Ghost Ship Settlement

"What is that? Robert asks as Sydra holds the container up into the air for the others to see. It resembles a black glass box, except the top of it is glowing with blue lines, that also travel down the sides.

"This is the heart I collected a while ago from an ice golem, I had to put it inside a night glass box to keep the aura from leaving it. I planned to make a sword from it at some point, but that was before I found this one in an underwater temple. Are you sure that's what you want?" Jason asks as Sydra nods his head and puts the box inside his Arbor Sanctum.

'I can destroy the heart later, and collect the aura from inside to get my fifth power, and finally see what happens when I collect five,' Sydra thinks as the group leaves the room and heads back to the tunnel to leave. "Thanks for the gifts, and for stopping Fluffers from destroying our ship. Where do you plan on going from here?" Sydra asks as Jason stops and puts his hand on his chin.

"I'm not sure, but maybe I will head to the Edge, I've always been curious about what is beyond it," Jason says, talking about the edge of the world. Not many people have ventured beyond the edge, and those who did either died or came back with incredible wealth. Of course, if one wanted to explore beyond the edge, they would have to be at least SS-rank or higher, or they wouldn't be able to cross the barrier.

"Wow, I've always wondered what was beyond the edge. No one who comes back from there says much about, just that it is a world beyond one's imagination," Cidre says as the group walks out onto the back of the eel, and prepares to leave.

"I know, but before I went to sleep I was too weak to cross the barrier so I gave up on it. Now that I've woken back up, I've decided to get stronger and try again. By the way, where were you guys headed?" Jason asks as Cidre throws on his pendant and wings grow from his back.

"We were headed to the Shawoil Island, but now we might be off course a bit," Robert says as Jason nods his head and whistles. A few seconds later a smaller eel floats out of one of the ice spikes and heads over to Jason. Placing his hand on the eel's head, Jason closes his eyes as he communicates with it.

"The direction you should head in to reach that island is over there. You should be able to get there by the end of today," Jason says as he points in the direction of the rising sun.

"Thanks for letting us know, and good luck with your journey. Maybe we can meet again some time," Sydra says as he and Cidre spread their wings and pick up Robert and Erich. Jumping off the back of the eel, the group quickly descends through the clouds. Pushed by the wind from the emperor eel's fins, the group reaches their ship much faster than it took them to leave it.

"It looks like the ice is melting quickly, shouldn't take long before we can set off again," Erich says as everyone looks at the blockade in front of them. By now, it is only as half as big as it had been before they left, and small streams of water were rushing off them. "By the way, I finished the flag yesterday, but I forgot to tell you all," Erich says as he pulls out the flag with a tree wrapping its roots around a blue sun, and sends it up the mast.

"It looks good," Robert says as the flag waves in the wind, before turning around and looking at the ship. During the battle earlier a few of the eels had fallen on the deck, and the group needed to clean up the bodies or they might start to rot. "Who is cleaning what?" Robert asks as Sydra pulls out several buckets and mops.

"I'll clean the area around the wheel, Robert will take this deck, Cidre will fly up and clean off the sails, and Erich can either dump the bodies off the side or use them for dinner later. Their cold aura has kept the meat fresh, and they should be fine after a bit of work," Sydra says as he hands out cleaning supplies. In the book that Cidre had brought out earlier, it said that these eels made a great meal if cooked by a professional.

"Sure, that works for me, but I will only use the bodies that were hit by cannonballs. We don't want to be eating toxic meat, or finds rocks in our food," Erich says as he points at a few of the eels that were halfway turned to stone, and the others that were bubbling with poison.

"Good idea, I'd rather not have to have Cidre remove the poison from my body after accidentally eating some of that stuff," Robert says as he grabs his mop and bucket and starts walking to the middle of the deck. The buckets are already filled with soap and water from inside the Arbor Sanctum, and all the group has to do now is get to work.

Over the next few hours, everyone works together to clean the ship up, as the ice melts down and Erich works on preparing the meat from the eels. By the time they are done, it is around two in the afternoon, and Erich has just finished with lunch. As Erich brings the food out, the group sets up a table on the deck so they can eat while looking out at the sea.

"Ah, I haven't had such a good sandwich in a while, where did you learn to cook?" Cidre asks as he bites into a sandwich made from the meat of the eels and a few other items. Most of the food that Sydra had brought was meat, but he also had some loaves of bread, sauces, and spices.

"I learned it from my grandfather, he was also a cook on a ship once, before he became the captain in a freak accident. When the crew was adrift at sea they didn't have much food, and my grandfather had to learn how to make something delicious from nothing," Erich says as he takes a sip of water.

Listening to the story, Sydra gazes across the waves and sinks into his memories of life on earth. Back then, Sydra never really ate much, and other than leaving his apartment to go to work, he never really went out much either. 'My life has certainly changed since then,' Sydra smiles as he starts to turn back to the group, but then his eye catches on one of the ice pieces that just crumbled into the water.

"Looks like we can get back to our journey," Sydra says as he hops up and runs over to the anchor. After raising it back up, the ship starts to move again, and Sydra heads to the wheel to start heading in the direction that Jason pointed out earlier. Finishing the sandwich in his hands, Sydra calmly steers the ship through the bobbing ice chunks and passes through the blockade. By now everyone else has gotten up and began completing their jobs on the ship.

"Hey, do you mind creating a few golems to help us with these sails?" Robert calls out to Sydra, who shakes his head.

"I can't make many, because most of the straw golems were blown off the ship and into the water during the storm last night. Until we get to the island, and I get more materials, it will be just us managing this ship," Sydra says as he creates his last two straw golems and sends them onto the deck to help out.

Although they were working with a skeleton crew, the group managed to make it to the island before the sun had fully set. However, looking forward they were confused by how dark the island was.

"Are we sure this is the Shawoil Island, there doesn't seem to be any movement on it?" Erich asks as Sydra holds up the spyglass and looks across the water.

"I think so, as I can see multiple ships and buildings on the island, but your right about the movement part. The island looks like it was deserted some time ago," Sydra says as he hands the spyglass over to Cidre.

"So it's a ghost island? Are we still exploring it?" Cidre asks as he sweeps the spyglass over the island, searching for any people or animals.

"We have too, even if the island is deserted there are still multiple ships, and probably blueprints left behind that we can use. We'll search the island for people first, and if we don't find anyone, then we will just strip down some ships and fix our ship ourselves," Sydra says as he looks back up to the sky, which is darkening quickly. "But we should wait until tomorrow to do so,"