“It’s all those damn pirates’ fault!” Lysander said as he dug into his meal. Tormacc was no cook, but a simple stew and some grilled meat was within his capabilities, and Lysander didn’t seem to mind the taste, likely appreciative of the first real food he had eaten in weeks.

Lysander had narrated the series of events that brought him to the island, and it was really rather comical. He had been on a cruise, taking a vacation before finally visiting an island that had been turned into a waterpark. Unfortunately, a storm came up and blew them off course, after which pirates got on their tail. Normal pirates wouldn’t touch a ship belonging to the Deep Blue Water Park, but for some reason these pirates hadn’t known what was good for them. But for a rebel band they had surprising firepower, and the ship had opted to flee.

The chase had gone on for a few days, but the cruise ship Lysander was on hadn’t been able to lose the pirates, and eventually they were chased into a shoal of Razorcutters. Razorcutters were one of the few fish in the sea that were immune to most of the monster repelling features that ships used. Normally that didn’t matter as Razorcutters weren’t aggressive. As long as you avoided them they would avoid you, but if you entered their territory chances are your ship was going down, which was what happened to the cruise ship when the pirates chased it directly into the shoal.

Out of the people on the ship, some chose to scatter, while some chose to take their chances with the pirates. Since the pirates were willing to attack a cruise ship from Deep Blue, Lysander chose the scatter option, choosing a direction and swimming. He managed to make it to Snake Monkey Island, but because he had to swim through the Razorcutters he lost almost all of his possessions, including his Spatial Bracelet, leaving him trapped on the island with no supplies and no way to get off.

“It’s been terrible!” Lysander said, sniffling into his stew. “But now you’re here Tormacc! I’m sure we can find a way off the island!”

Finding someone else seemed to have done wonders for his mood, and as Tormacc watched Lysander started to look like a real person again once he had new clothes and got some food in him. It was a stunning transformation; the shipwrecked refugee gone and replaced with a devilishly handsome youngster who Tormacc wasn’t sure how to get to shut up. He had been chattering away the whole time, somehow managing to talk clearly with his mouth full of food.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure we can find a way off the island. You should focus on eating first thought.”

“Don’t worry! I can eat and talk at the same time! My big sister says it’s one of my best skills!”

“Your big sister?” Tormacc was confused, how was his sister in The Tower too?

“Well, she’s not really my sister, but she kind of adopted me. She’s one of the leaders of the Lantern Guild! Speaking of, you should join us! We’re always looking for new members!”

Lysander then seemed to deflate a bit as he remembered something.

“Wait, you have to take a test first I think. But I’m sure you’ll pass! You seem like a great guy!”

Tormacc wasn’t sure how him being a “great guy” would make him pass the test, but maybe it was a test of character and not strength? He hadn’t been planning to join a group right away, but it couldn’t hurt to at least check out this Lantern Guild. And Lysander seemed like a nice guy, even if he did need to learn how to shut his mouth. But he figured that if the guild kept someone this annoying around either he was secretly an expert, he had other skills like crafting skills, or the guild had a great atmosphere and watched each other’s backs. Either way, he would at least make sure Lysander got back safely. There was something endearing about him, even if he was annoying.

“So I take it you can’t leave the island by yourself?” Tormacc asked, interrupting his new friend.

“Nope! I’m not good at underwater combat. I’m much better on land. I’ll show you sometime! I’m pretty awesome if I do say so myself.”

“And I guess you can’t build a boat either then.”

“Nope! Can’t do that either, or at least not one that can survive without a powerful repelling formation. But if you stay in the Shard long enough you know at least a little about boat building, so I’m sure I could make a great dinghy!”

Tormacc thought for a bit while Lysander continued to blather on. Now that he found someone, he wanted to try and leave the island. It didn’t make sense to wait for other people to come when he already had a guide.

“Do you know where we are?” Tormacc said.

“Yep! We’re on Snake Monkey Island! I don’t know where the island is though. But I do know how to get back! But man, I sure was unlucky to wind up here. Those Snake Monkeys hurt! Every time I try to venture inland to gather food they attack me! They never learn either, no matter how many times I fight them off. And there’s always more of them! I keep killing the monkeys but they’re back a few days later!”

Tormacc frowned. “You do know that you have to kill the snake part to actually kill them, right?”

Lysander was stunned. “You mean I wasn’t actually killing them?” He then snapped his fingers. “Of course! It all makes sense now! Why didn’t I realize it sooner?!”

Tormacc struggled to avoid facepalming. It seemed his new friend was a bit oblivious. Lysander’s words did make him increase his estimation of his combat power though, as anyone who could continuously fight off the Snake Monkeys shouldn’t be taken lightly.

“The way I see it we have two options,” Tormacc said. “Either we wait for a group of hunters to come to the island and try to hitch a ride with them, or we leave by ourselves.”

“How would we leave by ourselves? We don’t have a boat! Or wait, are you secretly a shipwright with awesome crafting skills? Neat dude! Can I watch you build a boat?”

“I’m not a craftsman. I would actually be relying on your to help me build a boat, I would just be piloting it.”

Thinking Lysander might need more convincing, Tormacc activated his Elemental Form Water, his body turning slightly insubstantial as he turned to water. Lysander’s mood did a quick turnaround, from depressed over Tormacc’s lack of boat building skills to awed by his water transformation. Walking around him in a circle, Lysander oohed and aahed obviously impressed by the transformation.

“You were holding out on me, Tormacc! I didn’t know you were a Water Elemental!”

“I’m not, I just have water elemental skills. I’m confident I can traverse the ocean, but if you want to come along we should probably have a boat, so I’ll need you to help me build one.”

“Aye aye Captain Tormacc, let’s get started right away!”

Lysander saluted and was about to run into the forest to procure wood when Tormacc had to rein him in. They still needed to plan what kind of boat they were going to build after all. Tormacc had no actual experience sailing, but he was confident he could control the boat with his control over water, pushing it along without the need for either sails or oars. He actually had a fair amount of sailcloth in his storage device along with some books about boats, but when he had glanced through them before he quickly decided to leave boat building and sailing to the experts. Perhaps it was a skill he would pick up in the future, but right now he was just going to cheat.

After dragging Lysander back they began to plan what kind of boat they would build. Since the boat didn’t actually need any sails it might be more accurate to call what they were building a raft. But it was still important for it to float and be balanced, along with being aquadynamic so they could make sure to outrun the monsters that were bound to chase them. The most important thing was it had to be sturdy. They had limited building materials, so the plan was to just make the sides and bottom really thick, which would hopefully allow it to survive a bite or two from some fish.

They consulted the books Tormacc had on him occasionally, but the books were more concerned with actual ships. Tormacc would have loved to create a copper sheathing for the hull for example, but something like that was well beyond what they were able to accomplish, and that was even if they had the materials and tools to do such a thing.

They spent the next three days constructing the boat, chopping down trees and carving them into the appropriate shape. Using green wood wasn’t exactly ideal, but they didn’t want to spend the time to try and dry out and season the wood. Tormacc had a tar-like substance that they used to help bond the wood together, but even if there was a leak somewhere it wasn’t really a problem as Tormacc could just magic the water back out of the boat.

During the time spent building the boat Lysander was chatting away, and while a lot of the information Tormacc gleaned from the chatter was useful, it still felt like his ears were constantly under assault. Most of the talk focused on Sealine City and the Lantern Guild, which were topics Tormacc was interested in, and when they came up he actually answered Lysander back. It was unnecessary, as Lysander didn’t need any responses to continue his spiel, but turning it into a conversation instead of a soliloquy also allowed Tormacc to help direct the topic to something he was interested in.

For instance, thanks to those talks he was now much more interested in the Lantern Guild. From what Lysander said, they were a medium sized guild that put a lot of value in their members. They were also powerful. While not in the top five guilds in Sealine City, they might make the top ten, and definitely the top twenty. If Lysander was to be believed they had a good reputation and no real enemies. Or at least, not anymore. While the guild was congenial to those who didn’t mean them harm, there had been quite a few times where they exterminated antagonistic forces.

That was something that interested Tormacc. He wanted a force that would have his back, and it sounded like that fit the Lantern Guild to a T. His only frustration was he couldn’t seem to get any information from Lysander about what it took to join the guild. As far as he could tell it wasn’t because Lysander was withholding he information, it was more that he just didn’t know. He was a happy-go-lucky sort, and Tormacc suspected there were a lot of things he didn’t know that he really should have. Like how the Snake Monkey’s true body was the snake, not the monkey.

He did have some knowledge on how to build a skiff though, and when the boat they built was complete Tormacc was impressed. It was fairly small, with only room for the two of them, but it actually looked like a boat to Tormacc’s uneducated eye. It had a pointed prow and a flat stern, allowing Tormacc to quickly skim the skiff over the waves. It didn’t really look complete without oars or sails, so they ended up making some oars for emergencies. It was better to have them than not have them after all.

It was already mid-afternoon when the finished so they decided to wait until tomorrow to begin their journey, and when morning came they set off to find Sealine City.