Surviving On the Beach (Daske & Alister)

by **Daske Baggywrinkle** on March 23rd, 2012, 2:27 am

The limping creature let out a blood-curdling shriek and turned on the new threat, blood spurting impressively from the side of its neck. Daske looked around for his sword, but the creature who had taken it had become thoroughly attached to it … literally. Since it wasn't moving Daske decided to go with the theory that it was dead. His hunting knife was the only weapon he had left, so he pulled it out and forced himself to his feet. He staggered toward the remaining beast, which now had its back to him, fell on his knees and slashed as hard as he could at the lower part of its good leg. Tendons gave way and the beast fell to its knees face to face with the man who had fallen off its back and was also on his knees. From a distance it probably looked as though the three of them were praying together, except for all the blood. The beast was now unable to walk at all. Nonetheless, it managed to swing around and hit Daske solidly in the jaw, which sent him sprawling and again knocked the wind out of him. This time Daske saw stars. For several long moments he fought to remain conscious. Then he thought, Aw, the hell with it, and passed out.

by **Alister Whitecrest** on March 23rd, 2012, 8:11 pm

Alister regained a little hope when the other man pulled a hunting knife out and cut up the creature's other leg. Then he lost it again as the thing turned around and hit the man, throwing him a few feet away. Then the thing turned back to Alister. Alister desperately tried to raise his sword, but his arm wasn't having any of it. Praying that he would have more control this time--or that his loss of control would be just as effective--he summoned up more Res and flailed his arm in a vaguely horizontal gesture, turning the Res into air and slamming it into the side of the thing's face. The cut he had already made made his entire upper shoulder and neck area into a strange flap that was blow over it's shoulder, in a fashion that would seem ridiculous if it weren't for all the blood spurting out of the torso and now-hanging-by-a-thread-of-flesh head. After a moment of flailing around, the thing fell into the sand and stopped moving. Alister followed suit, slipping into comfortable unconsciousness.

by **Daske Baggywrinkle** on March 24th, 2012, 2:25 am

Again the sound of waves breaking on the beach welcomed Daske back to the land of the living, accompanied by the shrieks and squawks of seagulls. He was lying on his side and when he finally decided to open his eyes he found himself face-to-face with a crab. “Ahhgg!” he yelled and sat up. This proved to be a bad idea. The beach, the trees and the water spun wildly around him and his head hurt so much he thought it was going to explode. He promptly fell over on to his side again. The crab seemed to find the sudden movements threatening and was beating a hasty retreat toward the water. After a while Daske noticed that his left arm was hurting. He sat up again, albeit more slowly this time. His entire left arm was a mass of ripped flesh, dried blood and sand. Now that it had his full attention, it decided to express the full extent of the pain it was feeling. “Oh, gods!” moaned Daske. It felt like it was on fire, and he could see bone here and there through the shredded skin and muscle.

He gritted his teeth, heaved himself on to his hands and knees, and stood up. The beach was still swinging lazily this way and that, but he managed to stay on his feet. Two seagulls were picking at the creature that had impaled itself on his sword. It was definitely dead. He turned to look at the other creature. It was definitely dead as well. It was a bloody mess and its head had very nearly been ripped off. Daske was impressed. The perpetrator of this near-beheading lay beside it, unconscious.

Daske staggered over to his new-found companion to see if he was dead too. He collapsed beside the man and stared at him for a few moments. He eventually convinced himself that the poor fellow was still breathing. Daske spotted his waterskin lying in the sand a short distance away. He crawled over to it and took a long drink of water. Then he dragged himself and his waterskin back to the beheader and the beheadee. It was at this point that Daske made what would turn out to be one of the great understatements of his life: “So far, the day isn't going very well.”

by **Alister Whitecrest** on March 24th, 2012, 7:12 pm

Alister woke again, covered in blood, just in time to hear "So far, the day isn't going very well." It took him a moment to remember what had happened between falling asleep in the wreckage and now, but when he did, he started weakly laughing. Even that hurt his chest, but he couldn't help himself. It was such an understatement. He managed to pull himself into a sitting position, still laughing. The other man was only a little ways away, carrying a waterskin. When Alister had stopped laughing, he held out a hand to the other man. "I'm glad I ran into someone else here. I thought I was marooned alone on an island. I'm Alister Whitecrest," he said weakly. "Where is this, anyway? Are we on the mainland, or just an island that happens to have two people stranded on it? And come to think of it, how did you get here? I know I got here because I was stupid enough to try and ride that storm a few days ago..."

by **Daske Baggywrinkle** on March 25th, 2012, 12:18 am

“Daske.” He said sourly, shoving the waterskin into Alister's extended hand. He pushed himself to his feet with a sharp expletive in Pavi, and staggered toward the creature who had so fortuitously impaled itself on his longsword. His left arm was hanging loosely at his side. The bleeding had reduced itself to oozing and dripping, and the world had stopped swinging wildly back and forth, but his head still hurt like hell and he was still pretty dizzy. He wondered how much blood he had lost.

It seemed to take an inordinately long time to reach the body of the dead creature, which was all of twenty feet away. The seagulls hopped out of his way and watched with interest while he rolled the creature over, which turned out to be surprisingly difficult. It was heavier than it looked. He placed a foot on the creature's chest, took hold of the sword's hilt, and pulled it out with a squishing sound. He stood looking down at the creature. “Damn you're ugly.” Then he made the long trek back to Alister and the headless Ugly keeping him company. He was exhausted by the time he got there and, not wanting to take the time and effort to sit down, fell on his butt with a grunt.

Daske took back his waterskin and took another long drink. Then he took stock of his fellow castaway. Long dirty-blond hair. Striking blue eyes. Scraggly goatee. Tall. Well-muscled. Surname “Whitecrest”. That pretty much established his race. He appeared to have come out of the skirmish in better shape than Daske, although not by much. His blood-soaked shirt was in shreds and deep gashes criss-crossed his chest. He had a beautiful purple bruise forming across most of the right side of his face. His eyes had a vaguely wild look and his hair seemed to have a life of its own, like wiggling worms. Daske decided to attribute that latter to his own still-confused vision.

“You're Svefra.” He stated matter-of-factly. He looked at the headless Ugly and grimaced. “What are those things? Are there any more where they came from? 'Cuz if there are, we could find ourselves in a bit of trouble.” He looked toward the remains of Alister's boat and then back at Alister. “Nice job blowing up that monster, by the way. Bet he didn't see that comin'.” He produced another grimace that might have been an attempt at a smile.

by **Alister Whitecrest** on March 25th, 2012, 1:23 am

Alister looked over at the now-seagull covered patch of sand littered with partially eaten hunks of monster flesh where he killed the first one. After a moment, he responded, "Yeah, neither did I. I meant to just push him back, but I'm still shaky with Reimancy after the storm. I really overgave trying to survive when I went overboard, so I guess it wasn't much of a surprise that I couldn't really control it. I was just surprised I could use Reimancy. Until just now it wasn't working." Alister stared off into space then remembered the rest of what the other man had said. "Oh, yeah, I'm Svefra." He looked at Daske. "You look like you are too, and I can't imagine who else would be stranded out on an island after the storm Laviku warned us of. What pod are you?"

After the other Svefra responded, Alister stood up shakily and limped over to the monster he tore the head off. "I've got no idea what these things are, but my real question is--are they edible? I don't know about you but I haven't eaten anything but biscuits for however many days I've been here since the storm. I kind of need some food if I want to heal from this battle, the overgiving, the first near drowning, the second near drowning, ect..., so..." he trailed off. These monsters looked too disturbingly human to eat under normal circumstances, but these were hardly normal.

by **Daske Baggywrinkle** on March 25th, 2012, 7:47 pm

"Water … that'll be the first thing,” Daske said as he scanned the steep twenty-foot embankment that encircled the landward side of the beach. Medium sized conifers came right up to the edge and looked down on the beach below. Here and there Daske could see their exposed roots, indicating that the beach was slowly expanding its foothold, forcing the forest to retreat before the constant onslaught of wind and water.

“Then food, shelter, and I guess defense.” Daske ticked off the essentials they would need to survive. “The Black Lady is about half a mile that way.” He pointed to the trees southeast of them. “About twice that if we follow the beach around.” He paused to scratch at a flap of skin on his left arm. “She came through the storm in pretty good shape. Better shelter than the hull of your boat. Easier to defend, too. And I have a little food left. I'm not desperate enough to start eatin' the Uglies yet.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Come along if you like,” he said as he headed off toward the trees.

He found a place where he thought he could climb up the embankment one-armed. As he was about to begin the climb, he noticed a damp spot in the sand a few feet to his right. He stepped over to it, bent down and pushed his finger into the sand. Then he put his finger to his mouth and tasted it. “Brackish but fresh,” he said out loud to no one in particular. “Must be an underground stream here somewhere.” He dug a shallow hole in the sand and was pleased to see the water pool a bit. He studied the side of the cliff. The dampness started about two feet above the sand. “Underground seepage,” he declared. Then he climbed up the embankment and disappeared into the trees.

OOC :

by **Alister Whitecrest** on March 26th, 2012, 2:42 am

Alister was slightly annoyed that Daske was completely ignoring his questions, but decided it was his business what he said and what he didn't. He had to admit, he was relieved when Daske said he wasn't eating the monsters. Alister wouldn't have wanted to, but this guy apparently had more experience than he did. Might as well listen to him--Alister didn't have any idea where to begin anyway. When the other Svefra headed back to his ship, ambivalently inviting Alister along, Alister shakily stumbled off after him. Shelter would be nice. Then out of nowhere, the guy went digging in the sand. After a moment, Alister understood why. Apparently he had found water. He didn't understand it, then when Daske just kept on going up the embankment. Alister shrugged to himself. This man did seem to know this stuff better than Alister, so he'd just have to trust him. "How would you go about learning this stuff, anyway?" Alister pondered half to himself. "I mean, do you get lost on an island often? It seems kind of situational, doesn't it?" He didn't really expect any answer, not after his other questions were blown off, but still. Alister just followed Daske. After a while, his arms grew heavy again, and his legs grew weak. He was, after all, still recovering from serious overgiving. Half a mile was a surprisingly long way in his state. "Hey, could you wait up a minute? I did mention I was nearly drowned twice recently, right? Plus the overgiving. And the fight. I could use a break for a moment. And," he said, pulling out another biscut, "some food."

by **Daske Baggywrinkle** on March 27th, 2012, 2:34 am

Daske was becoming irritated with Alister's incessant rambling. And his arm was hurting a lot. But looking back he could see that the man really was having a hard time of it. So he sat down on a

moss-covered log and waited for him to catch up. He pulled out his bag of venison jerky and held a piece out. “Trade you some jerky for a biscuit.” They sat on the log together and ate biscuits and jerky.

“I don't have a pod,” said Daske suddenly. “I grew up on the plains of Cyphrus. Been sailin' less than a year. Almost got adopted by the Baggywrinkles, but all that Svefra family loyalty stuff kinda scared me off I think. I'm kinda hopin' I run into them again. I sorta owe their Lia an apology.”

He looked uncomfortable, as though he had revealed more of himself than he intended. He changed the subject. “I don't know much about reimancy. I guess it took a lot out of you to use it back there on the beach? Is that why you're so tired? Are you goin' to be alright?”

OOC :

by **Alister Whitecrest** on March 27th, 2012, 4:02 am

Daske seemed a little irritated with him, but stopped anyway when Alister walked, sitting on a mossy log. When he caught up, he sat on another, nearby fallen log. The other Svefra even offered some jerky, in a trade, of course. Alister handed over a biscuit for some of the jerky. He couldn't tell what meat it was, but he really didn't have any experience with that either. Whatever it was, it tasted good. They sat in silence for a moment, each chewing on their respective dishes and their thoughts. Then, suddenly, Daske revealed something of himself. Alister felt a little sorry for him. Alister already felt a little adrift and lonely, and he still was part of his pod. Alister sailed alone, but he at least could use the birds to talk to his mother and father and childhood friends, and could, on occasion, go back to them. Somewhere in this sea, they were sailing still. At least, they were if they had survived the storm, a thought that made his stomach lurch with worry. But what about Daske? He didn't have a pod...in Svefra society, Alister couldn't really imagine it. At least he was thinking about the Baggywrinkle pod. Alister had never met them before, but at least they were a pod.

For a little more time they were quite, and Daske looked a bit uncomfortable. Then he asked about the Reimancy. This was something Alister was quite proud of. "My father taught me it. And his father taught him it, and his father, and his father, and so on. They say it started before recorded memory. But it wasn't really that I used it too much there, I just don't have much control over it right now. That's because I used way too much of it to live through the storm. I had to use it to create a bubble of air around me and then take shelter underwater And frankly, I'm not good enough at it to do that for as long as I did. It's like I was forced to carry a large boulder around for a while and my shoulders gave out. I just can't use that function right now, and when I do, I get exhausted much faster. It will last until I heal from the overgiving, which could take a long time, I guess. I guess the analogy breaks off when you take into account the possible insanity, the inexplicable wounds breaking open across your skin, the part about just dropping dead from exertion...it's pretty risky, according to my pa. And I guess this just proved it."