Somewhere... Else?
5 Bakemes, 333
Aaren
Once Vanessa and Krissie's temporary saftey is assured, Aaren whirls on Casey. "Do you want more wind?" She sings, her ears straining to hear the snake in the water.
Fate
Casey continues to hold the bearing of the ship true with Kelly's help. "Not yet!" he calls over the sound of the water. "Wait till we get close to the bottom of the swell!"
Daina
Daina is ready with a crazy idea in mind if the snake should show up, she stands ready to act as a conduit and instructor. If the serpent arrives and she must act she plans to draw it's warmth out as fast as she's able and spread it throughout the ocean specifically in plants that she will instruct to grow and grapple the creature long enough to allow for the ship's escape! For the nonce though she dances with guidance in mind willing the wind and sea and fate to help them towards their indented exit. Her raucous and bold movements all seeming to some how push forward, with the bright feel of Bakersfield's differences and variety intertwined with her limbs.
Aaren
Aaren waits until the approiate moment and then sings the wind into action. Hearing the variations in Daina's song, she turns to sing to her. "Daina! Thank you for saving everyone!" She pushes across the deck (against the wind and the pressure of the sailing) to give her a hug.
When Daina starts dancing, Aaren draws back and returns her full attention to her labor.
Slavina
Slavina stays hugging Krissie for a while but after a few minutes she's back up and moving around - pacing, twirling, and making grand expansive gestures with her arms as she enthusiastically explains about the meaning of life and how we are all united by the power and love of the ocean. Her rhetoric leaps like a mountain sheep from one idea to another, skipping all the intermediary steps that fill out the landscape of thoughts. She stops abruptly mid-thought when she catches Krissie's expression.
I'll take "empathy ping on Krissie" for $200
Slavina rushes back over to her friend and throws herself down next to Krissie and hugs her again, fiercely. "Oh little star I'm sorry I forgot, this is all so new you must be so scared but it's okay, it's all okay...." Words tumble out, sometimes quick enough they're hard to understand, as she issues reassurances that range from sweetly benign to terrifying-by-implication. In spite of the accelerated pace, there's a mesmerizing cadence to her words and the fever-pitch of her excitement leaks through in a way that's equal parts warming and searing.
I would like to roll charisma +influence to make Krissie be okay
Fate
Okay! That'll be an opposed roll. And Slavina is at -3 successes due to clearly not being all there.
Slavina
Okay! May I channel Loyalty?
Fate
So long as you haven't checked off all your boxes.
Slavina
That's a 4!
Fate
Versus a 1.
Krissie steadily eases from her shock and senselessness—and so too does Vanessa, being as how they're pretty firmly attached to each other still. Soon enough they let go.
Everything is fine. This is fine.
Okay... so... Daina's Dance + Magic at 6 successes...
Bending, twirling, swaying, weaving... the movements twine through Casey, nosing upward little by little from his heels to his heart. Soon he can feel it with his eyes closed and his ears shut. His senses spread outward like the growing warmth of a building fire, and the path is made ever clearer.
With each light of her sole upon the deck, or the pad of her hand, or the point of her knee or elbow, Daina can feel this ship of toenails and the wake it slices through the water almost as if its partnered with her in her dance.
Slavina
Once Krissie is calm - in fact, the instant Krissie is calm - Slavina returns to her incessant movement around the vessel, now including climbing up and down various structures such as masts and incorperating the other passengers in her antics in a constant rotation.
Daina
Daina had her eyes closed through much of her dance but as she moved and swayed her eyes opened and a faint... glint could be seen were she not moving so very much. "I feel like... the fates are telling me .. we must make a door... a door of wind and fire... guided by memory..." she says this loud enough to be heard over the oceans and yet without her usual inflections almost? It's Daina in a bit of a cloud for a second and then she looks to the others. "Do we... burn a hole out .. or make a .. a real door with fire and wind together and .. open it? What do you guys make of it?!"
Slavina
From her current position (hanging by her knees from the crossbar at the top of the mast), Slavina arcs her back so she can look at Daina. Then bends a little farther so she can look up ahead. Her eyes dart this way and that as she drinks in the landscape. She flips her way onto the mast, standing on it like a balance beam, and starts having a shouted poetic conversation with the stars in a foreign language.
I would like to roll mystery+knowledge spirit world to assess Daina's info
Fate
Okay. Diff is 6.
Slavina
9!
"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" She calls down to Daina. "It doesn't matter, a door has already been made and will inevitably be made! We, like the ocean, are a vast circle and what is the meaning of time or doors when all things are simultaneous?!"
Aaren
Aaren purses her lips, looking from Daina to Slavina, who is still up on the mast.
"Casey!" She sings, "What do you think?"
Fate
"Yeah, I think it's worth a shot!" Casey calls out. "And I mean, if it doesn't matter, then no harm in trying, right?"
Despite being out of her depth, Krissie applies herself. "Daina, you can handle the fire and Aaren, you can handle the wind, right?" She turns towards each as she addresses them.
Vanessa's got a faint, sorta vague smile on her face. "Man, Yousef is never gonna believe this."
Aaren
Aaren blows out her lips. "Oh, probably." She sings, not quite irritated. Doors of wind, this was just absurd.
Daina
"man this is going to be like that "The Last Aviator" kinda stuff!" to Aaren "I'll bring in fire from the right and you bring in air from the left?"
Daina thinks a moment more "let's see about shaping it like the gates to the city ok?"
Aaren
"Sure!" Aaren sings, getting her enthusasim back into place. She lifts her voice over the winds to shape them after Daina's suggestion.
Fate
Okay! We need a 12 total for the door. Any successes over will add dice to Casey's Psychopomp roll to open it.
We've got a 5 from Aaren!
Daina
Daina grins a little at the change in Aaren's tone and her movements change from that of purely Bakersfield to a firey heat as well and to a broadening a ... opening up if you will, her arms and chest pushed out in an expansive gesture as her hips are rolling and slipping like a fire licking over fuel. I know it's not long and super detailed but perhaps stunt? unless no one thinks so that's perfectly ok
Slavina
Slavina sways precariously on her perch, but years of training pay off - she doesn't even come close to losing her balance in spite of the slick toenail surface and the rolling of the sea. She turns the back-and-forth motion into a sensual dance, and her voice rolls out like thunder over the surf as she declaims an improvisational poem to the glory of the stars and the ocean-serpent and the gods that brought them there.
Fate
Alright! A 10 from Daina! That gives 3 dice to Casey, who's gonna make a Psychopomp roll for the memory part.
Fate
With howling wind and roaring fire, a porthole shapes beneath the ship. Where the door and the water nearly meet, steam whips up and about, swirling a whirlpool in reverse.
Casey can feel it, reaching up through him like a sapling reaches for the sun. He reaches back down, calling up the old memory...
Casey's working with Diff 8.
He rolled an 11!
The ship sails right into the heated mist, through the stormy fire...
water slams the breath out, pressing harder and harder... the lungs suck in, but draw pain down throat and lungs, and everything else thrashes
something cold breaks over and a voice drifts down, splashed around by water and flailing
was that a 'man overboard'... ?
And then there's a sensation like poking a head through an open, perfectly circular window.
Surfaced. Everyone's surfaced.
Bakersfield is back and Kern River is running swift this evening, carrying the no-longer-wayward souls along in its current.
Aaren
Aaren's shock at the silence of songs is overtaken by the feeling of water. She pushes up, gulps air, and immidently starts singing Krissie and Vanessa air and regulating their warmth again. "Help!" She sings, as loud as she can, and then starts swiming toward them.
Slavina
Shock of water and misplaced memory slaps the words and breath from Slavina's chest. In half a second she struggles her way to the surface, then dives back down and drags Krissie up. Once their heads are back above water she says "Kick your feet... like scissors!"
Daina
Daina surfaces and takes a deep breath before her body bobs back down a bit, a cough as she looks to the others and goes to help anyone who can't swim. She wills the plants in the water to surge up with growth gently but swiftly to simply slow their movement, lift their heads above water and guide them toward the shore. art gardening/fertility
Fate
Krissie does as Slavina says without thinking twice. It helps, sorta.
(Meanwhile, Vanessa is left to drift away from them.)
Casey and Kelly both set to it right away, each headed to the closest floater in need of help.
Go ahead and roll, Mel
Daina
only a six
Fate
Still plenty.
Aaren
Aaren, already swimming after Vanessa, slows so that she can sing better once Daina sings the plants into catching the drowning woman. Aaren catches up with her and guides her (and her plant floaty) back to the main group and towards the shore. Meanwhile, she keeps up the singing people's breathings working.
Can we have a description of the condition of the river and how far we are from shore?
Fate
It's swift, and y'all were somewhere close to the very middle. It's a little wide at present—a good 25 yards wide. But Daina's plants and the current are both now guiding you to shore and keeping you afloat.
Slavina
Slavina struggles to keep herself and Krissie afloat - this is the kind of thing that's a lot easier when you're not wearing an ankle-length skirt. Regardless, she doesn't stop talking a mile a minute to Krissie, interspersed with spluttering when a wave hits her face. Daina's plants provide a very welcome bouyant respite.
Aaren
Aaren focuses on keeping Krissie and Vanessa warm enough to prevent further damage until they can get them dry.
Fate
Soon, feet find solid and pebbly ground. The rest follows quickly enough.
Casey starts to check on everyone—then pulls himself back. He looks to Aaren, "You got it, right? They aren't gonna, like, have water in their lungs? And... you won't?" (His bandana came off somewhere along the way. His long goatee is dripping water everywhere... well, along with the rest of him, really.)
Aaren
Aaren, not really able to effectivly nod while swiming and also helping Vanessa swim, sings, "Yup!" She helps Vanessa onto shore and starts her coughing, and then gets Krissie up and does the same.
Daina
Daina gives the underwater plants profuse thanks and gratitude while listening for Aaren to ensure she doesn't need help with the two more injured of their party. Once everyone is safely ashore Daina sets to rights the delicate balance of flora in the river.
Aaren
"Daina, fire please." Aaren sings, almost with a sigh. She sings the water out of Vanessa and Krissie's clothes and encourages them to huddle. "And a shelter, as soon as you are done cleaning up, thank you so much."
She also sings the breeze down.
Daina
Daina gives a faint nod and steam comes off of her as she warms herself and then begins to make a shelter first and then sort of sits in the middle, on fire.
Slavina
While they're busy doing that, Slavina takes off at a sprint into the most crowded nearby street, the one right between two temples and the longshoreman's union hall, where there are so many people and colorful market-stall awnings you can hardly see the pavement.
Aaren
"Slavina!" Aaren calls, "Where are you going?"
Slavina
"Blankets!" She doesn't slow down.
Aaren
"Thank you!"
Daina
Daina sings a paraphrased and incorrect rendition of "This Girl is on Fiaaaaah"
Fate
Obediently, Krissie moves to huddle with Vanessa, who seems perfectly willing to be bossed around by the lady who sings everything with seven voices. (Currently it's hard enough to take for granted the drying clothes, the sudden fire and shelter, and the having moved from one place to another so suddenly.)
Kelly catches their attention. "Body heat. May I?"
Vanessa eyes him, completely puzzled. "What?"
"Share body heat. With you two. Until the blankets arrive."
"Your clothes are wet," Vanessa points out, a little fuzzily. "Isn't that bad?"
"I'd take them off." After half-a-moment, Kelly adds, "I'm hairless."
"He can stay mostly on my side," Krissie offers.
He nods to confirm.
"Yeah, sure, whatever you need to do," Vanessa says, resigned. "I just wanna be warm."
In short order, the huddle pile grows a little more.
Aaren
Aaren sings the water off of Kelly's clothes and his skin, dries off her poncho in the fire, and wraps the now-warm garmet around the pile.
Daina
Daina absently tosses in a tease about Kelly just wanting to get in some canoodling after his bad ass stunt earlier. It's very clear she's joking. She pauses a moment and instead of being aflame she creates a bubble of warmth that fills the plant shelter but is in no way hot enough to burn it or the folks within. This might be more effective she hopes.
Slavina
There is a commotion in the streets. A great parting of the human sea. Out from the union hall issues a torrent of sun-beaten, weather-worn, muscled workers headed straight for the hometown cohort. One of the larger men is carrying Slavina, who stands upright atop his shoulders looking for all the world like a beautifully carved figurehead. She claps and sings, leading them in a jubillant call-and-response song: a more artistic rendition of the music so often heard on riverboats.
As the procession reaches the riverbank it slows, encircles the new arrivals, and comes to a halt.
Aaren
Aaren opens her mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. "Blankets?" She asks, sweetly.
Slavina
"Oh." Slavina sounds absolutely heartbroken. "I forgot."
Daina
Daina looks around and gives a faint little giggle as she takes a moment to admire all the muscle around them.
Aaren
Aaren smiles, feeling bad for making Slavina feel bad. "Don't worry." She turns to the people standing around, "Can I borrow a few jackets, please?" She asks.
Daina
Daina chimes in with a slight chuckle. "If everyone crowds in I think we'll have no problem getting everyone nice and toasty."
Aaren
Aaren frowns. "No, actually, I think just a couple of people and the fire is fine at this point. We've moved from hypothermic to just really cold. Food would be good though."
Then she realizes what Daina was up to. "Well, one or two more." She adds, trying to help out.
Daina
Daina grins a little and winks at Aaren, still a bit high on their success and survival.
Fate
Even as the question of blankets came up, it sparked among the crowd and grew from a question to a call to a cry. Jackets are shed in some profusion and passed along, some volunteers piling them on the huddled group.
Kelly sings some gratitude to the swarthy sailors.
(Somewhere in the commotion of things, Casey wrapped a stray undershirt around his face.)
And then, at Aaren's orders, some people break away from the group to retrieve some food. A couple of the foremost volunteers join fill the shelter a little more. And yet another sends some more folks off to get a place to stay for the night for these poor people.
Aaren
Aaren, health issues settled, listens to the song of the crowd to determine the source of this extream helpfulness.
Slavina
Slavina gently taps the head of the man upon whom she's standing. "Thanks Anton! You can set me down now. You guys are the best!" Once he's put her back on the ground she gives him a (more extensive than strictly neccessary) hug, and starts shucking off her wet clothes.