[Harriet/Rhys] - Typhoon

[brokencrescendo]

Who: Harriet and Rhys
When: August 22
Where: Undertow
Before/After: After Harriet learns to superstone.
Warnings: n/a? This is pretty tame.

In which Harriet and Rhys get stuck in the Undertow and have to wait out the storm.



In the calm before the storm, it was easy to hear the hum of potionbees as they made their passes back and forth between wheeled vats of superstone potion in their efforts to cover the length and breadth of the Undertow before the harsh winds began to blow. The potion had been formulated so that it created a visual change in the stone, turning it all to a glistening black that resembled obsidian. That made it easier to inspect for missed spots.

They were getting close, hopefully. The people had been first, then the structures around them, to avoid scenarios where people might turn back into their usual fleshy form trapped beneath fallen branches and debris. Last priority were structures without people -- it would be a shame to lose them, but much less urgent to take care of in the limited timeframe they had.

Harriet had a spybee providing her with video feed of its survey of the job so far, and Harriet directed it over to Spinel so he could help her gauge whether there were any parts of the Undertow it had forgotten to survey.

Rhys had sent his berserkers away. There was no need to fortify anything when the stone could do it for them, and he wanted as few people around the Undertow as possible as the storm approached. The sky was already darken by approaching clouds, and with the nectar lanterns as stone as everything else-- including most of the fireflies-- the city of trees was far gloomier than Rhys ever hoped to see it.

Despite his short stay as the Ahura, he made it a point of knowing where was what and who was where. The defenses the spellswords set up had held, and the berserker patrols and guards left behind had managed to protect those who had been turned to stone. A few buildings had already been smashed along the sides by monsters, the edges crumbling to dust, but each person was okay. They were so lucky for that.

He brushed his hair under his headband further to keep the growing winds from whipping it around his face. A few paladins and spellswords were keeping shields up around what the potion bees hadn't reached yet in case of unexpected debris. Each time more of the city was covered, he would send the most exhausted among them to their resident warp mage, who was growing increasingly nervous.

Rhys spotted the spybee and waved, helping lead them along to what hadn't been protected in its obsidian casing yet. He jerked his head in reaction to something in the corner of his eye and ducked, a branch flying overhead and crashing into one of the other potion bees. Rhys winced and hurried to the fallen construct. Nyx told them they weren't sentient in a real sense, but there was still that distressing tug at seeing a little bug-like entity wiggle about with the mimicry of life.


Crash! And down went a potionbee. Harriet felt bad for it too, but only in the sort of make-believe way you feel bad for characters in a movie, not even the kind of concern you'd have for a pet. She'd built many of these potionbees herself, watching the cores spark to life after various magical components were combined. They behaved much like living things, but weren't, to her mind. Or rather, they were alive in a very different way than people or animals were alive -- a way that outlasted their metal bodies and even the integrity of their cores. It was only fun to pretend they were like pets.

"It's okay, Spinel," she told him through her headset, when she saw him going to the potionbee's aid. She had instructed the spybee to keep close to him, so it followed, staying close enough for her voice to reach him through the speakers.

Rhys tried to see if he could simply reorient the potionbee to get it back in place, but it didn't take flight again. He carefully scooped it up, avoiding the stinger, and slipped it inside the nearest structure that had already been turned to obsidian. Alive or not, he did want to make sure as much of it stayed as intact as possible for Nyx. It was only a few second detour before leading the other bees along.

The storm's approach was rapid, and after the first branch, Rhys heard a few others cracking through the jungles in the distance. It was darkening like nightfall, though it was still afternoon, and the now darkened stone of the Undertow was being sprinkled by wet droplets, turning them into a drizzle down the sides.

It was all looking much less like a forest city and more like black, gnarled silhouettes in some kind of shadow world. Rhys grabbed his phone to text the paladins and spellswords that they would reach that end soon and give instructions, but it didn't send. He started on the few steps of a sprint instead, but stopped, looking back at the bees. If the storm was interfering with his wireless...


Unfortunately, the same winds that could take down branches were proving difficult for the potionbees to navigate, and here and there they would be swept up in a strong current before finding their way back to calmer air. While Rhys was carrying the potionbee to safety, Harriet noticed their strange flight patterns. She was watching them still, brows furrowed, when Spinel emerged again.

"We may have to clear out soon, I don't think the potionbees can fly in this much longer."

Neither could people. Rhys clenched his teeth and ran his fingers through his hair to keep it back, adjusting his headband again. His hair was getting wet and stuck to his face.

There were still the arena grounds. It wasn't as highly populated, but there were still people there. He signed to Nyx's spybee with a one, like one minute more, though clearly it was an understatement of their time and more of a plea.

He reached the paladins and spellswords first, typing on his phone to show them. Without the backlight, they'd never have seen the message to get out. All of them. The bulk of berserkers of the city-- and the hunters, and whoever else had been caught in it-- were dealt with. Just a few stragglers more...

There would another small group of volunteers to relieve when he got there. Rhys looked to the bees again and grabbed onto to keep it from getting caught up in the winds. If he could just spread the potion himself... But there were potions only alchemists could use, and he knew this was one of them.


Harriet didn't know how she felt about that one more minute sign, but he was the one who knew what still needed to be done, so she sat tight as he went to round up the stragglers and send them home. The winds were getting louder, frighteningly so, and she was starting to wish he'd hurry up for reasons beyond the strictly practical.

She was getting anxious about getting out of here, too.

Watching through her tablet, she winced a little as he grabbed a bee from the air to keep it from flying off into the winds. The basic design of a potionbee was an oversized water dropper, with bulbous, squishy bodies that deflated and inflated, using the suction they created to slurp up potion to transport.

Squeezing them willy nilly, in other words, could send their contents streaming out.

"Spinel, don't manhandle the bees!" she yelped. "If you squeeze it too hard and spray yourself you'll turn into SuperStoneSpinel."

That was certainly not a mishap she wanted to be responsible for. At least she could reverse her own stone formula (she was pretty sure; she hadn't had the opportunity to try, yet).

He was being gentle!

She had a point. He was starting to get nervous and looked appropriately reprimanded for crossing that line. Rhys didn't let his dog-like shame stop him from hurrying to the arena grounds with the poor warp mage somewhere nearby. There was only a small group there, and a few more exhausted paladins. More obsidian statues, and more to send to the warp mage's precarious position. He had a few staying with him to keep him safe, long as they would be able to.

Rhys ran a fast mental check. That was everyone. A few buildings would be left to fend for themselves, but it was nothing they couldn't eventually replace. Had this happened without petrification, most of the houses would have been forfeit anyway.

It was their turn to get out of there. Rhys hurried back to Nyx's position, and when he found himself fighting the winds, he bit back another bit of worry. It was fine. They would be fine. He would grab her, they would get to the warp mage, and everything would be fine.

Rhys slipped in through the small opening of the window and offered his hand to Nyx, signaling they were ready to get out.


Whew, he was back! And not a moment too soon, in Harriet's opinion. She gave the spybee a command to lead the potionbees out of the Undertow and away from the typhoon while the getting was good, and then stashed her tablet.

Then it was time to head out with Spinel. She was not sure if he actually meant her to take his hand and had no intention of finding out the hard way, so she just approached him, looking at the hand, looking at him, ready for the next signal.

The wind screaming against the obsidian tree sounded worse inside than out, and Rhys had to ignore the occasional debris that cracked against it. He looked back at Nyx, then glanced over his shoulder to the rain and wind whipped around outside. Rhys tore off the dampened cloak he was wearing and draped it over her as a meager form of protection, then took her arm himself with a gentle squeeze in warning before helping her out into the storm outside. That may have not been polite, but the need for it was drowned out in crisis.

He kept an arm over her, half trying (and failing) to shield against the rain, and half fearing the wind might take her off her feet. He'd have worried about it in a lesser storm, but right now, the fear was legitimate. Even Rhys was at risk, grabbing onto what structures he could to use a berserker's strength to keep them grounded as they pushed past the weather toward where the warp mage was waiting with the last paladin and spellsword huddling under their sanctuary shield.


Harriet was surprised to be draped with the cloak, but, she realized, it wasn't as if she'd had an alternate plan for the rain. Potionbees, she'd brought plenty of, but she'd packed precisely zero umbrellas. If an umbrella would even hold up in this weather.

She made a faint sound of surprise/protest when he grabbed her arm, less because she was offended than because that was always how she reacted when squeezed or grabbed for any reason. Once it had time to sink in, her heart badump-badumped a little, but there wasn't much time to panic and flail about it when they had a typhoon to escape.

Inside, the storm had sounded loud and a little frightening, outside, it was like nothing Harriet had ever tried to walk in. Awkwardness was temporarily forgotten as she focused on keeping on her feet under her and moving forward along with Spinel.

As the wind howled, she couldn't help worried thoughts of branches careening through the air at them like spears.

That was also a legitimate fear, and some jungle debris were sailing past them and smashing against the obsidian fortress left in the Undertow's place. Most of it was drowned out in the sound of the howling winds and difficult past to see the darkness brought on by the storm, but a sudden shadow swept overhead and Rhys dropped to the ground-- bringing Nyx with him-- just before the deafening crack of an entire tree splintering overhead.

That was not nearly so startling to Rhys as the sudden flash of swirling blue, so bright against the stormy weather that he fund himself blinded for two seconds too long.

The warp mage had panicked. The only consolation was he at least taken the volunteers with him.

Rhys' muscle went tense with inaction, but his mind told him any action was better than no action. He shoved himself off the ground to tug Nyx with him into the nearest tree house he could see-- feel was more like it, at this rate. This one had its doorway open enough before it had been petrified that they didn't need to take a rogue's way in, and once he slipped inside, he pulled Nyx against him, hands on her shoulders like that was going to help, while he stared out at the storm and tried to think.


WHAT WAS HAPPENING WERE THEY GOING TO DIE.

Harriet never saw the flash of the departing warp mage; when Spinel pulled her down, she covered her head with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut, her reflexes not sharp enough to alert her to exactly what was threatening them. After the noise had stopped, during the moments when Spinel was still frozen, she looked up to see that the warp mage had gone, and turned to Spinel with a look of 'oh shit what now?'

Apparently fleeing into shelter was what was now.

...They were staying in the Undertow? Maybe that made sense. You couldn't outrun a storm on foot, after all.

Harriet took a minute or so to gather her composure, feeling cold and frightened and soggy from their flight through the storm. She didn't know quite what to make of Spinel holding onto her the way he was, but it was kind of a comfort, with her heart rattling in her chest.


Or, er, maybe it was part of the reason for the rattling...

"Well, the point of the superstone is to hold up against the typhoon, so..."

So they were safe in here, right?

She reached the same conclusion he had: they didn't have options to think about. The best they could do was weather the storm in what Nyx had made for them.

Rhys lowered his eyes with a guilty nod. He hadn't meant to endanger her in any of this. If it were just him, he wouldn't have minded. Rhys mentally chided himself. Whether he should or shouldn't have asked for her help was no longer a decision to be altered.

He released her to survey their shelter: the hollow tree was one of the berserker homes with petrified residents. Rhys climbed up the spiraling staircase, motioning in the darkness for Nyx to follow. It was eerie enough without frozen people lighting up with every flash from the storm, and if there was any flooding from the Undertow's new inability to absorb water, they would be safer on higher ground.

There was an unused hammock up here, but it was as rock as everything else was. Rhys sat at the edge of the upper floor to squeeze out his hair with one hand and let it drip below. The other rummaged through what few belongings he brought as he squinted, then turned on his phone flashlight and set it aside as a makeshift lantern.

Not a thing was dry enough to use as tinder.


It was hard to say if Harriet would have volunteered if the danger had occurred to her. Maybe it was for the best that it hadn't. Now that she was stuck here, she wasn't unbearably terrified, though. She trusted the Khshathra's alchemy far more than she had ever trusted her own mind before she changed, and so she was confident the tree would hold. And she trusted Spinel -- maybe a little too much, and a little too blindly -- to be able to get them through any complication that the impromptu superstone fortress couldn't.

She'd seen him save a falling guy like a superhero, after all.

But for now, the most immediate problem was being uncomfortable and soggy. In the tropical climate, there wasn't as much harm in staying in wet clothes, but that didn't make it any less uncomfortable and squishy and gross. She sat on the floor crosslegged while she watched him searching through his stuff, not sure what he was looking for. But it made her contemplate what she'd brought. Her phone... a notebook.... oh god, her poor notebook, she couldn't bear to check on it.

"You'd think the Khshathra would have packed some potions," she chided herself out loud.

By some misguided inspiration, she had brought snacks, though. She rummaged through her own bag and proudly produced an unopened plastic package of French sour candies.

Rhys gave her a weak smile with her comment, appreciating it for its irony, but not blaming her for it. Who would have thought they'd need any more? Too many supplies to worry about and getting in and out was guaranteed to fail.

The forecast Rhys had received wasn't particularly dire in their new situation. The storm would only be in and out over a day, so they needed only make it through the night. With the way the stone was holding, their odds were looking good unless something else went wrong, and Rhys could only worry about that if it happened.

Serious thoughts were afforded a temporary halt when he looked up at the candies. His stared at them, confirming what they were, before his eyes-- and only his eyes-- shifted focus to Nyx like a dog that learned it was steak night and was desperate to behave itself.


Oh goodness, sour candies were a hit, it seemed!

She opened the packet and held out a candy to him.

"Contest to see who lasts the longest before making weird sour candy face?"

Wait why did she just propose an activity that involved staring at one another's faces was it too late to take it back.

That sounded leagues better than reflecting on where he had gone wrong in guilt. Nyx was trying too, and Rhys smiled, scooting forward to get himself close enough to accept her offering. The smile gained a hint of smugness. This was the sort of contest he was confident about, but he reminded himself to be more careful. She was the one packing sour candies and making the offer.

Oblivious to her belated realizations, he popped the candy in his mouth to draw first blood (it's quite possible he's been at this Ahura thing for too long) and sat cross legged with his hands on the floor, waiting expectantly.


There was no more time for regrets! Harriet quickly popped a candy into her own mouth as well, lest the contest be invalidated by Spinel's head start.

What Harriet lacked in sour candy experience, she made up for in a long history of having a sour disposition, and so that was what she drew upon -- years and years of looking upon all manner of situations with the detached annoyance of one who does not trust her face not to do weird things if she allows it to move freely.

...So sour, though!!

Rhys was depending on brute force tolerance. The sour tickled the back of his tongue and settled in his lower jaw, but a lifelong love of sour candies kept that from being enough to scrunch his face.

Mouth closed, his smile still widened as he watched Nyx intently, hoping to see any twitch that would hint at his eventual victory while trying to ignore his own body's threats that he might first.


Sourness was more difficult to ignore than emotional reactions, as it turned out. The flavor was everywhere! And the effort to swallow down some of the sourness and dilute it was beginning to look suspiciously like a mouth pucker.

Her eyes began to squint a little, half because the sourness was making her eyes water, and half because she was annoyed with herself for starting to break.

Did that count?! How weird did a weird sour candy face have to be?

What Rhys wasn't practiced in was any kind of staring contest. When Nyx did start to crack, he had to bite his lip. It didn't help. Sour may not have beaten him, but laughter did. He had to cover his mouth to stop himself from snorting or spitting his candy across the room, then bowed his head in shame while still laughing silently at the idea that he could lose this way. He wasn't sure what counted, either, but he was pretty sure he had failed to win either way.

Rhys set the candy between his teeth to give his tongue a break, grinning through it with his hand over the bridge of his nose. All he had to offer after that was a shrug of his shoulders.


"I think laughing is disqualification," Harriet told him, her voice garbled by the candy still in her mouth.

Although it was possible he had been laughing at the face she made as she lost the competition, Harriet was happy to rewrite history on that point unless he intended to call her on it.

Rhys wasn't going to. He slumped in defeat, still grinning, then took his candy back into his mouth to enjoy as his consolation prize.

Another crack against their shelter made him straighten. He glanced back over the edge to make sure there wasn't any flooding-- some, but it was washing in and out, not steadily rising. Rhys picked up his phone to check his battery. It wasn't going to make it through the night if he left the flashlight on-- which meant the flashlight wasn't going to last, either. He turned it off to depend on the brightness of the screen and not blind himself as he typed.

How do you feel?
Tell me if you start shivering.

For what was called a tropical storm, the wind and rain had dropped the temperature more than Rhys was used to. He hoped not enough, but he'd rather hope while covering his bases.


Harriet puffed up a bit with pride at his concession. "Muahaha, victory is... still quite sour."

She would have actually been content to ignore the sharp noise that followed, as if it was a particularly loud peal of thunder, but Spinel's visible worry made her worry too. Was their shelter secure? She watched as he inspected the parameter and fussed with his phone, then leaned in to look at the message, fearing bad news, like the treehouse is about to tip over or something.

The actual message was not that bad, but made her worry a bit more regardless. She felt cold and clammy, but not that bad. Or WAS it that bad? Could she have underestimated her coldness? Maybe wet clothes were always dangerous in any temperature, for mysterious reasons she had yet to learn?!

"I'm not shivery," she told him, although now she felt as if she might start shivering anyway because she was thinking about it, like the way you sometimes can from nerves when you're too caffeinated.

"Are you?"

The sour victory is delicious, Nyx. Rhys kept playing his candy over his tongue, then bit around it with some thought as he shook his head in response. Chilled, but not shivering. He had heard of hypothermia in hurricanes, but they were storms that hit colder climates.

If they could get dry, he wouldn't have to think much about it. Rhys gave another twist of his hair before giving up on it and put together a quick message.

Hold on. Trying something.

He handed her the phone and moved to sit next to her. Rhys took a deep breath and felt on the little mana he had. As a berserker, everything was channeled through his body. Some had mana that could alter the world around them, but his mainly only altering him. There were a few skills that worked like magic, though, and one in particular that might help them.

Rhys thrust his fist, punching the air with a burst of flame from Dragon's Wrath. No amount of focus or muscle tension would make the fire last for more than a second. He watched the puff of fire burn away into nothing, feeling its heat lingering on his knuckles and in the air near them.

There was a brief glance to Nyx before he focused ahead and punched with his other fist. At a steady pace, one fist after another, he maintained a flow of Dragon's Wrath to keep the air in front of them alight with fire to help them dry.


"Oh--" Harriet flailed at the sudden flare of light and heat, losing her grip on her sour candy for a moment and having to bat it back to the front of her mouth with her tongue so she didn't accidentally try to swallow it. She scrambled back a little, but only a little, realizing the point of this behavior almost simultaneously with flinching away from it. She watched as he considered the initial brief puff of flame, and then made it into a sustained fire with a steady punch-punch-punch. She found herself shrinking a little with awkwardness as it continued.

"You don't have to do that, that looks labor intensive," she fretted.


He ignored her for a half minute more, trying to keep his pace. If it were just strength, he could have continued, but it was a matter of mana, something berserkers didn't have much to use freely. Rhys stopped with one fist in the air, his last punch generating no flame. He thought he might have felt a little drier despite the short burst, but it could have been psychological. He was still damp.

Rhys found his phone again.

There's not much to spend energy on.
Think you can sleep like this?


Harriet remained awkward as he ignored her and carried on with the flame generation, but she was warmer and awkward, as long as he kept it up. But then just as suddenly as he had started, the flame stopped reigniting, and he went for his phone to give her a message, which she leaned in to peer at.

"Maybe eventually," she answered.

The dampness and the proximity of RHYS ELENA were definitely going to make sleeping a remote possibility.

"I could probably brainstorm on things and take notes in my phone all night just fine but that would be kind of antisocial." Provided she kept it to just a few nights in a row, her turbocharged thoughts could keep her entertained and energized for multiple late nights. "Are there any random topics you'd like to discuss in painstaking detail? It's a shame I didn't bring instruments we could teach ourselves, but who would even think of that! I do have some books in my tablet. We could study French? Would it be boring to teach me ASL?"

She reigned in her enthusiasm, growing sheepish.

"...or maybe you wanted to sleep."


Rhys brightened at the mention of ASL. It wasn't a form of communication he could use with many. Some of his berserkers had caught on to bits and phrases, but couldn't hold conversations. There was Ezra and Helia... but the latter had been killed.

No. I was going to keep watch. In case of floods or... storm elementals? Sometimes weather brought cracklecats, but this might have been too much even for them.
ASL I can do. You don't mind?


In truth, she had sneaky-taught herself a little of it already, in the hopes of surprising him with suddenly knowing it one day.

But the Khshathra had a lot of projects and responsibilities (and also wanted breaks sometimes, boohoo), and she'd never gotten a chance to follow through with her plan. Maybe this would be better? Plan Sneaky Surprise ASL had always carried the risk of making him mad or embarrassed that she was snooping on any signs he made to other people before she revealed she'd been studying.

"No, I love learning stuff, that is my superpower."

The loving part, not the learning part. Although both were technically true, actually enjoying learning still felt more like a superpower to her than being physically able to learn.

Her plan may still have been possible. Rhys wasn't aware just how quickly the Khshathra could pick up on new information. He assumed he could show her the basics for fun now, but they'd be lucky if she remembered even half of it after a night.

Still, even small phrases and little words for now made him happy. It was that much closer to more real-time communication.

We can start with the alphabet.
I use it to cheat a lot anyway.


Ooh maybe she could have her cake and eat it too, actually.

One letter at a time, she signed out "A-C-E," grinning stupidly.

She'd stopped halfway through the alphabet and that was the first response she could think of that didn't employ Ys or Ws or other letters from the far end.

Rhys lit up again when she demonstrated. Did school go over this, or was it something she did on her own? He spelled back, R-E-A-L-L-Y? with a suitably surprised facial expression. The facial expressions sadly were important. That had been a hurdle at first.

As much as he was tempted to spell out an entire question, that might be difficult to follow one letter at a time and he got his phone again.

How much do you know? She had made his day for the moment. He didn't look like someone who was stuck in a storm, worried about his city, or even for themselves.


Whoops she couldn't read his response, though. The accompanying expression gave her a general idea of his reaction, which was just what she was going for, muahaha. She waited for the text follow up.

"A through L. ...Ooh, I could have said 'cool,' that would have been more natural."

He looked so happy about it! Maybe texting people everything was a bigger pain in the ass than she'd imagined.

He grinned. I like ace better.

Rhys tapped his chin to help signify thinking, then texted on his phone again. Sign with me.

He started with 'A' in the alphabet, moving more quickly through 'L' as long as she kept up, but slowed down once they got past that. If she ever fumbled a signing or looked uncertain, he repeated the signing.


She followed him through the alphabet, her fingers fumbly as they got to new signs, but her mind soaking up the image of each one eagerly. When they took the second pass, she'd have a lot of them already committed to short term memory, and it wouldn't take much practice before they stuck for good.

She'd remain a bit slow to form them for a while, though -- her muscle memory was not supernaturally enhanced, so she'd have to actively consider the positioning of her hand rather than automatically flashing the signs with the same ease she could recall them.

'R' required a way of crossing the fingers that Rhys mixed up when he thought too hard about it, and trying to teach it qualified. It was one of those things where he thought he knew what the mistake was and would repeat it, reinforced by feeling the pressure to need to know it for his name. He couldn't even remember if he showed it to her the right way before, but he fumbled a few times, and winced with a sheepish smile, figuring he'd just made a confusing mess of what the correct way was.

He shook his hands, trying to signal erasing it, and took hold of hers instead to gently put her fingers in the right position instead. Better to feel it, he figured.


A-and now it was hand holding time.

Harriet tried to play it cool, since this was PURELY INSTRUCTIONAL hand holding and acting weird about it would be very weird and nobody wanted weirdness while sitting in sopping wet clothes waiting out a typhoon in a superstoned treehouse. But that didn't mean she didn't shoot him a few awkward, questioning glances as he positioned her fingers.

"I--I think I got it," she said.

The awkward glance was enough for Rhys to grin sheepishly and pull back with an apologetic nod. He wouldn't have needed to if he hadn't been the one to get confused in the first place. He continued after that, smile relaxing again, but once it was done he got his phone back.

Sorry. I never studied this as well as I should have until recently.


"Ah--it's fine!"

Ex-rockstar demigods being insecure about things was just weird. At least he had not caught onto (or had chosen to politely ignore) her embarrassingly obvious crush... fangirling ...bit of column A, bit of column B. It was probably better for both of them that way. After all, if he acknowledged it, he'd have to formally let her down, and then shit would just be awkward for a hundred years. Nobody wanted that. It would probably interfere with trade relations and stuff.

And she didn't even need to be let down! She was just a fangirl... fellow guild leader... high school student... internet friend... way too young for him... goofy weirdo... someone who really needed to stop thinking about this.

It was going to be a long night.

But at least it would be full of learning!