There were a couple of reasons it didn’t take too long to find Invisible Isle. First, it wasn’t all that far away. The drifting bar had drifted pretty far from its most recent launch point, but The Foolish Endeavor was a fast, fast ship, and covering days worth of drift for a floating platform was hardly more than a matter of seconds for it.
Even though the bar had apparently been towed here and there sotis, by the ti Marco woke up in the morning, sothing about the sky and the air was so familiar he knew they were close.
“There it is.” Aethe pointed out an island in the distance. “That's where we are headed.”
“Can’t be, right? It’s not invisible.” Marco turned the ship towards the new island anyway, but turned to Aethe for more explanation. “It has to be sowhere else.”
“Nope. This one. I can tell from the peaks and mountains and all.” Aethe took a look through the spyglass and nodded. “And they’ve already spotted us. I can see people running to the fortresses.”
“The fortresses?”
“Yes. But they aren’t firing yet. That’s a good sign. Keep going, Marco. Try to look friendly.”
With Marco sailing in his least intimidating way, they approached the docks of the island. Aethe was right about the fortresses, even if they didn’t track exactly with what Marco had expected from them. The docks were now firmly interspaced with short stone firing platforms, each with a bank of two or three cannons protected under a thick wood and stone awning. Given just how many dozens of different landing spots he was seeing, they represented a large show of force all by themselves. Behind them, the old firing positions that had held Frisk and Steed at bay were just as well ard as they had always been. Overall, anywhere anyone would want to land was more or less bristling with firepower.
Marco was pretty sure a single barrage wouldn’t take down his ship, but he didn’t want to test that math with real-life experience if he could help it. Before that could happen, Aethe perked up and pointed, almost hopping with excitent as she pointed out an older fra approaching from behind the cannon, yelling and smacking anyone who looked like they might get jumpy.
Marco didn’t know she knew who they were with any real level of surety until she looked directly at the ship and waved them in with one lazy motion of her arm, then strolled casually back out of view.
“It’ll be all right now.” Marco sped up the ship and pointed it a little more directly towards the island. “She doesn’t make mistakes.”
When they disembarked on the docks, word about who they were had apparently already gotten around. Nobody they knew was present, but they were greeted by so many people they didn’t know there wouldn’t have been much ti for reconnecting anyway.
“The temple kids!” a heavyset man in an eyepatch yelled. “I heard her say it! Although you lot don’t look much like kids to .”
The crowd gathered around and took them in, looking at the crew like they were so sort of long-lost legends. Not only did Marco not know any of them well, but most of them were people he would have sworn weren’t on the island last ti they were here at all. As they pushed past the crowds in the direction the old woman had disappeared in, he saw so of why.
The town was a loose collection of ramshackle buildings and clapped-together sheds when they had been here last, with just a handful of dirt paths tying it all together. Now there was a real, honest-to-God built town in place, with roads that five people could walk down at once, shoulder-to-shoulder. The buildings now had sothing approaching a unified style, with the sa kinds of brickwork and sa varieties of wood showing up in most buildings in differing proportions but patterned in a way that lent an overall feel of planned developnt to the town.
Most noticeably to Marco, the old woman’s eting building, from which she had once run the entire island, had changed. It used to be as cheap and simple as anything else on the island, even worse in most ways. Now its rough-hewn boards had been replaced with the finest stonework. Shock-white bricks carved of so smooth, hard rock were stacked expertly into a hulking, official-looking building that was so regal in its look it was almost funny.
“Don’t stand there gawking at it.” The old woman appeared in the doorway, grimacing at the shining stone. “I didn’t ask for this. The folk who live around here demanded it anyway. Said it befit my station.”
She spat on the ground.
“Couldn’t convince them otherwise. Now get in here. We’ve got talking to do.”
Marco took one look around the much-changed town. Whatever he had been hoping to find in this visit, he was quickly learning he wouldn’t get. There was nothing familiar about this plac, now. Most of what he rembered was torn down and replaced. Whatever familiar faces he had looked for were either not seen or diluted with dozens of people he just didn’t know. It was the sa place geographically, but not at all the temporary ho they had once known.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from . Please report it.
“It’s changed, yes.” The old woman looked out. “That’s good. You learn that over ti. Places grow up or die. They do it when you aren’t looking, sotis, but it’s not always better if you are there to see it happen. I’ve moved on from a dozen towns that didn’t need anymore. It’s how it is. Hate to tell you, but if you go down the road further into town, you won’t find what you want there, either. Not the sa place. Not anymore.”
“Ah. I see,” Marco said. “I have to admit that’s a bit of a letdown.”
“Don’t let it be. It ans good things for people. Just not the trip down mory lane you expected. Now, what brings you by? I figured you were halfway to the edge of the world by now.”
“We were, but sothing told to co back. Or I was hosick. Not sure which.” He pulled the letter from Tatric out of his coat. “But when we got back to the floating bar, we got this. I wanted to get your thoughts on it, at least.”
The old woman took the letter and started digesting its contents. Marco watched her eyes pan down through it, then go back to the top and read it a second ti.
“None of it makes sense for him. Tatric had this old widow he used to talk up. If he asked to do anything while I was in town and he wasn’t, I’d expect him to ask to stop by and look after her. This is sothing different that I don’t understand,” Marco explained.
“You want my honest opinion on this?”
“Please,” Marco said. “You’re also…”
“Old.” The woman interrupted. She didn’t look offended at the idea. “If I were sending this sa letter with these sa words, I think I’d only say it this way if I needed you. This is a man who is hoping you don’t co, Marco. But who needs you to.”
“Why, though? Why the capital? Why his tools? Why do I need to talk to Frisk?” Marco said. “None of it makes sense.”
“I imagine it will, later. As you start to learn bits and pieces of what he already knows. Now, if you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate it if you left the island.”
Marco looked in surprise to Elisa, hoping she could tell him how he had offended the old woman. To his surprise, she didn’t seem to know either. Riv and Aethe also looked just as shocked as he was. This had always been a friend before.
“Now, don’t be like that. It’s just what it is.” The old woman shook her head. “You’ve got adventure dragging in your wake. By now, you are used to a higher sort of adventure. I’ve seen that before. It follows so folks. Now, if you needed anything from , I’d give it. But what I can give, I just gave. The rest of what you are looking for this island no longer has.”
“So we have to leave right now?”
“Oh, I expect you should go to that temple. Just in case. I expect it might be a piece of your story worth revisiting by now. That won’t take you very long. But after that, I need you to get on your way. I have enough problems with tidal waves and freak storms without you bringing down sea dragons and horrors of the deep to our docks.”
Marco nodded. He didn’t know that any of what the old woman said was actually how it worked, but it seed plausible enough that he didn’t feel like he could argue. Worse, there were so things she had said that he knew were right. Whatever he had hoped to find on this island during this visit, he wouldn’t find. Maybe it hadn’t been a mistake to co here, but his real story wasn’t here. It was sowhere else.
Considering the team’s stats and the fact that there were far more roads crisscrossing the island than before, they made excellent ti towards the temple. On the way, they talked.
“Sothing that woman said has thinking. Look at this.” Elisa shoved a piece of paper into Marco’s hands. “This is sothing I translated from the notebook. Not all of it is sure to be accurate, but it should be sothing close to that.”
The turtle temple might be a worthy experint. A temple that moves does not gather power as quickly, but it does not interfere with reality as much as it could. Since power from the outside-place overpowers inside-places, there is value in it. I hope. The turtle proved stronger and less hungry than was thought. I will not escape this place.
I fear the stagnation of power should this temple never be discovered, but the turtle provides ti and hope. Only a worthy seeker will find this temple. May they re-tether the power past the sun, and may the net forever grow.
I return now to the system.
“I don’t understand a word of that.” Marco scanned it again. “Nope. Besides it sounding like what our overseer friend said about what was causing the storms, I guess.”
“That’s the part I understand, too. The tethering and outside-place stuff is beyond . But the fears about stagnation are familiar enough. The temples cause problems sohow. Problems even we barely get through.”
“And?”
“From what we just heard, this place is seeing freak storms and tidal waves. I’m guessing they have so defenses against that kind of thing now, just like big settlents do. But usually those kinds of defenses never see action. Maybe they are needed a couple of tis a decade. What the old woman said didn’t sound like that.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes while Marco and the others digested the implication. It was Riv who finally broke the silence.
“So maybe there’s sothing like what was going on in the other place happening here? There are a bunch of temples that have been sitting still too long?”
“And are interfering with reality. Whatever that ans,” Elisa said. “Or maybe not, but I’ve been thinking about how three of the four of us grew up here and never heard about the temples. There must have been so, right? They must have been found at so point or another.”
“Not the one on this island.”
“This invisible island.” Elisa was getting excited now. “That looked boring right up until it didn’t. When sothing woke it up. Believe , I don’t know what any of this ans yet, but I’m going to figure it out.”
“And until then?”
“First we go see if there’s anything to learn in our very first temple. And then I think we just keep going as we have been. We have a direction. We just need to keep moving in it.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)