Lessons From the Tower of Water

[Bailey Raptis]

December 14, 2015
Tower of Water

“WHAT D’YE MEAN, YE CANNA SWIM?” The ghost of an old pirate captain who had been giving Bailey his orientation to the Tower of Water stopped dead in his tracks, folding his arms across his barrel of a chest and glaring at the new keeper.

“I, hã...I never had a reason to learn to swim, Sargasso. Sir.” Bailey scratched the top of his head, then looked past the guiding spirit at the walls of the tower. Water constantly spilled down from the ceiling to the ground, yet the smooth packed white sand that comprised the tower’s floor never seemed to get wet. The only water on the ground came from the pirate himself. His body was translucent, but his stringy black hair, his tri-cornered hat, his long black-and-red coat, and his trousers were eternally drenched. Every step he took left a small puddle on the ground in the shape of his boots. He would have to ask about that, once the captain was finished berating him.

“Avast! Eyes ‘ere!” Bailey did as he was commanded, turning his attention fully on Sargasso. For a dead man, he seemed surprisingly corporeal -- or was corpulent the word he was looking for? His gaze wandered again, as he searched his memory for the definition of those two words. Corporeal: of or relating to a person's body, especially as opposed to their spirit. Corpulent: fat. It must be corpulent. His eyes shifted back toward his guide, who scowled at him. “Ye canna follow orders?”

“No, no, I can. I am sorry. Please continue?”

“Bloody ‘ell,” Sargasso muttered, his eyes turned upwards to the heavens. “Ye’ve no more brains tha’ a sea turtle.” Eventually, he looked down at Bailey again, shaking his head. “ ‘ow in the depths did a land lubber get th’ key?”

“I won a tournament?” Bailey scratched his head again.

Sargasso snorted. “If ye be seekin’ th’ tower’s secrets, ye need t’ learn t’ swim afore.”

“Oh, that should be quite simple! I have been told that the key allows me to breath underwater.” Bailey beamed with pride at having remembered that part of the orientation.

“Without th’ key. Ye need t’ know t’ swim, tower or no.”

“Ha, that is funny!” Bailey smiled at the captain, hoping to ease the tension. Sargasso just glared back at him, arms still folded. “Oh, you were not joking. Oh. Merda.”

[Bailey Raptis]

February 2016

“Stroke! Stroke! C’mon ye lazy landlubber! Put yer back into it!” Sargasso stood on the very top of the tower, bellowing directions into a megaphone down at a swimming Bailey. The keeper, for his part, had progressed to the point in his lessons where he could complete several laps around the tower swimming freestyle without immediately sinking to the bottom of the lagoon, flailing in the water and screaming that he was drowning, or resorting to a doggy paddle that the pirate ghost had labeled “@#$%! pathetic.” Much of Bailey’s improvement came not from Sargasso’s instruction, a patchwork quilt of insults, threats, exhortations, and self-help aphorisms that all too often resulted in words of advice that immediately contradicted the suggestions that preceded it. Instead, Bailey was becoming a better swimmer through sheer practice. A few laps in the morning before eating, a healthy breakfast usually consisting of eggs, fruit smoothies and/or oatmeal, work (or some study time in the Tower’s library on his day’s off), and then another round of laps after work typified a normal day’s schedule for him. The focus on swimming had stripped some of the bulky muscle he had developed through the more weight-driven workouts he had done for Hydra and Iron Fists League, but that leaner, more toned look was what he needed if he wanted to model in both men’s and women’s clothing again this Fashion Week, as he was hoping to do.

Bailey was just about to complain again about Sargasso’s training methods when he heard a faint rumble in the distance. He stopped swimming, treading water in the bay, as he looked to the horizon. The clouds were the same as they always were, white and high in the sky, with no sign of rain or thunder or lightning to come. He frowned, and then he felt it. A surge of magic, similar to the sensation he felt when he stepped in the dueling rings, or whenever he donned the key to the tower. In fact, he immediately recognized the elemental nature of the surge. Water. The normally placid tides in the lagoon shifted, and small waves buoyed his body, slapping lightly against his chest and then the sides of the tower. His eyes drifted up toward Sargasso, and he shouted, “Did you feel that, too?”

“Aye.” Bailey nodded in response, then closed his eyes and tried to contact the water elementals within and around the tower. Did you feel that? Without the key on and without being in a ring, he had anticipated difficulty in tapping into that magic, but the flowing energy must have boosted his own abilities, as they answered him almost immediately.

We did. Not from here. A nearby realm, perhaps? The waves died down, and the waters of the bay no longer lifted Bailey up and down in their embrace.

RhyDin. Is there any way you might determine the source?

No. Unfamiliar. Unsure.

It must be powerful to make it through the portal. Bailey swam towards the tower’s door, where he had left the key floating in place under an elemental’s guard. He took the key, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, dripping water all over the sandy floor. He waited there until Sargasso had made his way down the steps into the entrance hall.

“What d’ye wanna do?”

“...Nothing.”

“Naught?” Sargasso’s eyebrows lifted.

“I will call in sick to work and check to make sure the city has not been destroyed, although given the multitude of disasters that have befallen it over the years, I sincerely doubt whatever this was will have even dented it. I will call and text my friends to check and make sure they are all alright. But I am not rushing in to play hero.”

“Ye dinna think they might need th’ ‘elp?”

“Even with the key, there are plenty of other people in the city powerful enough to deal with that. And I have my own problems. The more I show up to places outside of work and here, the more I risk running into my enemies in uncontrolled situations. I need to get stronger. I need to be here. Studying. Training.”

“Aye, I ‘ear ye.” The look on Sargasso’s face, though, made it clear that he didn’t understand. Or agree.

((Post ties into this playable. Thanks for the inspiration!))

[Bailey Raptis]

“Bailey! Th’ hell ye be doin’?” Sargasso shouted at the Keeper from a pier that connected the Tower of Water to one of Twilight Isle’s beaches. Sitting at the ghost pirate captain’s feet was a large boombox, blasting reverb-drenched guitar licks that made long runs through several series of chords before falling off a cliff, accompanied by a steady, driving drum beat. Further away from the pier, out on the water, Bailey stood astride a long white surfboard, trimmed with blue near the edges. He wore baggy turquoise board shorts, the tower key hanging around his neck and a smear of zinc oxide on his nose. Sitting on his shoulder was a baby kraken, tentacles wrapped around Bailey’s shoulders, shrieking and giggling with each wave that the Keeper rode and crested. Bailey crouched down after one wave broke, dipping his fingers into the still water. He watched, nodding, as a large wave formed itself out of the usual placid lagoon, then flopped onto the board belly-first and began paddling out towards it.

As he carved through the surf, his laughter mingling with the kraken’s, he found a moment to shout a response back at Sargasso. He stood at the edge of the board, toes dangling out over the water, hands cupped over his mouth for amplification.

“I believe the proper word in the vernacular of choice, dude, is hanging ten!”

Sargasso stared at Bailey for a long while, then turned and headed back for the Tower, muttering. “I always get th’ crazy keepers…”

((Linked to this event. Thanks for hosting it!))

[Bailey Raptis]

September 23, 2016

“YE DID IT!” Sargasso’s voice boomed throughout the Tower of Water, sending several of the more skittish water elementals diving out the windows into the lagoon for safety. Bailey cringed at first, then grinned at the ghostly pirate captain who had been his majordomo, his teacher, and eventually, his friend.

“The news travelled fast, I take it?”

Sargasso responded to Bailey’s question by wrapping him up in a quick, wet hug. “I knew ye could do it. I always knew ye had it in ye.”

Bailey resisted the urge to wipe off the water. “Thank you, Sargasso. That means a lot to me. I am going to miss this place quite a bit. I have learned so much about magic from you and the elementals.” The corners of Bailey’s lips twitched. “And a little something about swimming.”

“A Water Keeper who canna swim,” Sargasso said, shaking his head with a smile. “Wha’ good would I be if I didna teach ye t’ swim? Now c’mon, boyo! Th’ elementals and I and ye have a party t’ celebrate!” He clapped the keeper on the back, his drenched hand making a loud smacking sound as he did so. Bailey gritted his teeth and forced a smile that eventually became more genuine, once the pain subsided.

“I look forward to it. And you should know, this is not farewell. I will be just up the road, so to speak. And I might come back to visit you on a more permanent basis one day. I still haven’t figured out that one spell.”

“Th’ one where ye turn t’ water and floa’ objects inside ye?”

“That would be the one! But for now, as you said, let us celebrate!” Now it was Bailey’s turn to slap Sargasso on the back. Their hearty laughter echoed throughout the Tower and threatened to spill outside.