Tarn Nation: Secrets of Font

“Mishlan! Get out of the water! You’re scaring the fish!” Mishlan ignores the voices of angry women yelling from their boats as they try to catch fish in their nets. Mishlan doesn’t understand the big fuss. They always collect enough fish to feed the village. They always take all day to perform all necessary tasks. Mishlan figures that she wouldn’t be able to have any time to have fun if she didn’t have fun while working. Mishlan swims through the waters of Font in her wetsuit made from fins and scales of Ripplings.

She holds a fishing spear in her hands as she chases after the fish. It takes her several minutes to catch each fish. However, it is rare that it takes more than ten minutes in an interval between her catching a fish. Everytime she catches a fish, sticking it on her fishing spear, she swims back up to one of the fishing boats and tosses the fish into one of the baskets holding the fish they’ve caught.

After hours of fishing, they all return to the shore. The large fishing boats are finally ready. They are for deep water fishing. The nets are massive and can reach down to depths deep enough to catch fish. Sails billow from the tree-high masts. Mishlan commissioned the construction of these large fishing vessels. She promised them that the fishing vessels would gather quantities of fish greater than ever before thought possible.

But the truth is that they always have enough food except for during the time of Fontsink and the Ripple. This project of building these unique boats was accepted because people wanted to do something other than fishing for once in their life.

Now the boats are finally ready. Mishlan doesn’t waste any time as she runs to recruit her friends to man the fleet into the deep waters. Soon they are all on the ships out in the deep waters of Font. Usually, Michelin swims alongside the boats when they go fishing. But these larger boats are faster. Mishlan thinks she could still keep up while in her wetsuit, but she knows she needs to save her strength. She is not yet wearing her wetsuit made from the corpse of a Rippling. Instead, she has it hanging on her back like a cape. This wetsuit is less of a wetsuit and more of an entire Rippling corpse with the bones, innards, and eyes taken out.She has been practicing jumping into the water with the wetsuit hanging on her back, then putting on the wetsuit while still underwater before coming up for air. She thinks she has gotten pretty good at donning her wetsuit while underwater. Her friends think this is a pretty cool trick. They don't realize that Mishlan has a practical use planned for this skill. She also has been practicing removing the wetsuit, leaving it to hang on her back. She practices taking it off while underwater and while on the deck of a boat. This proficiency in donning and doffing the wetsuit in a matter of seconds allows her to quickly shift between swimming mobility and standing-on-a-boat mobility.

The crew of the ships, which consist of her friends and are all women about her age, are a bit perplexed and even worried that Mishlan brings her Swinging Rods on this trip. Her Swinging Rods are special fishing rods that have strong whip-like cords instead of fishing line and have grappling hooks instead of fish hooks. She can use these to throw herself through the air in the forests of Mont. But there are no trees out here in the water. The crew fears that Mishlan will swing from the masts of the ships, inevitably tearing through the sail. Mishlan has several back-up Swinging Rods tied to the masts of each ship. The crew doesn’t worry too much about it right now since Mishlan is busy practicing donning and doffing her wetsuit.

Finally, the helmsman, or rather, helmswoman as all of the men that are old enough to fight have left for the Base in preparation for the Ripple; the helmswoman addresses Mishlan and the crew, “We’re far from the shore. This should be deep enough. Let’s contact the other ships and let down our nets As the ships roll up their sails and slow down, Mishlan rushes below deck and comes back up with bundles of harpoons. The crew is astonished that Mishlan had hid such weapons in the ship. No one would have allowed such items on this trip. Mishlan picks up one of her Swinging Rods and launches the grappling hook to a nearby ship. Then she jumps off the side of the ship to swing up to the deck of the other ship.

One of the more skittish crewmates is startled when Mishlan lands on the deck of the ship. “Don’t scare me like that, Mishlan.” The woman says, “I thought you were a Font monster.” Mishlan goes pale at these words and faces away from her as she picks up her grappling hook and reels in the cord of her Swinging Rods. Then Mishlan quietly says “There are no such things as Font monsters. “Mishlan then proceeds to go below deck to retrieve harpoons. As Mishlan ties the harpoons to the inner sides of the ship on the deck, the skittish crewmate apologizes to Mishlan, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t know you were scared of Font monsters.”

Mishlan turns to face the skittish crewmate, almost staring at her. But Mishlan’s eyes can’t help but dart to the water as if looking for something. “I’m not scared.” Mishlan says, “I don’t have time to explain. I need to prepare all of the ships for its arrival.” The skittish crewmate tries to ask Mishlan “Who or what is arriving?” but Mishlan is already swinging to another boat. The crewmates of all the ships are distracted from their task of casting nets because Mishlan swings from ship to ship, tying harpoons to the inner sides of the decks.

When Mishlan finishes tying harpoons on each of the boats, she says, “Now is the time for the bait.” She holds two Swinging Rods, one in each hand. She wears her wetsuit. Then she flops into the water and prepares to swing herself away as soon as she detects even the slightest shadow in the water. She whips herself towards one of the boats when she gets spooked by the shadow of a sail. The crewmates shout to her that she can’t play around in the water when they’re out so deep. Some complain that Mishlan is scaring the fish, but they cast their nets anyway.

Mishlan’s torso, arms, and head reach out of the Rippling mouth of her wetsuit. She still holds her Swinging Rods as she swims. Bubbles rise from the deep. Mishlan skids across the water’s surface as she whips the grappling hooks of her Swinging Rods from boat to boat and yanks to pull herself toward the boat. A shadow appears under the water. A massive shadow. It’s larger than any of the boats. The ships are positioned in a giant circle. With their nets down, they almost create a cylinder of newts to trap the monster unless it dives deep below the nets. The water begins to bulge underneath Mishlan and the crewmates watch in terror, sure that Mishlan will be eaten.

Mishlan whips both of her Swinging Rods at once, each grappling hook heading towards a different ship in front of her. She yanks backwards on both rods, slingshotting herself into the air towards a boat between the two ships she targeted. A giant fish breaches upwards, mouth opening and closing. Mishlan lands hard on the deck. The crewmates swear that they can hear bones break when she crash lands. However, she gets up and drops her splintered Swinging Rods. She runs to the mast of the ship, since that’s where she tied down spare Swinging Rods. She grabs one Swinging Rod, then she rushes to the side of the ship and takes a harpoon.

The giant fish falls back into the water and tries to swim away, but it hits a net. Unable to move past the net, it turns around and tries a different direction. It fails again as nets block the way. Then it tries leaping over the nets, but it can’t get enough air. When it jumps, Mishlan takes that as her chance to strike. Mishlan zips upwards up above the fish by swing up a mast, then she swings down, pulling herself towards the hull of a ship. She swings right into the monstrous fish, slamming the harpoon into it with the momentum of swing.

A rope from the harpoon connects one of the boats to the best. Mishlan quickly swings towards a boat at the opposite end of the circle formation and takes a harpoon from there. The giant fish dives but can’t go far because it is connected to one of the boats via a rope. It rises back up to the surface to try and get enough space to dive down again. But Mishlan swings to it and sticks another harpoon in it. Now the creature is barely mobile. Two boats each on opposite ends, hold it anchored in place.

Mishlan continues to hook it with more harpoons from other boats. The crews of the ships are annoyed that Mishlan made this whole trip just to show off killing a monster. They wonder how she even knew a monster was out here, but it is obvious that she anticipated its arrival. She had brought harpoons and ordered their formation so that their fishing nets would trap the monster. But now looking back to the shore, the crew is scared. They can’t see the shore anymore. The monster is pulling them out into the open water. They yell and wave their hands at Mishlan, but Mishlan can’t make out their words. She sees them waving and shouting and thinks that they are cheering her on. Mishlan stands atop the monster and hacks away at it with a knife. However, its wounds reform into undamaged scales almost instantly. She can’t produce any lasting damage on this creature. The crew knows that they can’t get Mishlan’s attention or get her to understand what they are saying. They panic as another one of the monsters breaches the surface in the distance. It starts making its way towards them. So they grab knives and run to the side of the ship to cut the cords attaching the monster to the ships. Mishlan watches in horror as the harpoon lines are cut and the fishing nets are dropped loose into the water. The monster lurches in the water and Mishlan falls off, losing her grip on her Swinging Rod. She opens her eyes in the water. She sees a rope floating by her. She grabs hold to it and wraps it around herself and her wrist so that it doesn’t fall off when she swims to the surface. But then the line goes taught and she is pulled downward. Mishlan is unable to reach up toward the rope to unwrap herself because of the current of water pushing past her as she is dragged downwards. She realizes too late that the rope she is wrapped by is not her Swinging Rod’s cord but rather it is a harpoon rope. She is being pulled along by the monster. A few minutes pass. Mishlan can hold her breath for almost half an hour, but she is starting to worry. If she can’t unwrap herself from this monster, then it doesn’t matter how long she can hold her breath. She feels the water around her slow, the monster must have stopped. She is pulled upwards and out of the water. She gasps for air but can’t see anything. It shouldn’t be night time already, so why can’t she see. She is hanging in the air, suspended from the rope. She wonders how she could possibly be above water. This fish monster can’t fly, can it? And it would have to find a large underwater cave that has a massive pocket of air. She struggles to unwrap herself, sore from being dragged in tight ropes through the water for so long. She manages to loosen the ropes and fall to the water with a splash. She returns back to the surface for air. If she is in an underwater cave, she won’t be able to navigate her way out of the cave in this darkness. She’ll die if she tries to get out. She might drown before she starves. She can tread water for a long time, but even she has her limit. She probably won’t last a day. She swims forwards, hoping to find some shallow part or stony shelf where she can sit. She actually finds a shore of smooth stone. She climbs up this land and bumps into a wall of scales. It’s the fish monster. It is also on the land. She wonders why a fish would be on land. She hears a thunderous splash and the water surges up and crashes on her as something large comes out of the water. It’s likely another fish monster. She thinks it is probably the same one that showed up a few seconds before the crew cut her lines. She doesn’t think these fish monsters know that she is there. Mishlan thinks of how she could possibly escape. If she makes too much noise, the fish monsters are sure to notice her. She knows that Fontsink is in a few days, so if she can hold out for that long, she can climb up the empty basin back to shore. But how will she survive until then? She is certain that it can’t be healthy to drink straight from the water without boiling it first, but she doesn’t have a choice, so that’s what she is going to have to do. There are likely no fish in this underwater cave. The fish monsters would scare away anything for her to catch.