Fantasy Deathless, Chapter 1: Ghost Airship

[Latyon]

Jäger held the wrapper between his teeth, feeling its rough texture against his lips as he pressed the beige, woolly bandage to the seeping sore underneath his armpit, and winced. After a moment of sharp stinging and unbearable burning, his very nerve endings seemed to dissolve into a wintry, minty cloud. It was a strange feeling, to taste a medicine as it entered an open wound in the torso, but indeed he could; a sort of deep and bitter post-nasal drip, like good volocain.

He took the wrapper from his teeth and crumbled it between knotted fingers, his veins and arteries twisting beneath almost translucent skin. He tossed the wad of paper, sportsman-like, toward the bin near the privacy curtain, but missed; a sportsman, he was not.

Though he was hardly exerting himself, he could feel fatigue manifesting in beads of sweat forming in the crook at the back of his skull, where the head and neck met, and then dripping freely down his back. He wondered how there was still so much water in his body after all this time - two weeks, now, on a journey theorized to last no longer than a week - adrift. His body felt as if it were overheating, yet a chill pervaded every room on this damned airship.

This damned airship. Ostensibly the largest in the world and yet, impossibly cramped. Every corner and hallway darkened at all hours of the day, never a moment of quiet, with the storm howling outside. A machine of impossible simplicity but quite a hefty amount of upkeep, crewmembers milled about like blood cells, crammed together in capillaries built for smaller things. And there was a smell - like a swimming pool full of sweat, baking in the hot sun, swirled with gunpowder and the unmistakable, roasted-honey thickness of soma.

Popping the lids off three small glass bottles, he poured an assortment of tablets into a pile and separated them meticulously, into symmetrical groups of equal size and composition. These he tucked away into a kitschy set of several bags, save for the final group, which he dropped into a glass of water and swallowed with most apathetic gulps.

Jäger peered into the tiny mirror, with his tiny overhead light, and swore he saw his own skull staring back. One more thing, he thought to himself, as he lifted a dark bottle from the sink, nearly empty save for a small and lethargic puddle of honey-like ooze. He licked the medication from inside the bottle with great stress, his tongue unable to move the way it used to, on account of the scarring.

He smelled great. He looked...

He smiled, a sincere, charming, mischievous smile, his tongue pressed against the small gap in his two front teeth. Sure, he might've felt like shit, but no one was going to know.

A muscle in his abdominals seized, interrupting his breathing for a moment. Like someone plucked a violin string in his bowels. The medication only made the pervasive hunger more intense.

---

The periscope glided effortlessly in Admiral Navarro's grasp as she peered into the swirling darkness beyond. The storm outside raged on, its fury reverberating through the metal walls of the bridge like apocalyptic hail. Yet amidst the chaos, her determined gaze remained fixed on the eerie spectacle unfolding - or perhaps, folding? - before her.

There, looming in the blackened void, backlit by flashes of red lightning, were the unmistakable forms of the creatures they had been tracking. Massive, contraglowing orbs hung suspended in the tempestuous winds, their ethereal shadows casting an otherworldly light on the churning cyclone below. Each orb was adorned with spindly, needle-like appendages that swayed and undulated like toothy stalks of kelp, waiting for something edible to drift by.

"Gods," Admiral Navarro murmured, her voice barely audible above the howling winds. "Is that a fish or a tree?"

Her stomach rumbled in response, a stark reminder of the dwindling food supplies that plagued the fleet. The quartermaster, ever pragmatic, wasted no time in offering a solution.

"Whatever it is," he replied, "there's a lot of it. Each one of them could last us two weeks. Surely that will be enough to see us through to the far side."

Navarro's jaw tightened as she considered his words, her mind racing with questions and doubts. How could they be sure it was safe to consume? What risks were they willing to take in the name of survival? As she often did when she was thinking, she probed at the hole left behind by a missing molar with the tip of her tongue.

But as she stared closer at the mesmerizing spectacle before her, she felt a strange sense of certainty wash over her. It was as if the creatures were beckoning to her, offering a glimmer of hope in the darkness.

"So ordered," she declared, her voice ringing with authority. "We have little choice. All hands - bring it down!"

With a sense of purpose that belied the uncertainty gnawing at her heart, Navarro turned away from the periscope and set about preparing the crew for their daring hunt. For better or worse, their fate now lay in the hands of the enigmatic creatures - or plants, or whatever - that lurked within the depths of the Land's End Maelstrom.

---

The shift whistles wailed throughout the ship's decks around five minutes earlier than Jäger expected, which annoyed him - he deeply valued his four hours of sleep and the time between waking and work. Before he had time to contemplate the reason, the ship's quartermaster barked from the brass talking tube in the center of the barracks.

"All hands to main deck. Repeating, all hands to main deck."

It was a haunting thing to hear, those words - he'd had nightmares of the very ones. All hands...never good.

But the quartermaster seemed rather...blasé, about it. His voice lacked urgency. Desperation.

Curious.

Jäger heard the pounding footsteps of the other sailors responding to the call and tucked all of his supplies away, with one last glance in the mirror.

How much longer could this go on?

 

[JamsTheOrc]

Vi's body rang out in protest as she struggled to will herself out of bed. Three 10 hour shifts in succession for two days trying to keep this ship from falling out of the sky for two days. Finally she got a break, yet for all her exhaustion, she was not to worn out to enjoy a little fun with one of the workers from the first shift. She rolled over only to find them gone before she could open her eyes as she uttered a sigh to express her disappointment "figures." With as much willpower as she could muster, she stirred and edged herself over to the side of the bed and planted her feet on the floor. Giving her eyes a good rubbing before moving on to her face, she shook off the brain fog and rose from her bed to go through her morning routine.

Barring the amount of work, late night entertainment, howling storm, and cramped room, the amount of rest she did get was enough to refresh her for the day, even if her body was still sore. She hated this ship, its cramped rooms, the never-ending dark hallways, the grueling upkeep it took to keep this ship in the air and the storms, dear gods the storms.

It still beat being back in Skene waiting for a loaf of bread and a cut of meat, plus the captain was true to her word. Three meals a day, free room, and a chance to come back as a legend, okay the legend part she couldn't care less about, but the meals were important. Oh did she mention the smell? The nonstop musty, sweaty, smell and lingered throughout the ship? It was almost enough to make a person change their mind and jump overboard, almost.

Vi sluggishly dragged her way back to the bed and flopped on it in hopes of getting as much rest before getting called back to her station because something broke. Hopefully she would get a chance to scarf down breakfast before then, hopefully. Laying there in silence as the storm roared on, she began to doze off, but before she could drift off, she heard the call

"All hands to main deck, repeat, all hands to main deck" was heard round the ship right after the whistle. She let out a loud groan as she mustered up the willpower to get out of bed.....again. All hands to main deck couldn't mean anything good, either the ship was about to go down in a fiery inferno, or.......they needed heads for more work. She hoped it was the first scenario. Vi managed to drag herself out of bed and put her oil covered pants on and strapped her toolbelt to her waist and headed for the door, locked her room, and rushed down the hallway as fast as her feet would carry her.

 

[Latyon]

The bridge of the Overture was built into the underside of the bulbous steel structure that housed the somatic engines, which kept the behemoth afloat. It was the only part of the ship with any windows, and used complicated systems of tubes, lights and mirrors to give the helmsman unparalleled awareness of the ship's surroundings. For a long time now, those surroundings were sparse; mostly just the violent churning of whipping winds and crimson bolts of lightning. Occasionally, a rock of some size would smash against the hull of the ship and disintegrate, rarely leaving more than a scratch. Beyond that, though - the maelstrom was a wasteland.

The quartermaster was younger than he appeared, with thick glasses and a shock of thick blonde hair that bobbed up and down as he walked like a spring. He spent much of his life in the sun, and it showed in thick canyons across his leathery face and a permanent sense of relaxation, cultivated over decades and decades of mud-sliding outside of the capital city.

When the admiral asked him to take the helm, he was happy to do so, for he never felt more at home than when he he had his hands firm on a nice, big boat.

From the dais at the highest, central point on the bridge, Quartermaster Dušan peered once more into the periscope he'd trained on the gleams - the name he'd come up with for the strange, ethereal, kelpy tree monsters floating around in the clouds. They reminded him of firecrackers: stunning, vibrant pulses of light against the purest black.

His stomach was killing him. The prospect of food so tantalizingly close had jumpstarted his body's survival instincts.

He had to focus. The entire operation was on his shoulders.

He wondered what they tasted like.

---

When Jäger arrived at main deck, the central and most spacious room on the Overture, he found that most of the crew and passengers had already arrived. He took steps two at a time to a raised balcony that ran a circle around the room and provided the best view of the podium from which the admiral would issue her address.

Though the room was the largest on the ship, he felt like canned fish, packed together with so many others.

When she entered the room, she wasted no time approaching the podium. Her booming voice needed no amplifier, nor flattering acoustics to be heard throughout.

"I'll be brief, because time is of the essence. Everyone in the room, kneel, and rise when called," her mature voice crowed.

Jäger joined several others in glancing sidelong before gingerly lowering himself with his weight supported on the guardrails, so as to avoid unnecessary movement of his wound. As he knelt, peering down through the bars, he spotted Clive's hulking gnomid form amidst the crowd. It occurred to him that his friend must have been terrible at hide-and-seek as a child, if that were a thing the gnomids did.

Once Gwen was satisfied that everyone was kneeling, she began identifying chunks of the room.

"Rise if you have professional experience as a commercial fisher," she started, eliciting confused mutters, but about ten rising heads.

"Rise if you are willing to do anything for the Empire, up to and including die," she continued. Jäger felt eyes fall on him from behind, but he did not stand. He noticed that Clive did, enthusiastically. Ever the patriot, the old man. Along with Clive, stood just under half the room.

"Rise if you are willing to do anything for the Empire, up to and including die, for a good price," Gwen finished.

Jäger couldn't help but blurt out.

"Well, what's the price?"

At first, Gwen didn't register his voice. She only noted that there were more than enough volunteers to attempt this insane hunt. Thank the gods - she had already cut the straws in case things had gone another way.

When she finally heard him, her eyes locked onto him from below. She didn't know if it was the sinister overhead lighting doing it, but this man - a man she had never seen before onboard this ship - looked rather ghoulish. Gaunt, angular. Hungry.

"Nine hectares in the new capital city," she called back, inventing the reward from thin air.

Jäger pushed himself to his feet and winked at the admiral. She immediately and forcefully rebuked him with her eyes, but he didn't notice.

"Those of you still on your knees, return to your posts. Everyone else, regroup in the hangar. Dismissed!"

Nine hectares of land in the city center. Jäger didn't have a lot - he didn't need a lot. But free was free and he loved free.

Sure. He'd have to risk his life on what sounded to be some sort of high-risk fishing endeavor, but risking his life had become something of a daily thing, so he almost didn't bat an eye.

Turning to leave, he nearly ran straight into a woman with the longest ears he had ever seen.