Arrival in the Littoral Caves of the Archipelago

Below the decks, Den enjoys his breakfast while lying back on his hammock. He learned growing up in the kinslums that one should always catch sleep whenever they can, especially just ahead of a big job. And whether their boss was willing to admit it or not, this would be a big job. The last cube was a personal house of some dead guy, and it had several dangerous threats. Assuming the sites that survived to modern day are at least of roughly the same power, the chances of this being another small, personal residence are incredibly low. Meaning the size and scope of this should be larger. He feels the Ekzokia list and turn as he eats the final bit of his fish breakfast and settles in for sleep. A dark, restless sleep.

He wakes from his nap as the ship starts to turn once more, this time less the slow grand one, and more the repetitive maneuvering required when arriving in a port. Yawning, Den pulls on his masked helmet and heads up to the deck. The ship stops as he’s walking up the stairs, left only to rock gently on the tides. As the Elfi’ika steps up onto the deck, the lighting does not change. They’re inside some cavern. Felazo notices him, as does Ren. But Felazo is busy tying some ropes, and so Ren heads over first. Looking at Denlo, the musician asks, “You hold yourself as ready for the fight, but be that earnest?” he asks the larger man.

Den shakes his head at his longterm travelling companion. “Earnest enough,” he answers blankly, still working through the process of compartmentalizing the violence. “Where are we?” he asks.

“A cavern system that some pirates long retired, once did use as a wet dock,” Renalt answers his friend, matter of factly.

The others join them at the center of the ship, Felazo and Sister HIlan walking over from the rail where they had been setting out a plank to disembark, while Sari slips down the mast from her usual perch atop it. “I didn’t see any odd cubeshaped buildings coming in,” Sari notes once all are gathered, looking at their captain, “Are we on the right island?”

“No,” the Sea Elf replies with a shrug, “Considering we may have irritated some pirates, I figured a safe and secluded place to keep the ship would be more ideal than being close. There is a watchtower above, built into the hill of this isle, so we can head up there and scout the whole archipelago visually, as well as confirm my calculations of the positions of the sites.”

Theory and conjecture. Which means another day of preparations, in all likelihood. “Then let’s move,” he says, starting to get restless.

“How deep be this cavern?” Ren ponders aloud, “For mayhaps we take our rowed vessel with us up to the entrance at least, if it be quite large a walk to endure.”

“The records don’t say, but large enough to hold a fleet, so I’m guessing rather extensive,” Felazo replies.

Sister Hilan nods. “Then it would make sense to bring the boat with us.” The pious woman looks to the larger man, and Den nods. They’d be carrying it together. Heading into the castle, they maneuver the rowboat out and follow the others across the plank onto the old, half-rotted wood of some sort of dock. A very complex dock. Makes sense, Den muses, it reminds him of docks back home, meant to organize the ships without delaying them all being sent out together by too much time. But it also means that likely, much like those ports, there will be quite a bit of maneuvering to walk from any given mooring to the end of the dock. Which is all going to be on this slimy, half-rotted wood. He focuses his attention on his foot placement as they walk around the cavern. His feet never slip, though he does have to catch the monastic sister once when her foot contacts a board that could not support the extra weight without crumbling. One of the many problems of wearing full metal armor. While Den’s own steps barely shift boards beneath him, he can hear each step that Sister Hilan takes by the groaning and crackling of the wood beneath her feet.

But, eventually, they make it past the dock and into a different cavern, above the waterline. This cavern seems to have alcoves carved out of it, perhaps as some kind of camping area or defensive structure. Which means more walking. Now the silence is broken, not by wooden planks complaining but by rhythmic footsteps against stone mixed with the skittering of small critters moving just out of sight as the crew passes by. Eventually, though, they make it to the entrance, a distance from the ship that is well worth not having to go back for the rowboat. Before walking out into the fresh air of the island, Sister Hilan and Den step off into one of the alcoves closest to the entrance to put down the rowboat. This alcove, beyond even the rest, is most clearly meant to be some sort of defensive redoubt, with slits out of the side of the hill and a sharp bend to prevent a clean line of sight from the entryway into the room. Of course, the slits out are overgrown now, but the slits through the sharp turn aren’t. They lean the rowboat against the inner wall, and Kalzia approaches from the turn, making odd noises at them, clearly curious as to why they stopped in here. Den looks at Sister Hilan, whom he’d followed in. She shrugs and says, “Figured it would be best for the boat that it is out of the path of any larger wildlife, but somewhere we know and can find easily. The only creatures that seem to live in these caves are the rats and snakes, so this fits both criteria, does it not?”

Denlo nods. Her logic makes sense. She’s expecting larger creatures to still live here. Which means he needs to be ready. He removes his sword from the makeshift belt-holster carefully, wrapping it in the dark cloth and carrying it at the ready. If they are to come across threats, better to be ready to deal with them at a moment’s notice. Together, the three of them return to the others, who are waiting in the lightly forested area just outside the cave’s entrance. Felazo looks at Kalzia as the crew regroups, nodding. “So we know where it is. I suppose that makes sense,” he says aloud. Then, looking to Sari, he says, “The watchtower is around the hill that way, facing the rest of the islands.”

The noble huntress nods, and begins to lead them from the ground. Before she does, she gives Denlo a look and flicks her eyes towards the treetops. Without any need for words, Den lags back to climb into the canopy, keeping an eye out for ambush predators like himself that might be about.

The trip through the forest to the watchtower is surprisingly uneventful. In fact, there do not seem to be any animals larger than the rodents around at first, though eventually Denlo realizes there are some. There are snakes, but not particularly large ones. They linger briefly, seemingly sizing up Kalzia before they feel the Elfi’ika’s presence approach and slither away. While Denlo feels he probably could sneak up on one and kill it efficiently, there isn’t a point in that. The lack of any other predation, or in fact any other larger creatures whatsoever, is of far more concern to the killer. However, looking down, he can see that Sari is not as surprised as he. Which does beg the question why she sent him up to the canopy in the first place. Then, pushing his head up through the branches to see the sky, he realizes the answer. Circling a few of the other islands, there are birds that, if he can see them from here, must be quite large. Which means they would be dangerous if they come to this island. They don’t seem to be approaching, but keeping an eye on that threat must be the purpose of sending him into the canopy. After quite a bit of time walking through the woods, during which the birds stay circling the same islands where they were to begin with, a structure appears to Den, popping out from the canopy painted with the same colors as the leaves and bark around him, it is very clearly the watchtower, though he supposes that from the sea down in the distance, that fact would likely be much less clear.

There is a gap between the rest of the canopy and the watchtower of about fifteen feet. He checks below before moving, and they seem to be entering the base of the watchtower. There’s a window just above his eye level. He could climb down and follow them in, or he could just jump the fifteen foot gap and climb his way in through the open window. Tensing his muscles, he leaps.

He hits the wall of the watchtower as he’s already descending, having slightly underestimated the distance. Scrambling for handholds, he only manages to catch the lip at the bottom of the watchtower’s viewing cabin. Taking a deep breath, he begins to pull himself up, finding the thin handholds as he climbs the building’s wooden exterior. It takes some time, but he manages to pull himself up and into the window just as he hears the rest of the crew approaching the door from what is likely a stairwell of some kind. He looks around the room. Some books, some spyglasses, some tables and chairs and compasses. Nothing dangerous. He sits down in a chair to wait as Renalt opens the door. “Voila,” the bard says, “‘tis not trapped, as I predicted. For why would one trap such a door?”

From the chair, Denlo swivels to face him. “Boredom,” he jokes in the most serious tone he can muster. His muscles are not particularly happy and he’ll need to figure out how to wash these water wicking clothes from that last ancient site, but it is worth it for the confused look on Felazo and Sister Hilan’s faces. Unfortunately, Den notes that Sari seemed to be fully expecting it, and Ren is unsurprised by his appearance.

“But to abandon in flight, ‘tis never a boring act. Such acts hold much excitement, even when inspired not by fear of a threat but by hope of restfulness,” Ren replies while sari pushes her way into the room past the confused captain and surprised sister.

“Any threats from the birds?” Sari asks Den.

Denlo shakes his head. “They never approached this place. In fact, they seemed to avoid travelling between any of the islands.”

Sari is surprised by that fact. “Interesting. I wonder if there’s some deeper significance, some great difference between the islands.” She looks back at Felazo, who’s finally managed to collect himself. “Captain? Know anything?”

“Yes, there are,” their captain says, entering the room. “According to the journals, one of the islands has some okraten, which may well be the island with the rising ruins. And there is some evidence of different predators on each island, though that might just be happenstance.”

Sister Hilan enters as well. “I was a bit surprised nothing attacked us as we traversed the forest,” she admits.

“Why?” Sari asks, genuinely curious. “Any animal large enough to be a threat is also large enough to be a meal. A pirate fleet based here means a lot of hunting for fresh meat, so anything big enough to provide a solid meal for a crew is going to be hunted to non-existence on such an isolated the island without too much extra effort within a decade, and that’s assuming minimal time spent docked as a full fleet.”

“And more to the point,” Felazo interjects, “That’s fully unimportant. Now, let’s find these charts and map out these islands, while it’s still light out and we can see things clearly through the spyglasses.” And he heads to the books.

Sari approaches Den, sitting down on the chair beside him and leaning in closer. “While Felazo is doing his thing, what else did you see from the treetops?” she asks in a whisper.