“No! Nah… Ahhhh! Stop it!” Jenlu shouted at her control console. It did absolutely no good, the instruments she was using to see where the ship physically existed continued to explode, implode or simply stop working. The lights which had been so bright a moment before were all dead, the engines wheeze spluttered and screamed, everything was haywire, in meltdown or overdrive. In frustration she beat her fists into the controls then threw herself back into a railing, from there she looked at her airships extradonary array of controls. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 

As her airship lurched into a sickening whirl, she had a moment to reflect. So far her investigations into Timedeath hadn’t gone fantastically well. She had followed the cracks in the fabric of time and reality to the centre. It had seemed like a good place to start looking, but all she’d learnt was that her airship couldn’t cope. The marvel of Novella engineering was simutasionly imploding, being ripped apart and dispersed throughout time. 

So, she had only the slightest chance of survival, and it was going to take an awful lot of luck. 

A frantic surge of energy threw her at the controls again, her wand flashed as she worked her magic. The last crystal functioning homed in on a place called Revaliir. It took her two and a half seconds to plot a course, half a second to summon the book from the library and another third to pull the lever. 

The engine shrieked out in pain as the airship ripped through one of the cracks. The effort was the last thing the machine could take. This was going to be tight. She sprinted towards the door, grabbing her jacket from the hook as she shouldered the door open. 

She had run out of time. 

Jenlu jumped, her wand flared up and a shield surrounded her as the ship exploded. The light was incredible, it light up the cloudless night sky brighter than the sun. 

Just before she hit the ocean she’d appeared over, another shield enclosed her and protected her from the impact. 

Now all the young Novella needed was a boat to appear before she froze to death. 

Xallithelid was laying back, floating in mid air above the see, mind wandering. He was recollecting the memories of an orc he had consumed the mind of a few days previous, When suddenly a large airship ripped through the sky, engines burning and balloon aflame. He fell from the air, diving nearly thirty feet underwater, and then more so as the ship hit the surface of the ocean. A brilliant light sent metal debris shot out into the water, disturbing wildlife and trailing bubbles. After everything had settled and there was just a burning balloon, he decided to look for treasure or something of the sort. He four feet above the water, magically levitating to find something of value. What he found instead was a survivor. Unfortunate, because he couldn't sell that unless it was unconscious and bound. This one was female, by all accounts of the imagination, atleast he hoped so. He decided to give her some advice, so he said "You should make a raft." to the woman and crossed his arms, leaning back into the air.

[OOC: For the purpose of this thread, I'll assume that Xalli and Natsumi haven't met before.]
 
Seas of mystery; seas of danger: both could be used to describe the Nyella Ocean. It was an area rife with superstitious shipmen, and one that attracted all sorts of brave – or, rather, insane – people from across Revaliir. Natsumi was one such fool who had been trying to explore more of the seascape, searching out underwater ruins to acquire more artifacts and riches. Making sure Saya was properly cared for required funds, and so the druid would often seek out whatever means she could to support her fragile family. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your outlook – for some sailors, this often meant doing things that were morally questionable.
 
On a cloudless night in one of the region's calm zones, a lone vessel drifted across the moonlit waters. It was ravaged by storm, its masts torn apart and a great many of its oars broken. The captain was an explorer who had up until recently been charting out some recently discovered islands nearby, but his luck had run afoul of the ocean's unforgiving nature. A hurricane had hit his ship, and, as a result, he lost half of his men. Additionally, the aftermath of the storm had thrown him off course into a calm zone: a place that had no wind or current. It was a sailor's nightmare to end up in such a place, especially if he or she didn't have oars to paddle out. Greater men had died from lack of drinking water in such places, and the crew would have likely shared the same fate had a certain druid not found them.
 
Natsumi, in her boundless altruism, offered to bring them to safety. In exchange for a share of their profits from the expedition funding, she would guide their ship to the nearest port where they could repair it. Of course, those left alive were cautious at best with this offer of hers, but the lack of choices available to them assured its acceptance. Eventually, they agreed, and so the young woman used her developing polymorph skills to transform into a large sea serpent. Positioning that hulking form underneath the ship's hull, she moved the vessel through the waters, at least until the airship crash lit up the sky.
 
It came from nowhere: a bright flash of light and flaming debris.  Natsumi had to stop quickly to prevent the ship from getting too close, and she listened to the chatter of the sailors behind the figurehead during the immediate aftermath. She had placed her head above water to make it easier to hear requests and also to scare off pirates that might attempt to attack such a crippled ship.
 
"Oi, cap'n! The sky and sea are burning!"
 
"If it's not one thing, it's another." The chatter continued among the crew until an agreement was made to examine the wreckage. Supplies were running low, and, while they could make it to the next port with what they had, a little cushioning never hurt. They automatically assumed there could be no survivors, and Natsumi made no attempt to correct this assumption.
 
'I saw that figure off in the distance,' she thought while listening for Kino's response.
 
'Indeed, madam. There was definitely some sort of humanoid falling with the debris.' The druid was unsure if the person that Kino and she saw would be friendly or hostile, as they were still too far away. She was not even aware that there was another creature present in the area, but she didn't tell the crew that. She had agreed to take care of the sailors, and she would acquiesce to their requests on that front. However, she had not agreed to give them all of her information free of charge. They would soon find out anyway, and she could always charge them extra if they demanded additional information.
 
With that in mind, the group sailed toward the airship wreck. They would soon be in sight of the survivor and her unwelcome guest, as would the monstrous head of the sea serpent that Natsumi had assumed. One could only hope that the spectacle would be greeted as a sign of good fortune rather than of terror.   

Treading water was hard work, her clothes were heavy and restrictive in the black ocean. The only evidence there had been an airship there at all was a simple pearl coloured door, to which Jenlu swam. Though the sea was calm, it was hard going. Her skin was burning but her muscles felt as if they were turning to ice. Each breath was harder than the last, and less effective. With screaming red fingers she clutched at the wood and pulled her body on top of it. 

With her eyes cast skyward she scanned the night sky, charting each star as she saw it. Although her knowledge of the stars was almost unrivalled, it didn’t take a Novella to spot the floating Illithid. His advice set a grimace across her face. “Astounding advice.” She breathed, her body shivered as she floated along on the current. Illithids were rarely friendly, she was vulnerable, freezing and slowly losing consciousness.  

She sent a feebly cast fireball in the vague direction of the Illithid, but before she could see if her shot hit, her head fell heavily back towards the door, her eyes fell on the bow of a ship, a huge sea serpent focused it’s gaze on her. 

“Perfect.” She muttered as she finally fell unconscious. 

Although there had originally been flaming wreckage associated with the bright flash in the sky, said wreckage seemed to simply vanish shortly after it hit the water. By the time Natsumi and her black-mail victims had made it to the crash site, everything but a single door had burned up. It was as if nothing else had existed in the first place, and this, understandably spooked the sailors.
 
"Oi, oi, oi… Anyone seeing what I am?" said one in an anxious tone. Another answered him after a short delay.
 
"Aye, but I can hardly believe it. We all saw that airship, and now it's gone without a trace." The supplies they were hoping for had vanished, and all that remained were two mysterious individuals that spelled bad luck in the superstitious beliefs of sailors. It was fortunate for the sole, female survivor of the crash that Natsumi was Parvporan rather than Caneluxian. If not for that fact, the sailors would have attempted to leave her behind as fast as they could.
 
"One trace," said the polymorphed Natsumi in a booming voice to silence the chatter behind her. Dipping her head underneath the pearl door that held the unconscious girl above water, the druid scooped it out of the water and placed it on deck as gently as possible. As could be expected, the captain was less than pleased by this arbitrary action.
 
"Lassie, I know we owe you, but we can't take on another mouth to feed. Our supplies are already laboring as it is."
 
"Then I'll just have to pick up the pace, won't I?" Natsumi was adamant. While she had left people to their fate before, those times had always been when the one marked for death was guaranteed a quick demise. Being stranded in the deep rarely led to such a situation. If left on her own, the ship wreck survivor would likely die of dehydration before any other cause. That was not a pretty fate, and, since it was well within her ability to prevent, the druid took pity on the castaway.
 
Still, the captain was correct in his assessment. Supplies were dwindling, and an extra mouth was the last thing the crew needed under that circumstance. If they didn't exit the calm zone soon, Natsumi would have to risk an attempt at opening a gate large enough for the ship. That might cause more damage than aid, however, especially since she had never teleported such a large object. For now, it remained a last resort, but no one could say how long that would last.