Meiko and the Sandsea - First in a series of short stories based around a fantasy world I created for some role playing game sessions
Meiko stretched her arms luxuriously towards the sky with a great yawn. The bright azure skies caused her to squint into the horizon; puffy white clouds lazily wandered around the sky as the sun slowly worked its way out of it's dawn position. The sounds of thousands of hourglasses surrounded Meiko on all sides, or so it seemed. The endless din of soft silky sand rubbing and flowing against itself always managed to calm Meiko if she stopped to listen to it. She was floating along in the Sandsea, an ocean of ultra-fine, mysteriously dry quicksand stretching for thousands of miles in the middle of Tera. The strange properties of the sand and it's origin was unknown to many, but Meiko didn't care. All she cared about was the fact that lots and lots of other adventurers, merchants, armies and others managed to lose a bunch of stuff in the Sandsea. Shiny stuff for Meiko to go and reclaim as her own. Some would call her a scavenger, but she herself preferred the title of "The Extraordinary Shiny Reclaimer". Not everything she found she kept for herself; but even for the boring stuff she managed to scrounge up, she could easily tempt the greedy eyes of wealthy merchants living on the shores.
She waggled her tail, scratched behind her ears and pulled on her tank top. She crawled out from the canopy near the back of her sand-skiff and stood up, hands on her hips, grinning with determination into the morning sun. Meiko was a member of the cat-folk tribes from western Teradaevia, she lived there for a while until her wanderlust got the better of her. She set off around the age of 15 with her friend Mixie and they started to explore the world together. As the years went by, she eventually parted ways with her friend though, under less then amiable terms. After a while, doing odd jobs along the coast of Sildius she managed to get a deal on a sand-skiff of her own at almost a steal. Well, actually it was a steal; she stole it from a wealthy Sildian merchant who had tried to buy her "services" when she wasn't selling. She figured the best way to pay him back would be to relieve him of this cumbersome vessel he probably wouldn't even notice missing, and sail off with his wallet, his hat, and a large amount of his prized onions. While technically a wanted criminal in that part of Sildius now, she tended to be hundreds of miles away from there anyhow and managed to avoid any confrontation with the less than savory individuals like police and such. Besides, she lucked out on the skiff, it happened to be of a quality design, and not only was it sturdy and top of the line, it was able to outrun any other ship she'd encountered so far. An essential trait to someone on the run. The skiff was a sleek catamaran looking craft; twin sails pulled it along the top of the sand while the fyrithium ore tucked into the pontoons on each side of the craft kept it from sinking into the sandy depths. This fyrithium was a mixture of a local ore and infused elements from the elemental plane of air, a combination that resulted in lighter then air rock which became extremely useful for things like aircraft, floating islands and indigestion.
It was time to get the day under way. Grabbing a large juicy apple from a basket, she got to work hoisting the sails and getting her rigging ready. She pulled off the tawny colored drapes off the rest of the boat which helped her craft blend in with the sand while she slept (she wasn't the only one looking for fortune in the Sandsea). She reeled in the drag anchor, and tightened her forwards sails. Getting into position she let the sails out and started tacking into the north-westerly winds. A smile bubbled on her lips and eyes twinkled with glee, she worked her craft across the sea of sand, wind whipped through her short snowy hair, her tail fluttering behind her. Her latest journey had been lasting a couple of days already; she was on her third day of heading east towards the Diamond Archipelago, a chain of islands in the south eastern regions of the Sandsea. The name of the islands themselves were enough to attract pirates and adventurers galore. Meiko knew the real treasure wasn't the supposed diamonds that gave the islands their name, but the foolish and the reckless who got themselves or their craft stranded or wrecked in the treacherous sands of the area. While some of the islands were large, and housed small bastions of nature or civilization, a lot of it was just small outcroppings covered in hardened sand. A deadly trap that could catch an unexperienced sailor unawares if they didn't know what to look out for. Not to mention the pirates, indigenous people and other sorts of monsters and creatures that dwelled on the islands and in the sea; the Diamond Archipelago was rich with all kinds of shiny things.
While thinking of these things, Meiko almost fell off the boat in fright upon hearing a sudden sound: a loud clear beeping from one of her metal detectors. Securing the sails into position, she scampered towards the source of the noise. Crouching over her assortment of devices she found the culprit: a small rusty object designed to detect nearby sources of forged steel. With a wicked grin, she rummaged through her assortment of sensors to confirm her suspicions. Multiple sources of fyrithium (other than that from her own boat), steel, iron and some organic signatures. All these pointed to a wrecked sand ship. All the minerals signatures pointed to the east, while the organic ones pointed below the surface. Poor bastards must have hit a rock and drowned in the sand trying to save themselves, she thought to herself. Oh well, can't let their shinies go to waste! She adjusted her course a few degrees south and pulled in her main sail to slow her boat to a crawl. Within minutes her prize came into sight: a rough metallic object jutting out of the surface, a beacon of treasure just waiting to be pilfered. Pulling in her forward sail, she drifted in close. Off to the side she saw the murderous cause of the skiff's demise, A hardened block of sand, nearly invisible to someone without her sharp cat-like eyes. With a toothy grin, she darted back and forth across her boat gathering the tools necessary for extracting the sweet, delicious loot. Standard grappling hook, her sand sniffer Miggums (a tiny little creature that swam through the sandsea like an otter in water, she had trained it to guide her grappling hook towards that which she desired in return for yummies), a short range scrying screen and a snack to keep her energy up to speed with her excitement.
Within minutes, Meiko had secured her boat to the guilty rock, and was leaning over the edge of her skiff, legs bouncing in the air happily, as she probed into the sand with her scrying screen. The murky brown images floating into view in the screen were pretty nondescript, but nothing she didn't expect. While she wasn't a magic user in any sense, she used her innate cleverness and curiosity to get around that. A rakish boy named Max she once knew taught her a few things about being the classic rogue. Magic users were always so uptight about their items being only usable by those of the magical persuasion, that boy had taught her that by denying this fact as hard as possible, and by simply mashing buttons and chanting random words, it was more then enough to make any magical item do at least something. He had to draw on his own eyebrows in the morning, and he didn't have an even number of fingers, but Meiko still thought he was pretty cute. Either way, after stealing his lunch one too many times, she had also parted ways with that guy. Still, the techniques she had learnt from him let her get away with using magi-tech like this all the time. Cursing her own inattentive mind for getting lost in thought again, she almost missed what she was looking for. She managed to make out the deck of an old Teradaevian scout-model skiff through the old viewing screen. Moving the image in closer with a couple deft twists of the device's knobs she found her prize: a safe box loosely attached near the helm. With a cry of joy, she grabbed Miggums around the middle and showed him the image. The spiny little critter inquisitively snuffled at the pictures on the screen taking it in.
"Find me some shinies Miggums, and this is yours!" Meiko whispered into his tufted little ears, she waggled a tasty looking cricket in front of his nose. Miggums squeaked happily and started struggling, eager to be on his way. She attached her winch and rope to the hook and tossed it into the ocean with Miggums. The critter and hook quickly disappeared into the sand with a squeak and a "shlop".
Breathing quickly, bouncing up and down in anticipation, she fed the rope behind the sand sniffer, and waited. Before long she could see the cute little head poke into the image on the scrying device. Miggums dexterously managed to secure the hook on a handle of the box, and then scampered up the line. He burst out of the sand and ran up to Meiko, who tossed him the cricket before reeling in the winch. First slowly, but with a satisfying thunk the box came free of the deck and started floating towards her. With unbridled impatience, she pulled in the rope as fast she could. A splash of liquidly looking sand heralded the chest as it crested out of the goop and sailed towards Meiko's outstretched quivering arms. Mouth agape in delight she caught the box in a hug. With an "oomph" she was bowled over by the heavy chest and rolled backwards a couple times until coming to a stop on her back with the chest lying atop her breasts, slender arms wrapped tightly around it. She looked up, perplexed by the strange creature sitting atop the chest.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH," the brown little monster got down on all tiny fours and shrieked in her face, "Bad kitty! Bad, naughty kitty! Stealing my treasures!!!"
Instinctively, Meiko shoved the chest away from her, sending the box and the monster tumbling away. She quickly leapt to her feet, tail curled around her leg, ears swept back and fangs bared, "When, in the name of Hazzi, did you get there?" She was angered by this intrusion on her happy time. The treasure was most definitely hers, not the possession of this minuscule sand demon. The spiny demon was squatting atop the chest. Brown dull scales covered in grit and sand, hackles raised, he sulkily spat and gibbered at Meiko. Thinking quickly, Meiko calmed down, taking a deep breath.
Suddenly, she pointed somewhere behind the creature, "What the hell is a sand wyrm that big doing out here?" Meiko exclaimed. As the tiny demon spun its head around in fear, she pounced. She leapt forwards, hands hit the deck, she shifted her weight, spun with her wrists and launched herself forwards again.
"There ain't no wyrm you crazy c-" The imp was cut short as two leather boots suddenly planted themselves, with excessive force, into it's sternum. The little beast rocketed off the side of the skiff and into the Sandsea several meters away.
"Stupid beastie" Meiko harumphed, she spun around and pounced onto her treasure box. "Hmm, locked you say?" With a large clang she rammed the butt of a harpoon into the lock, shattering it to pieces. She tossed the harpoon back towards the hold, and cackled: "don't think so!"
Sitting down cross legged in from of the box, she brushed her hair out of her eyes and waggled her fingers over the lid. She did a quick check for traps, although Teradaevians were usually too proud and full of themselves to think it necessary to trap their stuff. Meiko gently eased the lid upwards and opened it. With a gasp, she nearly fainted in euphoria. Inside the box was the best kind of shinies. It must have been a cash box, it was chock full of gold and silver coins, along with other expensive looking items: a bottle of old spiced rum, a cracked platinum rimmed mirror, something that looked like a delicate crystalline wand, a rumpled map, a clay statue of a scantily clad woman, some really moldy cheese and.. oooh a map! Realizing that maps tended to lead to buried treasure and the like (at least in her romanticized view of maps anyway), she quickly pulled it close and was about to open it when a new beep sounding from across the deck sent a chill down her spine. She grabbed the frail looking wand from the chest, stuffed the map securely into her bra, and then slammed the chest shut. She bounced up to her feet as the organic signature sensor started going on the fritz. She noticed Miggums dive for cover into the hold (coward, she thought) just as the first of the heads started breaking the surface of the sand around her skiff. At least 6 or so more sand demons were surfacing around her ship and starting to climb aboard.
"There! That's the bitch kitty who stole our treasures and kicked my lungs out of me!" The small little demon was riding on the back of a much older, much bigger sand demon, pointing and yelling (while coughing) with two boot shaped bruises on it's chest.
"Aw nuts. Well hey guys, no need to be un-civil, i'm sure we can work this out! How about I give you half the treasure and you guys leave me alone?" She beamed around at them arms spread wide.
The creatures looked around at each other, then burst out laughing. "Eat her" The big one with the little demon on his back, cut in quickly; he wiped dirty tears of laughter from his eyes.
"Thought as much..." She did a cartwheel. The monsters' wide heads followed slowly in a circle as they all followed her movements, bewildered by her sudden acrobatics. Halfway through the loop, her hands clasped around the shaft of the discarded harpoon. As her left foot touched the deck again, she dropped to that knee for more leverage. With her right foot slamming down with as much force she used her entire lithe body to catapult the harpoon as hard as she could. The long wooden harpoon screamed through the air with a spectacular amount of force and it's greedy hooked head found a new home in the chest of the nearest demon. It looked down at it's new appendage dumbly for a bit then toppled backwards into the sea.
"Get her!" The leader shouted, and the critters rushed forward at once. Sweat dripping down her forehead she waited until they drew a bit closer. She kicked off from some gilding on the deck of the boat, and threw herself sideways. She did this while holding on to a rope attached to her main sail. The sudden pull caused the boom to swing around nailing a couple demons in the face. The big leader demon ducked, quicker then the others, only to have the smaller demon get the full force of the boom directly into its chest bruises. With a squawk, once again it was carried off into the sea with severe chest trauma. She quickly secured the main line as fast as she could, counting: 1... 2... 3..., she managed to secure the line and somersault out of the way just as spiny brown clawed hands slashed at where her milky white thighs had been a few instants prior. She ran to the anchor and started to pull it up, but it was too heavy. There was a scraping of wood as something skittered behind her. She whipped around to see the big demon galloping towards her on all fours, salivating and teeth gnashing. With a start, she brought up the frail looking wand and aimed it at the demon and started shouting out all the magical command words she could remember. The demon skidded to a stop expecting a sudden blast of magical energy but nothing happened. It leered at her and readied to pounce.
"Chiz'ku'lak?" Meiko inquired of the wand with a bit of desperation in her voice. One thing that Max had taught Meiko, was that when you try and use a wand that you don't know anything about, never point it directly away from you, with one end pointing at your chest, like some idiot magic school student. Always hold the wand to your side with neither ends pointing at your tender, easily mutilated flesh. Max saved her once again as a fireball raced out the wrong end of the wand and sailed a few hundred feet behind Meiko. Both her and the demon watched as it exploded in the distance, sending a spray of hot sand in their direction. Meiko turned back to the demon and shrugged, who did the same. Meiko did a back flip, left foot gracefully connecting with the monster's chin and sent him sprawling backwards. She was immediately pulling up the anchor as fast as she could and had just brought it on deck, when, as the leader lay dazed on its back, one if it's subordinates leaped over its body. It landed on Meiko, claws digging into her soft shoulders and slammed her to the floor. There, she lay and stared up into the drooling monster's face, who straddled atop her. She squinted up, wincing, and waited until the monster had realized the sharp sandy anchor that protruded through it's stomach. She had angled it quite nicely to her side as the demon had landed. The demon looked down, finally realizing its demise. Eyes rolled back into it's head, it's scrawny body rolled off Meiko. For a moment, bruised, bleeding and exhausted, she lay on her back. Too long. As she scrambled to her feet, there was the big leader demon, standing in front of her. Eyes slightly criss crossed, he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her into the air. He grabbed her right leg as she attempted to kick him in the groin. Vision fading, with oxygen not reaching her brain, she choked and gasped. She clawed at the arm slowly crushing her windpipe.
"FAWWRGRAWWWW" the demon suddenly screamed, and arched its back wildly, dropping Meiko heavily onto the ground. She coughed and wheezed, and looked up to see that Miggums had jumped onto the demon's back and was digging in with his sharp little fangs somewhere between the monster's shoulder blades. Not wasting the opportunity, she ran to the foreward sail and pulled it tight as hard as she could. The demon who was focusing on getting the little critter off it's back didn't expect the sudden lurch of the boat and tumbled over. Miggums jumped away and rushed back to the hold, his braveness being completely spent for the day.
"Why you sneaky little b-" Clawing his way to his feet, he started spluttering at where Meiko had been standing near the sail, only to find she wasn't there anymore. "Huh?" it asked to no one in particular, rather puzzled. The dented shovel connected with the side of his head in a rather heavy satisfying clang. It's body shuddered once, then fell over knocked out cold.
Twenty minutes later, after having tossed over the dead or unconscious bodies of her enemies into the accepting arms of the Sandsea, she slumped against her new treasure chest with another apple. Taking a bite out of it, she looked down at the sniffer snacking happily on a large pile of crickets. She said "thanks, Miggums." It squeaked happily. And the two enjoyed their lunch as they continued to sail on in search of more adventure.
Fin