Chapter 150: Explodifishing

FieryKathy

We cut away at the vines for fifteen minutes or so, making sure that we cut them off as long as we possibly can. That way Hilda and Sam can cut them back down to a good length if they need to. It’s just important we don’t cut them off too short. But now that I think about it, I suppose I could just ‘heal’ them back together if need be… Or knots, that could work too.

By now luckily the rain has completely stopped so I can take up my rain hood so I can clearly behold my gathered materials. Together we collect quite some meters of viney rope. 

“I think this should be plenty.” Nikki claps her hands and then rubs them together. 

“And if we need more we can always come back later.” I agree and put the vines I gathered in my inventory. “And we didn’t even get poisoned so that’s fun.” 

Nikki laughs and shakes her head, putting away her vines as well. 

Brianna is already packed and ready to go, she’s just waiting for us by the pool of water. “If everyone is ready, we should probably go now. I’m starting to get really hungry.” 

Nikki and I catch up to Brianna. 

“So am I.” Nikki agrees and looks into the pool. 

Surprisingly I’m not actually that hungry yet but that might be because I ate a lot yesterday. But I won’t let my friends sit on their hunger so I join them at the small pool as well. Now that it's no longer raining, the water of the pool is very clear. So much so that I can even see the bottom of it. There’s even a couple of teeny tiny fishies swimming around in it. How those fishies got here, I don’t know, but it does make the small pool of water look a bit like an aquarium. 

“Off we go?” Nikki pokes me on the shoulder. 

“Yep.” I give her a nod and a big smile. 

“Or would you rather eat a couple of those small fishes first?” 

“Nah, those are way too small.” I giggle. 

“Ami being picky about fish, who would’ve thought.” Nikki chuckles as well. 

I simply stick out my tongue as we march back through the forest in the direction of the beach. When we arrive back at the beach the rain clouds over the ocean had just started to disperse, letting the sun break through in a couple of places. It’s a beautiful sight to behold. So much so that the three of us halt for a minute next to our stream, just staring over the ocean view. 

“You know, I’m not the biggest fan of open water. But when we can see a sight like this from land, I must admit I’m quite a fan of this.” Nikki says with a smile. 

“Oh, right, I almost forgot that you people came here from across the sea.” Brianna comments. 

“We did. I can tell you, I was not a big fan of that.” Nikki replies. 

“I didn’t know you were scared, you looked pretty happy during the journey.” I look at Nikki. 

“Scared is a big word. I’m just not a fan. Having solid ground underneath your feet is just a lot better.” 

“Hmmm… I think I do agree with that.” I nod. “And you don’t need to swim all the way back if the boat sinks.” 

“Exactly.” Nikki smiles. “Just give me my good old trusty dirt and I’m happy.” 

Brianna nods. “I can get behind that. As someone who has grown up in this nation. I can’t even imagine getting on a boat for a prolonged period of time.” 

“And luckily you won’t have to either.” Nikki smiles and nods in the direction where our camp is. “That aside, we should get moving again. I’m pretty sure it’s almost time to meet up again.” 

We arrive back at our little basecamp but as for now it appears that we are the first ones to return. With the sun now having completely broken through, the sand and our makeshift benches are slowly starting to get dry again. 

“Alright. As we are the first ones back, why don’t we start making some food?” Nikki suggests. 

“Sure, what are you suggesting?” I ask.

“I think there’s still some fruit left from yesterday.” Brianna says, walking over to a makeshift storage place Hilda had constructed yesterday. 

“If you’d mind cutting up a bit of those fruits and presenting it nicely on some palm leaves that are scattered around, that’d be great.” 

Brianna agrees to that with a nod and then immediately gets to work. 

“As for us. Ami, why don’t you try getting the fire going while I go and collect some fish.” 

I look at the wood storage we made yesterday. A lot of it got pretty wet but I suppose I could quite easily dry it. “Sure, but are you okay with fishing? I didn’t know that’s something you were skilled at.” 

“Oh, I don’t need to be skilled at fishing.” Nikki smirks and takes her staff in her right hand. “Have you ever heard about the concept of blast fishing?”

“Blast fi… - Ah!”

Nikki’s smirk grows larger. “I’ll be right back.” 

“Okay.” I give her a nod and with that Nikki walks off with a confident and excited strut.

“Amicia, what is she planning? I don’t think I can follow.” Brianna comments, looking confused at how Nikki is walking away towards the ocean. 

“Uh, I think you’ll know soon enough.” I chuckle and scratch the back of my head. I then walk over towards the wood and start carefully drying it with my blue ball of death. 

When I’m finished with the first couple of logs I suddenly hear a big explosion behind me, together with a relatively minor blastwave accompanied by some heat as well. 

“Ah…” I hear Brianna vocalize from a bit further away. -And now she knows.-  

I keep drying the wood as some more blasts occur down the beach. 

“What the heck is going on here?” I hear my sister call out. They must’ve just arrived. “Ami. Why is my partner blowing the shit out of the ocean? Is she working off her frustration or something.” 

“Well…” I put a couple of the dried logs in the firepit and then look up at my sister who appears to be soaking wet. That makes me raise my eyebrow. “...she decided to go fishing…” 

“Fishing?” My sister looks back at the ocean as another blastwave reaches us. “That’s definitely fishing a la Nikki I suppose…” 

That’s when I see Hilda and Sam also arrive at the camp, they are both carrying very very big green leaves, but just like my sister, they are soaking wet as well. 

“But what happened to the three of you? Did you decide to go swimming with your clothes on?” 

“Ah…” My sister rubs the back of her neck. “It might be best for Hilda to explain.” 

“Yeah, sorry, that’s all my fault.” Hilda admits as she sits down on a log, after putting the big green leaves in our storage space. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s entirely your fault.” Sam says, doing the same and the wringing out her hair clothes a bit. 

“We found this new tree none of us had seen before. It had this very nicely coloured wood so I asked your sister to cut it down so we could maybe build a hut out of it.” Hilda starts.

“But as it happens, those trees have this very peculiar way of storing water, with some kind of bowl shaped leaves at the top that we didn’t see from where we were standing.” Sam continues. “And when your sister hit the first stroke with her axe, all those leaves folded down for some reason, releasing all of the water on top of us, all at once.” 

“And it was a lot of water…” My sister looks at me with a painful grimace. “Like, a lot of water.” 

“Oh, I think I know those trees you are talking about.” Brianna nods. “I’ve never seen them do that but then again… I didn’t try to cut one down.” 

“So now we know what happens if you do that…” My sister stretches. “So we didn’t want to drag all that wood back here because… cold…” 

“Wait, let me start the fire already so you can warm up a bit.” I add a couple more blocks to the firepit and then light it up with my blue ball of death. 

“Thanks, sis, you are a lifesaver.” Lise starts warming up her hands. 

“Hehe, no problem.” I then go and sit next to my girlfriend, using a very very gentle version of my spell to warm her up a bit as well. 

Not that much later the blasting stops and soon afterwards Nikki returns back to the camp with dozens of fishes in her arms. Weirdly enough they are not fried at all. 

“How did you do that?” Hilda asks. “I was sure they were going to be fried.” 

“I just used the shockwave to knock them out by casting my blasts above the water. Then I gathered the nice looking ones and… well… I’ll spare you the graphical details.” Nikki puts down the fishes on another big palm leaf. She then cracked her fingers and took out her knife again. “Now, it’s food preparation time.” 

My mouth starts to water. Even though I’m still not really hungry… -There’s always room in my stomach for a nice fishy, as long as it isn’t too small…-  

FieryKathy