I never thought I'd be killed by butterflies. But here I am.

They floated before me like lethal snowflakes, sky-blue and as wide as two hands. I could feel waves of cold roll off them, twisting the air, heat-mirages rippling and distorting the shattered landscape.

I shuddered and edged closer to the caldera. The heat rising off the lava below scorched my back, even as the swarm swirled closer, moving like smoke on the wind. I saw them hesitate as they felt the heat, and for a moment, I hoped they would fear it.

I could see the jungle past them, lush greenery rolling down the slopes of the mountain, eventually ending in blinding white sand that slipped below vivid azure ocean. The lagoon sparkled beautifully, and I could even make out the wreck of my ship, smashed to splinters by last night's storm, lying dark under thirty feet of crystal water. A sense of disconnect filled me, a strange confusion on what had happened over the past night and day to land me in this predicament.

Yesterday, the weather had been pleasant. I'd set a steady course, and everything was looking right for rounding the Cape of Thorns by the end of the month. And then, everything went to shit.

The storm had risen with shocking, tropical swiftness. One moment, I had been sailing under a calm wind, and the next, the glass was dropping and the sky turned lead, the waves rose and rain came crashing down. At first, I didn't worry, but as the night drew on, and the storm grew worse, my nerves began fraying. And then I saw the fin.

It wasn't a shark. I didn't really need to be afraid of them, not even alone in a twenty-foot boat. Sure, my boat was built mostly for speed and stealth, given its… particular… type of cargo, but its not like a shark would find teak-and-tar tasty, or even realize I was a meaty treat sitting inside.

Monsters, though… monsters were another matter. As soon as I saw the fin, ten feet tall and laced with glowing scales, I realized I'd been blown farther off-course than I'd ever guessed, and was in deep, deep trouble. This was obviously a monster zone, and this particular monster had the strength to sink me.

Not that I could really do anything. I'd held my course, watched the fin circle, tried to hold myself together, until finally, a flash of lightning revealed a jagged silhouette against the sky.

Normally, I'd have steered clear. My good ship Eigengrau could weather any but the very worst storm, and in a monster zone, shore would likely be even more dangerous than water. After all, most ocean monsters stayed in the ocean. But there was the fin, circling ever closer. Whatever base instinct drove monsters to hunt humans was drawing it near my boat, and I needed to escape before curiosity overcame wariness.

I set course for the island.

I had hoped for shallow water, where the predator circling my boat wouldn't be able to swim. Someplace I could drop anchor, maybe in the lee of the land, to wrap up in my oilcloth and sleep for a few hours until sunrise. As long as I didn't run into Innismen, or the place wasn't a wyrmhaunt, I could snatch some rest and take my bearings, and plan an escape before I got into deeper trouble.

Instead, I found jagged, boat-shattering rocks.

Running aground is a particularly awful experience, especially in a deep-sea boat that's never meant to touch dirt. It wasn't my first wreck, but it was fast and nasty. I was scudding through the storm, headed for the mouth of the lagoon in the half-light of my running-lamps and actinic flashes of rain-smeared lighting. It might have been low-tide; there might have been underwater boulders, invisible in the blackness. Either way, I thought I'd made it - when everything came to a juddering, lurching halt as the keel hit bottom, followed by a deep, thumping crunch as the hull caved in, followed by a ringing snap as the keel broke. With its back broken, the boat sank in moments. I dove overboard as soon as I heard water rushing in, swimming free of the wreck. The waves practically threw my boat after me, and the mast came down with a slap not more than an armslength from my head.

At least I was in the lagoon by then. Reaching shore was exhausting, but the closer I got, the smaller the waves were. The worst of the wind was cut off by the mountain, and even under the rain, I was warm. The tropics may be festering, steaming, biting hellholes when it comes to plants, insects and monsters, but at least you never have to worry about freezing.

I swear, even as I found a rocky overhang to curl up under, at the edge of the beach, I could still see the blue glow of that waiting fin, cruising along the edge of the lagoon.

I woke at dawn as the clouds broke, barely rested and desperately thirsty. I cast one long, bitter look at the ocean, still as a mirror in the sunrise, the violence of last night's storm wiped away as if it never happened. I patted my pockets, looked up and down the beach, and set out in search of water.

Instead, I found monsters.

Of course. I was in a monster zone; that shouldn't have surprised me. What got me instead, was the variety and rarity of the monsters I'd run up against. If I hadn't been hungry, thirsty, and stranded, I'd have been salivating at the thought of how much untapped wealth this island held. Crystal ants sell for three silver a carapace. Velvet python skin is worth its weight in cinnamon, in the right ports. I even found a singing nautilus shell!

Unfortunately, the local wildlife was as dangerous as it was valuable. It didn't take long before I was slinking through the underbrush, darting from shadow to shadow, barely daring to breathe. I'd never been much of a woodsman, but I'd done my fair share of lurking in alleys and skulking around windows, and I managed to stay fairly low-key, if I do say so myself.

I eventually found a still pool, and was going down on one knee for a long drink, when they found me. The butterflies.

I'd never seen a monster like them. That was hardly surprising. But I'd never even heard of a monster like them, and that was a little more interesting. It's my business to know about monsters, especially magical, rare, and interesting ones. These were all three, and I couldn't stop myself from feeling interested when they swirled out of the jungle, even as I brought my hands to my lips and slurped down a double-gulp of crisp, cold water.

I think it was the cold that was the problem, really.

I should have realized as soon as my hands touched the pool. In the tropics, running water is far from rare. Still water, on the other hand, is vanishingly scarce, unless someone - or something - has taken the time to dig a pool.

I have no idea if those butterflies had dug this one or not. But they obviously considered it theirs. As soon as I slurped that water down, their attitude changed. Instead of simply flitting and floating in the breeze, they turned towards me like a loadstone finds north.

I blinked at the sudden shift, and slowly stood.

They flapped their wings, false-eyes blinking and staring in turn, and skimmed towards me. Where they passed, frost crackled across the ground, the pool icing over with audible snaps.

A chill ran up my spine, and it wasn't from the sudden drop in temperature. I spun and darted into the underbrush.

At first I expected them to be easy enough to outrun. And maybe if I had been on familiar ground, I could have distanced myself from them. But even though they weren't fast, they were stubborn; they floated on the breeze, light as fluff, and wafted their way through the trees. I scrambled over roots, dodged past trunks, dived past tangles of vines. They soared through waving branches, swirled overhead, and pressed after me with unnerring accuracy.

I fell more times than I can count. I startled dozens of monsters and animals, half-seen flashes of color or sounds barely caught at the edge of hearing. I don't think the depth of my predicament really settled in, though, until I startled a sapphire Astrapia and watched in shock as it flew off in a flurry of feathers, leaving its nest behind.

I'd never heard of anything that could scare an Astrapia off its nest. Their innate wind magic could repel tigers.

On the upside, I thought, as I panted for breath, I had no idea what other sorts of monsters my pursuers had scared off as I stumbled through the jungle. Chances are, I'd escaped similar deaths several times, and simply didn't know it.

I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to move. I glanced up, and the plume of volcanic ash rising skywards sparked a stupid, desperate idea in my head.

And so here I was.

My legs were burning from the climb, my eyes were watering from the smoke, and my lungs were raspy with whatever noxious gasses the volcano was emitting. The island was spread out below me, green and lush, and behind me, a steep caldera led down to glowing red lava.

I had never thought I'd be killed by butterflies.

I glanced downwards as the swarm moved in. I had no idea what they planned to do to me, but given how anything that two or three of them landed on froze solid, I didn't imagine I'd be able to survive it. For a moment I stood on the edge of the cliff, sharp black stone dropping away just behind my heels.

Then I got on my knees, felt for handholds, and stuck my foot over the edge.

Standing on the lip of the volcano wasn't far enough? Fine. Let's see if they could follow me into the caldera itself.

I inched my way downwards, coughing and choking in the ash and soot. I pulled the collar of my shirt over my mouth, and strained the air as best I could. The heat increased with each meter I crept, first like a sunburn on my neck, then like an open fire, until I finally stopped, scared my clothes would burst into flame.

I looked upwards, and my heart sank.

The butterflies were grouping together, pulling into a tiny wirlwind of blue and white wings. They swirled tighter and tighter, and as they did, I could see their icy magic sweeping aside the ash, forming a small pool of cold, clean air around themselves.

Then they slowly began to follow.

I groaned and bit my tongue, tasting blood in my frustration. I glanced around, frantically searching for an escape, some way to retreat. A crevice to my right caught my eye.

Honestly, it probably wouldn't take me anywhere useful. But another foot from death was another foot from death.

I inched my way towards it. By now my fingers were scraped raw, and my legs - already burning from the climb - were beginning to shake. I edged my way into a shallow cave, creeping to the back and seating myself against the warm stone. I sat there for a while, just shaking and trying to get myself back under control, as I wracked my brain for solutions. Finally, I stood and started weakly gathering fragments of rock, stacking them into the entrance one at a time.

In a few minutes, I had a sizeable pile. In a quarter of an hour, I'd actually managed plug nearly half of the narrow slit I'd crawled through. By the time my barricade was chest-height, I actually began to hope.

Then I saw the glow.

For a moment, I thought it was a trick of the light. My wall of rocks was haphazardly jammed into the crevice, and dots of light slipped through every nook and cranny. The sullen glow of the lava below competed with the scintilating tropical sun above, throwing a confusion of speckles onto the walls and floor of my hideaway. At first, I thought the blue flickering was simply another facet of that.

A moment later, though, I realized that couldn't be right. I could see my shadow - thin though it was - on the stacked stones in front of me. There was light coming from… behind? Was the smoke causing me to halucinate?

I turned around slowly, rubbing ash from my eyes. There, at the top of a pile of loose scree, was the brightest magic crystal I had ever seen.

The sight drove the butterflies out of my mind. It was as large as my thumbnail, and glowed so sharply I couldn't bear to fix my eyes on it. I blinked, and even through my eyelids my pupils ached.

I moved for it without even thinking. I scrambled absently up the stones, steadying myself against the cave wall as they shifted underfoot, and scooped the gem up in my bloody fingers.

It was probably the blood that did it, really.

Touching it felt like a bolt from the blue, a magical boot to the head, as if the north wind itself stabbed straight through my temple, wrapped itself icy and fierce around my brain, and rushed downwards until it poured out my feet.

There was a loud noise, and everything went white.

"Welcome, Lord of the Land..."