The Island With No Parallel

Lurking in the Depths

The journey to the Island With No Parallel was deceivingly quiet for the first week. It wasn't until the beginning of the second that it really started to feel like they were approaching the mouth of hell itself. From that point on the attacks became increasingly relentless. By the eleventh day, it became obvious to Yunara that the Dark Ones' strategy was not simply to attack them to their destruction, but to drive them exhaustion.

She awoke to the sudden lurching of the ship, shooting straight up in the darkness of her quarters.

Kailu rushed into the room, a candle in her hand illuminating the angled features of her face. The urgency on her face cleared the remaining grogginess from Yunara's mind, because she already knew what it meant.

"It's another attack. They need us on the deck."

Yunara nodded, throwing off her covers and wiping at her eyes, touching at the bags that were forming under them from this constant state of being under attack. It seemed that every few hours there was a new one. She hadn't had one full night of sleep since they started.

But none of that could matter now.

She and Kailu raced up to the deck and into the midst of chaos. The ship lurched harshly, nearly knocking the two off their feet. It was no longer moving, Yunara could tell by the difference in the ship's movement. Luca and Youssef's crew were scrambling to work the cannons, firing the metal balls at something at the water. As they fired, the balls' trajectory curved in the air, finding their target in the water with precision.

The two crews seemed to blend into one as the days went by. They were given seeing powder and told what the true objective of their passengers were. Luca was a little concerned when they told them about their going to the Island that they would be unwilling to go. But his doubts were proven unfounded as the crew had no problem with their mission once they realized that they were going against the same group that convinced Marcello and his goons to betray his fellow shipmates, and the most probable explanation for why they found their remains in the ship's brig. After that they volunteered to help with gusto. Yunara was particularly disturbed to learn that Marcello and the others had somehow been killed without a trace of their killers, but by the way their bodies looked mauled, it was clearly the work of a Dark One. She never thought about what happened when deals with the Dark Ones went wrong. It wasn't pretty.

Now that the crew was aware of the Uneeables, they were able to help with the attacks more efficiently, like giving them cannonballs that could direct themselves to their targets.

But the Unseeables' powers were limited, and they couldn't perform miracles. They needed the help of every member on that ship if they were going to make it to the Island in one piece. Or on time.

Luca noticed the two girls standing there and rushed up to them. "Good, you're up. We could use your water abilities again."

"What is it this time?" Yunara asked, wiping again at her puffy eyes in hopes to keep them from closing.

As if in response, the boat lurched again, this time sending Yunara sprawling, Luca catching her just in time before she landed on her face.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

She nodded, though part of her didn't feel completely honest giving that answer.

"It's another sea creature. This one's bigger than any we've faced so far. The cannons–" another jerk of the ship cut him off, a deep groaning sound filling the air. "...do almost nothing to it. We need you to go out and see what you can do. Meanwhile me and Manuel have to handle those."

He pointed in the air to direct Yunara's attention to something that with all the panic going on around her she didn't notice before. Flying around the sails of the ship were Dark Ones that looked like vultures with humanoid bodies. The full moon illuminated black wings took the place of arms tearing at the sails in an attempt to rip them to shreds. But they were being held off by crewmen throwing whatever they could to send them sprawling to the ground–knives, barrels, bullets, whatever they could find that could knock them out of the air. Manuel waited for them on the upper deck with his flaming blade in his hand, any that were unfortunate enough to fall within his arm length being skewered, going up in flames with a single swipe. Shi'ran and Youssef fought by his side, Shi'ran wielding a sword and fighting as best he could, attacking the Dark Ones in a slightly panicky way, but still got the job done. Youssef was much more direct with his blade, cutting down the Dark Ones with precision.