Everliving: Day 7

Word Count: 42,022

Summary of Events:

Quique was working on the deck when he and Captain Sly were swept overboard; it took awhile before they were rescued and it was initially presumed that Captain Sly had died, but Quique managed to revive him. Bethania and her brother watched a concert before discussing music and he announced his desire to become a composer; she then went to tell their father but he refused to believe her. Quique was sitting below deck worrying about whether the ship would hold together through the storm when Captain Sly came down . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

""Everybody up!" Captain Sly ordered.

Men groaned in protest of being deprived of what little rest they could muster with the raging storm, cold, wet, and turbulence all without relief.

"We're liable to lose this ship if we don't lighten the load!" Captain Sly hollered. "I hate to do this, but we need to throw all the cargo we can spare overboard and hopefully reduce any unnecessary strain on the Queen so she'll make it out of this storm, and so will we!"

Quique got up with the rest of the men and started toward the cargo hold.

"Come on you!" Captain Sly shouted as Quique followed the flow around the galley.

Quique wondered, as Captain Sly kept on shouting, if he was yelling at Gifford to get up from his place and get involved, despite being short a finger, but he didn't bother worrying about it.

All of the men grabbed a trunk or barrel from the stacks in the hold and started back, hardly without slowing their pace from what it'd been.

Quique noticed one of the men grabbing a dripping barrel that said Flour on it. Even though it was food, Quique was sure it wasn't fit to be used now that it was wet, just like most of the gunpowder was useless that had gotten wet.

Taking up a barrel for himself, Quique followed the line and headed up to the top, where he passed his barrel to one of the men on the deck to throw overboard before going back down to get another one.

Back down in the hold, Quique took up a rather hefty chest and wondered what could possibly be in it. He knew some waterlogged items could get quite heavy, but he wasn't sure that any of them would be able to get as heavy as this, not that it was like he'd tried to haul any waterlogged cargo before. This was the worst storm he'd ever been in, and the bleakest state he'd ever known where they were even tossing off cargo to lighten their load.

Quique made several trips and noticed it hadn't taken long for the hold to get emptied out. If they emptied much more they'd be completely deprived of food, gunpowder, and anything else that was in the hold.

"How's she looking?" Captain Sly asked Carran as he walked by.

"Pretty empty," Carran replied. "I wouldn't want to take out another load."
"We'll stop then and see if that's enough to hold her," Captain Sly said.

"We should transfer most of what's left, though, before it gets too ruined by wetness," Carran said.

"Alright," Captain Sly said.

"There may be some useless supplies underneath we could toss yet too, and that could bring the water levels down so we're not walking in water all the time," Carran said.

"Not with the way these hatches batten," Captain Sly muttered. "She's going to be costly to repair.""