In spite of his fears, nothing attacked Nick on his way back to the coast.
He stepped onto the rocky shore of the forest thirty minutes later, wiping the sweat from his brow. However, escaping the swamp unscathed didn’t mean that his journey was destined to be hazard free. While Nick was busy retracing his steps along the waterline, he felt the wind shift. Warm gusts blowing the other way licked his face with increasing frequency.
Familiar with the warning signs of an approaching searstorm, he looked over his shoulder and frowned. Now certain that his day was going to be exciting after all, he tracked the advance of an angry pack of blue-green clouds, upon which danced vibrant bolts of purple lightning.
This searstorm was moving faster than the others Nick had observed. He wouldn’t have time to make it back to his cave before the boiling deluge broke over the island. The danger sent adrenaline racing through his body, but he wrestled down the urge to panic.
He had known that he would be caught outside during a searstorm sooner or later and had planned for this eventuality as extensively as he could. Thus, he had already scouted a number of locations where the shoreline was deep enough to fully submerge himself, but too shallow for the sharks to reach him, no matter how aggressive their attempts.
Armed with a strategy but not much time in which to enact it, he ran to the water’s edge, looking for one of the landmarks that he had identified during his initial hike along the shore. Knowing that he would be in for a world of hurt if the searstorm caught him, he sprinted along the coast, racing the rising storm. It wasn’t much of a contest since the stormfront was moving many times faster than himself. But as he only had a half-mile to go, Nick had a fighting chance of arriving at his destination before the storm turned him into soup.
By now, the clouds had devoured the clear blue sky, lightning throwing shifting shadows across the ground as he pressed himself into a greater burst of speed. He laughed in sheer exhilaration as the screaming winds fought to fling him into the sea. While this situation was deadly serious, it was also exhilarating. Filling him with the most curious sense of being alive.
The first stinging drops were already hitting him when Nick found what he was searching for—a shelf of rock below the waterline that was formed from the surface of a massive boulder. He remembered looking at the rock before the island had sunk, and its shape was perfect for what he intended.
Nick winced at the bite of boiling droplets striking the back of his neck, although they were unable to burn him thanks to the thermal regulation provided by his cloak. That would change when the full stormfront broke over him sometime within the next five minutes, transforming the steaming drizzle into a lethal torrent of superheated water far beyond the ability of his equipment to handle.
Knowing that every second he delayed increased his risk of incurring serious injury, he propped his backpack under a stout tree, where it was in no danger of being washed away. He opened the flap and pulled out a long tube of bamboo. It was the same piece he had used to launch his pollen bomb, as it was already cured, had a hollow core, and had no cracks along the interior. Pressed for time, Nick took off anything that could be carried away by the ocean and tossed it inside his pack. He closed the flap, hung the bag on a branch, and sprinted back to the shoreline.
Rushing to stay in front of the deadly weather, he ran to the water’s edge and walked out onto the middle of the submerged boulder. Then Nick ducked beneath the surface of the ocean and lay flat against the stone, holding one end of the tube up to his mouth so that he could breathe.
With his other hand, he grasped a protruding knob of stone so that the current wouldn’t carry him out to sea. Thankfully, its pull wasn’t too powerful along this strip of shore. He wrapped his cloak tight around his body, hoping that its magic would offer some degree of protection from the hot water raining down from the deadly storm.
Nick wasn’t a physics major, so he wasn’t completely certain that this would work. But it was the best shot he had of riding out the storm without a roof overhead. He already knew from watching the animals that the canopy wasn’t dense enough to protect him. Hopefully, the cold water below would keep the depth that he was at from reaching the temperature of the rain carried by the searstorm.
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If he was wrong, he would have to chance diving into the depths along the base of the boulder and pray that the sharks didn’t find him, returning to the surface every few minutes to take a fresh breath through his tube. Surely, at a depth of more than ten feet below the waves, the storm would not raise the temperature to anywhere near boiling.
At least that was what Nick told himself as he held onto the boulder, bracing himself for the ordeal to come. He was gambling that this storm would pass faster than the others, given its rate of approach. He was stronger and tougher than he had ever dreamed was possible, but not strong enough to grip the boulder for hours on end while fighting against the pull of the tide.
Five minutes later, the full fury of the storm broke over Nick’s location. It was surreal watching the deluge overhead from beneath the surface of the ocean. The rain created countless ripples and unimaginably complex interference patterns as the falling droplets collided with the roiling sea.
At first, everything went according to plan. He remained safe and cool as he grabbed the boulder and held on for dear life, praying that the storm would pass before his muscles ran out of endurance. Before long, the superheated water trickling down the tube started burning his lips, so Nick shifted tactics. He kept the bamboo below the surface until he needed to breathe, poked it above the waterline at an angle, blew out to expel the liquid inside, then took a couple of quick breaths before retracting his tube.
Another ten minutes later, Nick could feel threads of heat winding their way through the cool water as the currents began swirling, mixing the layer of hot water above with the cold liquid below. Some of the flows were uncomfortably warm, but nothing that would cause him any lasting harm. At least not yet. The experience was surreal and unexpectedly beautiful. Sound was muted and warped beneath the waterline, and the surface swayed and swirled, playing strange tricks on his sense of time.
While the ocean shifted from cold to tepid to uncomfortably warm, Nick watched the elemental dance where water met air, the storm melding sea and sky into a single, living entity. But then the water at his depth began to grow hot, nearly scalding his skin.
He fought down the urge to panic, as the rising heat made him writhe like an eel on hot sand. Shit. I’m going to have to dive in and take my chances after all. Too bad I don’t have any more chemical salts to use as shark deterrent.
Just before Nick was forced to brave the depths, the tail of the storm went soaring past the isle, the surface shifting from green gray to baby blue within a handful of heartbeats. The instant the rain ceased falling, he burst out of the water and took in a great gasp of air, wincing at the leaden soreness of his overtaxed arms. Although the wind was nearly as hot as the water for a few final seconds, a cool breeze began to blow, swirling as the atmospheric pressure returned to equilibrium, carrying the heat away.
With a relieved sigh, Nick walked over to retrieve his pack and started to cackle, offering a one-finger salute to the last smudge of searstorm fading into the distance. While this situation had by no means been ideal, his plan had worked. He had survived a searstorm without being underground and could likely do so again if he picked out a suitable location ahead of time. The experience had been both stressful and shockingly beautiful. Another strange interlude that would never have been possible before the System entered Nick’s life.
Just as he was turning to leave, a glint of metal caught his attention—a coppery sheen shimmering just below the waves. Heart racing with excitement, Nick made his way back to the shore, then used his spyglass to get a better look by placing the fat end just below the surface. He laughed when he realized what he was looking at, for a copper chest was wedged between the boulder on which he had ridden out the storm and its nearest neighbor. The same copper chest that he had seen sitting beside the lava. The current must have washed it closer to shore, where it got caught between the rocks.
Smiling at his good fortune, Nick dragged the chest onto dry land and then cracked it open, reading the slip of paper he found inside.
Congratulations! You have discovered an Exploration Reward Chest (Copper).
Contents: Charm of Muffling (Uncommon).
The user will make 10% less noise when they are trying to remain silent. The charm must be worn in order to function.
Hrm, no KP this time. It must be because the item is unusually good for the rarity of the chest. Nick held the item up to the light, taking a close look at what appeared to be a brass loop the size of a quarter, with a pin and fastener on the back that would let him attach it to his clothing. While it only had a passive effect, the charm would be of great use in the days ahead, helping Nick to explore dangerous locations without drawing attention to himself.
Now, where to put it? After a bit of consideration, he pushed the pin through the leather of his belt since his Toughness modified jacket was too resilient to penetrate. With a smile on his face, he began walking south, pleased that his explorations had paid dividends after all.
Sore and exhausted, he made it back to his cave an hour before sunset, pondering the strangeness of his new reality. Too worn out to build a fire, Nick ate a cold dinner, checked his bedding for creepy crawlies, and passed out, ready to tackle his biggest problem tomorrow.