Fuel for the Fire

Fuel For the Fire, by JamesGinger and Redfiredog6

Prolouge

-

Strider glared into the wind. It was a strong one, and it was in the right direction, but it also came with a warning.  He spared a quick glance at the receding safety of the shore of Britay. Perhaps it would have been more prudent to wait, but after these past two years on the sea, he liked to think he'd seen worse than this coming storm. Hopefully, he  and his skiff could ride the momentum and get to his destination all the sooner. 

He turned away from the wind, and peered ahead, to the north. On the far distant horizon to his right was the northern reaches of Ankoria, that cursed land, where nothing good grew.

But he wasn't going there. He was heading to the far north. Nordland, where he hoped to gain allies in the powerful warriors of North Island. Legend had it that when thedude first invaded the frozen north, they had been able to hold their own against his forces, and eventually routed him. However, in the past year, they had finally succumbed to the overwhelmingly increased  forces of thedude, and their stronghold of North Island was now thedude's northernmost outpost. 

Stirling wondered if their eventual downfall had something to do with hope. Perhaps, after seeing nearly every other nation fall, did the Nordeners not see any reason to hold out? 

He wanted to rekindle that hope.

Tacking the sails yet again, he peered worriedly up at the changing sky. 

Speaking of hope, he had to keep his own up. This storm was promising to be quite a rodeo.

---------

Chapter 1: Why you don't Argue with Enchanters

Kalaren was having quite a busy day. No, there were no attacks. He was busy with errands. From delivering laundry to stomping on wolf spiders, sharpening weapons, making some, and then delivering them to the armory! Tossing a salad for a delectable lunch! Still, Kalaren did prefer this to warfare, as boring as chores may be. Currently, He was feeding the goats, deep in thought. The past seven and a half years had mostly been uneventful. He was now a full-fledged soldier in the rebellion, as he was twenty three by now. 

So deep in thought was he, that the goats were now helping themselves to the hardy hay as he stared into the wind.

Kalaren was brought back to reality by one of the goats bleating. He shook his head before picking up the sack of grain and pouring it’s contents into the goats feed troughs.

He was soon finished and was wondering what to do.

‘I’ll check on Jellyfish and Methuselah, the enchanter to see if they’ve found a way to power our paradox gear.’ Kalaren did so, and started making his way to the magician’s bunker. 

Along the way, he ran along a group of kids playing kickball in the street with a patched up ball Jellyfish had put together for them. He stopped to watch.  

There was Jonny and Blake. They made one team.

Then there was Joshua and Rita. To the side, reading a small battered scroll was… hmm. Kal had to think for a minute. Ah yes, Rosa. She was the quiet one. 

Kalarens thoughts were again interrupted as his face met the kickball. 

Staggering backward, he wondered why his reflexes hadn’t saved him. However, it appeared that the last few years had traded some of those reflexes for pain tolerance. Shaking it off, he chuckled and kicked the ball back to the offenders, waving away their apologies.

The rest of the walk was entirely uneventful as he walked through the rest of Aragarth. 

Several minutes later, he arrived at the enchanter’s quarters. Until recently, it had only been a bunker. It was originally a cellar of some building, long reduced to rubble, though at the passing of Grimoir, the previous enchanter, his replacement, Methuselah, saw to the repair and fortification of the original building. The result was quite desirable for such a resistance. He approached the house’s door and knocked, waiting for Methuselah to answer. He soon heard a voice.

“Who goes there?”

Kalaren had forgotten about how Methuselah was a little too overzealous about protecting this bunker.

“Kalaren.”

“Very well. Do  you remember the password?”

Kalaren sighed. "Drowssap.”

“Very good! Now you put in the key code.”

Kalaren switched the numbers on the tumbler lock they had broken off a briefcase they found previously to the code. The lock didn’t even work, but who’s to argue with an enchanter?

“There, I put it in, could you let me in now?”

“Yes, of course! As soon as I open these other locks.”

Kalaren waited two minutes before he was finished. The door opened to show Methuselah. He had brown hair and a  thick chinstrap beard, along with his piercing grey eyes. He was dressed in a brown tunic, black pants and a navy robe. He had a rank 3 sorcerer's staff, Chosen because he thought he could utilize the maelstrom energy stored inside. Kalaren tried to separate himself from the paradox equipment as much as he could, as maelstrom energy was the same thing that had almost smashed his father. 

‘Vladek beat it to the final blow though,’  he thought, before his thoughts were cut short yet again by Methuselah.

“Kalaren! You should see what Jellyfish and I fixed up!”

“Great! Sure, I will!” 

Methuselah smiled. “Perfect! This will revolutionize our technology!”

Kalaren followed Methuselah through the bunker, observing the layout.

In this large sort of greeting hall, there was a Wormholer and two shinobi swords near the door, and a wooden bridge that was over a pit that contained sharpened stakes at the bottom. At the other side of the bridge, was a mechanism to wind up the bridge. Not only would the tilted up bridge block the entrance to the stairwell behind it(leading further into the bunker,) but it also formed a barrier against projectiles.

He started descending the staircase, noting the portraits on the walls. He knew there was various weapons and triggers to various traps behind them. Other than the portraits, there was a continuing bookcase containing most of the literature of Aragarth, and some weapons and switches hidden among the books, even a secret passage, he knew, that led into the forest surrounding the city!

It was like a typical wizard's tower, but in reverse. And more booby-trapped.

They passed many rooms, with simple traps devised to use little or no electricity, as you could hardly find a power source other than magical energy, which was largely corrupted. Halfway down, they passed through a small  room that Dr. Jellyfish had shown off before, which did utilize some energy. Mostly hot-wired by Jellyfish, there was an airlock that, when activated by one of the hidden switches could shut the doors and the four vents on the roof would release acidic, noxious fumes. 

They quickly passed through that room. 

Kalaren also noticed Methuselah appeared to be distracted, occasionally stopping mid-stride and muttering, before continuing on as if nothing had happened. Kalaren knew that Methuselah was actually multitasking. He had to in order to keep the spell going which kept everyone in the ruined city of Aragarth from being corrupted, though, even with his distracted demeanor, he was also clearly very excited about what he was going to show Kalaren.

They reached the bottom floor as Jellyfish watched several rodents running in hamster wheels trying to get the scraps of food hanging outside of the wheel. Currently Jellyfish was bringing them the small pieces of food and many of them stopped running to eat. Next to him was two wormholers, it looked like one of them was empty of ammo, and the other was bursting with energy. Jellyfish turned towards them and it was quite apparent he was especially excited.

“Methuselah! You brought Kalaren!! WONDERFUL!!! You’re just in time! I’ve finished going over the results from these two wormholers, and I’ve found the common denominator quotients that should correlate across all known Paradox Tech!”

“Eureka!” Exclaimed Methuselah. Kalaren was, as you would imagine, very confused.

“What?”

“Come see!” he cried, waving Kalaren over to the two Wormholers, having completely tossed all of the lunch-scraps to the rodents. Kalaren nodded and came to the table where the wormholers were located.

“Take a look. These two Wormholers were at varying charges , but roughly like 30% and 45% or something. Normally, we’d save these, use them in some fight, and once they were drained, they’d be utterly useless.” he gave a mocking frowny face. “Maybe broken down for parts. BUT! With the power of our combined genius, I and Methuselah have found a way to extract the Maelstrom from any Paradox tech, and inject it directly into another, revitalizing the energy pool, and extending the life beyond the total sum of the original two sums!”

Kalaren’s expression went sour.

“Lovely, we’ll use these things more often.” Kalaren said as he gestured to the weapons. “And what does these animals have to do with it?” Kalaren pointed at the rodents on the hamster wheels.

“Oh, those are unrelated! They are just creating a little more energy. They may be eating more food than they are producing energy, However.” Methuselah exclaimed with a frown.

Jellyfish shared his frown as he mused. “What we really need are electric eels.” 

Kalaren cocked his head slightly to the side. “Electric eels….?”

“Oh yes! When I was sane, and worked in a prestigious laboratory off-world with the Nexus Force, we had electric eels. They were fun to pet.”

Kalaren raised both his eyebrows.

“Oh, and they also powered the laboratory they were located in. Sadly, not mine, but that’s ok,” the scientist continued. “Mine ran on cold fusion.”

“Oh! Then we can power the entire city! We could overload Vladek’s Fort! We cou-” Methuselah was interrupted by Jellyfish.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have the components for either electric eels tanks or Cold Fusion reactors. Come to think of it, I don’t remember what we’d need for a cold fusion reactor.” He waved a hand to the hamster wheels. “Thus, one I do remember, kinetic energy.”

“I see.” Kalaren said. 

“BUT!” He swung his other arm around, nearly whacking Kalaren in the face, but Kalaren grabbed his arm with his robotic arm, and froze, stopping both.

“Oh, sorry Kalaren.”

“It’s ok, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“Why?”

“It seems there is another technological outage. I can’t move my arm.”

“...Oh.”

They all stood there, awkwardly contemplating this development, which became even more clear as all of the technology around them began shutting off.

“It’s a good thing we can’t afford enough energy to get an electronic lock for the door.” Kalaren pointed out, much to Methuselah’s annoyance.

“But what if paradox rogues were out there? We have tunnels to escape, we don’t need the door to open!”

‘That’s why you don’t argue with wizards,” Kalaren thought. 

They all decided to try and make their way up the stairs, and tell everyone the news of how they could double the life of a maelstrom-powered weapon. Going up the stairs was very difficult as Kalaren’s and Jellyfish’s arms were stuck together. Meanwhile Methuselah stated how it might be nice to get an elevator for the several levels.

Chapter 2: Shipwrecked

The waves threw themselves on board Stirling’s skiff, but he hardly felt them anymore. He was numb to the bone, drenched entirely through, and had absolutely no control of his ship’s course, which, as far as he could tell, was drifting towards Ankoria’s shores. 

In layman terms, he was screwed. However, with himself being the only man aboard, he couldn’t call it quits, no matter how wet and cold he was. So, he was not too unprepared when a tall, rocky, cliff-shore loomed out of the sheet of rain and lightning, threatening to crush him and his ship to smithereens. Fighting both tide and wind, he was able to veer away from a full collision…

But on the harsh sea, even the slightest error was often costly. 

As he turned away from the looming cliffside, he heard the sickening squeal of merciless rock against his wooden hull, and knew that he now had mere minutes before his ship sank. He grabbed the essential supplies in the boat, grabbed the bag Peragrine, his old friend had given him, and the life preserver, (for all the good it would do,) and keeping them close, drove his boat with reckless abandon right along the coast, searching for a cove or beach where he would not have to climb far to find stable shelter. He didn’t find one in time.

“Perry could have done it,” was his last thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He woke up with an incredibly dry, raspy throat.

He was lying on his back on some form of sand, he tried to open his eyes, but the sand and sea salt made them sting. He tried to wipe them with his tunic, but that just made it worse, as his clothes were in the same condition.

He decided to bear the pain to take a look around.

It appeared he had washed up in a cave. There was a light up above, and it informed him that outside it had to be daytime.

As he sat up, he gritted his salty teeth as his body cried out as expected. 

“Too bad,” he thought. “It looks like I’m not going to get to rest for awhile now.”

Looking around the cave for an exit, he realized there was apparently none, except for an exit under the clear water, where more light was spilling from.

Did he miraculously go under the water, with his life preserver on, just to bob back up here, safe from the wind and the storm?  

Stirling rubbed his aching head.  This was not a priority to figure out right now. He had to get some water, and after that, it would be beneficial to look for any supplies, and find out where in the world he was.

Checking his person, he was relieved to find his canteen, his katana, (Oh man, that was going to take forever to clean, even with his more waterproof scabbard,) all of his armor, (again, going to need to be cleaned, and soon,) a compass in one of his pockets, the rope that he’d slung over himself, and...That was it, unfortunately. He sighed as he realized that included the pack Perry had gifted him, as well as his samurai rank 3 bow. As well as...

"Crux, Thingguy is going to kill me."

A rejiggered Nexus Force communicator that Thingguy had given him for safekeeping. It was probably at the bottom of the ocean now, beyond reach. Beyond repair. And with it, their only connection to the Nexus Force Armada, just waiting for the signal...

Stirling shook himself, before he could start kicking himself. If he was going to be alive for Thingguy to berate him, he first had to survive and figure out where he was.

Having satiated his thirst with his canteen and taken inventory, he once again looked around to see about getting out. And once again, he only saw the small opening far above him, too small to climb up and out of, and the opening below the water line.

After a moment’s contemplation, he left the life preserver behind, and since he was still quite soaked, he dove into the water and swam out the other side, being sure to keep a tight hold on the rock formation, as the tide was strong on the other side. ‘The tide!’ He thought.  ‘That must've been what got me in there. It must have been low tide during the storm, and by the time I woke up, it’s turned around to high.’  Breaking the surface of the water, he wiped his stinging, burning, salty eyes and looked out. To his right, was sheer rocky shore, with no clear ways up. However, to his left was a sight for sore eyes. A short break in the impassable cliff line revealed a gray-black pebbly beach. 

And did his eyes deceive him, or was there wreckage washed up over there?

Alternatively Swimming and grappling along the rocky formations, weighed down as he was, in his Samurai armor, he made his way to the not-so-distant shore.

A few minutes later, he reached solid ground, and refrained from kissing the ground stereotypically in favor of searching the debris for useful remains of his ship.

There was plenty of driftwood and flotsam, and there was an ill smell of rot on the beach combating the salty air from the sea. Most of the driftwood was far too old to be from his ship, which told him he had not been the first to wreck his ship along Ankoria. Perhaps the curse extended farther out into the sea…?

‘No,’ he thought. ‘I only have myself to blame for wrecking here.’ He had misread the weather, and was paying the price now. He'd challenged mother nature, and she'd humbled him. Now he had no choice but to continue to challenge her, stuck in the wilderness, somewhere.

There were various tools and even some small treasures scattered amongst the old remains of ships long sunk, but most of it was ruined beyond worth by it’s countless time spent in the elements. A spyglass with no glass. A gem splintered into shards. A half  of a map that crumbled to flakes as he picked it up. A grimy dubloon. 

But the greatest treasure of all was…

“Of course. I should have known.”

Perry’s Pack.

Relief washed over Stirling.

Somehow, the backpack had become snagged on a large piece of wood with a protruding nail, and now here it was, washed up on the shore, the waves lapping at the board, like a hand shoving it up onto the beach.

“Perry must have rubbed some of his luck off onto it,” Stirling chuckled to himself, as he released it from the nail with ease and looked inside. On the very top was a towel, with the words ‘DON’T PANIC’ embroidered on it.

Rolling his eyes, he took the sopping wet towel out, and inspected the rest of the gear.

Beyond all comprehension, the large majority of the tech, equipment, and provisions, and most importantly, his rewired Nexus Force communicator, were none the worse for wear, having been protected by the towel on top, and, as Stirling found out, another towel on the bottom of the pack, which had ‘42’ embroidered on it.  He shook his head.

“Wow. Perry, sometimes I think you’re a secret genius.”

After making a last cursory search of the beach, Stirling stepped off, feeling much better about his chances in the Cursed land of Ankoria.

~~~~~~~