Chapter 52: Recovered (1/2)

“He …” Arnnaith said, looking at the cave in that blocked Rhistel inside the island with the long arms of the Charybdis. “He didn’t make it out. I thought … I thought he’d survive anything.”

“Most lives end too abruptly.” I said, myself in shock. I hadn’t gotten a notification of a lost crewman yet, but it was only a matter of time given Rhistel was trapped inside with the monster. “Sea monsters don’t care, we’re a snack like any other beast to them.” Arnnaith looked a bit green, and I had to drag him away. “Come on. We need to gather the crew and make sure they’re safe.”

“No!” Arnnaith said, jerking his arm free. “We have to save him! Do you only ever think of running?”

“Kid,” I said, my patience thin. “Running is usually the smart choice. Heroes are people who’ve found some way to cheat, and death still gets his due from them. I never signed up to be a bloody hero trying to slay dragons and sea monsters! Do I look like a bloody adventurer? Burning sea-foam! I’ve used up more luck than I’m allotted at my level, and don’t have any intention of trying to take the fight to a massive creature over someone who’s already dead!”

Arnnaith wasn’t dissuaded. “We could use explosive bolts, trap it inside the island …”

“It had perception that picked me up the moment I stepped into that pool. You think we’ll be able to take the Consort around and systematically lock it in without it noticing? And you didn’t see it, Arnnaith. I think we could drop what’s left of this island onto it and the thing would survive.”

“Approach it from inside the caves on land, above the water.” He argued. “It didn’t sense us immediately that way!”

“But it did somehow find the wolf-bats in their caves – all the caves it could reach. And if we enter that way, we have no effective means of harming it. As soon as I struck its single arm, it flooded the room with arms. And you’re also forgetting that nearly every competent fighter on board is already dead.”

“But,” Arnnaith said. “But … Rhistel was going to be my chance! He was going to find his honor again, and he could introduce me to the elves of the homeland …”

Oh, kid … you’d be better off locking down the emotions that made you want your homeland – your family. I’d learned that early on as a boy.

I didn’t have the heart to say that to him though.

“Our chance is to get away and get free of these isles as soon as possible. A creature like that belongs in the true deep. These islands are lucky it decided to set up on a forsaken island in the middle of nowhere to grow. Once it finds shipping lanes with steady streams of food, it’ll take a fleet to get rid of it. I don’t intend to pick any fights I can’t win – much less now that I’m down my entire fighting force.”

I saw tears form in the boy’s eyes, but they remained unshed. He still had a mercenary little heart, only deciding to bury the hatchet with the elf once it seemed like he could be useful. That didn’t mean I thought his expression of shock or grief was fake. On the contrary, changing your attitude for your plans and having your plans dashed the next minute could be very hard.

“We need to gather up the hunting party and the repair company. Let’s get going.”

“He could find another way out.”

“What?”

“Rhistel could find another way out! This island has so many tunnels and caves, Rhistel could come out through a different entrance.”

“How would he get past the monster? It would sense him as soon as he enters the water.”

“He doesn’t have to pass it,” Arnnaith said, excited. “Remember when the tunnel forked, we went down but there was a small opening going up! It’s probably one of the ways the monster reached the higher caves. Rhistel could climb up and escape!”

The odds of the elf managing that …

Arnnaith saw my doubt and pressed me. “Have you received a notification of his death yet?”

No. I hadn’t. My mind was trying to deny any shred of hope, feeling like nothing had really gone right for me since I first got my curse, but this was Rhistel! The formal elf who hid his empathy behind formality was dear to every non-racist on board, myself included. I’d brought him here to help him with his quest, I couldn’t leave him behind until I knew that there was no hope at all.

“Alright, we’re going to climb to a vantage point together and find the work parties if we can. You run and tell them of the danger, then have Phillip take squads of fighters to caves above the level of this one. They’re not to explore unless they hear Rhistel! Got it?”

The half-elf eagerly agreed, though I could tell his instincts wanted to run off and save Rhistel himself just like I now did. The difference was that he knew his job was more important for getting help, and as the Captain – and arguably the most capable combatant left – I got to indulge my budding hero complex.

We scouted out the hunting party below us, hanging a dozen gutted flying pigs from any trees sturdy enough to support the carcasses. Burdette was on the barely-a-beach where we’d climbed ashore, organizing the teams lowering logs down the hillside using ropes, pulleys and manpower. Once in the water, the strongest swimmers were tied to the log and pulled it out to sea, above where the Death’s Consort was sitting. The logs would float until they were assigned as my ‘cargo’ and then would perform just like the rest of the magically altered ship, raising or sinking with the rest.

Burdette had one log being swum out and another nearly on the beach. I made a note to Arnnaith to have him ready the ship for departure, though we wouldn’t leave until I made the determination there was nothing else to be done.

With his orders and clear directions to their recipients, Arnnaith rushed off. I had to resist the urge to do likewise, as I’d just find myself rushing from cave to cave hoping to run into Rhistel. Instead, I sat down and focused on my abilities to sense my crew. I’d been able to use it to track the ships of my deserting crewmen, but there was a difference between pointing at the horizon and saying “over there” and pinpointing something closer to “right here.” My senses of everything were also a lot more difficult to use since I wasn’t in the ocean or on my ship.

Facing the island rising up before me and focusing on finding Rhistel, I got an indication of … somewhere in front of me? And was I really seeing that he was a bit higher, or was that wishful thinking on my part?

Oh, what a very helpful and applicable ability.

Fishguts.

Since we’d explored most of the caves on the higher elevations of the island earlier, I decided to try another tactic. I pulled out writing instruments and paper, and tried using my cartography skill.

I put the first stroke down where the cave in was, and tried to draw a rendering of the island where I knew the other caves were. I’d never tried sketching before, but the pencil in my hand was familiar enough given the time I spent plotting courses. How hard could it be to do a map?

I tore up the first attempt and tried again.

I knew where the caves were, the paths we’d taken, and had a good idea of where everything was in relation to each other. All I needed to do was add depth to have a picture of the island, right? Then I could take an educated guess on where the tunnels might lead to.

I tore up another sketch. Drawing was hard.

I decided I’d stick to something I was more familiar with. Instead of drawing a picture, I drew a chart. It took seconds for me to sketch out the edges of the island, given how familiar I was with them after circling around earlier. I made a circle in the island to indicate the major hill I was sitting on, and a smaller one inside it to represent the area where the wolf-bats were roosting in safety – a.k.a. where the Charybdis couldn’t reach. That might be because its arms weren’t long enough, or it might be because there weren’t any intact tunnels left to those caves.

I had the beginnings of a topographical chart.

Or map. I guess they were called maps when they were of land. After so long correcting people to say “charts” I was getting my comeuppance by being on the other side of the coin.

I had to restart again when I realized I’d made too many errors, but fixed them on the second try. What I ended up with would hardly be useful to someone trying to explore the island, but it helped me make some assumptions about the structure of the hill.

Maybe the scientific conversation of the other two earlier was rubbing off on me, but it really was interesting how this island had formed with such a natural hive-like formation. Volcanic activity could only explain so much, right? Surely magic of some sort had been present when this island formed.

No matter, I had three likely caves to check. Then I’d join the rest of my crew checking as many as possibly, hoping just to get lucky.

You have advanced to skill level 2 in Cartography.

Nice advancement on the initial skill levels, my chart … er, map must not be worthless.

I started climbing. How was it that I could swim for days and even fight for hours, but a few minutes of climbing ate through my stamina bar and had my legs burning?

Thankfully, I only had to check two caves.

The second was scarcely more than a hole in the ground. I was glad there was no evidence of wolf-bats, but I was still leery of snakes. The researchers on the island had noted that it took about 4 hours for snake venom to incapacitate a wolf-bat and 7 for a human (making me wonder how they tested that). We’d theorized that with our resistances, it would take 12-14 hours. Not good, but given the healing abilities of myself and Myota, it wouldn’t be deadly for anyone bitten.

Not that I wanted to tumble right into a pit a snakes. I had no idea what kind of havoc a hundred doses of venom would do.

I poked my head in and saw that it opened up, though still cramped. I was about to call out for Rhistel when I saw an outline moving.

The Charybdis had a tentacle waiting in this cave! It was probing at …

It was probing at Rhistel. No, probing was the wrong word. It had its arm extended, and Rhistel grasped it from where he sat. His other hand stroked the prehensile, diamond shaped tip of the long appendage like he was petting it.

I didn’t know what he was doing or why, but interrupting seemed like it could be bad. Instead, I tried to be as stealthy as possible – somewhat of a lost cause when my body blocked most of the light entering the shallow cave while wriggling in.

“Make sure your weapons are stowed,” Rhistel said quietly, surprising me. “It recalls the bite of your sword even if it doesn’t know you. It hasn’t been cut like that before, and your injury disturbed it even if it did little damage.”

“No swords out,” I said in an equally soft tone. I didn’t mention the backup knives I’d replenished, but doubted those were relevant.

“Beware the snakes,” he said, just as a soft hiss warned me that I shouldn’t be focused exclusively on the big serpentine tentacle in the cave when there were smaller but also dangerous serpentine things to watch out for.

“Am I disrupting? Do you need help?”

“Keep too many distractions from interfering, if you would. We have a tenuous conversation, interruptions aren’t productive.”

I found a place clear of serpents – which is to say I was keeping an eye on the closest ones – and settled down. “Talk to me when you can.”

“It’s not too much trouble.” Rhistel responded. “This is a great creature, with incredible intellect even if it’s very young. I tried communicating with it as I was fleeing, and it quickly recognized what I was doing and became curious rather than hostile.”

Not immediately hostile was good. The curiosity of powerful things could still be very, very dangerous.

“Something drove it out of the depths not long ago. I can’t tell if it was instinct, a natural part of the life cycle, or something different. What’s curious is it seems much better suited for preying on surface creatures, I don’t know how it behaves in the depths.

“It had a string of encounters that led it to these islands. It was picking prey from the shores of places nearby before discovering this place and squeezing into the cavern below us. It discovered that these tunnels also had food in them, and squeezed all it could out of them.”

I imagined that was a picture the Charybdis gave, rather than embellishment by Rhistel. The elf was narrating to me, but his focus was obviously on the alien conversation with the young Charybdis.

“It’s not starving, so it’s willing to let potential food go. We should be able to escape if you desire, Captain. However, I propose an alternative.”

“It beats a clean getaway?”

“It involves befriending this creature.”