Dya’s fist connected with Ponti’s gut and he gave a surprised grunt. She felt that he had clenched his stomach muscles, to her disappointment. He wouldn’t be gasping for air on the floor of the woods while she ran away, but at least he had not anticipated that when he told her to run that she would run right at him.

She didn’t stop after punching him either, pulling her hook off her belt she swung it around with her left hand and tried to grapple it into his collar bone, as she had been taught, but he blocked it and knocked the weapon from her grip. Don't stop, she told herself as she flowed through with her momentum and added a kick that brought her knee up to his side and brought her around him as he was brought down to the ground by her blows so she had a clear shot of the “path” behind him, and then she bolted for the dunes and ocean beyond.

At least that’s where she thought they would be but as she ran she realized the path was nothing of the sort. That is, there was no path. She couldn’t really see a clear trail or tell where they had been before, and as she ran, she didn’t see the space open up to show the moon reflecting off the sand as she had expected, as she hoped. But when she slowed down to try to get her bearings she heard the noise behind her of Ponti running, the hush of leaves, a crackle of wood. The thump of a shoe hitting the earth.

Casting wildly about Dya gave a sounding click and got nothing. The sound didn’t return anything to her in the thinness of atmosphere, and she wanted to scream. If he were a shark she’d know what to do, or a seal, or a male dolphin even. Stupid male dolphins just needed a good punch in the dick, but here in the woods with no water for her spells, no water for her skills, no water for her to fucking swim in—she stumbled on a low branch and had to refocus on navigating the woods.

Running was hard. It hurt, using her muscles like this. She had to breathe more often, gasping for air every three minutes instead of every twenty, her usual racing pace. She knew she could just breathe in and out like all the time --she remembered doing so for years and years as a human-- but she couldn’t stop herself from holding her breath automatically. She just didn’t have the mental space to break the ingrained habit and run from the predator that she had foolishly thought might be a playmate.

There.

A break in the shadows. Moonlight streaming down.

She started running for it but then a darkness loomed out before that looked like a very large wolf. An extremely large wolf. Either that or the patch of moonlight was way closer than she thought it was. Either way, she noped the hell back to the left and forced her legs to keep moving at pace even as the muscles in her thighs were starting to go numb.

Tears.

She remembered crying in her old life. She would have been crying now, should have been crying now. The land was rising up and going up hill slowed her even more, and she could hear Ponti getting ever closer. He should have caught her by now, she knew, she couldn’t run that well and he was gods damned wolfkin. He had to be playing with her and she didn’t know why. On the other hand, with the rising of the land she had a good idea of where she was and maybe…

As she stumbled over a rise she saw a tree that looked familiar, though usually it was further away and from another direction. She put it to her right, and kept her pace up until it was, she guessed, roughly the right distance away, and then found the energy to sprint in her to the left. She heard a startled yelp behind her as she practically jumped off the small cliff that had been slowly building besides her and she half slid, half stumbled down a steep slope to land on the path that she and Zuchi had been on earlier that day, before sunset. Before the festival. Before the walk in the moonlight. Before Ponti.

She spun to go down the path, down the hill, down to the water but down there and keeping pace with her was the wolf that she had seen earlier. The patch of moonlight had not been further away, the wolf was just fucking massive, and its eyes golden eyes were fixed on her.

Dya let out a curse and ran on.

The path was narrow, and winding. She knew it well and found she had a better time of navigating the rough and unkempt trail. Dya was satisfied to hear Ponti stumbling and cursing the twists and roots that the shadows hid. There was one chance, she knew, one chance to loose him and she was not going to miss it.

All mer are taught by their parents how to cook food. Fire doesn’t work well underwater, seeing as water suppressed combustion and the homes of mer have limited oxygen supplies that are cycled by well tended algae gardens. Instead of using fire, mer children are taught one of a number of spells for cooking, the most common of which is “ǂis” or “cook.” Straight forward, simple, only works on potential food sources.

Zhulma, Dya’s namcha, was a cook and was determined to give Dya the best possible and most diverse utility cooking spell she could find. ǂis was not good enough for Zhulma, and therefore, not good enough for Dya. It was a good thing too, and Dya blessed her namcha profusely for making her learn the difficult and fussy spell that Zhulma had chosen, for as she crossed the narrow part of the path that forced a body to push up against the side of the cliff or fall to the rocks far below, she cast the spell that had taken so many hours to learn.

“Yoizloing bûsäs!”

or

“Apply heat!”

The loud and snarling curse that came behind her was beautiful music to Dya’s ears as she stumbled up the path. She had left the rocks hot enough to fry a fish on, and they would take quite a bit of time to cool down. Ponti could wait or try to find a way around, but he would not be chasing her up this trail. That giant wolf wouldn’t be making it up this cliff either, that narrow stretch was a cutoff point, there was no getting up this cliff from below without crossing that rock face… or taking one of the other trails from the base.

Dya’s lungs were burning and she felt like her tongue was swelling to fill her mouth. She kept moving, kept running the familiar trail up to the Altar of her goddess. It was the only place that she could think to go that might have some measure of safety to it. It was the only place this trail went. She would beg Salt for protection, for help. For guidance off that rock.

The run up took forever. It took longer than it should have, longer than the climb with Zuchi earlier, longer than a day, a week. It was a year’s long effort. A decade’s.

It took about fifteen minutes.

The path that came up the side of the cliff came into the middle of the clearing at the top of the cliff. To her left was the ledge that reached out over the water, darkly reflecting the sliver of moonlight. To her right, the altar bowl of Salt.

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This was a holy place, a special place, for all that the teenagers hung out here when it was not in use. This was where the priesthood took its vows, dedicating their lives to Salt and her pantheon. No one but the priesthood could be present for the ceremony, but everyone could watch as the dedicated flung themselves off the cliff to disappear into the rocky waters below. They would reappear hours later changed: clearly blessed by Salt and their chosen god with a job of the priesthood.

So clearly there was a way to jump off the cliff and survive, but only the priesthood knew and they were not telling. Every now and then someone would get it in their head that they had it figured out and would jump… or they would get drunk and jump. Either way the corpse would be recovered, the funeral held, and the bones sent to their slumber in the deep.

No one but the priesthood knew where to jump. No one but the dead tried.

Dya turned her back on the cliff and stumbled over to the altar bowl. This bowl was enormous. Almost four feet across, and two feet deep, it was made of a sort of stone that Dya had only seen at the bottom of the ocean. It probably came up elsewhere in the world, she knew from her understanding of geology from her previous life, but in this region, it came from deeper in the trenches than Dya could go.

The stone was a slick blue-black with crusts of dried sea salt spattered all around. The source of the salt was clear, the basin of the bowl was filled with ocean water. It was always filled with ocean water, any time of day or night, sun or storm. Dya had never seen nor ever heard of anyone bringing up water to fill the bowl, yet it was always there. The water was considered blessed, a symbol of Salts holy grace.

Trembling she collapsed before and practically on top of the bowl. Reaching up to her head she found that the worm-silk cloth she had bought was gone. Dya had been going to offer it to Salt in prayer, but now she found herself empty handed. She looked down at her branch slashed thighs and stomach and saw the cute chain and cloth outfit she had bought in the market sparkle at her in the moonlight.

Well, it wasn’t as though mer actually needed clothes, right?

"Yoüch yougtünhu a you gie nos, táká ouch tázkü,

Poiesh Salt, gas jú iech."

Dya prayed and scrambled out of the clothes, dropping them in the water. There was a brief flash of light, and she cringed, hoping it didn’t give away her position. (Though, honestly it couldn't be that much of a secret where she was.) The flash had been brief and the fabric began to slowly disappear, far slower than usual but still, the offering was being accepted so Dya gave a sigh of relief and reached into the water, dunking her head and shoulders, scooping the water out onto her torso and legs.

You have been Blessed!

+2 Shield of Protection

+ Third Eye Open

+10 luck

“huh” She grunted softly, surprised. Why would Salt give her luck above all other stats?

There was a crackle of noise behind her and Dya spun, struggling to her feet. Her legs screamed in protest and her feet spasmed as Ponti slipped from the shadows, running up hill at full tilt with a mad grin on his face and a flicker of yellow glow in his eyes.

With nothing else to use she muttered an apology to the goddess and cast one of the other basic spells of her people: water jet.

Water jet was actually meant as a way to add propulsion through the water, but it could, in a pinch, spray water around like a rather intense hose. She had tried when she was younger to control it down to a narrow intense spray in order to cut stone but at best she could cut compressed sand. However, in moments like these she was able control the water well enough to scoop it out of the altar and send a controlled spray right into Ponti’s left eye.

He snarled in pain as a red 5 rose from the impact. Ponti stumbled but didn’t stop coming. Dya scooped up more water and prepared another water jet, but he was already there tackling her to the ground. The water sloshed and splashed to the ground, forgotten as they slid painfully on the clover and herbs. Ponti was snarling and Dya flailed, hitting him and trying to get away but when they finally stopped moving he had her pinned under his weight, his hips between her thighs, his knee under her back and his human teeth holding her by her throat. He held one of her wrists in his hand and all she had was a grip on his hair.

When she tried to pull him off her neck he snarled and bit down more, painfully hard, causing her to choke and let go of his hair. He didn’t stop growling for a while but eventually his bite slackened as she gagged and tried very unsuccessfully to speak. Ponti reached with his other hand and captured her free hand. Then content that he had her, he let go of her neck and started licking it.

Dya did not know what do to with that. She was trapped in a very awkward position, terrified, and this very weird man was licking her neck.

She was just ready to go home now, please.

The licking continued but soon he started to push into her, and let out little moans. He, at least, hadn’t taken off his pants, so that was something, but…

“Ponti?” Dya whispered, scared, and tried to wiggle away some, to see if she could.

She was immediately met with a snarl and a growl but Ponti did stop with the pushing. Then, after a moment of silence Dya could hear him whispering, “Cue da di. Cue da di. Cue da di. Not like this.”

“Ponti, let me go.” She whispered again, since that had changed things for the better.

He growled again at her, but she hadn’t moved so the reaction didn’t seem as intense, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Keeping her voice to a whisper was a challenge.

“You are prey!” Ponti snarled into her face, and when he did his right eye, his dry eye, flared a golden yellow, just for a moment, and he pushed into her, crushing her with his weight, causing her air in her lungs to whine out of her.

Great, Dya realized, she’d come across a bespelled beastkin that was going to eat her as prey, one way or another. Fuck, did someone flip the grimdark switch on this damn game when they let the players in? Clearly there was a quest here but holy hells she didn’t see how she was going to get out of this alive or intact. But it was a game, right? So there had to be a way out. Just stay alert, and don’t do anything too dumb.

It was another long moment before he calmed down and she could breathe again. This time he was sniffing at her neck and hair, tasting her ear, and slowly easing his weight onto her in a more relaxed manner. He shifted his knee out from under her, and they both seemed to sigh in relief.

Weirdly, Ponti seemed to be snuggling in for a nap. He did keep licking at her ear and neck, but this time it wasn’t with the same intensity as before. He was relaxing, and shifting around to get comfortable.

All that ended when the wolf showed up.

“She’s MINE, Old Man!” Ponti was immediately up on all fours over Dya, his hands crushing into her wrists.

The enormous wolf paced around them, unconcerned, and Dya could see the beast more clearly, sort of, in the pale moonlight. He had very dark fur that hid most features, but there was no hiding that this wolf was the size of a small horse, and that it had a pair of horns that scooped below its ears.

That feature alone told Dya it had to be a beastkin, and that somehow it had impressed some horned beast enough to earn horns. Some ridiculous part of her hoped that the elder would stop Ponti from whatever he was doing. That foolish part of her was predictably disappointed when the beastkin, after giving them a wide circle, walked over to the altar of Salt and sat down, tilting his head at them. Ponti growled and twisted around to look at the wolf without letting Dya go, the golden light filling his unblemished eye turning towards the wolf. What Dya would call his “good” eye, the eye that wasn’t filled with the sickly yellow light, was puffing up with the bruising from her water based blow and sealing shut, though for a moment she could see it glittering in the dark.

The two wolves stood there like that for a very long moment, Ponti growling and the giant ass wolf of doom just looking at them. Eventually, though, the giant wolf sighed and then shifted.