The Storm and The Shipwreck

Summer was a season of strong sun, hot, lingering temperatures, often with little cloud coverage or breeze to break the monotony. (Unless you lived in a small continent known by two initial letters, then 'Summer' was just a word meaning every type of weather, just frost was unlikely.)

However, there was another type of weather that summer was known for; electrical storms.

Two islands in the middle of a violent, midnight sapphire ocean, were currently being abused by water; that which crashed upon their rocky or sandy beaches and that which fell endlessly from the heavens. Occasionally the opaque sky lit up with flashes of brilliance, punctuated by crackling as if the sky had been torn apart and rumbling as if the clouds had drums and were beating them for extra effect.

Upon the smaller of the island, in amongst trees that were being tossed about by rolling gusts of strong wind, was a small, green tee-pee. It clung to the ground desperately, drawing strength from a network of vine and plant roots as the wind howled past. Rain drenched the natural fabric of the tee-pee and eventually penetrated it, the water seeping through as if victorious only to be captured with a plunk in a plastic bucket hidden inside.

Huddled in a slightly dryer area of the small tee-pee was a sleeping bag and within that a man. If it were any other night, that man would be unconscious, dreaming happily beneath the stars, escaping reality in a landscape of imagination, but this night, he was wide awake and quite miserable. Beside him and clearly unbothered by the change in the weather, was a seagull.

"I thought you'd be out there riding the waves again," Russell said to the bird.

"E-e-elec-lec-trical st-st-storms m-m-me-mess with m-my sy-sy-nap-ap-aps-ses," the seagull stuttered, not unlike a robot who'd had water poured over it.

"Oh?" Russell happened to think this was interesting, but he didn't bother the seagull to talk again, otherwise answering one question might take it half-an-hour and Russell doubted that he had the sort of patience necessary to listen.

The sky lit up brightly once more, so much so that the fibre walls of his tee-pee became translucent. Thunder quickly followed along with a chime from the ostentatious smartwatch on Russell's wrist.

[Achievement; First Shipwreck in the World]

[Reward; New Reef, additional tropical coral species, anemones and tropical fish species unlocked]

Russell frowned. "A shipwreck? Don't you need a ship before it can be wrecked?" He didn't question the 'additional' having managed to unlock fish yesterday when he happened to build a new sandcastle on the beach and dug up a millipede. He'd freaked out and tossed it into the ocean water. How this had unlocked fish, he really didn't understand, perhaps the author was having trouble figuring out how else to introduce this?

The seagull also seemed a bit confused, it's right eye blinked incessantly as the System struggled to maintain control over its body. "I w-w-will l-oo-look into-to-to it."

The bird lay down and closed its eyes becoming stiff. Russell couldn't help prod it a few times with a finger. It fell upon its side, completely motionless. Bored of playing with it, Russell pushed back the opening of his tee-pee to glance outside. The wind decided to sweep up a great deal of water and splash it into his face. He retreated immediately.

Wiping off the water with his hand, he glanced down at the 'achievement'. It certainly didn't sound like an achievement. It especially wouldn't sound like one to any people on board the ship. Congratulations, sailors, you've managed to sink your vessel into the ocean, well done!

He vaguely wondered if it had been manned and wasn't another anomaly, like a ghost ship or something. He shuddered as the wind howled overhead. Ghosts? He felt it would be unlikely, but who knew with this broken game!

[Kingdom Population; 47]

Oh, so it was originally manned.

As the electrical storm abated, the seagull came back to life. It beat its wings a few times to upright itself, chided Russell with an upset tone before finally getting to the point and explaining the situation.

"That guy, I mean System 666," it coughed when speaking of its fellow System, a mischievous individual whose pranks had gotten the seagull into no end of trouble, "was feeling a bit guilty regarding its part in the destruction of this world. It said that this ship is from the world it supervises and was meant to be lost at sea due to a similar storm. It simply transferred it to us so that we could make use of the men and women on board to kickstart our Kingdom once more!" The System felt some forgiveness welling up in its core processor. After all, System 666 wasn't entirely to blame for the destruction of the world, nor was it entirely to blame for the whole retirement village matter.

Its generosity of feeling would last five hours and fifteen minutes.

Russell listened and nodded. It was good that they finally had some person-power; those people could fix up the village so he didn't have to anymore. Maybe he could get their help sorting out his own small island. He wanted a roof that didn't leak and walls that didn't feel like they would topple over during the next storm. It would also be great if at least one of them could cook! His stomach began to grumble.

So it was on this positive note that he got up in the morning and crawled out of his tee-pee into bright sunshine with a smile upon his face. That smile was caught in the reflection of a long, silver piece of metal that just happened to have dangerously sharp sides and was held firmly in the leather gloved hand of a tall, dark-eyed woman.

The woman glared down at him. The thick, burly, scarred men around her glared down at him. His eyes widened and expression fell as one of those men planted a black flag with a white skull and bones in the shape of a cross upon it down directly into his tee-pee home.

Russell thought he should probably reevaluate his original plans.