[Mkguild] Prepared for Sacrifice pt 2

[Radioactive Toast]

Well, now that I've gone and wasted a bunch of time fighting with the intenet over nothing (though it would be nice to see the story formatted nice on the mailing list page itself) and embarresed myself, I'll just get on with submitting this thing.

 

Day 2, May 31st 703 CR


 The ocean was big.

 Of course this was a gross understatement and painfully obvious.  Duh, the ocean was big, Zyn knew what it was as he had traveled by or on it more than a few times, but never quite this close, not with just a solitary plank of wood keeping him afloat in an ocean full of nothing.  Really, nothing; squat.  There was a blue sky with some clouds and blue water and literally nothing else.  With the exception of Zyn himself of course and his piece of wood.  

 In the darkness after the wave hit, Zyn had been tossed and thrown clear of any reference point.  Lost confused, and under what must have been yards of water, he hadn’t even been able to tell which way was up, so battered were his body and mind.  It was only by some miracle that he had chosen the right direction and had found himself breaching the surface.  But the storm had drowned out everything and nothing could be heard above the maelstrom, and aside from random lightning strikes all was pitch black.  He could not see if he had been simply tossed clear of the ship or if it had been broken up itself, though a chance encounter with a wooden plank that had bumped into his backside suggested the latter.  

 He had tried calling out, to see if there were others, but he could hear nothing, just crashing waves, driving wind, and unending crackles of thunder.  Gripping the plank, he had held on for what he could have sworn were days, though through some strange quirk he managed to keep his grip midst the frothing waves long enough for tempest to subside and the penetrating rays of dawn to appear unmarred by tumultuous clouds.  Zyn had never seen such a beautiful sunrise in his life, cascading in brilliant shades of first purple than red and orange.  Then the colors had gradually given way to their natural blue, and the waters at last became pacific leaving tiny Zyn floating along, alone.

 The montage floated past seamlessly, in such dreamlike manner that Zyn found himself wondering if he was dreaming or not, or if he was already dead.  Then his headaches came back.  The headaches were a regular part of his life; he’d had them for almost as long as he could remember.  That and the regular occurrence of other body parts in chronic pain from the various illnesses he had suffered in childhood meant hardly a day passed without something hurting.  But in this case it clearly told him that he was not dead or dreaming; he was very much alive.

 Fortunately the water was warm, so even though he was hanging on to the plank more than sitting atop it, he wasn’t in danger of hypothermia or anything.  Come nightfall, though, he hoped it wouldn’t get too cold.  He hoped it wouldn’t, and didn’t think it would; these were tropical waters after all.  Weren’t they?

 The plank, though, didn’t provide the most comfortable of grips and he felt as though he was in a slow war of attrition, holding out as long as he could against fatigue, because the plank was his absolute last lifeline.  He’d heard of people staying afloat and buoyant by themselves on the open sea; he’d even met a few people that could do it, but he wasn’t one of them; he’d sink like a rock and drown in less than ten minutes.  But even with the plank, it was a thin margin of life; his grip on that piece of wood was all that was keeping him alive.  

 There was nothing else besides that.  Even with his clinging to the plank there was nothing standing between him and a slow death of exposure.  The sun beat down relentlessly upon his battered body, slowly singing his skin even as the salty sea constantly lapped waves upon him.  

 The water was probably the worst part, even worse than the complete lack of food.  Every instinct that Zyn had learned growing up was mystified by ocean water; he had grown up in Ainador by the Galean Sea.  To him, water was something you should be able to just scoop up and drink, as both the Galean Sea and the Yurdon River that flowed out of it were freshwater.  The concept of water that you simply couldn’t drink tore up Zyn’s mind and sent it all flying messed up and scratched.  How the hell could you have water that you couldn’t drink?  Unfortunately he’d already gotten a taste of it, as his recent brush with death had seen him nearly swallow gobs of saltwater in his panicked swim; he know knew fully well how horrible and disgusting it was to the tongue, but part of his brain simply could not accept this.

 As such he stared down at the obstinate water that steadfastly refused to be drinkable wave up and down all around him.  The damn stuff mocked him as he drifted across its surface; he was wet from head to toe but it seemed that he was doomed to die from dehydration!  In the middle of the most expansive body of water he had ever seen in his life!

 The thought of his death was one he didn’t think about much; it was something he had never given a great deal of thought to.  Oh, he had thought of what Heaven would be like after hearing the priests describe it, of its grand eternal qualities, but never before he had he been confronted with, or rather examined, the line that divides this world with that one.  Never before had he truly contemplated the end of his physical existence..

 Of course, this oversight on his part infuriated him.

 Death had been with him his whole life, he had known its touch from his birth, what was more it was a boundary that everyone faced; no one was exempt, everyone would someday die.  So why had he never prepared himself for it?  For in the next few days, possibly next few hours if he fell asleep and let go of the plank, he was certain to die.  And he didn’t even know how he was supposed to feel.  

 What was the difference between here and there, between his plank and the unfathomable depths below?  It stood as barrier, something he could never know, something he could never test himself against, because to do so would be to die.  How could he ever possibly test himself against something like death?  How could he ever know his limits against something that inherently meant his end?  How could he tell if he was strong enough to stand against it, how could he ever know if this was something he would not falter upon crossing?  

 Zyn let out a long frustrated sigh.  Was this what he was condemned to in his last hours of life, pondering such things back and forth as his body whittled away from exposure?  But the question was right in front of him and he had very little room to edge away from it.  How would he handle death?  

 Slowly, Zyn edged his face into the water and held it there.  Here, at this precarious moment, all that separated him from the other side was the simple reflex of breathing in one breath; that was it and he’d be on his way.  Tension wrecked his chest at the damnable knowledge that it was this far and no further; if he were to take such a step he wouldn’t be able to talk about it with anyone, he couldn’t learn from the experience and make himself into a wiser person.  There was no wisdom to be learned from dying, yet he could never truly know the limits of his own soul without crossing that last barrier.  Why did Eli have to make this so difficult!?

 Shaking his head, but still holding his breath, knowing that he was likely to die soon anyways but not able to partake of his own destruction so… willingly, he opened his eyes, hoping to peer down into the blue blackness below.  But the sudden burning sensation in his eyes from the salt water caused him to snap his head back above the surface, coughing up a trickle of seawater that had managed to make its way into the back of his mouth.  Panting from the momentary shock, Zyn rested his head against the plank, which was uncomfortable given its small sides and the fact that he was already taking up room holding onto it with his arms, but for the moment he was content to just rest it despite that.

 The sun rose higher until it reached what Zyn guessed was now midday, leading him to wonder just how far along his decent into exposure was.  Every now and then he would scan the horizon, looking for some pathetic glimmer of something other than the bleary monotony of the blue waters that surrounded him in every direction.  It was different from the hills he had known in his youth in northern Ainador, this was just pure blue in every direction, water and sky broken only by occasional clouds.  It was novel at first but now it was becoming a bit tedious and bland to the eye and only reinforced Zyn’s hopeless situation.  

 Was he scared?  Was he frightened?  Was he angry?  Zyn didn’t know, mostly because he kept incessantly wondering what he should be feeling, and finding no concrete answer his frustration was the only feeling he could detect.

 Drifting in and out of his musings and distractions, Zyn didn’t notice the anomaly in the distance until he kept his eyes in its direction for a good solid five minutes.  There was just the bland monotony of the ocean and... Zyn squinted his eyes?  Was that something that was [i]not[/i] ocean ahead of him?  As he watched for what crawled by like hours the tiny dot seemed to grow bigger, though it did seem to be passing to his left.  

 The whole time he watched it somewhat dumbfounded, like a cow aimlessly looking out over a field, until he thought he spied movement.  Then, the impossible happened.  

 The dot apparently had a voice that was shouting something.  He couldn’t discern at all what it was, but it was a human voice!  What would anyone be doing out here in something so small?  There must have been other survivors!

 “Hey!” Zyn shouted, even though his throat felt weak and parched.  In all likelihood he couldn’t be heard, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try.  Weak as he was he added a lot of random splashing into the mix, trying to stir up any concoction of noise and movement that might help whoever it was catch notice of him.

 Zyn kept his yelling until he wore himself hoarse, and watched with a level of dismay he didn’t think possible to feel as the object continued off to his left.  What if whoever it was just passed him by without him ever noticing?  His doomsday thoughts were interrupted when he could hear more shouting, shouting that he swore had to be coming from more than one person.  In addition, he could barely make out what appeared to be flailing of arms and limbs.  Were they trying to get his attention too?  
 
 Zyn wasn’t going to just passively wait around to see what would happen and began paddling his way over to who might as well have been Yahshua himself.  With just his small plank it wasn’t really much of an extra effort, but his body was so weak with exhaustion that he might as well have been trying to push the entire ship that he had just been traveling on yesterday.  His muscles screamed and bent with every kick of his legs, and his lungs protested fiercely, but he pushed on nonetheless.  

 “Hey!  Hey!” Zyn could finally make out from his fellow adrift companions, and he confirmed that there were several men aboard a fairly large hunk of wood, likely from the side of the ship’s hull.  At first he thought that two or three were onboard, but as he edged closer he could make out what had to be five or six all cluttered together on the broken piece of hull.  

 His own paddling seemed to be matched by the others who were doing their own pushing against the waters, and quickly they were both inching towards each other despite the random ocean currents.  It seemed like hours, and probably took that long in retrospect, for the two makeshift lifeboats to converge together.

 “Having fun?” One of the men asked as soon as soon as Zyn got close enough to for them to comfortably communicate without screaming their lungs out.  Zyn would have replied, but his fatigue made it all but impossible for him do anything more than the excruciating pushing against the water that he was doing now.  He almost didn’t recognize a certain one armed man until he noticed a familiar sly grin on his face.  He said nothing to him, exhausted as he was; instead he just widened his eyes and smiled at the irony.  

 “You look like crap,” Lorian greeted him as they closed to within about fifty feet of each other.  At this point one of the men, apparently seeing Zyn’s fatigue, jumped into the water and swam out to him.  Belatedly he recognized the man as Grumiah, the ship’s quartermaster, as Zyn recalled one of the few competent people on board.  Thank Eli for small graces.   The quartermaster came up alongside him, grabbing him and helping him swim to the raft.  One man who Zyn recognized as Bresan helped and pulled him onto the raft which was a good ten or eleven feet across, though with what Zyn now counted as no less than seven passengers (himself included) it looked to be quite crowded from now on.

 The first thing that Zyn did was relax.  This had been his first opportunity to rest on something solid since the previous night, and immediately he seized it, regardless that he only had a few feet to himself.  “You don’t mind, I’ll try and catch a few winks now,” Lorian smiled with that usual damnable knowing smile and patted him on the shoulder, and the others seemed content to let him rest as he hadn’t had a real opportunity the whole time since the ship was torn apart lest he drown.  If they had anything to say to him he didn’t hear as seemingly within seconds he was fast asleep.


* * *


 The sun was low in the sky which was cast in deep oranges and reds when Zyn came to again, though looking around he couldn’t tell if it was dawn or dusk.  Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and groaning at the excessive aches he had from hunching over that pathetic plank of his for nearly a day, he gave a belated examination of his situation.  Seven men, trapped on a raft that was in reality a piece of the side of their ship’s hull, stuck in the middle of the ocean, off course and far from land to begin with, with virtually no supplies to speak of.  Thinking about it, he wasn’t any better of than he had been floating in the ocean by himself!  

 Sighing at his momentary wave of frustration, Zyn looked up to look over his companions.  Grumiah, the quartermaster, he knew, though he had never spoken to him personally; he had however appraised him as a generally competent and grizzled sort that knew what he was doing.  Of course then there was Lorian, his one armed mentor, who was at the moment sitting looking across the waters next to a particularly spaced out Bresan.  Zyn didn’t know much about him, just that he was one of the sailors on board that he had bumped into on the first day.  On the other end of the raft scrunched up next to Zyn due to the limited space available were two other sailors whom he didn’t know in the slightest besides vague recollections of seeing their faces a few times.  

 Lastly was the boyish faced mage whom Grumiah had forced to keep the witchlight lit the night of the storm.  Zyn had never gotten a chance to learn his name, but observed that he rigorously avoided eye contact and seemed easily overwhelmed and distressed.  He wasn’t very talkative, and when he did speak he did so with a voice soaked with timidity and deference.  What his business happened to be was anyone’s guess, the fact that he was apparently traveling alone seemed curious to Zyn, especially given how out of his element the mage seemed.  Even more so now, considering their current situation, at least that’s what Zyn figured given that the mage was fast asleep at the moment.

 Yawning and shaking himself from his musings, Zyn turned to Lorian.  “Dawn or dusk?” he asked.

 Lorian snapped his head, mildly surprised that Zyn was awake, before sighing.  “Dusk,” he replied.  His tone of voice was neutral, though he only sighed like that when things looked really sour.  

 “Sleep enough Zyn?” one of the other sailors asked.  Zyn blinked in response.

 “I went ahead and told them your name while you were zonked out the whole day,” Lorian explained.  

 Shrugging in response, Zyn looked back at the sailor who was one of the two that he didn’t know.  “So you mind telling me your names then?” he said, pointing to them both.

 “Oh, right,” the bearded one on the left said, “Lum’s the name, and this midget here is Pols.”  

 The “midget” in question snapped his head and glared at his companion.  “I ain’t a midget.”  Though the fact that he wasn’t standing didn’t help with an accurate assessment of his height, Pols did look a little on the short side.  

       “What?” Lum asked feigning a hurt look, “it’s completely true you know.”

 This statement resulted in a violent shove that was clearly intended to push Lum off the side of the raft, though Lum stood his ground and shoved back which sent Pols tumbling over into the ocean with a great big resounding splash.

 Lum had a good laugh at this as Pols sputtered back the surface and spewed seawater from his mouth, but didn’t get much more time to enjoy it as Bresan came up behind him and sent him to join his midget companion.  

 Grumiah let out a disgruntled sigh.  “Can it you three.  Last thing we need is more people getting cold and wet tonight.”

 “Hey, we’re just having a bit of fun,” Lum said, in as chipper mood as ever though he was giving Bresan somewhat of an evil eye.  Pols, disgruntled and now drenched and taken off guard, was now fuming and tried to push Lum’s head under the water.  Zyn watched the two of them somewhat confused and concerned, though when Lum just laughed again, broke free and pushed Pols’ head under, he ventured that this was probably typical behavior for these two.  

 Grumiah gave another shout of warning and amazingly the two of them stopped quarreling like little boys and let Bresan help them out of the water.  

 In the commotion Zyn almost didn’t notice that it had awakened the round mage from his slumber.  “Wha?...” he began bleary eyed.  

 “Just a couple ruffian scuffles,” Lorian said, “Our sailor buddies seem to want to blow off some steam by dunking themselves in the ocean,” he indicated at the soggy pair who were now back on board but drenched and dripping from head to toe.  

 “...Um, ok...” the mage said warily.

 Zyn nodded slowly; this guy practically screamed that he was out of his element, except Zyn got the impression that this guy wouldn’t scream or do pretty much anything assertive around other people, ever.  “So, what’s [i]your[/i] name then?”

 “My... name?”

 “You have one I presume?”

 “Uh, Par-Parnsus, Parnsus Scolastin.”

 Lum waved his hand dismissively.  “Don’t bother with that big name of his; we’re just all calling him Parn.”

 “But... but my name’s Parns-“

 “Look kid,” Zyn interrupted, “this isn’t something you’re going to win, especially with this batch.  Just let this one go.”  Zyn called him “kid,” though in truth he wasn’t sure what his age was; he looked like he was seventeen but the fact that he was a mage and traveled by himself pointed at someone who was older.  

 All the while, one thought was occupying itself in the back of Zyn’s mind; were these six men the people he was going to die with?

 
 		 	   		  

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