April the Twenty-Fifth
The tropical winds gently blew, and with it blew the early-morning mists. Slowly the mists passed, peacefully, quietly. They passed along the island chain of the South Seas, along the beaches of the tropical mainland, through the dense foliage of the inland tropical jungle, obscuring all. The relatively chilly mists blanketed all, and all was under its cover.
It blew through the tower rock spires rising around the eastern end of the southern coast of the mainland, and all up the eastern coast of the continent. It obscured fishing villages, beachside homes, and easily obscured the little stilt village of Anglers Wharf.
It even shrouded the towering spire next to Anglers Wharf; even at its great height, the mists enveloped the House-On-The-Spire.
This was fitting, given how long the house had stood empty, cold, and bereft of light and laughter for so long.
It had been long since the ringing sounds of everything from tools to laughter had been heard in that house. The puttering of motors flying in and out, or floating around on the water below it, the fiery corgi pup that careened around the place like the hyperactive fireball it was, the cloud serpent and netherdrake that attended the house, the lit-up veranda with the suncrawlers in the planters outside, everything had been gone, all had been quiet, dark, cold, and lifeless for several weeks now.
And yet…
If someone who hadn’t been by in the last week were to fly by now, they’d notice a light on in the second-floor bedroom on the western side of the house…
And there, now, see it? A light on in the kitchen in the southwestern corner of the bottom floor of the house!
What was this…?
Within that second-floor bedroom, two young women rested on a bed. One, a short-haired, athletic-looking woman with strawberry-blonde hair, slept on her side, a hand with a poultice bandaged to it resting atop the blankets, and what looked like a mechanized knee brace on the end table next to her, a cup of coffee steaming next to that.
The other, a somewhat curvier young woman with a few extra pounds and long black hair, sat up in bed, a diary open in her lap, a mechanical-looking inkwell resting next to another steaming cup of coffee, and a mechanical-looking pen was held in her hand.
At their feet, from under the blankets, an fiery orange glow shone through the layers, curled up in a ball, unmoving, save for the subtle rise and fall of the covers, as though breathing the slow rhythm of sleep.
Natasha Ebonlocke, exhausted but thrilled to be alive, pondered the blank page before her, trying to think back to how to chronicle the events dating back to the… incident.
She took a fortifying sip of coffee, listened to the winds and the early calls of a few seagulls outside, enjoying the early-morning smells of the dewy, earthy jungle and the salt sea air blending with the aroma of coffee, and then thought all the way back to the last time she’d been home.
With that, remembering, she applied pen tip to blank diary page, and began to write.
Dear diary,
Ohmigosh, the nearest brush with death I’ve had since that machine got me and was taking me to that lumber mill saw blade during the murder mystery in Hearthglen (up in the northern Western Plaguelands in the Ariel Sunstrider armor-collection campaign) STILL has me slightly rattled!
There were TWO near brushes with death, this time, in fact! I never saw either one coming, even…
This all goes back several weeks ago, to when Celeste got back from her annual camping trip to Moonglade, where she goes to commemorate and honor her late adopted mother, Eowithiel McCullough. We’d talked about the trip, and her mother and such for a while, and then, with the cargo lift outside finally completed and the hydroponics bay next up on the agenda, we found ourselves with a great reason for a break in between big work projects…
The second annual Anglers Wharf fishing tournament was here!
Celeste had been waiting for this for a while, and so had I!
During my workend that weekend, Celeste had restlessly traveled about a bit. She spent time in Ironforge with her Uncle Rugnar the first day of my workend. She told me how that little outing went:
Celeste patiently watched her fishing bobber, sometimes using her rod to make it move a bit. In was very dark in this section of Ironforge, and very few anglers came here. Celeste had been trying to catch Old Ironjaw for as long as she remembered. The legendary and elusive fish continued to evade her attempts at teasing it to bite. Uncle Rugnar sat on a chair nearby, smoking his pipe. He had given up an hour ago, deciding to just keep Celeste company instead.
Dordy too was watching the still waters. Every time something caused the water to ripple he would stand alert, watching the waters. He didn’t bark though, Celeste having ordered him to remain quiet a while back.
She didn’t catch the fish this time either, but she did bring back some tasty boar sausages for dinner from Bruuk’s, which she waited to share with me that evening. She’s so thoughtful!
The second day of my workend, she stayed home. After a week away from home and the lift project done, Celeste took the day to tidy up her workshop and do some maintenance on the MUTT. A good, fresh start, Uncle Rugnar often said, puts you in the proper frame of mind to begin new things without looking back. So half-finished projects were catalogued and stored away, tools were cleaned and organized and stolen by Dordy for games of Keep-Away. My workbench was reorganized as well, and Celeste replaced some of the second-hand tools for newer ones from her own sets (she had several copies of each tool anyways). She even organized her notebooks and her mother’s, taking a spot in my office bookcase to place them where we both could peruse them if needed. She’s so thoughtful and great!
The MUTT was checked out, cleaned and calibrated. Celeste ran diagnostics, tweaked a few things, and put it all back together when she was done. She sent for some Lo Mai Gai from Halfhill via drone and hardly tasted the savory meal while she worked, lost in her zone.
She rested on Sunday.
Then Monday, it was time for the annual fishing contest!
Anglers and a few people from Half-hill were gathered on Turtle beach, watching the Angler kids who had won last year’s contest parade their trophy (the former idol that used to house the Sha of Misfortune). Celeste, wearing a bikini instead of her fishing clothes since the day was abnormally hot, couldn’t help but smile at the proud children.
The climate here today was quite the contrast with her previous day. Only in Pandaria could you ride a yak in the mountains among the frozen, howling winds one day and stand on a nice tropical beach the next morning!
“Fo Fook looks ready to catch every fish in the bay. Look at him, he’s hooting and howling!” Celeste said to me as I stood next to her.
I giggled at Fo Fook.
"Yeah, gosh, he's really excited!" I nodded. "They all are! What a turn-out! I wonder who stands the best chance to win this year! What's the prize this time, anyway?"
“Bragging rights, I guess. And their names on the idol like Marri and Rai got last year,” Celeste answered, smiling at the obvious pride on the furry faces of the Pandaren children.
“Last year it was mimic octopi. I suggested keeping that as the thing to catch again this year. However, Fo Fook’s epic story of his fight against the giant grouper stirred the imagination. We’re going for the biggest grouper caught in terms of weight, this year.”
"Oooooooh," I replied. "That oughta make for quite a few more great big fish fights all over the bay! It's gonna be CHAOS!"
I had myself a good laugh at that.
"I'm definitely ready for that! Let's do it!"
“I like your enthusiasm! I have a plan. First we’re NOT going to fish for groupers… not for a good while, in fact,” Celeste said, heading to the beach and wading into the surf to reach the Dancer anchored just off shore.
I followed Celeste in, wearing my bikini as well, thankful that the people in this land don't flagrantly stare like creepers as some do in Stormwind. I held on to Celeste's hand, with Dordy following along behind us in his bubble, and made it to the Wave Dancer. I hefted Dordy up and over the low guardrail and into the small watercraft, then climbed the little ladder to get in myself, heading to my tackle box and Celeste's to make a final check over things. All seemed to be present, accounted for, and in good maintenance. We were ready!
Settling in the pilot’s seat, Celeste waited until I was in my special chair up front before throttling the engine.
“We’re going to fish for emperor salmon first!” she called out over the roar of the motor. “Groupers eat fish and swallow them whole. So with good-sized bait, we’ll be better aligned to catch a really huge grouper!”
"Oooooh, that's an ingenious plan!" I said. "The time invested in the bait will be well worth the easier fishing later! You're so smart, My Catch! Just let me know what to do!"
I settled myself into my purple cushioned seat up front as I spoke, letting Dordy out of his bubble and sitting back.
''I'll drive the Dancer,” Celeste directed, “and you can handle casting the lines for trolling them behind us. Then we can watch the lines together. I'll stop the engine if we get a catch. We're going out to sea for salmon, but we'll be back in Turtle Bay for catching groupers.''
With the throttle now pushed forward, the fishing boat quickly reached the ocean as Celeste continued to speak.
''I made some fish attractors for this!” she announced. “We need every chance we can get to score some catches! I'll dial down the engine, you can start prepping the lines, Nat.''
Celeste slowed the boat down, and Nat unbuckled herself and got out of her seat.
"Wow, gosh, you've thought of EVERYthing!" I giggled, getting up as soon as the boat slowed. I went to get our fishing rods, as well as the spare rods, getting them set into their holders all around the rail, then prepping the proper bait for emperor salmon. Giant mantid shrimp, minnows, and anchovies were all on hand, and I selected an even mix of each to bait the hooks with, remembering a lesson from Celeste on how salmon in general weren't super picky. With the hooks baited, I turned back to Celeste.
"Okies, lines are ready!" I smiled at Celeste, feeding an extra anchovy I ended up with to Dordy, who was happy about the treat. "I'll wait for you to find a spot that 'smells good,' and then lower away!"
Celeste reduced the speed even more until the boat moved slowly and steadily over ocean. “Alright! Drop the lines!” she said, aiming the craft on a course roughly parallel to the shore, half a mile away. “If we hit a school of salmon, we should be getting a lot of hits at the same time,” she warned.
"Alright, I'll keep an eye out," I replied, returning to the nearest rod. "How deep should I set them for salmon?"
“Salmon typically eat smaller fish that feed off plankton. So between thirty and fifty feet should be enough. They’ll come up from below to investigate our bait,” Celeste replied, feeding out line from the nearest rod to show me. Once it was done she returned to her pilot’s seat.
“As soon as we have bites, let me know. I’ll cut off the engine and drop anchor so we don’t drift too far from the school.”
"Got it!" I nodded confidently, feeling excited. I moved from rod to rod, setting them at varying depths between thirty to fifty feet. Once done, I went around and double-checked each rod, making sure all was just so, and then returned to my seat.
"And now, we wait."
“Now you wait in STYLE!” Celeste said with a grin. She opened a compartment built in the floor of the boat. In it was a large thermos and something wrapped in cloth. She handed both items to me. “I made a rum and pineapple drink, with coconut milk. And there’s moist coconut macaroons too!”
"Oh, nice!" I giggled, accepting my tropical adult beverage. She took a sip. "Mmmm, that's tasty! Thanks, Celeste!"
I went to her purple cushioned chair, leaning back and sipping at her drink, enjoying a macaroon and the sun on my face, and the cool breeze that countered its heat. I carefully kept an eye on all the rods as I did so. Bobbing here on the water, in the peace and quiet, with my little family and my little drink, this was the life!
One of the lines started bobbing, the reel making a steady zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound as it spooled out line. Then suddenly another one, then a third and a fourth! Celeste shut down the engine and activated the anchor-dropping lever. “Looks like we found some fish!” she said excitedly and moved to take a rod.
Dordy started barking, feeding off of the energy of the moment.
"OH GOSH!" I said, looking at all the lines going out. "Which do I even--?!"
She set my drink down quickly and scurried for the nearest line, pouncing on it and giving it a hard yank and a reel. Reel and yank, reel and yank, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip! Dordy went nuts as I worked the rod! I felt the fish pull harder, and I felt herself sliding toward the rail...
"UH OH-" YOINK! Another hard yank, more reeling! I backpedaled, regaining her ground! Reelreelreelreelreelreelreel! FLASH! The pink scales of the salmon glinted in the sun! It was alongside!
"I GOT IT!" YOINK! Up over the side it came! I all but dived over it with a net, freeing it from the hook and dropping it into the cooler. "I GOT ONE!" I exclaimed excitedly!
Celeste had gone from rod to rod, smashing her hand on each of the reel brakes to stop the lines from spooling out too far. With several lines hooked to a fish and the boat anchored, there was a danger of tangling the lines. “Good job! If the next fish pulls too hard, sit on the seat next to the pilot’s console and strap yourself in!”
Celeste hauled on a line of her own, leaning back and fighting the fish she had hooked.
I nodded, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand and getting a couple of breaths, then darting to the next rod.
Preemptively, this time, I grabbed it and strapped myself in to the seat next to the pilot's console, then... YOINK! I gave the rod a hard pull, and another big fish fight was underway!
Strapped to my chair, I felt like I was in a tug-of-war! Before long, my shoulders were getting sore, being tugged at their sockets as they were, but, with all my upper body's force combined, I managed to reel the fish back in. Then...
YOINK!
Up came the salmon! I quickly unbuckled myself, darted forward with the net, and into the cooler went another fish!
I plopped down into my seat, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand again, feeling utterly exhausted, especially in the high heat of the day!
"Oh gosh, two in a row, one right after the other – I'm so wiped out! I need a bit..."
Celeste had reeled in her own salmon by then and was reaching for the last rod.
''I got this one” she assured me. “After this, we should have enough.''
Dordy sniffed at the fish Celeste had just caught then wandered off a bit, as the excitement was dying down.
“You know, if we don't need all of these salmon for our fishing, we could always save one of two for upcoming dinners. I think uncle Rugnar would li—”
Dordy started growling just then, a strange sort of growl that we had heard before, and it never precluded anything good. Turning our heads at the same time, they saw Dordy looking through the glass bottom of the boat and growling, his fiery fur bristling. The water beneath the glass was dark and Celeste actually looked up, wondering if a cloud had suddenly obscured the sun, but the sky was blue and clear, the hot sun shining down on us.
''What...'' she started to say, just as a large tentacle, the underside covered in dinner-plate sized suckers came snaking out of the waters. It raised twenty feet into the hair and came crashing down on the Wave Dancer, narrowly avoiding Dordy who yelped and came racing back to jump onto my lap.
“NAT! START THE ENGINE AND ACTIVATE THE SHARK REPELLENT! THROW SOME ICE INTO THE WATER!'' Celeste shouted as she reached for a large iron-tipped harpoon tied to the side of the boat, clearly intending to fight off the monster.
"OHMIGOSH! KRAKEN!" I blurted out, launching my exhausted self out of my seat and starting the engines. I slapped the button for the shark repellent next, then pointed the Wave Dancer toward the shallower waters of Turtle Bay.
Once the boat started moving, I started launching ice shards into the water in every direction. Blizzard, Flurry, Ice Lance, Icicles, every frost spell I knew, I blasted it into the waters all around the boat. I knew from prior experience, when my dear friend Maya and the Voyagers had come to save me and my friends aboard the Whitewind's Grace in the past, that the tentacles would soon erupt all around the craft, and I wanted to pepper the water in every direction to try and prevent that!
The shark repellent started thrumming. It probably wouldn't do much to a kraken, we figured, but it might disorient it for a moment!
Celeste, meanwhile, thrust the harpoon right into the closest tentacle, the tip sinking into the rubbery limb! It hardly seemed to affect the monster, though! Dordy barked continuously at the glass bottom. We could see the kraken's toothy maw just below, opening and closing. More tentacles rose up from the sea, slamming down onto the Wave Dancer! Unfortunately the Dancer wasn't a large sailing vessel. It was no match for the size and strength of the kraken. Celeste reached for the flare gun strapped on the pilot's console and paused to look at me, worry in her eyes. She then raised the flare to the sky and fired.
Then the Kraken capsized the Wave Dancer and sent us and Dordy flying into the ocean...
When I regained consciousness, it was night outside. I felt something wet and hot on her forehead and quickly recognized Dordy's fiery light as he licked my face to try and wake me up.
Raising myself into a sitting position, looking around, I saw that I was on a narrow strip of sand jutting out from an island or a narrow peninsula. I couldn't be sure which it was from this angle. Rocks and palm trees obscured my line of sight. There was no sign of Celeste or the Wave Dancer, but it was too dark to see if anything floated on the water beyond the sandbank.
My last, wild thought had been of the odds of winning the fishing tournament by catching a whole dang KRAKEN! Yet that had been the barest fraction of a second, as I fought and fought to stave off the kraken's flailing tentacles…
Without much in the way of warning, however, I found myself on this sandbar under the stars, being licked by a Dordy, my head pounding, feeling dizzy and disoriented. A concussion? Or just a bit dazed? Then I remembered what had happened and immediately looked around for Celeste, for the Wave Dancer, my gift to my Sun, for any evidence at all that my love was okay, that she'd made it out.
I made my way, unsteadily, to my feet, gazing around. Was I on a lone, deserted sandbar? Was it a narrow peninsula upon which could get back to land? Was My Catch here with me? Gosh, where WAS I?!
"CELEEEEEEEEESTE?" I called out, scooping up Dordy and turning about slowly on the spot.
The sound of the waves gently washing over the shore was my only answer. Dordy was quiet in my arms, looking around, but apparently enjoying the adventure, such as he perceived it.
I looked around here, attempting to see whether the sandbar was attached to land or not. I walked along the edge of the water as I looked, testing for firm ground. I held on to Dordy, keeping him calm with slow, soothing pats and words as I went along.
The sand dipped into the sea for a dozen yards, I saw as I explored a bit, but the water was shallow enough to walk through; it didn’t even reach my knees! I was able to reach the large rocks and the palm trees around it. Beyond the rocks, a tropical jungle revealed itself, stretched out in the dark. I was unable to see far enough in the dark, but guessed, from the sound of the surf, that I was indeed on an island. The jungle (and the island) couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards across.
Not good…
I thought of the islands along the coast of this jungle. I wondered if I'd drifted, somehow, all the way to Unga Ingoo island, a big hozen refuge.
Probably not, I thought, as that was a long way west. There were numerous tropical islands about, though, and who knows, a riptide might have taken me as far as Unga Ingoo anyway. I looked around, mostly for Celeste, still calling for her, but also trying to find any familiar rock spires in the distance...
Just how far had I drifted?
I wandered along the shore for a bit, still searching. A subtle orange glow appeared on the horizon, meaning the kraken attack had to have happened almost a full day before, at least…
Something caught my eye out to sea. A smooth curve with something jutting out from one end. I waited impatiently for a bit more daylight until she was sure of it. That was the hull of the Wave Dancer, floating upside down! I could see the propeller and the Dordy Bubble still fixed to the boat. The shark repellent and the metallic brackets that held it had clearly been ripped off, along with a small portion of the hull. The Dancer bobbed lifelessly in the waves, debris floating around it…
I felt a wrench at the sight of the Wave Dancer capsized like that, broken, wrecked. It seemed very grim for Celeste's prospects of survival, and the silent tears began to come forth. The fact that the gift had had so much extra work put into it, and so very many memories attached to it, didn't help any.
I clutched Dordy tighter, and he licked my face, sensing my grief and fear.
I steeled myself next, put Dordy down, and told him to stay and be quiet. There was nothing for it... I'd have to go out to that wreck and investigate!
I waded back out into the sandbar, went all the way to the end, and then, waterbreathing spell in place, I dove in. Heading out toward the wreck, I went in through it, exploring it, looking for any evidence I might find of Celeste's fate...
The sea was still dark when I dove in. As I neared the boat, I saw something that made me swim faster. A pair of legs dangled in the water! OH GOSH!
There was a pocket of air underneath the hollow hull of the Dancer. Celeste seemed to be floating on a piece of my chair that kept her torso and head out of the water...
I gasped, an unconscious act that would have drawn water right into her lungs and ended her on the spot, if not for my water-breathing spell. I sped up my efforts to get to the boat, kicking with all that I had, eventually splashing up underneath the boat.
Even with my excellent, Duskwood-developed night vision, it still took a moment to see inside the moonlight- and starlight-blocked capsized boat. As my eyes adjusted, they glowed purple, illuminating very faintly the scene before me as she wiped the wet hair and seawater off my face. I reached in to see if Celeste is conscious, or even alive...
There was a gash on Celeste's forehead that looked awful, but didn't bleed anymore. She was quite pale, but I could see that she was still breathing!
I was immensely relieved to find that Celeste was still alive! Quickly, I administered a water-breathing spell to Celeste. She summoned Mek-barash as well, having him swim with me for the purpose of lugging the Wave Dancer back to the shore to be tied off to a tree so it couldn't be lost to the wide ocean.
When I had Celeste back to shore, I pulled her up past where the water could get to her, then wondered what to do next. I sat there for some time, drying Celeste off so she wouldn’t be too cold. I cleaned Celeste's forehead wound, shedding plenty more tears, wondering what to do now.
I awakened again to Dordy chasing after a small crab on the beach.
The day had become brighter and, as the sunlight washed over Celeste and I, the former finally, slowly, opened her eyes.
“Did we win the fishing contest?” Celeste asked, her voice rough from dehydration
"No," I said, resisting the urge to cry out loudly with excitement at hearing Celeste wake up, remembering her head injury. "But you sound like you definitely need a drink of something. You look dehydrated, too. Can you move inland? We're shipwrecked on some island somewhere. I'm just hoping we can find a freshwater stream in there. If you can boil it for any jungle parasites, I'll cool it back down with my frost magic. Then we can figure out where to go from there."
“Nuts… I was hoping we’d get ahead for fighting that tentacled thing…” Celeste muttered. She tried to get up but winced as pain lanced through her head. “You’ll have to help me up. This headache is terrible.”
"Well, to be honest," I mused, helping Celeste up, then taking an arm and putting it over my shoulder to help Celeste remain upright, "who knows? Maybe we DID win it for fighting that kraken. But what's more important now is getting you better, and finding out where we are. I'm guessing it's an island, but I haven't explored to be sure, because I wanted to stay with you while you were defenseless. Now we've got to find water, and then come up with some sort of a plan for shelter and then escape."
“If there’s no source of fresh water, we’ll use leaves and boil saltwater. The steam will condense on the cooler leaf and then the water can be collected…” Celeste said as she looked around, getting her bearings. Dordy came running for pets and cuddles. Celeste gamely tried to pet him, but almost lost her balance and so left the pup lovin’s to me. “I think I should sit. The island isn’t too big. Maybe walking around it would give us a better idea of what to prioritize.”
I nodded at that.
"O-okay... erm... will you be alright here while I take a walk around? Should I leave Mek-barash or something with you?"
“I’ll be alright,” Celeste said, closing her eyes. “Take Dordy with you; he’ll warn you if anything is creeping up on you. I just need to rest for a moment.”
"Okay," I replied. "Just use your fire magic to send up a flare if you need me, and I'll hurry back, okies?"
''I'll be sure to warn you if another kraken shows up...'' Celeste mumbled, managing to raised a hand in goodbye to me.
I waved back and called Dordy to my side, heading directly into the trees. As the priority seemed to be to find water for Celeste right now, I wanted to find a freshwater spring as fast as possible. I crossed into the tree line, peering around, listening, hoping to hear the sound of running water somewhere...
My tour of the island revealed it was about a quarter-mile in diameter, roughly egg shaped. Celeste and I had ended up near the narrow end of the island, where the long narrow sandbank extended from the island out to sea. There were tall rock formations on our end of the island, but the terrain itself was mostly flat. A lagoon filled a saltwater pond in the center of the island. The water was very clear in the pond and I could see some underwater cave systems at the bottom of it. The island itself was full of life; tropical birds, insects and small mammals were much in evidence. I also saw prints from a large jungle cat, but didn't see the beast. During my visit, I also saw several coconuts on their trees and some bananas too. It would feed us for a few days, at least!
I returned to Celeste after my exploration, reporting on the situation on the island. It was too small for fresh water to be found, unfortunately, though Celeste's system for purifying water would take care of that. I reported on the coconuts and fruits, a few days' worth. There was also a sizable jungle cat prowling the island that we'd have to be on the lookout for, though how this tiny island had acquired, let alone sustained, a big jungle cat – or especially a whole family line of them – was a mystery.
There was no shelter, but I felt that, if I had Mek-barash pull the wreck of the Wave Dancer further from the shifting tides and secure it against a pair of trees, we'd have an effective lean-to. We could close in the other sides with wood and palm fronds from the island, setting them up with an expedient shelter.
I figured we could also check on any remaining fishing rods on the Wave Dancer. I wasn't sure whether Celeste had packed her rifle or spear for any larger fish or not, so I asked Celeste about that. Any remaining food stores on the Dancer and any other supplies should be inventoried and kept on hand for use as well.
It was a serious predicament, to be sure, but I figured we'd make it out just fine!
Or at least, that's what I told Celeste, who was even more foggy-headed than I was, to reassure her...
Celeste spent most of the morning sleeping, or awake but lying down. She had a headache that wouldn't go away. The Dancer was in bad shape, but Celeste was keen on everything being stowed properly. Her ship was never like her workshop. I found some water canteens that would last a day or two, and some egg and ham sandwiches tucked in a waterproof bag and stowed in a closed compartment. The Dordy bubble, amazingly, had survived, still properly attached to its holder on the side of the boar. It was built solidly, after all! Celeste's murloc-bone fishing rod was strapped in the back of the boat as it didn't fit the holders for trolling. Two of the spare rods were broken, useless, and one was missing. There was one simple bamboo rod left, as well as my personal one. The tackle box was gone though, since it had been out and ready to use while they trolled. There was still all our salmon in the cooler. That was a plus!
Mek-barash was strong enough to lift the Dancer and lean it against the rocks. It was a simple matter for the towering wrathguard to hack a few palm trees down. The trunks could be used to hold up the Dancer and the rest of the shelter. Palm fronds would fill the spaces between the tree trunks, easily keeping most of the wind and rain at bay.
I felt pretty satisfied with the boat-and-palm shelter. It was mostly rain- and wind-proof, and it had supplies to last us a bit, with storage areas for new supplies. A bit cramped, maybe, without much in the way of headroom, and rain could still spread inside on the ground, but beds of palm leaves served to raise us up off the ground, so that was mitigated too.
With a basic shelter now working, I moved on to a new idea. I began kicking up sand on the beach, digging into it with my feet, carving a very long, straight line. When satisfied with it, I went halfway up the line and started another line perpendicular to the first. I then moved to make a third line that intersected with the very end of the second line, making a very large letter H. From there, I proceeded on to make more letters, eventually forming a gigantic word in the sand:
HELP!
Hoping that someone would have some odd reason to fly all the way out this direction, I washed my feet in the ocean surf and returned to the boat.
Next, I made a huge bonfire, kindling it with a bit of help from Celeste's fire magic, what bit she could manage in her state, and using that flame to grow the fire. When the fire was big enough and hot enough to handle anything wet put on it, I added palm fronds, careful not to smother the fire or block oxygen intakes. The wet material in the fire caused quite a bit of smoke, and it rose high into the sky. This extra- thick smoke plume, I hoped, would be visible to passing ships, and maybe small lifeboat or something sent to investigate would arrive to help them. As long as it wasn't pirates or Zandalari trolls, in which case, my fel minions and I would have quite a defense project on our hands...
With two signals for help out, I returned to camp. It was time to start up some of that salmon for a meal! Celeste needed to be kept comfortable and well-fed, so food was next!
When I returned from my work on the beach, Celeste seemed better. Her headache had lessened, and she could sit for longer periods of time. Lighting the fire with her magic had been harder than usual. The fire came quickly at first, but it felt sluggish afterwards, and Celeste mentioned that to me. It was probably her head wound, she said.
There wouldn't be enough fuel to burn on the small island to keep the smoke fire up constantly, Celeste pointed out next.
Since the salmon I had caught had been a big one, she suggested cutting it and smoking it. They might need to ration it if help didn't come quickly.
I tended to Celeste as often and as well as I could. I kept Celeste's head wound clean and bandaged and made sure she was comfortable and warm. I kept up with the water purifier for Celeste too, since there wasn't a fresh water source on the tiny island.
Mek-barash's fel presence still lingered even when he wasn't around. Not heavily, but rather, just enough that a fel scent could still be detected by an animal with a strong sense of smell, like the jungle cat on the island whose prints I had spotted. I hoped that that would be enough to keep the creature away from our camp!
As far as rationing the salmon, I reassured Celeste that we'd still have plenty to eat, as our angling rods had survived and I could fish up more. The fishing rods remaining to us could be set up with strong rigs a ways out to sea, since the water was shallow enough to wade all the way out to that sandbar. Another could be wielded by me personally for a more direct fishing use. The bananas and coconuts would provide food as well. There was bait to be found around the island, though I would have to be careful with the fishing lines, as the tackle box was gone, so no more spare hooks or extra fishing lines!
I felt we had a pretty good system set up for starters, and I reassured Celeste that we’d be just fine.
If only I’d been able to convince myself of that with just as much confidence…
Now that we had a good shelter, water, and food system set up, I wondered aloud what would happen next. There was nothing to do now but wait...
After a good night's sleep and some proper food and water, Celeste was more alert and herself again the following morning.
''Good work getting us some basic survival tools already, Nat!'' she said, giving me a kiss on the cheek and a one-armed hug as we stood side by side. ''It's time I got us home though. Stand-by for a portal back to Pandaria!”
I felt jubilant at Celeste's rate of recovery, and I was more than ready to go through the portal!
With a pleased grin on her face, Celeste raised her hands and concentrated on opening a portal. After a short moment, though, it was obvious something was wrong. Nothing happened, then Celeste winced visibly and stumbled away.
''Oh stars, that hurts!'' she groaned, holding her head.
My joy and excitement faded instantly when Celeste's attempt at making a portal failed, and she felt more pain in her head.
"Ohmigosh!" I cried. "Celeste, are you alright?"
''I'm fine... I think something's wrong, though...''
She frowned and raised her hand again to snap her fingers (which she usually does to ignite something with fire), but nothing happened!
''Nat, try some of your magic,” Celeste asked of me, looking at me hopefully. “I think something is dampening it here. I can't summon any fire or a portal. Maybe it's because I got hit in the head...”
I tried to conjure a portal myself. I was able to access ley lines, draw upon arcane energies, and work up a... SOMEthing... but then it just… fizzled out! I tried a couple more times, but... nothing happened!
"GOSH!" I blurted out, frustrated. "Something is badly dampening the magic on this island. Some ancient mogu curse or something? I can't work anything up!"
''Something we'll have to figure out if we ever want to go back home, I suspect,” Celeste mused. “Look, we might be here a while now. I think we should work on improving our food stores, water and shelter. I’ll take a closer look at the Dancer, see if I can get it working again. That might be our best hope, assuming we can figure out which direction home is...'' Celeste looked out to sea then shook her head. She turned around and walked back to the camp.
"Oh!" I said suddenly, the fog in her mind from the catastrophe beginning to clear up a little bit. "ONYX! We can just FLY home! He's always around!"
I looked around the skies, shielding my eyes from the sun with one hand.
"I-I don't see him..."
Now worried about Onyx, I walked with Celeste back to camp.
"Gosh... a-alright... erm... wh-what should I do first...?"
Celeste stopped and looked up at the sky too. ''Maybe he lost us in the fight? Or had to turn back to land somewhere if we were drifting for too long as sea?'' she asked.
"Oh gosh, I hope he's okay... I hope he didn't try to help, and got hit by the kraken or something..."
“Yeah, we'll keep an eye out, but for now, there isn't much we can do about it. I hope he's ok too. C’mere...”
Celeste reached for me and gave me a hug.
“We'll get through this. Think of it like another adventure. Now, I'd like to see how the fishing is around the island, what we can expect to catch, and maybe if there are shallows around that we can use to build fish and eel traps along the shore to make use of the tides. Look for deeper pools of water surrounded by sand. Generally those are the ones that can be used as natural traps. Might find some crabs in those too!''
"R-right," I said, still worried for my big lifelong friend.
I went with Celeste, scouting out possible tide pools for fish and eel traps. Here and there, we spotted some, and Celeste pronounced them sufficient meat sources for two people and one ravenous pup for the time being, though we may want more than just these starter pools very soon. We'd need to get supplies to make the tide pool nets and return soon to build them. Back to camp we went after that, working on purifying more water.
Camp tasks involved nothing more than I was already used to from all the times Celeste had taken me camping. Fish. Smoke fish. Keep a steady fire going when needed. Make the rounds. Keep the camp clean, safe, and comfortable. Maintenance for everything consistently.
I was plenty familiar with all this by now – though the water purifying and the tide pool fish traps were going to be something new for her – and that gave me the confidence to rough it for real, which calmed me when I had worrying thoughts of what might become of us, stranded out here without a way to get back.
I knew people would be looking for us by now. Uncle Rugnar would have heard of our disappearance by now, as Penny had his contact information. My bestie Nah would surely have heard by now as well, especially as Jazz liked to come visit the Anglers from time to time for a relaxing fishing expedition and good Stormstout ale. Nah would have the Whitewind Company discreetly looking for us, keeping the news quiet from the loathsome board of directors. Any other friends that the word might spread to in Stormwind may also be planning trips to the area.
Celeste put off inspecting the Wave Dancer, as it would likely require moving it from the shelter. That meant we would need a new roof. First though, the tide pool traps!
“We first need to measure the tides, roughly,” Celeste said, moving into the jungle and picking up any sticks or branches she could find that were at least her height. “We’ll stick these upright around the pools and carve notches on them with a rock at regular intervals. We don’t need a precise measurement of the water’s level; just a good idea of how high it goes will do.”
"Got it!" I nodded. I followed Celeste into the trees, picking up any Celeste-length sticks I could find. I carried my bundle in my arms, horizontal across my body, peering around for more.
Clumsy as I am, though, and with my focus on looking around on the ground for more Celeste-length sticks, I didn't keep my focus on what was in right in front of me, and I ended up going between two trees that were closer together than my sticks were long. Consequently, passing between the trees didn't happen, as the sticks hit the trees on either side of me, causing me to bounce backward hard, and I landed with a soft THUD on my rear!
"MMF-" I grunted as I hit the trees with the sticks, and again when I fell on my rear. "GOSH!"
I blushed with embarrassment, then tried to get back up to my feet. But without the use of my hands, holding the sticks as I was, I stumbled and fell on my rear again!
"MMF-" I grunted again. "Dang..."
Celeste had a bit of a smile as she came to help me.
“Are you ok?” she asked. “Here, we can tie the sticks together and carry them on our shoulders. Just uhm…“
She moved to a tall tree and yanked on a dangling vine, pulling down. Then she wrapped it around my stick bundle, tying them together, then hefted the bundle onto her right shoulder, wrapping her right arm around it and using her left hand to hold it steady.
“There you go,” she smiled at me. “I think we have enough. Let’s head back to camp. I want to check you out to make sure you’re not bruised… I think I better check ALL of you… to be extra safe.”
She cast me a look that suggested she would enjoy the inspection, and reached down to help me up with her left hand.
"I-I think I am," I stammered, blushing as I accepted Celeste's help back to my feet. "Th-thanks, Celeste..."
I relinquished her bundle to Celeste, observing how she carried them over her shoulder and making a mental note for the future. I then blushed even more deeply as Celeste made what seemed to be a proposition to me.
"Oh g-gosh, erm, heh..." I managed. "O-okay... heh..."
Despite being stuck on an isolated island with no obvious plan of returning home, it didn’t mean that we shouldn’t have time to ourselves. Our little moment together, while fun, also helped them to normalize the situation and reduce our stress.
Lying close together afterward, underneath the Wave Dancer, Celeste pointed up at a tear in the hull.
“That’s our biggest concern. If we can’t patch that, the Dancer won’t float. I’ll need to inspect the engine, too, but I need the Dancer upright for that.”
Catching her breath still, I laid there next to Celeste, cuddled, now peering up at the tear.
"Goodness gracious," I said. "What can we patch it with here on the island? Something stuck together with tree sap or something? Gosh, that wouldn't hold at all, would it...? Something welded on with your fire magic or something? What do you think?”
Celeste snapped her fingers, again trying to summon some fire with no avail.
''We'll have to use something mundane... I don't know what that could be at the moment, though. We could use fire without magic. It would just be harder to control. We'll figure it out though, I don't doubt it!''
Celeste turned on her side, facing me, and leaned down to kiss my skin in tantalizing places.
''Right, how about we see to those tide pools first, hmm?''
"Oh gosh, that's right, I forgot," Nat said, feeling slightly embarrassed. "No fire magic right now. Erm... y-yeah, tide pools, build the fish traps and crab traps, get ourselves some strength built up, and then use that energy and strength to melt a patch onto the Dancer's hull later?"
I giggled and blushed as Celeste applied those kisses.
''Mmhmm...'' Celeste replied, continuing her kisses and clearly not thinking about the plan...
Sometime later, both of the girls were dressed again and out of the camp, now standing near the tide pools.
''Okay, so just stick them in the sand,” Celeste was saying of the sticks we’d collected. “I'm not sure what limits the tides have, so we'll have to watch and see when it comes in and when it goes out to get the right amplitude. This pool you found is very promising though. See? There's fish in it, which means we can very likely make this work. Once we have the proper levels, we just need to make a mesh or netting and place them between the sticks like funnels leading into the pools. Fish will go in, but aren't smart enough to figure out the way back out again.''
"Wow, that's really smart, Celeste!" I said, impressed. "We'll have a great food supply now!"
I started driving the sticks deep enough into the sand that the waves wouldn't knock them down and wash them away, yet not so deep as to not have them high enough for the nets. I stepped heel-to-toe an even number of steps from one to the next, making something pretty close to a perfect square that went to what one might call the outside "corners" of the somewhat-circular tide pool.
"There... like that?" I asked, looking up to Celeste.
''Precisely!” Celeste grinned back at her. “Now we just need to make ourselves comfortable and wait until the tides move so we can see what the limits are. We'll likely see it this evening and tomorrow morning. Let's bring our campfire over here. There's plenty of dry wood around. We'll have a beach cookout!''
Celeste helped me to bring some of the salmon out, along with some burning brands, to rekindle the fire on the beach. She went to find some coconuts which she cracked open with a rock, then used the water to season the salmon. The coconut flaro cooked on the salmon that she lay on a banana-leaf on a rock near the fire. All that was left was to eat it with fingers, right off the leaf!
Celeste told me about a fishing trip with Uncle Rugnar where the dwarf had forgotten their packs back home. They had made do with whatever they could find on hand. It had been one of her favorite fishing trips with her uncle!
I enjoyed hearing the fishing trip stories Celeste shared about fishing with her uncle. I also enjoyed the strange combination of flavors Celeste had provided with the coconut salmon. It worked well, and we were able to eat our fill. The purified water quenched our thirst throughout the meal as well. We would have preferred to have had something from the Stormstouts or a local wine, or maybe some sort of fruit juice, or maybe even milk, but this time, we were roughing it for real!
Still, it was a fun sort of adventure, and we’d done this sort of thing so many times that, now that we were needing to do it for real, we had the confidence already to just relax, knock out some camp tasks, and enjoy our meals, because we'd already been there, done that!
By the time the sun was high in the sky the next day, we had a pretty good idea about the amplitude of the tides. With that information, we could now work on the fish traps.
“So there are several ways we can do this, actually,'' Celeste said as she led me into the jungle. ''We can use rocks, or we can make nets. The tide doesn't go that high, so rocks are an option, but there's the whole bit about hauling them there that isn't so great. Nets we can make, but we'll need some fibers for that. We can use vines, for now, to make netting, and move rocks over for something more permanent if we end up sticking around here for a long time.''
I nodded along as Celeste explained her plans, though I did have one question.
"What exactly would we use rocks for?" I asked. "I don't know what a rock in a tide pool would do to trap a fish."
:Well, imagine if we stack them together,” Celeste explained. “Maybe not in a perfect wall, but a sort of small hill. Tall enough to prevent fish from swimming over them. If we place them in a V shape around the pool, with the narrow point outward, the fish will follow along the Vs and end up un the tide pool then get stuck inside the V itself. understand?'' Celeste answered, crouching down to draw in the sand.
“Oooooh," Nat said. "So LOTS of rocks, not just one rock, and we make a wall that the fish get trapped in. I see! That's pretty smart!"
I nodded and smiled at Celeste's diagram, then wandered over to the tide pools, imagining some with nets, some with rock walls.
"Yeah, hauling that many rocks over here would be quite a bit of work," I mused, "let alone finding that many to begin with. I'm not sure what would be more time-consuming, finding and hauling that many rocks, or finding and then meticulously crafting that many nets. I suppose we could always do both, too, really, just whatever we have the materials for."
“Yep that’s basically it,” Celeste confirmed. “Since our supply of fishing rods and hooks is limited, we should prepare for finding alternative ways of catching fish. We can start with vine netting. I won’t be as hard as finding and hauling rocks, and it’ll keep us busy. C’mon, we can at least start with looking for vines. You said you saw several near the saltwater pond, right?”
"Oh, yeah,” I nodded, “there are lots of them growing over there, dangling off the trees! Some might be too stiff to weave, but I think most are flexible enough!"
I went with Celeste to the saltwater pond, and they handled vine after vine after vine, finding several that were to Celeste's liking. Celeste used a slow fall spell to make climbing easier as she went up tree after tree to cut vines, and I coiled them up neatly as Celeste harvested each one. The slow fall spell helped Celeste get down from each tree rapidly too, and their teamwork quickly had more coils of vines than they could carry in one trip. A handful of trips later, and they had several coils stacked in one end of their Wave Dancer shelter!
The last vine Celeste picked, her featherfall spell needed to be renewed and as she tried to do so, pain shot through her head and she nearly fell from the tree branch she was holding on to! Oh gosh!
Luckily, she managed to tighten her grip and climb up onto the branch. It took her some time to safely get down, but the inability to cast any spells was starting to worry her. Her head injury wasn't healed, but she hadn't had any other symptoms from it after the first day.
“Nat, try to cast a waterbreathing spell. I want to test something out,'' she asked when we were back in camp
"Okay," I said. I spoke a quick incantation in Eredun, but... nothing happened!
Frowning, I tried again. I felt something like a severely weakened waterbreathing spell take hold, but it disappeared almost immediately. I tried a third time. Absolutely no result!
"Gosh, our magic has stopped working! Everything we try just turns out to not be worth beans! Makes me wonder if there might be some sort of ancient Mogu curse around this area, or maybe Azeroth's ley lines are just too far from this spot, or something. Goodness gracious, this is inconvenient!"
“Whatever it is, we’ll make do,” Celeste reassured her. “We have plenty of vines for netting. We can even see if we can cut them lengthwise since we don’t need fibers that are as thick. If we even have a knife to use…”
Celeste looked at our meager camp, obviously mulling over our situation.
“Alright,” she decided. “It’s time to make an inventory of what we do have. We can harden and sharpen sticks with fire. My magic is gone, so maintaining our fire will be important. That means a supply of combustible materials. Some kind of weapon in case that jungle cat gets curious. We should move the camp under the canopy. We’ll be less exposed, and so less subject to dehydration.”
"Oh, true, good thinking," I replied, peering toward the jungle. "Maybe we can find some ground that's a bit more solid to camp on, too. Storms will also affect us less, especially if we can find a spot where the ground rises some, and make camp on top of that, so long as it's near water we can purify as well."
I paused, then spoke again.
"Say, Celeste, do you remember if there was anything in your mother's old notebooks about insect-repelling plants? It'd be good to have, since our shelter isn't bug-proof, and jungles have some big, nasty critters skittering and crawling around in them..."
“Smoke will help,” Celeste said thoughtfully, “but you’re right, it’ll be a problem. If we’re still close to Pandaria, there might be lemongrass around. It’s a low plant with slender leaves sticking out in every direction. There are rocks near the saltwater lagoon. We could set up camp near it. How about we go and take a look?”
Celeste grabbed my hand and led me into the jungle, keeping an eye out for lemongrass. She was distracted enough that I had to take the lead eventually. I kept my eye out for lemongrass along the way, finding a bit, making a mental note of our location so that they could stay put and be fresh for harvest after our camp was moved and ready for insect repellant.
Once at the saltwater lagoon, I stopped, though I kept Celeste's hand. I looked around, scanning the area for a favorable spot to relocate our shelter to.
"Hmm..." I hummed. "What do you think, Celeste?"
“The rocks will shield us from the worst of the wind, with sun on one side and the trees on the other. Water is close, even if it’s salt water. I think we can set up our camp against the rocks.”
She paused, head tilted a bit to the side as she looked at the rocks.
“Hey…” she said. “These rocks aren’t natural. Look, they’re stacked and roughly hewn. I think there’s writing here too!”
She stepped around me and showed me. Sure enough, there was writing carved into the rock! It was square, blocky-looking symbols like glyphs!
I approached as well, pondering the meaning of the glyphs.
"Is it Pandaren? I remember you could read and speak that. Or is it something different?
“It’s not Pandaren,” Celeste shook her head. “Not elvish either. Or dwarven. Troll, I think, but not a dialect that I’m fluent in. This glyph, I think it means poison or something. This one is spirit, or soul.”
Celeste stepped back, biting her lip and looking perplexed.
“The architecture predates what is typical in troll ruins. That or they didn’t have proper tools with them. See this sigil? In the shape of a fish? That’s actually used for travel at sea but the fish seems bigger; it’s also from the top and not the side. I can’t really decipher the rest of it, not without some work.”
"Troll... Maybe these are Zandalari markings?" Nat pondered. "When all the continents of the world were one, before the Great Sundering shattered the immense single continent of Kalimdor, the troll empires covered vast portions of the land mass. What we see in places like Stranglethorn Vale and such as being troll ruins are actually more recent, from before the Gurubashi were defeated by Stormwind forces in the Troll Wars.
"Perhaps this island, this architecture, is from a time when it was part of the One Big Continent, and there were trolls here from, perhaps, the Zandalari, or the Gurubashi? Both had settlements that stretched southwards."
“I think you’re right, Nat,” Celeste said. “Whatever this is though, I don’t like what I’m reading. Maybe it’s the tomb of some really evil troll, or maybe the previous occupants died because of something that they found here. Either way, we’ll have to be vigilant. We can’t let Dordy eat anything we’re not sure is safe, too…”
Celeste stepped back from the rock wall and turned around to look at the clear waters of the lagoon.
“I think we’ll need to explore the caves down there, eventually,” she said next, gesturing down into the water. “See that cave there? The entrance? The stone was hewn. It was either natural and opened wider, or completely excavated by whoever or whatever was here before.”
"I agree," I nodded, looking at Dordy as Celeste mentioned not letting him eat anything we were unsure of. "It's a good thing we've succeeded in training him pretty well.
“And yeah, that does look manually opened or widened down there. But how will we explore it? I can't do my water-breathing spell. Do we have your deep-dive helmet still on the Wave Dancer?"
“The compartment where it was stored was pretty torn up,” Celeste shook her head again. “Most of my fishing and hunting gear was in there, along with my tools. Maybe we can manage with some good old-fashioned breath-holding. There might he pockets of air deeper in. Dordy will stay put. We can go together.”
"We don't want to use Dordy's bubble?” I asked. “It’s still secured to the boat. And what if we dive in, swim deep into the cave, expecting to find air, only to find that there is none, and we can't hold our breath long enough to escape and get back to the surface? There's got to be some way to confirm that there's air and that we can survive it before we risk that."
Celeste grinned at me and took my hand, leading me back to camp.
“Alright, you had all great points. So first, Dordy’s bubble… I need to see if it’s still airtight. That’s easy to do. Then test to see if everything works properly. Without your water-breathing spell, if something’s wrong with the Dordy-bubble, we’d be limited in our capacity to help him. For a first exploratory dive, I was thinking about keeping things simple.”
She grabbed a coil of vine from their pile and handed one end to me.
“I don’t know how to confirm if there’s air or not. If we had a light that works underwater we could use that. Light will look different if we find a pocket of air.
“BUT! We can use lead lines to help us find our way back and warn us if we’ve reached our limit.
“Here’s an easy test. Hold your breath, then run with the vine, as far as you can until you absolutely need air. You can use the sandbar so you can run in a straight line. Or jog, or walk fast. Whichever is safest on the sand. So long as you actually work for it. I’ll grab this end and when you finally release that breath, stop and come back.”
"Oh gosh," I said, feeling worried. "O-okay... I-I'll try that out, then..."
I walked at about the speed I swim at, heading out along the sandbar, which came out to roughly a speed-walk, holding my breath as long as I could.
Perhaps as a result of never having to build up breath-holding stamina due to her water-breathing spell, I only ended up making it about fifty yards or so before having to stop and gasp for air.
I returned to Celeste after that, still feeling a bit out of breath by the time I returned.
''Okay, great!” Celeste said. “So now, we fold the vine that you spooled out in half and that's your go-line. When you reach the end of your go line, you're at half breath and it's time to pull yourself out! Simple!'' Celeste said, looking pleased at her logic.
She cut the vine to the appropriate length then handed a fresh coil to me so we could measure her own go line length. Celeste, thanks to her time in the army, was able to hold her breath for longer. It was getting to almost double mine! Wow!
Now we both had our safety lines. ''C'mon, we can go now, while there's still daylight. The water's clear, so we should see far enough into the cave!''
"O-okay..." I was quite impressed by Celeste's ingenuity -- as always -- and, putting my trust in Celeste, I waded into the water. When I got deep enough that my feet couldn't quite touch the bottom, I nodded to Celeste, took several deep breaths, and then, as soon as Celeste dived... I followed!
The two of us, each with one end of a vine in hand, dove into the crystal clear waters. Colorful fish darted away from us as we swam deeper. Celeste led the way into the biggest cave, the one that had seemed carved out and not naturally formed. The inside of the cave showed more rough-hewn bricks and glyphs, covered in algae and water moss. My lungs were burning, and I had almost reached the end of my rope when I saw Celeste suddenly swim up and... tread water with her head above the water line!
My eyes burned as much as my lungs due to the saltwater, but I was relieved beyond description to see that waterline! I kicked quicker than before, breaching the surface and gasping for air, treading water like Celeste as I replenished my body's supply of oxygen.
"WHEW, GOSH!" I finally blurted out when I had enough air to do so. "That was nuts... Those pretty colored fish though! But... gosh, What's all this stuff in this cave? Where's all the light coming from down here...?"
The two of us were at the edge of a pool of water that ended in steps and led to a floor covered in stone tiles. Up above, vines and greenery descended from a natural hole in the cave, letting in sunlight. The room itself was also mostly natural rock. There was an altar on a dais in the opposite side of the room. On it, aside from a rotting cloth draped over the altar, was a ceramic urn or vase. In front of the urn, a large, milky-white gemstone was held tightly in the grip of a dark, metal clawed hand.
“I think we’re inside the rock formation,” Celeste said, peering around. “We’d have seen that hole if we had climbed on it, I bet.” Celeste said, pointing up at the sunlight shining through. “C’mon, let’s see what all this is about!”
She climbed out of the water and looked eager to explore.
"The rock formation?" I asked as I climbed out of the water after Celeste, wringing out my hair as I went. I was glad that, if I had to survive in a bikini, at least I was at least getting some use out of it! The idle thought passed immediately as I looked around.
"You mean that big rock spire we saw? We're inside that?" I asked next, looking around in awe. "Goodness gracious, what must all this stuff be, then? Some sort of room for ancient rituals? Gosh, how spooky..."
“Yeah, trolls do have lots of rituals,” Celeste agreed with my guess, “and not all of them are good. Actually, I don’t know ANY good ones, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think they hid this here for fun, though. It looks like some sort of burial chamber, but trolls don’t cremate their dead, as far as I know.”
She stepped closer to the altar, but didn’t touch anything.
"Gosh, yeah, if this was made by trolls, then it may well have been something sinister," I agreed. "I think what they do with their dead largely depends on the clan, though. I know some do cremate, some bury, some are cannibals... the Farakki over in Tanaris actually mummify their dead... They're each fascinating enough for study, but horrible people in reality..."
I wandered slowly around the place, my Duskwood-adapted purple eyes taking in all details of the ritual cave in the dim light, looking around in all directions, peering around, studying the room closely.
“Ugh” Celeste groaned as she stepped closer to the strange gem , stumbling back as she put a hand on her head. “I think that gem is the cause of the mana drain. I’m getting a headache just getting closer to it.”
"Ew, gosh, that sickly-looking gem?" Nat said, giving the thing a repulsed look. "That clawed hand looks disgusting, too... That's what might be messing around with the mana here?"
“I don’t see what else it could be. It also makes sense to leave it here, on this isolated island, if it was something that was causing problems and that they couldn’t destroy or render inert.”
Celeste had wandered away from the altar and now stood near the pool of water.
“There’s more writing here… Again the symbols for poison and soul. Maybe these trolls considered the mana drain as affecting the soul? Here, these ones are new.”
She pointed at some other glyphs, crossed spears and fire. “Something about battle or a war. Fire might mean purification, not just simply flames. My guess is that there was a battle or a war, and that the winner sought to remove or cleanse the tribe of a problematic element. Maybe a shaman with methods so horrible, even trolls didn’t like it. I don’t think this is a place meant for a tribal hero…”
"Gosh, so... so this might have been a prison island for a shaman using a mana-draining crystal?"
I moved to look at the crossed spears and fire, then continued circulating around the cavern, looking at everything, taking it all in, soon on the opposite side of the cavern from Celeste.
"And if their weapons and magics couldn't render this crystal inert... then... without our own magic, or weapons, or tools, how will WE do it...?"
I suddenly gasped after that, my purple eyes widening.
"A-and... if this is a prison... do you think that an evil voodoo shaman's SPIRIT might have been imprisoned in that crystal, and the spirit's malice is affecting this place with the mana drain? Could that be the root of it all? Or do you think it's something different?"
Celeste walked over to me and gathered me into her arms for a comforting hug.
“I don’t know,” she said calmly. “That stone doesn’t look like it’s a good thing to keep around, though, but I think we better leave it alone.
“There are lots of birds and plants and animals living here. They aren’t dying of anything, as far as I can tell. So, we might not have magic, but we have our minds. We’ll get through this, figure something out, okay? I want to go home too, and we’re never giving up on that. C’mon, let’s head back to our boy. I think we should keep our camp where the Dancer is and not close to the rocks.”
"R-right..." I returned the hug, feeling creeped out by the whole place and glad to be returning to the surface. I headed back to my vine, swimming out with Celeste and returning to shore, feeling much more confident in this swim now that I knew my way around a bit down here, and knew for sure now that I’d have enough air to get back up and out.
Dordy, true to his training and good behavior (at least, when he knew somehow that it was imperative that he behave himself), was waiting for us when we returned. He'd been hopping and bouncing along after a weird-looking bug he'd found when we surfaced, and he yip-yipped a farewell to his new little friend to come back and greet us, tongue lolling out, tail wagging.
During the next few days, we added to our camp. We built part of a tidal trap with the vines we had. It didn’t cover the whole pool, but it helped us catch a few fish and some crabs, which was enough to keep us fed. Celeste inspected the Wave Dancer more thoroughly. We found a few tools and a broken spearhead, but not much else.
The jungle cat had apparently visited the camp one night. We found large paw prints in the sand about a dozen feet away. The fire likely prevented it from coming closer, but Celeste didn’t want to take chances. We collected sticks in the jungle and hardened them with the fire. Planted at an angle in the sand around the camp, they served as added protection.
I worked hard on adding to the camp. The tidal trap may have been small, but I was proud of it, and Celeste's ingenuity in coming up with the idea and designing and installing it. I was proud of how it fed our little family in our time of need!
I was sure that, despite the scarcity of additional supplies found upon further inspection of the Wave Dancer, that Celeste and I would find great use for what was there, and that the tools would prove immensely useful. I felt, with every new discovery, every new improvement to the camp, that our chances of survival and escaping the island were improving markedly!
The worrisome thing was that big cat. Would staking the perimeter of the camp keep it at bay when we slept? Would the fire be enough to help the stakes do that? Was the cat hungry, or just curious about its new neighbors? I felt a certain friendship with it somehow, the way I do all animals, yet I knew I couldn't really allow that sort of thinking, not when this beast was likely the apex predator of the island before our arrival.
I knew I'd simply have to hope for the best, and plan for the worst.
A storm blew in quickly the next afternoon. The wind howled and the Dancer creaked and rocked in place, though it was secure enough never to fall over or be blown away. The crack in the hull's underside leaked, and, through the transparent hull, we could see the sky, dark as dusk even in the middle of the afternoon from the storm, light up with lightning somewhere inside the clouds, illuminating all kinds of monstrous faces in the cloud shapes. Lightning bolts spiked downwards, and all lightning was almost immediately followed by loud, near-deafening blasts of thunder. The trees of the island waved and groaned and bent and swayed, and the seas around the island threw large waves that curled and broke against the island with great violence.
The storm raged on for the rest of the day, and well into the night. It was difficult to sleep through the noise and the wind that whipped through any crack in the shelter it could find. The night sky became like day with every brilliant flash of lightning, and the roar of the thunder and the howling of the wind did not invite sleep
Yet sleep our little family did, eventually, despite the storm. Exhaustion took us, and we settled into sleep despite our adversities.
When we awoke, it was to partially cloudy skies, a thin morning mist, and debris from the trees everywhere. Palm fronds, coconuts, and bananas were strewn all about. I was quick to gather them all up, even the palm fronds, to help shore up the shelter and provide us with food.
And there, as we worked on cleaning up the camp, off in the distance... an enormous, beautiful rainbow appeared, a sign of peace and restoration after the storm!
After the storm, Celeste was increasingly more focused on fixing the Dancer, or at least making it as seaworthy as possible so that we could escape. She drew plans in the sand when we had some time off from maintaining our camp, and was often lost in her zone. Her lack of proper tools and magic frustrated her, but she stayed determined and focused on her goal. We would return home, there was no doubt of that in her mind!
I did anything and everything I could to help Celeste with her work. I handled cooking and cleaning so that Celeste could focus, brought her purified water when she worked, and distracted her with a bit of fun when we went to bed together to keep her morale up. I knew Celeste was frustrated without her tools and magic, but I was determined to keep Celeste happy anyway!
I also helped with the engineering work itself, both in coming up with ideas to make our life at camp easier, and in trying to figure out ways to get the Wave Dancer fixed. Unfortunately, the latter sort of ideas were few and far between, and difficult to implement, because of our lack of tools and magic. But still, I tried my best, determined to help get our little family home!
“A raft!” Celeste suddenly said a few days after the storm as they were checking the tidal pool netting. We had caught several crabs and a few fish!
“Hmm?” I asked idly as I worked on removing fish and crabs from the traps.
“I’m not leaving the Dancer behind,” Celeste explained, “so we use it as a framework and build a raft underneath it. I can press palm leaves between the raft and the tear in the hull. It’ll leak, but it won’t make us sink. Hopefully it’ll give us enough time to get far enough away from the island to portal home.”
"Oh gosh, how did we not think of a raft before?" I asked, now more attentive and kicking myself inwardly. "A raft would be perfect, and we wouldn't even need to know where the nearest other island was, or which direction home was, because we can go pretty much any direction away from here, so long as we get far enough away, and then just portal home!
"But then again... would we get the attention of that kraken again? Goodness gracious, I hope not... But we can't just stay here for the rest of our lives... Alright, yeah, I'm all for it! But how will we cut logs big enough for this again? or move the Dancer? Gosh, I don't think I can get enough magic going to get Mek-barash again..."
“Not logs,” Celeste said with a grin. “Woven reeds and palm leaves. The Dancer still has some buoyancy, and we can use that. We’ll never be able to completely plug the tear in the bottom, but I still think we can drift far enough away to portal home before it becomes a problem.”
Celeste stood up straight and pointed to a patch of reeds growing along the shore. “There’s more reeds near the lagoon too.”
"Oh, weird," I grinned. "Do we have any tools we can cut those with, by chance? Or will we need to somehow craft something? Good thing we have so much practice making rope after that cargo lift..."
“We'll use these round, flat sea shells!'' Celeste answered as she picked up one from the tide pool. ''It has a sharp enough edge to cut fresh reeds, and the flat hinge-part won't cut our hands.''
She tossed it to me and reached down to find another.
''We'll need plenty of reeds, though, and it won't be an easy chore, unfortunately.... Nat?''
She stopped looking around for another shell and moved closer to me.
''I'm sorry that you got caught up in this. I promise, when we get back, we'll have a month of just enjoying home!''
"It's alright," I smiled softly, embracing Celeste. "It's actually been a fun adventure! I mean, if you take away the whole kraken attack thing and the for-real-survival bit, it was actually a fun trip! And I'm sure your idea will work, and we'll get free! Or that, if it doesn't work, we'll still figure something out!
"And I love that shell blade idea," I said, bending down to pick up the shell my clumsy self failed to catch when Celeste tossed it to me, blushing at that a bit. I picked it up, then looked around as another idea occurred to me.
"Look at this, Celeste!" I said, popping a large, tough, fibrous leaf from some undergrowth. "This should be big enough and tough enough to use as a sort of grip to hold the shell with, without the shell cutting into our palms with the impacts of our chops! You’re right about the hinge-end of the shell not cutting our hands. This will help with that even more, as well as absorb the shock of the impacts so we don’t wear our hands out as fast!”
''Look at you, my favorite engineer, already improving on her tools!'' Celeste said with a smile. ''C'mon then. We're done with the fish trap. Let's get started on our raft! Dordy! Follow!''
Celeste grabbed the string of fish and a handful of crabs and headed back to camp. There was work to be done gutting and smoking the fish, which the two of them were able to complete quickly, being pros after doing it for years on camping trips to the Grizzly Hills and at home from time to time. The crabs were placed in a basket of woven vines and kept until they could be steamed for dinner. With our pup in tow, who was enjoying the adventure without the worry of wondering how to get back home, we headed to the lagoon to find and harvest as many stalks of reed as possible.
I giggled and blushed a bit at the praise, smiling shyly at Celeste. I did a Dordy and followed Celeste happily, heading to the lagoon to find some good, strong reeds.
Without the leaves bound to the shells, it turned out to be a bit of an unstable grip, as the shell slid around slightly inside the leaf upon hard impact. I considered finding a way to bore a pair of holes through the shell to poke a vine through the leaf and through the holes to bind the leaf to the shell, but for work as light as hacking through the reeds, there didn't seem to be nearly enough sliding around inside the leaf to merit stopping work to modify their padded shell grips, so, though I voiced the idea to Celeste as we worked, I really just kept on with the harvesting task.
The heat, humidity, and hard work soon had me breathing hard and perspiring a bit, but there was water right there to bathe in after. For now, I was focused on gathering reeds, and before too long, we were starting to amass a pretty sizable start to our pile!
Later, Celeste sat near the fire, using her seashell to cut vines lengthwise. The tough fibers, once split at the end, could be pulled along the length of the vine. This way, she was creating thin but strong string.
“Each floater we make from reeds needs to be very tightly packed,” she explained to me as she worked. “The more dense they are, the better they will float. So we’ll have to harvest a lot of reeds. It’ll wreck the ecosystem around them for a bit, but reeds grow fast, so I’m not too worried for the long term.”
She turned her head to look at the Dancer, gauging its weight and length.
“I’m guessing that we’ll need six bundles at least twelve inches in diameter. We can cheat a bit and wrap palm leaves in the bundles. They’ll add extra stability and thickness.”
Celeste set down her vine and leaned forward to inspect a skewered crab cooking over the fire.
“I think these are ready. Too bad we have no spices. I bet you’re tired of eating bland food huh?” she asked me.
"Bland food is better than no food, but... yeah," I agreed with a grin, "they'd be better if this island had turned out to have some spices growing on it!”
I nodded at Celeste's instructions as well, tightly bundling the reeds to make dense, securely-fastened bundles of reeds, experimenting with Celeste's palm leaves as well. My first few were sort of messy and ugly, but they were perfectly functional, and soon enough, I had some nicer-looking, straighter palm leaves running through my bundles!
"Maybe we should make a few spare bundles, just in case of something," I said after I got through my first couple of them and then joined Celeste in a break for some crab dinner, munching away thoughtfully. "I dunno how we'd actually replace a bundle under the raft once we actually have the Dancer on them, but... maybe it would help something or other? Though I still don't know how, without Mek-barash, we'll get the boat flipped over without damaging it, and then have the whole raft, boat, reeds, and all, onto the water from way back here. Unless we put it on a series of straight logs and roll it down? Didn't we do that with something once before?"
“Yep, we’ll need a launch for the Wave Dancer 2,” Celeste confirmed between bites. “Flipping it won’t be a problem; we’ll use vines to slowly lever it into place. As long as we can pivot it, it’ll be enough. Once it’s on the reeds though, pulling or pushing it might be hard, so I was thinking we’d use vines and palm trees as a flexible swing. If we attach vines to the top of the palm trees and loop them around the Dancer, we could swing it closer to shore. We know how the tides work so if we float the reeds on the high tide, we just might be able to swing the Dancer right in top of them!” Celeste used a crab leg shell to draw her plan in the sand. “Mostly we’ll use vines to maneuver the boat forward.”
“The Wave Dancer 2, I like it!" I giggled. "And yeah, swings would sure help. What if we put into place a lever and fulcrum to help flip it as well? Or you think just the vines in a pulley system will be sufficient?"
“The Wave Dancer is damaged,” Celeste shrugged. “No way to help that. With our limited tools, flipping it will require using gravity. It’ll add a dent or three; that’s unavoidable. I don’t want either of us near it when we flip it, so vines will have to do.”
"True, that makes sense," I agreed. "Alright, let's rig us up some pulleys then!"
Without any actual gear, it proved a challenge for the bikini-clad girls to climb up tall pine trees to attach the vines. Celeste lost her footing once and scraped her skin, leaving an angry red rash. Just another reason to get home, she admitted, though I could see that she couldn't walk as well after, either. Celeste stoically waved away my concerns, wanting to focus on getting the job done.
By the end of the day, the Wave Dancer was attached to neighboring palm trees, ready to be flipped then swung onto a raft. They would have to work on it in the next morning though, as neither of us had any strength left after the day's hard work.
Back at camp, taking a restful walk after all the strenuous labor, I found a few plants that were known as being good for topical ointments. I rubbed some of the plants' sap on Celeste's knee. I let Celeste rest this night, handling the cooking myself, wanting to cheer my tired, scraped-up soulmate.
"Gosh, we got so much done today!" I said cheerfully as I skewered some fish for the fire. "Soon enough, we'll flip the boat, get it on the raft, and steer it right through a portal to home!"
The next morning, Celeste had a limp and her injury was a bit swollen.
“Nuts! This is just a bad time to get injured,” she said after walking around a bit. “If you hadn’t found those plants, I probably wouldn’t even be able to walk at all this morning. We should launch as soon as possible, or else I might end up just dead weight. We’ll need to attach the reed floaters together to make the raft. It’ll be easier if we build it exactly where we plan on swinging the Dancer. High tide is close to sundown tonight. Hey, where’s Dordy?”
I looked around after Celeste’s abrupt change of subject. The pup wasn’t there! He had been sniffing around, ready to do his morning business/exploration, but now he was out of sight! Dordy never strayed far, usually… I looked around quickly, startled, instantly worried about that big jungle cat!
"Dordy?" I called out. "Dordy! Here, boy! Come on!"
I peered through the foliage of the jungle in all directions, carefully, watching and listening for signs of their beloved pup in the brush, for any bright orange glow that might give away his position.
We didn’t hear him bark, but, after a quick search, they found Dordy’s trail easily enough – since the island sapped all magic, the pup’s fire protection wasn’t as efficient and was wearing off, and he left singe marks on leaves and twigs when he moved around the jungle. Mixed with Dordy’s footprints, large jungle cat paws were clearly visible…
“Nat, you’re going to have to go look for him,” Celeste said regretfully from where she was nursing her knee. “I’ll only slow you down. Grab one of the fire-hardened stakes that we made. I’ll lash the floats together and see if we can at least be ready to shove off if we need to. Stay low when you can, and try to keep the wind blowing towards you when you’re facing the cat if you see it. Most jungle cats aren’t great fighters, preferring stealthy attacks to pitched fights. Show you’re not easy prey, and it’ll back off, for now. You can do this, Nat. You’ve been hunting with me often enough to get through this.”
I felt a stab of true fear at Celeste's words. What I had to do now was something most people I'd ever known had tried, to some greater or lesser extent, to teach me to do. Something I yet remained incredibly, unbelievably bad at...
I had to be athletic, a fighter. I had to win in physical combat. I'd never been able to do that in my life, and I felt fully confident that I'd take one swing with my fire-hardened stake and fall flat on my face, and then I’d be a free meal for the cat…
My only hope was that the cat wouldn't know that.
If the cat saw me coming, armed, stalking it, then maybe the cat would back off, and I wouldn't need to fight!
It was my only hope...
I gave a tearful embrace to Celeste, brought her an additional fire-hardened stake for her own use in case the cat went around me and went for the injured one of us, and set off, following the tracks and the scorch marks to see where they might lead...
Celeste watched me go, uneasy at seeing me so scared, as she later told me her side of the day’s story.
Unfortunately, putting me in that situation was unavoidable, but not because of the cat. It wasn’t a jungle cat. She was sure of it. The island was too small to sustain a predator like that, that needed to eat several pounds of meat each day. They had only seen the tracks of one cat, which meant there weren’t any around for reproduction, either.
One of the sigils we had seen on the wall had been bothering her for some time. It was the symbol of a stone wrapped with vines. Most of the symbols had seemed to belong to a sea-faring culture so that one had stood out. It wasn’t until she recalled the symbols she and I had seen in Tanaris during one of their first dig together that she understood what the sigil meant. This island wasn’t a tomb, but a prison! A prison for a wayward soul. The stone they found in the cave didn’t cause a loss of mana; it siphoned it, most likely to force the soul to stay here, instead of going to whatever afterlife trolls had.
It was basically the lock to the cage. The same lock was keeping us here!
We needed to go home. Celeste’s looked at her injured knee. She needed the wound properly cleaned and healed, or else risk an infection or losing mobility.
Looking up at the vines attached to the palms and to the Dancer, Celeste felt the shame of failure. The palms wouldn’t hold the Dancer’s weight. She had realized that when she had climbed up. They could still leave with only the reed raft, but without the structure of the Dancer holding the raft together and proper ropes, the waves crashing against the shore would likely break the raft apart.
No, there was only one way out of here! We needed to find Dordy, and she was worried about her boy, but she wasn’t TOO worried. The cat, which was likely the soul of a troll druid shape-changed into a cat, probably lingered often near the camp because of the girls’ magic. Dordy liked to inspect what encroached on his territory and the pup likely followed the cat and not the other way around.
To get out, we needed that stone destroyed. Whatever that troll had done, it had been caged here for likely hundreds of years. It was time to set it free.
Limping, Celeste made her way to the lagoon. Without hesitating she dove into the water…
I, meanwhile, was discovering something alarming. Dordy's fire-protection spell was wearing off! Without her magic, Celeste hadn't been able to cast it lately. There was a chance the whole jungle could go up in flames!
Following what started off as scorch marks soon became smoldering burn patches. I needed to find him quickly!
But something was nagging at me, something that hadn't made much sense since we’d first gotten here and I'd first found those jungle cat prints...
What was such a big cat doing on such a tiny island? How did it get all the way out here? Like, how did a big jungle cat come to be on a tiny island like this one? Surely an entire family of cats couldn't subsist on the meat on this tiny island alone. How had its family line survived so long? And if it did have a family, why were there never more than just the one cat's prints around? If it had no family, how did it come to be here, alone? Did someone bring it and set it loose here, hoping it would clear the island of some unwanted pest?
Or was it something else...?
Unbidden, a different image came to mind. What if it wasn't the pawprint of a huge cat? What if these were the imprints of an entire underside of a much smaller animal? Some sort of rodent that would have made the large part of the paw print with its rear down as it hopped along, like a bunny or something, and the toes were some sort of set of four forelegs? That would explain why it could go along with Dordy, as though they were friends or something...
Also, why had Dordy never barked at this thing even once before?
So many mysteries...
My mind spun at least a dozen different theories, all of them sounding sort of crazy to me, as I followed the prints and the scorches. It was clear that I needed to find him fast!
I cleared her head, focusing on the task at hand.
I pushed away a large fern obscuring the path with my stake, and I saw him... Dordy! And, unbelievably... what appeared to be... a MAGIC cat...?
Dordy was crouched underneath a bush that was almost completely on fire by now. Not something the pup seemed to mind, though. He was quiet, looking at a translucent giant cat! I could see that it was similar to the cat form of druids. Ghostly feathers and tribal markings adorned the cat's hide. The cat itself was lying on top of a rock, looking down at Dordy, its tail slowly flicking this way and that, but otherwise unbothered.
"Dordy!" I called quickly, trying to get him away from the burning bush and back to the beach, where there was nothing to burn. "Come on, boy! Let's go! Dordy, come!"
I locked eyes with the druid ghost-cast and felt a twinge of unease. It had all the characteristics of a troll druid form, and yet... if this ghost had been locked here for a long time, then it likely predated the horde, and was even likely not even aware of the horde's existence.
Still, the trolls were basically the enemies of most other races even before the orcs invaded Azeroth, and were cannibals besides. I wasn't sure whether to feel unfriendly to it or not... yet, either way, this thing had to be allowed to pass on to the afterlife, so that magic could, once again, be used here.
But first, I had to get Dordy to come away from the weird ghost...
Suddenly, it seemed as if the whole island shook! The ghost cat stood up, and then shifted into a troll. The phantom bowed to me, then faded from view. Overhead and around me, portals suddenly opened! To Pandaria, Stormwind, Ironforge, and everywhere else, all at once! Dordy started barking with anxiety and ran to me, needing her comforting presence.
Inside the cave, Celeste’s hand was stuck to the glowing stone, gripping it tightly as her whole body seized up. Eyes shut tight and teeth clenched, she tried to control the flow of energy being released from the gem. Fire poured out of her in scorching waves, loosened uncontrollably as she served as conduit to a torrent of magic…
I had to flee from Dordy, who would burn me if he touched me. I used my stake to block his path to me, telling him to keep back, but also leading him back to the beach as I retreated, keeping my distance from the path of fire that he had started through the foliage that were now growing into real flames. An acute angle of a fire path was the result!
I made it to the beach, however, and stood almost knee-deep in the water, now gasping in disbelief as I looked back over the island. Arcane energy was chaotically popping and crackling all over the island! What looked like possible magical portals were becoming visible through the trucks of the jungle's trees, soon lost to view behind the thickening smoke. Fuchsia bolts and sparks of arcane energy crackled all over the island!
And, worst of all, the entire island was SHAKING! It began shaking as soon as that ghost druid cat thing had turned into a troll and disappeared, and it was STILL GOING!
What in tarnation was going ON here?!
"CELESTE!" I called out, running through ankle-deep water now, Dordy hot (quite literally so) on my heels. I fell over many times, clumsy as I am, but the soft, wet sand and water prevented any injuries. I got up again and again, splashing through the water to keep from being burned by Dordy, sprinting awkwardly back toward the camp, where I'd last seen Celeste.
But when I got there, Celeste was GONE!
"CELEEEEEEEEEEEEESTE!"
Just then, great gout of fire and molten rocks suddenly spewed out from the rock formation! Undoubtedly from the hole in roof of the cave Celeste and I had visited… The island was shaking more violently now. The Wave Dancer crashed to the ground, ending right-side up, though it wasn’t on the reed floaters which were smoldering now, too. Dordy wasn’t the reason for all of the fires on the island!
I heard a loud droning sound next. Faint and distorted it was at first, but suddenly very clearly as a flying machine burst out of a flickering portal. Looking up, I immediately recognized Uncle Rugnar and Penny! They were doing a once-over around the island and looking down!
I looked up at the sound, spotting family, and began jumping and waving, hoping all the splashing about would draw their eyes, even as the rock formation suddenly blasted fire and magma skywards.
"HEEEEEEEEY!" I yelled, jumping and splashing and waving my arms and the large stake around. "DOWN HEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRE!"
Penny’s voice crackled over the comms “We’re seeing you down there, and glad to see you’re okay! Standby for pickup! Seismic activity will complicate things. Positive identification of the Wave Dancer is established. Does Celeste want us to retrieve the craft? Where is Celeste?”
"That's why I was trying to flag you down!" I called out over the comms. "Celeste is IN there somewhere! I tried to find her at camp, but she's GONE! There's an underwater cave in the middle of the island under a lagoon, and I think she went there, and that's the reason for all this chaos! SHE'S IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL THAT! Please, you HAVE to find her! Quick! Dordy and I will be fine out here in the water! Go! GO! PLEASE!"
“Proceeding to location,” Penny replied quickly, and the flying machine flew off with all speed towards the rock formation. Rugnar barely dodged a portal that suddenly opened in front of the flying machine, and then another gout of fire from the rocks, and Nat could hear him roaring his displeasure all the way at the beach!
“No sign of Celeste around the cave,” Penny’s voice came over the comms again, with Rugnar swearing fluently in every language he knew in the background. “There’s too much fire on the ground to land the flying machine. Nat, we have to-“ Just then the top of the rock formation exploded outwards, showering the island with fire and red-hot rocks. The flying machine took some hits as Rugnar swerved and tried to escape the explosion. When the last rock fell, the island stopped shaking, the portals stopped popping in and out of existence. I could see the flying machine making a slow circle around the rock formation which was now just broken rocks, molten slag and fire. An eerie sort of calm fell over the island…
“No sign of Celeste. There’s… there’s nothing left…” Penny said quietly over the comms.
"Wh-what?!" I cried over the comms once I rose from the water I'd dived into for refuge from the fiery explosion. "B-but she’s fine... She HAS to be fine... This is someone that walked the Maw, marched right into Torghast, firebombed an entire room full of Maw creatures and prison wardens, took what she wanted, and escaped to tell the tale! Surely she's survived this!"
“Continuing to surveil but…” Penny trailed off, at a loss as to what to say.
The flying machine continued to fly over the destroyed rock formation.
Dordy who had been trying to reach me and was scared by the explosion, managed to reach me when I was worriedly talking into the comms and looking up at the flying machine.
It was such a normal thing, having Dordy stand up and place his paws on her leg and licking her hand.
It took a moment for me to realize that… I wasn’t getting burned! Dordy was whining up at her, needing my comfort as he didn’t understand what was going on. When I crouched to pet the pup, I finally saw Celeste. The young woman was limping badly, her bikini singed, and part of her short hair and face blackened with soot. She emerged from the burning jungle, clutching something in her hand…
I yelped and leaped away from Dordy, only belatedly realizing she wasn't getting burned.
My heart LEAPED with joy when I realized it – Celeste had renewed his fire-protection spell! That must mean she was somewhere right nearby!
I knelt to comfort Dordy, scanning the area nearby, and she saw her – Celeste!
"CELESTE!" I called, scooping up Dordy and sprinting to my Sun, another source of fire that wouldn't burn me. "You're alive! You're okay!"
The little family reunited instantly, Dordy squirming in between then as Celeste and I hugged him and each other at the same time.
"Celeste!" I cried again, checking Celeste up and down for any more injuries. "Are you hurt? We can get you to help if you are – Uncle Rugnar and Penny just FOUND us! Hang on..."
I activated my comms again and put out a brief call.
"Uncle Rugnar! Penny!" I spoke quickly. "Come back to where you saw me! CELESTE is here! She's alright! But we gotta get her some healing or other medical help!"
Celeste’s right hand looked blackened and held the cave’s white stone tightly. Her eyes were wild and a little unfocused “I’m… I’m okay… we need to go…” she rasped out, her voice raw.
“We’re on approach!” Penny quickly said over the comms.
The flying machine flew overhead.
“Get… the Dancer…” Celeste managed to say. “I can open a portal…”
"R-right," I stammered out, worried about Celeste's state, and about her holding that weird stone from the cave. I took Celeste's free arm and pulled it over my shoulder, helping to steady Celeste and move her along to the Wave Dancer.
Once alongside the remains of the craft, I helped Celeste up and over, then hoisted Dordy up and over, glad his fire protection spell was back up. I climbed the ladder and boarded myself last, just in time to hear the approach of Uncle Rugnar's flying machine again.
"Alright, Celeste," I said. "On you, if you feel like you're up for this..."
As soon as Rugnar's flying machine was overhead, cables were lowered down. Penny, peering over the side, instructed me on where to attach the cables. The flying machine's rotors spun more rapidly and the craft lifted the Dancer from the sand. Celeste looked up and raised her free hand, opening a portal back home. Rugnar flew us through.
We were finally HOME!
Over the course of the day and the evening, a lot of people came around the House-On-The-Spire. Suyin was fetched immediately by Rugnar. The pandaren healer stayed at Celeste's bedside while she tended to her wounds. They managed to pry the strange stone from Celeste's hand and Penny welded a metal box to put it in until they could figure out why Celeste had been unable to stop holding it. After a few hours of Suyin's care, Celeste was looking much better and could hug her uncle, Penny, Other Nat, and everyone else who was eager to see the girls. Suyin insisted on checking me as well, and declared me to be in good health. Rugnar offered to stay for a few days to help us get settled back home. By mid-evening, Celeste was dead tired and needed to sleep, so most of the visitors returned home, promising to visit again soon.
I stayed by Celeste morning, noon, and night, caring for Celeste, being there for her, and assisting Suyin with her care, fetching things wanted by her, and things wanted by Celeste. I stayed for moral support and company, and as something of a medical assistant. I had washed the soot from Celeste's hand, boggled at the power of the white stone with the rest of our little family and our friends, helped Suyin with her healing of Celeste's hand and head, and tended all other healing or other physical needs Celeste had.
This left our room fairly crowded, as even when there wasn't a horde of Anglers Wharf and Halfhill well-wishers coming to look in on Celeste and bring her things they hoped would cheer her up, it was still Suyin, Uncle Rugnar, Penny, Dordy (who, of course, loved all the visitors and company and was quite excited to go around getting attention and treats from all of them!), and I!
I had also planned to play hostess to all the visitors, cooking up dinners and bringing everyone drinks, but as the visitors themselves brought so many drinks and steaming dishes of food for Celeste and her little family, it turned out there was no need, so I was mostly just able to sit with Celeste, aside from bringing every stool and chair in the house up to the room for the visitors to sit down in or on as I told and re-told our tale.
I was also able to use the time sitting with Celeste to pen letters to several people, everyone from my father and those I work with, to my Bestie Nah and those I work with in the Whitewind Company, telling everyone what had happened and that I was fine now and would be back soon.
One thing that remained constant in all the crowding and action, however, was me remaining with Celeste, holding her hand, listening to her when she was awake, writing the letters when she was asleep, always remaining practically glued to Celeste, determined to be there for her until Celeste was back to her old self again.
The day following their return, Uncle Rugnar was up early to make us all a rich, hearty breakfast. Thankfully, our friends had brought enough food to help him cook. Penny arrived early, escorting Suyin to the Spire. The healer didn’t want to “bother” us, though, letting us rest. I wouldn’t have felt bothered by her company, though I suppose it was super nice of her to let us rest quietly anyway! She chatted with Rugnar in the kitchen, preparing her herbal teas and poultices for later.
Penny (with an attentive Dordy watching her) decided to take a look at the Wave Dancer, now sitting in the backyard. She went over it through the course of the day, making a list of what would need fixing and what parts were required.
It turns out that Nat Pagle had won the fishing contest. In his haste to help search for the girls, he had let his line in the water as he frantically rowed out to sea where Celeste’s flare had gone up. The biggest grouper anyone had ever seen had taken a bite and nearly tugged Other Nat in the water. Despite his worry for his friends, he had been forced to bring the grouper in.
No one had actually registered the win until several days later. Other Nat had wanted to name the contest the McCullough-Ebonlocke Memorial Fishing Contest after the girls had been missing for weeks without any word. When Celeste heard that, she had been moved but told him in no uncertain words to find a better name.
I was deeply grateful to Uncle Rugnar for letting me rest and remain with Celeste, to Suyin for her healing poultices and teas, and Penny for the list she surprised Celeste and I with concerning the Wave Dancer's reparation needs. It turned out to be a conversation starter for Celeste, as spare parts in the workshop and things that might be procured from the Mechagon Isle junkyard might be used. I knew it would probably be a while before any such trip would be possible, but I was happy for the distraction from what had happened!
I was also happy for Other Nat for having won the fishing contest, even if the circumstances of the win had been what they were. I felt bad for having terrified him and the rest of our family and friends, and Other Nat's new name for the fishing contest had brought tears to my eyes, though I was glad that Celeste had gotten Other Nat to do away with the name. We were, after all, alive and well! This actually led to more distracting conversations, as Celeste and I, our little family, and various visitors all started brainstorming names for the contest.
Whatever the contest might be named, however, I knew one thing for sure – I'd now survived TWO kraken attacks, and hoped to never encounter a third!
The next day was quite nice. It was a Miners and Ores sort of day.
Celeste, after a hearty breakfast in bed, casually sipped coffee while casually beating the pants off of all comers... except Suyin. The wins were still wins, but somehow, the wise old pandaren still gave her a run for her money! Creative feints, sudden, powerful pushes, some reversals at opportune times, and other unexpected, unorthodox tactics were employed, yet somehow, Suyin always seemed to fall to Celeste.
Celeste, resting her mind from time to time, also wanted to simply spectate games while she sat up in bed, leaning back against a comfortable stack of pillows. Suyin wiped the floor with pretty much everyone else. I was still too new, though I did have a few more beginner's luck games. Uncle Rugnar had his book with him he'd gotten for Winter Veil, and he'd reference it during games, which helped him beat Penny a few times, though the intelligent gnome pulled off a number of wins of her own. Other Nat tried to learn the game, and he did alright for a new player, though he wasn't up to the veterans' standard in the room. Other visitors played each other as well, and a bit of slight cheating and rule-bending eventually ensued as those who didn't understand the game tried to do things that couldn't legally be done.
All in all, it was a very fun day for all, and with me and sometimes others taking care of the cooking and cleaning, the workload around the house was handled, and the happy little indoor day brought a healing peace to our little family, and to all our friends that had been heartbroken at what they thought was a permanent loss. Smiles and laughter were heard around the Spire again, and at Anglers Wharf, and at Halfhill, from whence some of our visitors had come.
I felt truly happy and excited the entire day, and I knew that this day would be in my memories forever!
There weren’t as many visitors on Monday. Celeste and I had promised to visit our friends individually in the days or weeks to come.
Suyin was still there, of course. Celeste was in much better health by now, though her leg was still stiff and her right hand still ached. The healer kept administering salves and giving her teas.
Penny and Rugnar now worked together on the Wave Dancer. They built a rough drydock in the yard to put the Dancer on and put up a makeshift roof over it so they could work even if it rained. Smart bit of foresight there!
I was working just as tirelessly, alternating between housework, cleaning, cooking for everyone, and helping Suyin with Celeste. I didn't resent the work; I did it all with a smile, plenty of jokes, a generally good cheer. I had plenty of help; even though the visitors were dwindling, there was always someone chipping in!
I also ran errands for Uncle Rugnar and Penny, fetching tools from the workshop, taking the MUTT out to harvest bamboo for the drydock, bringing food, helping fix this or craft that.
I was happy throughout, stating that this was like going on an adventure without even having to leave your home!
Celeste got out of bed and wanted to watch the work on the Dancer. She needed help to walk down to the workshop and backyard, however. Seeing that the day would be mostly building the dry dock and placing the boat on it, Celeste eventually sat at a workbench and used spare parts to build a knee-brace that helped her mobility and to redistribute her weight away from her knee joint. She was lost in her zone as she built and improved the device, which she called a W.R.A.P. or Weight Redistributing Automated Pose. It was actually a simple device using calibrated springs and coils that prevented her from moving her leg in ways it wasn’t ready to handle. If the brace moved in a certain way, the springs and coils would resist the movement, or else help with absorbing shocks on her leg.
She was done just before dinner and tried it on. The WRAP moved with a bit of a squeak, but she smiled proudly of her latest invention!
I made visits to the workshop, kitchen, and dry dock throughout the day, juggling all the things, keeping everyone well-supplied and happy. Coffee for Celeste, ale for Rugnar, berry juice for Penny, and a lunch of cold cuts sandwiches with cheese sticks were my self-assigned tasks throughout the middle of the day in between keeping all these engineers supplied with tools, parts, hardware, and engineering help and ideas.
I was impressed with the work at the dry dock, and even more impressed with Celeste's newest invention! The W.R.A.P. turned out to be an amazing device, and I was thrilled to see Celeste's rediscovered mobility!
Gosh, it’s been one real crazy, sometimes terrifying month, but by golly, we got ourselves through it! I’m so excited to be back home again! I’m so thrilled to have survived! I’m VERY glad Celeste was able to make it out of that spooky cave alive and not permanently broken!
And now we get to rest up and recover. I was given last weekend off from work to recover and especially take care of Celeste, though I gotta go back in tomorrow. It’ll so weird to finally be doing something so boring and mundane as sitting around an office all day again tomorrow, yet I know I’ll likely have mountains of paperwork to catch up on when I get back, just like I did after recovering from the incident with Celeste’s twin.
Sometimes life throws us curveballs. Sometimes those curveballs swerve and ding us right in the noggin! But what matters is, getting back up, doing what you gotta do to survive, and coming out okay on the other side!
And by golly, Celeste, Dordy, and I did that!
And now a peaceful time at home to recover is lined up next. I can’t wait to just rest up and enjoy all the creature comforts we take for granted again! I can’t wait to get started on that hydroponics bay, or whatever else Celeste might have in mind next! I can’t wait to get back to normal life again! YAY!
Nat heaved a tired sigh, smiled a tired sigh, and quietly closed her diary. She poked her mechanical pen back into its place on her mechanical inkwell, the familiar motions of putting her diary things away seeming so everyday, and yet so new to her. Marveling at the weird sensation, she shook her head a bit, grinning as she carefully got up from bed to put her things away, not wanting to wake Celeste up.
Peering outside, the sea of mists that had covered everything so thoroughly earlier had burned away under the sun, which now shone from a clear blue sky. The morning had gotten late, and it was already lunchtime for most people. Celeste had had a nice, long, lie-in, and would likely be awake any time now.
In anticipation, Nat went to go and make breakfast. Uncle Rugnar and Penny were already outside, and she saw they were out there working on the dry dock for the Wave Dancer again. It looked to be nearing completion!
Dordy sniffing around them nearby in between getting attention and pats from them, having been hanging out with them outside all morning since Nat had let him out of the room to follow them outside. He appeared very interesting that, judging by the pace of Dordy’s frenetically snuffling nose, appeared to be a bug skittering through the grass.
Nat smiled at her little family outside, doing normal, peaceful things people do at home, and began making breakfast for five (including Dordy), whipping up Rugnar’s recipe – a secret known only to the little family – for biscuits and sausage gravy. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee were also on the agenda. When it was done, Rugnar and Penny decided to have their breakfast on the veranda, suggesting that Nat take Celeste her breakfast in bed, as had been the norm during Celeste’s recovery.
Celeste’s eyes were groggily open when Nat came through the door. It seemed the smell of the food and coffee had awakened her. With a sleepy grin, she sat up in bed, and Nat delivered her tray. Celeste went for the coffee first thing, that first sip of the day causing her to heave a happy, slow, peaceful sigh of relief, and then, more awake now, she started on her meal.
After breakfast, Celeste got the WRAP on and Nat helped her up out of bed and outside, though the contraption allowed her to get around with much less help than before. She went in front of Celeste down the stairs, so that Celeste had something to lean on forward of herself as well as the rails on the sides, especially with the way the staircase spiraled downward.
Proceeding outside with coffee refills for themselves and their boat-repairing family, they had a nice, relaxing time on the veranda, and the time wore into the afternoon with talks of what Penny knew might be in the Mechagon Isle junkyard, and what Celeste knew she had among spare parts here at home, and ideas from all four of them in general. Vague plans were made for sometime in the future to hit the junkyard again, maybe even a camping trip with the HEAP for cover and the PIE (Penny winced) along in case of emergency, to stay long enough to really get as many of the most useful things as they could during their stay.
Beyond that, the four of them went to work on the dry dock, and considerable progress was made. It was really coming together now!
Eventually, however, cabin fever was setting in for Celeste, as Nat knew it must be by now. Celeste wanted to get out, out of the house, breathe some fresh air, maybe even go down the cargo lift and sit on the beach for a while.
Other Nat was there in a flash once he saw his friends emerging, and the Celeste looked much relieved to be sitting in his rowboat instead of in bed. She smiled happily and chatted much, and Other Nat, though he must have been curious, avoided bringing up their time missing from home, figured Celeste and Nat might not want to re-tell the tale for the hundredth time that week.
Nat was grateful, though she was also sure that Celeste, at some point when she felt up to it, would want to give her grand retelling at a bonfire dinner party on Turtle Beach at some point in the future, where Celeste’s clever embellishments were sure to take center stage as she told the story with the old lively flourish she usually had in the past.
Celeste wasn’t quite up to that yet, though she did accept an invitation to the Anglers Wharf docks for a quiet chicken dinner. Eating something besides mostly-bland seafood for the first time in a month had been a novelty for Celeste and Nat (Dordy never lost his excitement for any sort of food, no matter how often he had one single thing), and they savored the flavorful lemon pepper grilled chicken, grilled, seasoned asparagus, and fresh-baked, fluffy buttered dinner rolls. The Stormstout brews they’d missed all this time were plentiful as well, and they ate until they felt they’d have to be put in carts and rolled away from the dinner table back to their home!
They lingered a bit, however, Celeste in no hurry to return to her bed after being in it all week, though the thought of sleeping in it instead of on palm fronds on the sand under a wrecked boat was still a great luxury to her. They talked long with their Anglers Wharf friends and their little family as the skies darkened and the stars began to twinkle. Dordy made his favorite old rounds around the Anglers Wharf docks too, getting pats and attention and treats everywhere he went, even more so than usual!
Eventually, however, the evening ran late enough that Nat, regretfully, had to head back home to sleep. Celeste wanted to stay with Nat, so she said her goodnights as well. Uncle Rugnar gave Penny a lift back home, and then returned to the House-On-The-Spire’s guest room, where he’d been staying for the week.
Both dreading and looking forward to the normalcy of going back to work in the morning, Nat went to bed smiling ruefully. It was with a head full of happy thoughts of home life instead of worries and fears of surviving the island she went to bed with this time, though, and that was a plus!