A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 39: Weather the Storm For Sunshine

It was strangely more peaceful than I would've thought, being in the center of a storm. Everything around us was flying around, fish that had failed to get down fast enough being tossed around in waves that threatened to flood the deck.

     The sky above us was light gray, and the further out it was, there were darker and darker clouds stretching on for miles and miles. The sea we were in right now was almost perfectly calm, normal for an ocean. The outside was disturbing, something you would never want to sail through no matter what.

     Would it ever end?

     I put stoppers on the mana ropes so they wouldn't dissipate once I stopped paying attention to them. Then, I imagined a palette of ice and wove the golden ends through it so that they wouldn't slip out and come undone. It was about as big as a modern TV, on the floor and secured by even more mana ropes leading elsewhere. There was no chance of that being pried up or ripped out by even a fierce storm like this.

     Everything and everyone I had attached or wrapped with the golden rope was secured in place. The people around me were resting and trying not to slip, a lot of them shaking as they went about making more preparations before we reached the other side of the eye and were forced back into the storm again.

     I finally had a moment to rest, bent over on my hands and knees as I clutched at my heart. My hair was sticking everywhere, in my face and eyes. I irritatedly pulled it back with shaking hands, waiting for the pain to stop so I could properly breathe again.

     My feet, scratched and bleeding from trying to stand on the rough wood with splinters in it, couldn't hold me up anymore. My white shirt was see-through, even though there wasn't much to see at all, pants high on my legs and low on my waist since they had been jerked around so much.

     As soon as I thought everything was fine, I started helping again.

     "[Mass Healing]...[Ability Boost]," I chanted slowly, focusing the parameters so that I wouldn't include anything unnecessary. It was like there was a leak in the MP counter, I was losing so much so fast and it wasn't recovering at all. That was scary for me.

      The people started glowing a different color, white, as they accepted this help from an unknown source. There was a little girl collapsed against the railing of the ship, but she was so deathly pale even with her dark skin tone that she seemed dead. She did not move and looked to be barely breathing.

     The colors radiated from that little one as she skillfully weaved her magic like a court magician, using large amounts of mana so that none was wasted.

     The crewmen breathed easier as they checked on their downed comrades, no longer limping or clutching broken bones since they were already fine. They were surprised to see their comrades falling from the sky after disappearing from the sea, but understood that they were dragged out after being pulled back from the violent crests themselves, having almost fallen in.

     They had braved a storm like none before in the northern waters of Zueltina, Severo. Storms like these only came once every few dozen years, so they were completely unprepared and hadn't been through such a thing before. A lot of the crew was made of youngsters that had only been sailing for a few years, only knowing the tip of the nautical skills they would learn in their lifetimes at sea.

     So a lot of them had not a clue as to what to do and got thrown overboard.

     It was only a miracle that everyone was still safe, even though round two was coming to give a nice uppercut front and center in only a few minutes.

     The light that was around the people was dimming. The nets and ropes were starting to gain a stronger glow while the people themselves looked down to Earth again, not glowing like Fae.