Steady as we go 4- A crack what?

Wilkes shift ended without any major disturbances. The wind ball trick had been a bit difficult to master, but he could get by with his shoddy version well enough for now. He had admittedly made a shorter incantation and relied on brute force a bit more than the captain, but he had time to learn refinement later. For now he needed the results, and would just be kicking the door as he twisted the knob so to speak. Drowsiness was admittedly permeating his body. Erik was walking up the steps while stretching with a brief yawn. His blonde hair shone in the sun as his eyes locked with Wilkes’s. The cloudless sky above was a brilliant blue backdrop against him in his work clothes.

“Mornin’ knife ear!” Wilkes chirped excitedly. He couldn’t let Erik see him as worn out. Not yet anyway, better to collapse below deck but look like he could steer for another few hours.

“Mornin wind bag.” Erik shot back. He leaned on the railing past the wheel, a smirk spreading on his face as he saw Wilkes’s face fall when the half-elf did not immediately take the helm. “Aw don’t tell me the magic prodigy and great pirate hunter is sleepy?”

“I never called myself a prodigy, but thanks for the compliment buddy. There was to be at least one prodigy out of the two of us.” Wilkes sucked his teeth as the verbal spar began in full swing.

“Hmm, indeed. A shame your only a prodigy in what your body does and not your mind. Don’t worry I’ll do all the thinking. Wouldn’t want you leading anything for more than a day or night. Now step away before you try to make the wind steer the ship instead of doing it manually.” Erik drawled “Go take a nap with your second woman, I’ll tell your third to bring a fourth and fifth if she lands on the deck.”

“Do I hear hints of jealousy there, knife ear?” Wilkes teased, the two laughed as they swapped spots. “I can see if she really does have subordinates. Maybe ones that prefer reading smut about elves so you have it easy.”

“You keep Amy’s reading habits out of this!” Erik cried, feigning indignance. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to be her literal dream man? It’s so hard being cunning, dashing, passionate, and all around wonderful!”

“Yeah, yeah. Have fun while steering. Holler if you need me.” Wilkes ended their conversation with a wave as his boots thunked against the stairs. The dank lower deck, though it may reek of fish, was a welcome sight. Meryl sat on one side of the lower area, playing a game of cards with Svend. Not with tarot cards or any kind of fate weaving. Just playing a simple game of War.

“Wilkes. Rest. Svend and I will play in silence, until he shouts in indignation at being bested by a woman.” Meryl said. Svend scoffed at that.

“Hey I ain’t a sore loser! If I become indimgant it’s because you cheated.” Svend sassed her, which just got a chuckle out of the oracle. She patted his head with a gloved hand playfully.

“That is what you believe whole heartedly, yes.” Meryl responded cooly. She returned her hands to the cards in her grasp. Wilkes had nothing to share. He had to concentrate on keeping his eyes open. The wider he held them, the heavier the lids got. By the time he had reached one of the hammocks, he slumped face down into it. The ropes creaked, and swung him gently. The ship itself hardly rocked down here. His legs ached from keeping him upright all night long, his calves and knees ached from constantly adjusting to lean against the shifting floor. He was asleep before he even realized it. The distant crashing of waves and feeling of sand beneath his body got an annoyed grunt from him. His dreaming self opened his eyes slowly. Instead of the usual starry night sky, three suns stood high in the sky. There wasn’t an ounce of shade in this section of the dreaming land it seemed.

“Right, who is it this time?” Wilkes asked the open expanse. The crashing of waves was the only response. No radiant being ran at him from the horizon. No looming mountains carried his uncaring father into his personal space. No sudden crashing wave brought his older sister. Time slipped by like that, no one visiting him. “Wait, is there no one?”

“No, just the two of us.” A voice came from behind him. The man with hair like clouds sat in a reclined sofa on the sea. A bit of reflective material focused the sun light back up towards his face. Shaped bits of deep purple glass blocked his eyes from being directly visible. In terms of clothing he only wore a loin cloth that was trimmed in gold. He had the kind of build you’d expect from someone who swimmed and trained for musculature alone. His very being radiated a calm, poised strength. “I figured it was time I at least chatted with you, son.”

“I don’t want to chat.” Wilkes said, turning back away from his father. Staring at the unending sea beyond this tiny island. He heard feet fall against the sand before his father sat some five feet away from him.

“You met one of your sisters and one of your brothers by now. Do you have any questions, about our larger family I mean?” Father asked, the silence that answered seemed to annoy him as a deep sigh left him. “You have to understand why I never came around, right? Your mother told you, or at least tried to.”

“She told me what you are. She told me you were a god. That I was likely a demigod. That I would’ve been a weapon, your weapon, if she hadn’t run with me.” Wilkes finally answered him. He scooted further away from the stranger that had laid with his mother. That’s all this being was. Not even a man he could properly sock in the jaw about it all. Just some freak of magic that he couldn’t even scratch if he tried his damndest. Deep down Wilkes knew that. It didn’t stop what he’d do though.

“I told her to run.” Father said. “I told her to take you, and hide from my church. They wouldn’t have let you be your own person. I knew how strong you were from conception. They would have broken you and molded you until there wasn’t a you. Until there was only The Tempest.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Wilkes snarled, he rose from the sand slowly. Fists balling before he even thought of being aggressive. The ball of wind he threw against his father’s head made a small impact. A sound like a knife scraping bone rang out, before his father prodded the wind ball with a finger.

“Hmm, hurling vortexes already. You’ve had magic for three months and already surpassed quite a few people. Nicely done son, however you have to know that this is a fruitless tantrum.” His father said, dispelling the swirling with a small poke. The change in air pressure made a soft pop in his ears. “Son, I don’t want to be too hard on you. I understand teenage rebellion has been a thing as long as teenagers, but I at least want to be cordial.”

“Oh fuck you!” Wilkes snapped, hurling three more wind balls. His father swatted them like flies into the sand. A snarl across the sailor’s face seemed to give the god pause. A contemplative hum came from the grand being.

“This is very far from constructive. Though I am sensing you have quite a bit of casting stamina. Tell me, are you at the point you’ve managed to do anything with your water or lightning potential yet?” His father tilted his head while stifling a yawn. “I could teach you, if you quit throwing wind balls.”

Wilkes hesitated. Another swirl of his native element hovering above his palm. He dismissed it before folding his arms. His father chortled at that, before smiling and tipping his glasses down. “See, I knew I could get through to you my boy.”

“Before I learn anything from you, I do have one question.” Wilkes said slowly. Taking a few steps until he was within arm’s length of his father. The god grinned down at him, Wilkes saw the one thing he had been hoping he was wrong about. Eyes the same stormy grey as his own stared back at him. He has his father’s eyes. Not his mother’s.

“Ask away son!” The god beamed at him, spreading his arms wide as the cloud-like puffs of his hair began to sway in an unseen wind. The gesture was probably supposed to either show his grandeur or inspire awe in whoever saw it. Neither result was present with Wilkes.

“You’ve realized I know I’m sleeping and can choose to wake up right?”

“Wait wha-” The god’s voice was cut off as he lurched up in the hammock. Groaning, Wilkes clutched at his head. A small trickle of blood ran from his nose before he wiped it on his hand. Seems that waking himself forcefully while bumping elbows with gods wasn’t exactly the best for his health. Distant voices mixed and shouted. It sounded like his ears were stuffed with cotton. He fell out of the hammock, and felt his last meal try to fight itself up. He forced it down, and shook himself off. Clambering up the stairs he found the source of the commotion. A heavy storm rained on the deck with a furry. The main sail had a gash torn through it and was restricting their movement something fierce. Lightning flashed in the distance. Water launched over the battoned deck, and threatened to knock him off his feet shortly.

“ALL HANDS! ALL HANDS! DORTAS, WAKE WILKES AND LEIF!” The captain roared, a mote of fire swirled inside a ball of wind “TODAY, WE FACE A KRAKEN!”

Wilkes shook his head, the captain was claiming they would face a kraken. That was absurd. There hadn’t been a Kraken sighting in thirty years. They were driven to extinction for the taste and size of their tentacles. Kraken calamari was said to have been such a delicacy that people actively killed each other for their share of the meat. His disbelief was immediate suspended as a massive tentacle was illuminated in a flash of lightning. The pointed end of a squid head breached the water, as a whirl of water began to sink into the sea. A horrifyingly deep rattling noise echoed across the waves. That must have been the Kraken’s screech.

“CAPTAIN! I’M UP, WHAT DO YOU NEED ME TO DO?!” Wilkes roared over the wind, struggling to walk across the deck to meet him at that mast.

“ADD TO MY WIND BALL, I CAN BLIND IT WITH A BIG ENOUGH EXPLOSION! HOPEFULLY THAT DISPELLS IT’S GRIP ON THE STORM!” Jonah explained as best he could, the mote of fire inside his ball of wind grew brighter. Wilkes bumbled through the incantation that he had only learned last night, forcing as much brute strength into casting as he could manage without losing balance. “NOW PUSH TOWARDS IT WITH A GUST!’

The ball of brilliant light launched like a cannon shot. It sailed out into the rain, far away from where they gathered. A lightning strike revealed that the Kraken had moved closer. The tiny glimmer of light that kept shining struck the soft fleshy head of the thing. The largest inferno Wilkes had ever seen bloomed. Nearly fifty feet wide, billows of smoke and steams curled off the impact. The kraken thrashed violently, giant tentacles causing massive waves to rock the sea even harder. Another deep rattling sound made Wilkes’s teeth chatter.

“I THINK WE PISSED IT OFF!”

“AYE!”

A deep dread grew in Wilkes’s chest as the head and tentacles vanished from sight. The only thing worse than a giant monster they needed the weather to cooperate to see, was a giant monster they couldn’t see at all. Rangpar rushed past, thick bolts of canvas in hand. He clambered up the rigging along the mast as he rushed to reach the torn sail. The ship rocked hard, and he dropped one of them as he clung desperately. He was nearly forty feet up now, falling at this height would leave him too injured to help in the emergency as it was. Wilkes moved without thinking. He slid along the deck and caught the bolt before it could roll off. Stomping against the deck hard he launched himself into the air with a burst of air. He grit his teeth as he made temporary foot holds that held him long enough to launch again. When he reached Rangpar, he kept climbing on the wind. The rip in the sail was nearly fifteen feet long. Each bolt only carried five feet. There were only two bolts immediately on hand.

“RANGPAR! I’M GONNA RUN FOR ANOTHER BOLT, STAY UP HERE!” Wilkes yelled over the wind. The orc glowed in the blue light of his tattoos, a thumbs up was the only response. Using a spare coil of rope, Rangpar fashioned a harness against the mast. Wilkes then did something very stupid. He jumped. The deck came hurtling up towards him, and he launched a blast of wind hard enough to keep anything from breaking. He never looked back as he ran. The captain was charging up another combustion ball from what he could hear. Some of the rain was turned into hissing steam in the distance. Wilkes ripped the door open and jumped down, past every single step. The bolts of canvas were kept separate from the usual materials, but Rangpar had left everything scattered about. Rummaging through it all he broke into a sweat. They had planned to have spare bolts of repair canvas. They had planned to have five of them. Twenty five feet of the stuff was more than enough. It had to be here. They quadruple checked. It was supposed to be within the crates of sell materials so they wouldn’t have to search far.

“It will be beneath the premade knots that Dortas made. Next to the spare drying salts.” Meryl said. Her voice was calm as she rested a hand on his shoulder. Wilkes brushed past her as gently as he could, ripping the storage door open. Coil after coil was hurled over his shoulder thunked on the floor behind him. Finally he found the spare bolts. He finally let out the breath he had been holding before launching back up the stairs. The storm was just as bad as before. Maybe even worse. The rain came at them sideways now. The wind howled with a fury that was entirely foreign to Wilkes. Thunder rumbled like the belly of a giant just out of sight. The flashes of light that burned his vision in the otherwise dark sea were the only outlining he had while running as best he could through the rain. More bounding Zephyr steps carried him back up to the sail. Rangpar had already begun repairing one part of the sail. Rangpar tossed him the empty bolt. Wilkes caught it between an elbow and a hip as he nearly slipped off the massive beam that stretched the lower half of the sail.

“TOO FAR FOR RANGPAR TO REACH! HARNESS NOT BUILT FOR WEIGHT!” The orc roared as he gripped the mast with one hand. “BE CAREFUL!”

Wilkes gulped, the wind tossed his hair as he stared at the next ten feet of repairs. One bolt in hand, one bolt with Rangpar. He tossed the empty one back to Rangpar, and took a shaky breath. Another deep rattling noise shook his whole body. A flash of lightning showed the kraken barely forty feet from the side of the deck. It was close. Close enough he could smell the brine of the depths rolling off of it. Rotting fish, stuck seaweed, all kinds of deep horrors clung to its hide. They were almost entirely out of time now. Wilkes started to unfrul the fabric before realizing he had nothing to stitch it on with. He flagged rangpar’s attention, and barely managed to catch the giant needle tossed his way. It bounced against his finger tips, before he knocked it back into the air and caught it properly. Another massive flash of light stung Wilkes’s eyes. The kraken let out that deep rattle again and flopped away from the ship, sent reeling by the blinding light. Captain Tellish had bought him some precious time. Working as fast as he could, Wilkes ran a simple stitch up the side of the sail. He prayed to every god except his father that he wouldn’t fall, drop the needle, or that the kraken wouldn’t swing a destructive tentacle at him. The ship rocked hard as a sudden wave pushed it hard to stern. Wilkes’s feet slipped from under him. For a terrifying moment he was in nothing but the air. A burst of wind picked him up enough to get his elbows across the beam he had stood upon. Thankfully all the repair materials remained in hand. Swinging a leg up, he finished with the first bolt. He tossed the empty holding into the sea, before waving for rangpar to toss the other one. With the kind of terrified steadiness the situation required, he managed to finish patching the sail. He launched his unrefined wind ball into the mast, pushing the ship along with a renewed vigor. He laughed in relief as they rushed towards where he could see the daylight shooting through the clouds. Rangpar thumped his chest, and the lads cheered below.

Suddenly a deep cracking sound came from below. He knew that sound. His mind rushed back to when Beatrice had hunted him. It was wood snapping. The mast suddenly tipped forward, Wilkes barely had time to look at Rangpar before the deck slammed into his chest. His body bounced upwards amidst the shower of splinters. He covered his eyes and head with his arms. The weightless feeling of being thrown into the air greeted him again. The mast had been knocked down. Another deep rattling sound carried through the air. Rangpar groaned, his body trapped beneath the beam they had just been standing on, he was barely twitching. The kraken loomed over the ship, a tentacle beginning to wrap the deck. He heard the Dortas screaming for him distantly. The gnomish lad was pinned beneath a chunk of the mast. Blood was pooling on the deck. He thrashed violently, tears streaming down his face. The pit of anger in his stomach boiled. His teeth grit against themselves so hard he thought they’d crack.

A giant eye stared down at him. Lightning tore through the sky distantly. The wind howled. The waves crashed against the deck. Salty water pooled at his feet. Fury burned hotter and hotter inside him. He raised both hands high, the clouds above began to brush against each other faster and faster. They spun past one another, forming a cyclone. Water began to rise from the sea slowly but surely. A waterspout formed, and the kraken began to be swirled up into it. The giant beast lashed its tentacles wildly. The horrendous size of it was fully on display, nearly three hundred feet from end to end. The beast screeched again, and Wilkes roared back. He ended whatever phenomena he was causing, slamming his palms onto the deck. The water spout vanished, and its body was sent plummeting back to the water’s surface nearly ten miles from where the ship bobbed helplessly. Wilkes collapsed to the deck, rasping coughs launching blood from his mouth onto the deck. It was then he noticed the chunk lodged into his right side, nearly two inches thick. The weather began to clear as his vision blurred and dulled. Slamming a fist into the deck he fought away unconsciousness. Clambering to his feet, he shuffled towards Dortas. The soaked deck took his feet out from under him, and he crawled the rest of the distance. The gnomish boy was whimpering, struggling to push the debris off of himself.

“I… gotcha Dortas.” Wilkes offered weakly, giving him the extra bit of strength needed to keep the wood off the lads legs. Once he slipped free the nasty gash on his calf made itself known as the source of his pool of blood. Wilkes’s fingers grazed the wound, and water began to rush up from the deck towards it. Slowly, the ends of the gash rushed to meet each other. Dortas stared at him wide eyed, just in time for him to faint in the growing pool of blood. He heard Dortas screaming for anyone else before silence engulfed him.