Deacon re-read the description of the item he got from the quest complete prompt. The reward was great, but he had no idea the level of devastation it would cause. Would the cannon balls all be nether based? He would have to ask Tantus about it. Summoning items seem to pop up regularly. Maybe he should look into that aspect of arcanum. Shaking those thoughts from his mind he realized without the constant drum beat he didn’t feel that overwhelming sense of urgency he had previously.

“Tantus, help me get up that mast so I can take a look around.” Asked Ralph leaving Amanda and Deacon alone on the deck overlooking the buried body of Captain Pete.

“Look about what happened…” Deacon started before Amanda just shook her head and turned away.

“You have to let me apologize. I didn’t know that would happen.” Deacon said hurriedly.

“You never know what will happen! We are a party; you need to think about that before you experiment with new abilities. What if one of us had died? Just leave me alone!” She screamed before storming off to the other side of the ship. Deacon didn’t know what to do in this instance. He knew he couldn’t just make her accept his apology. They all needed to get out of here. It’s been constant fighting since they got up in the morning to clean out that nest.

“You see anything?” Deacon yelled up to the crow’s nest.

“Yes actually.” Said Ralph. He held up a telescoping spyglass he must have found in the nest. Tantus reached for it and when Ralph pulled it back, he lost his grip on it sending it tumbling over the side toward Deacon.

“Catch.” Deacon said as it fell into the range of his aura and was snagged by Polterheist, spinning around behind him, and ejected back up to where they were. Deacon gave himself a onceover noticing the damage done to his new leather armor. He postulated that is what it was for and shouldn’t be a big deal to fix. Finding a good leather worker would have to go on his to do list. Eventually they both came back down after bickering over the spyglass.

“Ok there is a main island in the center of the chain. It’s got a big structure and with lots of activity. Several dozen moving around. That is probably our destination.” Ralph replied.

“Did you check out the shark island?” Deacon asked.

“Yes, there is a settlement in the middle with twenty or thirty huts arrayed around one just like the one we found the first idol in. Didn’t see any movement. That’s our next stop, right?” Ralph asked.

“It is. What was the scuffle about?” Deacon asked looking at the two of them.

“I wanted to increase the range on the item with magic and Ralph just wanted look through it.” Tantus said as he pouted.

“It’s entire purpose is to see far. This place can’t be that big. I’d prefer you conserve your mana for more important things.” Ralph replied.

“Enough, Tantus, good idea terrible timing. Ralph a little more explaining might help in the future.” Deacon said with a smirk on his face.

“Tantus, what happened with the shield downstairs?” Deacon asked changing the topic.

“Not sure. The shield should have lasted much longer. It’s like my connection to water based magic is failing. It happened earlier when I tried to purify the ocean water so we could drink it. The spell just fizzled out.” Tantus answered.

“Keep trying, ok. I thought the ocean was freshwater not salt?” Deacon asked.

“Do you want to drink the water these creatures and undead have been wading through?” Ralph countered.

“Good point.” Deacon said.

“I see it went well with Amanda.” Ralph commented.

“Yea, I think she is going to need more time. I tried to apologize but she wasn’t having it.” Deacon said.

“Mind control is a sore spot for her. I don’t think she told us everything that happened when she was under Ruby’s control. Something is bothering me about it, but I just can’t put my finger on it.” Ralph said.

“I’ll try to be more careful in the future. We should probably get going. Return of the deposed gods and all.” Deacon said.

“It’s funny they are referred to as that in the prompt. I remember them being referred to as fallen in the stories I read.” Tantus replied.

“That might be the old gods. It wasn’t really clear when it was explained to me since I was going through a rough patch then. There are old gods and deposed gods. The difference is the deposed gods were an entire pantheon that was replaced by the existing ones.” Deacon inferred.

“Fascinating. I’d like to write this down at some point.” Tantus said.

“Come on, lets get moving, worlds not going to save itself.” Amanda said crossing the deck toward the rope ladder. They all looked over the railing to find the beach relatively clear of enemies. Once they were all down, Tantus began unpacking his floating device again. Deacon took no chances instructing Amanda to help him while Ralph and he stood watch. They launched away from the spored-out tribesman corpses. It wasn’t long before they beached back where this all started. This time they were ready for a fight. With Ralph and Amanda’s weapon upgrades they should make short work of these shark men. As they carefully crossed the beach, they were aware of the eerie silence. There wasn’t any wind rustling the palm fronds. There was no sign of the tribesman other than the walking paths they took to get from the village to the beach. They remained unimpeded until they broke into a clearing. The village was covered with life mushroom caps. There were burst corpses everywhere and the air with thick with spore. Deacon held out a hand to stop everyone from getting any closer.

“We have to back up. It seems one of the ones that was on the beach brought back some of the mushrooms you threw down or ate one and made it home before exploding. Either way we can’t just walk in there now.” Deacon said.

“What options do we have?” Asked Ralph.

“I can probably burn this whole place to the ground but then the spores will get caught up in the smoke.” Deacon said.

“Bad idea.” Tantus said.

“Well, I’m listening. We need that damn Idol or this whole thing is over.” Deacon said.

“I could use the necklace you gave me.” Tantus said.

“I think there are only two charges left.” Replied Deacon.

“Yes, yes. I can use one to ask the spirit to pull all the spores out to sea. I’m pretty sure that will work.” Tantus said.

“Do it.” Deacon answered.

Tantus then focused on the necklace of the four winds. All the palm trees started to bend in their direction from behind them. A spirit of pure air alighted in front of Tantus and gave him a deep bow. The spirit did not move from the bow until Tantus began to speak.

“Spirit of the winds, would please carry the airborne spores in this village out to sea.” Tantus spoke aloud so everyone could hear him. The spirit looked at the village and back to Tantus. It tilted its head questioning like a dog that didn’t understand something. Then it floated forward putting its left hand on Tantus’s forehead and vanished leaving the village the same as when it arrived. Suddenly a fierce wind whipped around Tantus’s body. His eyes shone a brilliant white and a wind funnel descended from clear sky above drawing all the particulates in the village up into the sky.

“What happened!?” Asked Deacon as the roaring of the wind started to calm down. Several loosely anchored palm trees were uprooted during the conflagration.

“The spirit asked me why I would ask for something I could do myself. It taught me that spell and reset the charge on the necklace. It also told me it looks forward to seeing me on Mount Tolendall.” Tantus said looking confused.

“It taught you a spell and left?” Asked Deacon as Amanda and Ralph headed into the village.

“Yes, yes. This is completely unheard of. I’ve not read of one recorded instance where a summoned spirit helped and reset its own contract.” Tantus said.

“Maybe the spirit knows more about you than you do.” Deacon said catching on.

“My only real question is why wasn’t the ship covered in these spores?” Tantus asked.

“I think you have to eat them before they become an airborne problem. Weird ass magic mushrooms. No one was alive on the ship to do that, so the air stayed clear?” Deacon asked with a shrug.

“Even if there were that high up with relatively no cover, they probably would have blown off the ship.” Tantus said out loud while stroking his chin.

“Hey guys! You’re going to want to see this.” Called Ralph. The two moved into the village after having that discussion. Ralph as standing in front of cooking pit with one of those Crabtaurs spitted above it.

“You think they are natural enemies? I mean they clearly eat those things.” Ralph said.

“Looks like. This might give us an advantage. I have a feeling Sumna has control of all these different creatures on that island. If this idol can break her control over her minions, we might have a free for all on our hands.” Deacon surmised.

“I’ve got it. You ever see anything like this before?” Amanda asked as she held up a little yellow humanoid in blue overalls about an inch tall.

“Come on. That’s a little on the nose Wode!” Deacon yelled into the sky.

The party regrouped on the beach where they left the flotation device. They had all three idols now and decided there was no time like the present. They all gathered up and headed toward the main island at the center of this place. Upon approach they could see constructed jetty’s attached to the island. There were cliff walls and only one way to beach their device. Navigating became a problem the closer they got as the waves began crashing against the rocks. The blue tube was pulled in by the current and Tantus was having trouble steering. Deacon began creating nether ice around them to take the brunt of the damage from the rocks. One wave moved them far enough to one side that they were going to hit a large rock, and everyone abandoned the raft. Shortly there after they stumbled onto shore soaking wet and grateful, they got as far in as they did.

“There’s no going back now.” Tantus said mourning the loss of his invention.

“The banana boat served us well Tantus. Let’s hope having to retreat is not in the cards.” Deacon said with a hand on his shoulder. Ralph looked worse for wear having easily the most amount of armor on. One steel pauldron on his sword arm and heavy metal boots. While no where near a full suit of armor it did make it difficult for him to swim. Amanda stood on the beach facing the wall of trees that were obviously cut and laid in their path.

“Why would they make it easy?” She said before starting to trudge up the beach.

“Look out!” Deacon yelled as the logs were set loose to roll down toward them. Deacon used Spectral Dash to get in front of Amanda thankful he was able to consume all the soul energy he needed in that last village. He spun up the largest Ice sickle he ever made and set it spinning at a ferocious pace. Once the bouncing logs that were no thicker than a powerlifters legs hit the spinning blade, they slowed casting chips of wood in an overhand arching direction. That must have signaled the defenders as spears started to rain down on Deacons position. Amanda had scurried back to the jagged rocks near the rest of the party. Once the sound of sawing stopped and the dust had cleared, everyone could see a very pissed off Deacon standing intangible with fifteen to twenty spears sprouting from the ground around him.

“Ok mother fuckers let’s do this. No holding back.” Deacon said charging up the beach toward a growing throng of enemies.