[ Fᴇᴀᴛᴜʀᴇᴅ ᴏɴ @WᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅAsɪᴀɴFᴀɴᴛᴀsʏ, @Fᴀɴᴛᴀsʏ, @Aᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ @ᴍʏᴛʜᴀɴᴅʟᴇɢᴇɴᴅ ]
Wᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ Iɴᴅɪᴀ Aᴡᴀʀᴅs 2021 Wɪɴɴᴇʀ (Tʜᴀᴛ Sᴇᴄʀᴇᴛ Qᴜᴇsᴛ)
ONC 2021 Lᴏɴɢʟɪsᴛᴇʀ
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As mysterious flash-floods rising from a dam reservoir begin drowning the town of K...
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She had seen jumping spiders perform the same trick while hunting. They would pump blood into their folded hind limbs and use the pressure to pounce onto their prey. Perhaps they served as the inspiration for the technique.
As the apprentice tumbled to the water surface feet facing down, she gritted her teeth and pushed her magical energy into her limbs. Water became sturdy as stone on contact with her feet, propelling her upwards with the same force she had hit it with. The apprentice skipped across the long, dark reservoir surface like a grasshopper across a glade, eager to go as far as she could at a time.
Behind the facial armour, Daminey panted like her canine namesake. Her black kavacha, her skin-armour, had woven itself through the pores of her cotton clothes and held them together.
Withered, damp trees dotted the barren waterscape further away from the reservoir. The tree she landed on sank under her weight. She swung forward and grabbed hold of a branch. Their old trunks extended far into the depths of the reservoir, having grown taller than any of their terrestrial brethren in life.
The reservoir shone a clear bluish-green and smelled nothing like the assault on her nose in the morning. When a flood retreated, it was sure to drag debris back to its origin, but here was the reservoir, standing blemishless in the moonlight. Things did not add up to her.
Daminey leaned over, switched to auravision and peeked into the water. A shoal of freshwater fish with orange auras played in the forest of dead trees and luscious weeds. She sighed and switched back.
She specifically remembered seeing the Crow mage fish bodies out of the water when the nearby river flooded Ketakey the last time. Despite the memory tightening her grip around the wrist of the branch, she replayed it in her head. Yes, she was right, the Crow mage had to lift ten of them from an island of wooden rubble with the careful motions of his two hands. His Samudra's organ had struggled to supply him with the magical energy, but focus and determination pulled him through. Had his organ shut down from overexertion, he would have fallen to his death from the height he was levitating.
The telekinect was still four hours away from aiding Arassey and her.
She looked up ahead, her facial-armour keeping her hair out of her eyes and mouth. A thin outline of the docks bordered the craggy banks. Without the light of the brass oil lamps the boatmen hung on the pier to keep the makaras away, the docks looked ghastly. Ripples bloomed across the water surface within seconds as an unprecedented drizzle made its entry.
Two skips in the gentle rain took her to the destination. The planks of the pier creaked when she touched down on them. Around the pier floated a collection of capsized catamarans, mangled ship skeletons with their beams sticking out of the body at odd places and dry carcasses, all being rocked by little waves.
