Chapter 18: Chapter 18: The Ocean Mother

The storm season passed quietly. After the first day, where Olav had introduced the Storm season to us and our parents had allowed us to watch the Storms, we had been mostly locked indoors again. In small doses, watching the storms and resisting the Call of the Ocean could strengthen one’s will. However, long periods of exposure could instead achieve the opposite effect, eroding one’s willpower and making it more and more likely that someone would walk into the ocean and never return. Due to this danger, our parents only let us meet up and watch the storms once a month, and spent the rest of each month indoors with us. But once a month, the three of us were allowed to meet again and watch a storm together. I personally wished I could watch the storms more often, since my Grade 6 Willpower gave me a level of mental resistance most other villagers didn’t have. Seeing the odd and magical storms more often would probably help me learn more about the ocean as well, which would be useful for my long term goal of exploring the Ocean of this region.  However, my parents both said I wasn’t allowed to see the storms more than once a month, no matter how much I felt that they didn’t affect me much. I decided to try again when I was older. 

The benefit of watching the Storms also started to become more evident as we did it over and over again, especially for Felix and Sallia. I personally didn’t get as much out of it as far as direct stat increases, because the effect the Call of the Ocean had on me wasn't very big to begin with. However, after my fourth and final Storm for the year, on my Status Screen the description for my ‘body’ changed. 

Current Vessel: Young child’s Body - born from the parents of your current body, this vessel has no leaks and is truly ‘alive.’ You may check the Stats of this physical vessel in your status screen. Your body is beginning to grow older, and you have an easier time using your stats. However, there is still a great deal of physical growth left before you finish growing up, and until you finish maturing your physical and mental stats will suffer certain penalties due to your physical body’s immaturity. Note - due to the characteristics of a Transmigrator, it is impossible for a physical vessel to ever have Stats BELOW 70 or ABOVE 130 without input from your soul. For more information, please go to Luxcorp for a very cheap consultation on the mechanics of Transmigration and Reincarnation. Immature Organic Brain: An underdeveloped human brain that has yet to finish growing. Made primarily of physical matter, with slight bits of Absorption Essence mixed into a few key parts of the brain to allow for rudimentary absorption-type spellcasting and interaction. This brain has been influenced by the user’s training regime of watching the waters of the Althala islands during storm season. Due to the mixture of unique mana and careful observation of the water during Storm season, the brain is now slightly stronger than before. Storms observation bonus: Willpower +1

 

Felix and Sallia ended up getting similar changes to their Status Screen. Felix had a (+3) to his Willpower Stat, and Sallia ended up with a (+4) to hers. It put Sallia’s Willpower at a total of 78, which wasn’t grade 4 yet. However, we were hopeful that by next storm season she would be past 80, getting her to grade four willpower and dramatically reducing the difficulty Sallia experienced when trying to do basic daily tasks. Given how much her low Willpower stat had been bothering her, I was happy that there was a solution available - although I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a similar solution for my low Intelligence stat. Even if I was getting used to the feeling of thinking through syrup, and it didn’t disturb me anywhere near as much as Sallia’s problem, I still wanted to be able to think clearly again if possible. Felix was probably the one that had the most mixed benefits from watching the storms - he already started out with 114 in Willpower, meaning he was pretty close to grade 6 in Willpower. However, even at grade 5 he wasn’t seriously impacted in his day to day life, meaning he was mostly grabbing stats for the sake of grabbing stats. However, all three of us still felt it was a good idea to grow as much as possible, since we didn’t have a full idea what would be taken back to the Market.

The only other good thing to come out of Storm season besides the minor Stat bonuses was the sudden variety in our diets. For most of the year, we consumed nothing but fish all day long. I understood why - after all, the fish here were so utterly massive that one fish could feed the village for a week by itself. However, the village’s ability to preserve food such as meat wasn’t that great, and even though the fish meat stayed fresh longer than I would have expected, it still eventually went bad. Since the fishermen couldn’t go out to hunt during the storms, the village had to turn to other food sources after a few weeks of storm season.

I got to eat roots, nuts, a very limited amount of berries as treats, and tree bark. I had very mixed feelings about the last food, but apparently, one of the trees that grew in the outer fringes of the forest had bark that was edible. It didn’t taste great, but it was nutrition, and it didn’t actually taste that bad after being boiled into a soup. Apparently, the hunters gathered food in the forest year-round and stored it away, preparing for the three months a year that fishermen couldn’t gather more food, and the bark and roots didn’t spoil very quickly. Which led to the roots, nuts, and tree bark diet the villagers survived on during storm season.

I had nearly forgotten how mind-numbing and boring it was to be stuck inside of a small house with no freedom. Even if I knew why I wasn’t allowed to go outside, I started to feel stir crazy from all of the time spent indoors. I spent the rest of the storm season days stabilizing my first rune and trying not to go crazy.

When the storm season finally ended, it was time to start preparing for the renewal festival to celebrate the end of the storm season.

“So what is the renewal festival?” I asked my mother, who was happily humming as she stared at the door.

“It’s a day of festivities for everyone. It celebrates the end of storm season and the calming of the ocean mother’s wrath. With the return of her calm, our boats can go out to fish again, and the ocean mother’s children will return to the surface so that we can hunt and eat them. Everyone will also turn a year older,” said my mother, with a bright, eager expression.

Everyone was considered a year older? Felix and I had were four years old according to our parents, and Sallia was three years old according to her parents. I had found it a little strange that Felix and I were so close in age and Sallia was a whole year off, but I now realized that this region’s birthday system was a bit different. After asking my mother, I learned that if you were born on the day of the renewal festival, you were considered 1 year old the day you were born. If you were born one day after the festival, you were zero years old, and would remain so until the next renewal festival. Suddenly, ages started making a lot more sense. If Sallia had just been born a week or two after we were, and we were born near the renewal festival, it could neatly explain why she seemed a month or two younger than us when it came to body growth and time spent in the ocean of souls, despite being considered a full year younger by the village’s reckoning.

“Is there anything else that we do in the renewal festival?”

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“Oh, it’s great fun! We prepare everyone turning six or sixteen for their first or second coming of age ceremonies, take a day or two to weave flowers together to celebrate the return of smaller plant life, and sing and dance for a few days straight. The boys and girls who are of age also spend some time dancing together, and the young children get to join the singing. I’m sure you’ll have a great time!” Said my mother, giving me a friendly wink. “Since we need to welcome the calming of the Ocean Mother with open arms and make sure she keeps feeling happy every year, it’s important that we make the festival as fun as possible, not just for us, but for her as well. Welcoming the return of the calm season with a big smile is a good way to let the Ocean Mother know that we’re thankful for her blessings, don’t you think?”

“Is there anything we need to do to prepare for the festival?”

“Not yet. In a few days, the hunters will start bringing back various things. Flowers, mushrooms, berries, and leather from landbeasts. Meanwhile, now that the fishing boats are able to start hunting again, they’re going to start gathering food for the big feast. After that, I’ll want your help putting together some decorations and weaving the flowers together. We still have a few days before the plants start really coming back in force, and then it’ll be time for the normal villagers to step up and help out so that we can start the festival on time. For now, just sit tight until we have supplies, all right?” My mother said, unaware of my earlier discomfort.

I nodded. It was my first time learning more details about the customs of the islands, and I was also a bit curious about my first festival in this world. I decided to just enjoy the festival for what it was this year - a celebration of the end of storm season, and an opportunity for the villagers to relax, have fun, and party now that life could resume again.

* * *

After a few days, the hunters responsible for keeping the land beasts at bay started to bring in various materials to the village. Wildflowers that could be pressed and woven together into wreaths and decorations, leathers to combine with fish scales for new clothes, and various foods fit for a celebration all appeared in great quantities. With the supplies finally ready, the villagers  began hustling to process everything and prepare for the festival.

I helped my mother weave together flowers and pearl braids and hung them on the sides of our house, which was the most I could help with as a four year old. The rest of the village also began decorating everything they could reach with wooden statues, pearls, and flowers. Finally, some artisans from the village made a life size statue of the ‘ocean mother.’ In the center of the village, a group of three men used bone saws and wooden tools to start carving out a proper sculpture of the village’s deity. Since Sallia had discussed in great detail how noble-mages had shaped her previous world’s society, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Ocean Mother really existed. How interesting would it be if there were actual gods in this world? I had been to a weird afterlife and reincarnated by jumping into a pool of water just a few years ago, so even though I would have originally scoffed at the idea of a god existing, I was much more open minded now. So far I had seen zero evidence of a god existing, but the amount of information I knew about the multiverse could fit inside a thimble. I decided to keep an open mind until I knew more, even if the idea of a real god seemed unbelievable to me.

While thinking about that, I took a few minutes to stand in the center of the village and observe our patron deity.

On the sculpture was a woman with the head of a giant fish. She had twelve eyes on the top of her fish-like head, but below her neck her body returned to that of a human woman for the torso, but there were other inhuman aspects of the statue. The right side of the Ocean Mother statue, for example, had three long tentacles instead of a human arm. Each tentacle was carved well enough to give me the impression that they were wriggling silently in the ocean. Meanwhile, the Ocean Mother’s left arm was carved with an entirely human arm.

The woman’s legs were carved similarly to how a Mermaid might have been portrayed in my previous life, rounding out the weird mashup of human and ocean creature biology on the sculpture. Finally, the ocean mother wore a dress clearly meant to resemble flowing waves. I felt that the statue looked more than a little unnerving, possibly because the blend of human and ocean creature on the statue gave me the feeling that there was something horribly off about how the woman’s biology blended into other creatures. But perhaps that was simply due to my remnant aesthetic standards from my first life.

I shrugged, before I tried praying to the ocean statue. Most of the other villagers that visited the statue wished for luck and good health, and it certainly didn’t seem like it would hurt to show a little respect if the Ocean Mother was real. After a quick prayer, I left the Ocean Mother’s statue behind. 

I returned to my mother’s side and continued layering fish glue on our decorations. Meanwhile the village bustled. Fishermen returned to their flying boats, before soaring off to the Ocean to hunt down the giant fish while hunters hunted.

After about a week, the village had both the decorations and supplies for a massive feast. The Ocean Mother remained proudly in the center of the village, in the center of a large clearing that gave people plenty of room to dance and engage with the festivities. A variety of tables were also lined up near the area, in order to support the food that would later be stored there. My mother, practically buzzing with excitement, told me that the preparations were ready, and that the renewal festival would begin tomorrow.