@voltaic-qui: Odd life totals matter was just a theme that I decided on for the land cycle because I thought it would be fun, it doesn't actually appear anywhere else in the set.
Alright, it's story time!
The
Sanguine Star cut through a wave. The captain, steered the ship towards the horizon, spinning the wheel, on the hunt to find a beast to kill. Her crew behind her worked tirelessly, manning the sails, keeping a lookout for enemy ships or something to kill and eat.
A man spoke up. “Cap’n,” he said, “the sun’s coming down. Do you wanna keep looking for food or stop the ship?” The captain sighed.
“Drop anchor!” The crew let out a simultaneous groan. Shouts of “We haven’t found anything to eat in days!” and “How are we gonna survive?” resounded across the ship. A voice from the top of the crow’s nest shouted “Damn it, Cordia!” A silence resounded.
She raised her rapier towards the nest. “You will refer to me as Captain." Another pause, and she imperceptibily grinned. "I won’t hesitate, bitch,” she stated cooly. The crew let out a laugh as Cordia broke out into a smirk. “You know what, Demmos? Since you have such a big mouth, and want food so bad, you can go scouting tonight.” The crew jeered at Demmos as he sighed and climbed down the ladder.
“Alright, Cap, sounds good to me.” Cordia raised her rapier to Demmos’ throat this time.
“Try again. I can pronounce it for you if you want.”
Demmos smiled nervously let out a laugh. “Alright, Captain, sounds good to me.” Cordia smiled once again and put down her sword.
“See ya at daybreak, Demmos,” Cordia said, turning to her quarters and walking away. Demmos was handed a small sack of scraps of food, and walked over to the dinghies, where he got in one and was unceremoniously dropped into the water.
The waters turned black as the sun set, and the only thing Demmos could see for miles was the mountains of Kheyl. Demmos, in his loneliness, sung a shanty to himself as he got to work searching for food in the waters deep. “We row all day and we row all night,” he sung, paddling along. “Why feel pain when there is delight.” He saw a flash of something in the water and stopped, but nothing moved, so he deemed it a trick of the imagination, so he kept on going.
“Captain tells the crew that we do not quit, we don’t wanna do all o' that…” Suddenly, a deluge of water exploded from the sea in front of Demmos, and a kraken of immense proportions rose up from the water.
“...shit.”
The kraken dove at Demmos, crushing his boat and sending him underwater. He tried to escape, but it was futile, as his leg was caught in the wreckage of his boat. The serpent lashed it’s tail at him, and he was hit directly, blacking out, and sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor.
Demmos awoke on a crag jutting from the ocean, his leg bent at a strange angle, the sun beating down on his body, with a pulsating headache. He tried to rise, but his leg wouldn’t let him and he collapsed to the ground. He tried to get up once more, but a bolt of pain lanced through his body, and he screamed.
“Dammit!” he shouted. Tears leaked from his face as he realized there was no point to trying to survive, and the end was coming for him. The sun hovered at the top of the sky, but as time passed it slowly went down, and Demmos was on the ground, wondering what would happen to his family and his crew without him, and if they would even remember him.
Days passed. Demmos sat there, empty and broken, and fading in and out of unconsciousness, unable to leave, move, or coherently think. Suddenly, he heard a hum from above him. Demmos looked into the sky, and he saw a figure hovering above him in the sky - a porcelain-skinned man with no eyes and a golden ring around his head, with a jellyfish floating at his side.
The man said “Why do you lay here?”
Demmos responded “I'm broken and I can't leave.”
The man said “What would you do if you could?”
Demmos thought for a second, pausing. Then, he spoke. “Make the world a better place for myself and my friends.”
The man smiled and said “Then do something about it.”
Demmos shook his head and looked again, and there was nothing there. He looked back down and realized what he needed to do. Demmos gritted his teeth and tried to stand up once again, but this time, he felt no pain in his leg. In fact, he had never felt better. He looked down in shock, and his leg had completely healed. He looked forward, and in the place of the endless ocean that he had seen before, he saw the land right in front of him. He saw buildings looming in the distance, with a yellow metallic hue - are those made of gold? - and, for the first time, he saw people in their homes on land. He saw a family walk across the shore, laughing, a merfolk person break the seas and walk onto land to talk to another person, and a house that could easily fit the entire crew of the Sanguine Star. Demmos saw civilization.
Viewing a place that he could call an actual home for the first time in his life, he reveled, beginning to cheer and whoop. He felt a tug at his navel, and he was pulled into a world of light. He looked around him, and saw endless land, but he swiveled in the void, looking for his home again. He said “My family, my crew… I have to tell them!” With that, he flew back into the plane of Kalanur and coalesced on the deck of the Sanguine Star.
The crew yet out a yell of shock, and Cordia whirled around and came running towards him. “What the fuck, Demmos? Where the hell were you? It’s been a week, we thought you were dead!”
Demmos grinned. “I saw life, captain. I saw buildings on land, I saw a place where people live, I saw gold and riches. I found civilization.”
The Sanguine Star cut through a wave. The Captain sighed, then grinned. “Well then,” said Cordia, “lead the way.”
