though. It would appear you have healed enough.]

I'd prefer an adrenaline boost.

[If you rely on my chemical stimulation functionality too much, your body will eventually grow used to my interference.]

She grumbled under her breath as she rolled onto her sides, clutching her stomach. She didn't want to stand up. The terracotta roof was cool with light rain, warm sunlight bore down overhead—it was comfy enough that she could just about doze off on the roof were it not for Victor sitting cross-legged next to her, tapping his walking cane on the glass ceiling in front of them.

…

She didn’t bother sitting up straight this time. She could see and hear just well enough on her sides. The two of them had landed on the roof of some sort of academy in the lower city—a large cathedral-like building with tons of arches and pointy towers in the corners—and peering down through the large glass ceiling in front of her, she noticed something akin to a ‘lecture hall’ about ten metres below. She knew what those looked like since she’d seen drawings of them in recruiting posters from famous academies across the continents, but she’d never actually seen one in person before; dozens of men and women seated on rows of benches arranged in a circular, tiered fashion, surrounding a wide oak podium where a shrimp-armed professor was writing on a giant black chalkboard.

From the looks of the students still settling down across the lecture hall, class was just about to begin, and the professor—a middle-aged lady with two pairs of white, spindly antennae—suddenly whirled around to face the class, leaning into her podium.

“... Welcome to Whirlpool City One-Oh-One, ya lot of new Harbour Guard recruits!” the professor drawled, waving at the students with all four antennae, though her actual face was stony and deadpan. “I’ll be yer lecturer, examiner, and tutor for the entire rest of yer time in the Harbour Guard Academy, so best get used to my volume, yeah? I’m the Fourth Lighthouse Imperator, so call me Imperator Claudia—anythin’ else and I’ll give ya the boot. Is that clear?”

A bunch of high-energy, exuberated shouts were the students’ reply, and Marisol yawned as she glanced over at Victor, whose arms were crossed and looking about ready to fall asleep as well.

“What am I even here for?” she asked. “Why do I gotta sit in for some sort of… introductory class?”

Victor yawned. “Just… listen to Claudia, lass.”

“I thought you wanted me to help with Imperator duties? Why am I stuck with the Harbour Guards–”

“Not too loud, lass,” he mumbled. “She’s gonna hear us.”

Marisol blinked. Instinct told her to pull her head back a little as Claudia suddenly snapped up, staring straight at the two of them—but it seemed like the professor just barely couldn’t see them, so Marisol sighed a soft breath of relief as class resumed downstairs.

Well.

I guess I’ll just try not to fall asleep–

“To all of ye who’ve been livin’ a rock yer entire lives and somehow passed the entrance exam, let’s get all the borin’ housekeepin’ stuff outta the way first,” Claudia said, turning around to draw the Whirlpool City on the blackboard, a piece of chalk curled in each antenna. “The Deepwater Legion Front is the name of this entire region, so ya can consider the Whirlpool City the capital of this Swarmsteel Front. Built nearly forty years ago around this underwater volcano, we, the Harbour Imperators and the Harbour Guards, have only one purpose to fulfil. Anyone wanna tell me what our job is?”

A student raised their hand in the back row. “The Harbour Imperators defend the Whirlpool City from the Great Mutant ‘Corpsetaker’ trapped inside the whirlpool, while the Harbour Guards defend the city from bugs on the outside, Imperator Claudia!”

Claudia snapped her shrimp claws. “Nice! I said one purpose, though, and ya gave me two! Simply speakin’, our ultimate goal is to defend the Deepwater Legion Front and prevent leviathan crustaceans from reaching the mainland continent—defendin’ the city at the far western border of this Swarmsteel Front is just the way we’re goin’ about that!”

Marisol had to lean forward a little just to see what Claudia was drawing on the blackboard: it was a map of the Deepwater Legion Front, which was a crescent moon-shaped cove on the far western end of the continent. She already knew what the Swarmsteel Front looked like from the textbooks she’d read back when she was a child, but seeing it again dredged up old memories—the days and weeks she’d spent kicking her legs on her bed, fantasising about seeing the city first-hand had now come true.

It was just a shame she wanted nothing more than to go home as soon as possible.

“Now, inside the nine-thousand-metre deep whirlpool is an aquatic ecosystem the likes of which ya won’t find anywhere else in the world,” Claudia continued, drawing horizontal lines across the depths of the whirlpool to demarcate nine separate sections. “Every one thousand metres deep into the whirlpool is a different ‘Depth’, and the ecosystem in each one is vastly different from the others. The entire city’s built to accommodate for the unique resources we can harvest from each Depth, and the legendary healin’ seawater the city’s so famous for? That stuff’s brought up from Depth Eight, eight thousand metres below—and that stuff’s not easy to come by.”

…

“It’s got none to do with y’all, but just know this: the deeper ya go, the higher the water pressure, the higher the concentration of ‘levitoxin’ in the water that’ll cloud yer judgement, and the stronger the bugs and Mutants and Lesser Great Mutants yer gonna face!” Claudia said, slapping the blackboard violently. “Depth Nine is where our Harbour Imperatrix and the Worm God sealed ‘Corpsetaker’, the Great Mutant of the West, and the Imperators’ sacred mission is to patrol each Depth to make sure Corpsetaker don’t even get a chance to resurface! To that end, there are nine ranks amongst the Imperators, and each rank correlates to the maximum Depth they can dive down to!”

Then, Claudia began scribbling a bunch of numbers on the board. With fierce sunlight reflecting from the glass, Marisol had to squint just to make out a few of those numbers… but it didn’t seem like anything particularly important, so she didn’t try too hard.

“Rank One to Three Imperators can only dive down to Depths One to Three respectively, and the ranks are determined with an exam, as well as which tiers of mutations they’ve unlocked up to!” Claudia said, slapping the board again. “If ya wanna be in Rank One to Three, ya need to have all yer tier four core mutations unlocked! If ya wanna be in Rank Four to Six, ya need to have all yer tier fives unlocked! If ya wanna be in Rank Seven to Eight, ya need to have all yer tier sixes unlocked, and if ya wanna meet Corpsetaker—which, let’s be honest, ain’t none of ya probably wanna do that—ya need to have all yer tier sevens unlocked! Yer still considered a ‘new recruit’ or an ‘initiate’ if yer in Rank One to Three, so it ain’t like ye’ve made it once ye get into the Imperators! Ideally, ya keep risin’ through the ranks until ya get to at least Rank Six!”

Hushed murmurs spread across the lecture hall, and Marisol listened to all of the conversations, not one in particular. If she were to be honest, the way Claudia laid the Ranks and Depths out for them sounded rather frightening. She’d no idea what the general opinion on Harbour Guards and Harbour Imperators were in the city, but she imagined most people in the lecture hall below—new recruits into the Harbour Guards—didn’t sign up to fight Mutants or Lesser Great Mutants underwater.

Hell, if Marisol could have her way, she’d have stuck with sand-dancing for the rest of her life as well, not here doing… this.

“There ain’t a lotta Rank Six to Nine Imperators—I can count all of ‘em on two hands—so ya can rest assured that there’s tons of privileges to be had if ya can reach that level!” Claudia said, snapping her pincers for order and silence. “High salary! Free housing for yer family in the upper city! Higher priority for healin’ seawater durin’ emergencies! I know most of ya probably have no intentions on ever bein’ an Imperator, but for the past three decades, we’ve recruited at least thirty Imperators right out of the Harbour Guards every single year—to those of ye who want to make a better livin’ for yerself, we’re hopin’ there’ll be lots of prospective and ambitious soldiers this year as well, so do try yer hardest while yer still in the academy, yeah?”

Claudia still seemed like she had a lot to say, and though Marisol was just starting to grow a little bit interested in the lecture, Victor evidently had enough of it.

Without a word, he grabbed her by the collar and yanked her away from the glass ceiling, pulling her up the roof and back towards the top of the city.

“Aight. Congratulations on graduating,” he muttered, stifling another yawn as her glaives screeched against the roof. “You got the whole Depth and Rank and point of the Harbour Imperators, right? I don’t gotta sit you down and explain anything to you, right?”

Marisol glared back at the man, scowling fiercely. “I already knew half of what she said. My Archive told me.”

“Your Archive told… oh. Right.” He shook his head, muttering under his breath. “Forgot you had Antonio’s system. This was just a huge waste of time, then.”

“Wait. What did you even bring me here for–”

“I forgot you had an Archive, so I thought you knew nothing about the Whirlpool City. I don’t gotta do the boring lecture stuff to catch you up on what we do, then.”

“Uh… I still don’t know what I’ll be doing, though.”

He pointed far, far up at the Imperator lighthouse as he casually jumped to a different roof, holding her collar all the way. “Basically, I’ll be your mentor for as long as you’re in the Whirlpool City, and I’ve gotta whip you into shape so you can eventually dive down to Depth Seven without getting crushed by the underwater pressure—basically, I’m gonna turn you into the Hasharana equivalent of a Rank Seven Imperator, and preferably, I’ll have you ready within the year.”

Marisol blinked pointedly.

“And… what do you guys need me down there for?”

“Well, we don’t need you specifically, but we do need your Archive, and since we’re the only two Hasharana in the entire city right now with ‘Black Storm’ keeping the rest of them outside…” He shrugged nonchalantly, turning back to grin down at her. “I can’t dive with all these bandages on me, so you’ve gotta be the one to go down there.”

“Okay. But could you just answer my question properly already–”

“You’ll be sent out on your first patrolling mission to Depth Two next week. Imperatrix’s orders to see how you’ll fare in an actual underwater mission,” he interrupted. “But, since I feel you can barely move around in Depth One for longer than thirty minutes, I have exactly one week to get your body used to the underwater atmosphere. If not, you’ll have a rather jolly old time in Depth Two—so we’re going back to Depth One right now.

“Let this old man teach you a trick or two when it comes to moving underwater.”