Chapter 76 - Shipwreck

Salt stung his lips. Waves rolled him like driftwood until his back met sand and the sea withdrew, leaving Lucas sprawled half-submerged on the shoreline of an unfamiliar island. His limbs felt heavy, but not broken. Breathing shallow but even. He groggily opened his eyes to a pale sky, washed out by morning haze.

He sat up slowly, coughing out a lungful of brine. The world spun. Pain pulsed behind his eyes, but he stood regardless.

He was alive. Barely.

It seemed that if he made it back to the mainland, he owed Tyche, Lady Luck, an offering or three.

Shaking the thought away, Lucas focused on the present. He looked around taking in his surroundings.

The beach was jagged, carved from black volcanic stone, with rivulets of steam leaking through the cracks. Above him, the island climbed into dense jungle, a slope of green marred by gnarled trees and a distant haze of heat.

He rested for a while on the beach, gaining his breath, hoping to recover some stamina for the climb ahead. When his strength returned, he moved, slowly, conservatively. Every breath tasted of ash and brine, but the sun was still high, and he believed the night would be worse.

The climb was steep. The foliage above was thick and tangled, but signs of disturbance began to emerge: gouges in bark, scorched leaves, metal shards buried in the soil. Lucas crouched, examining a sliver of metal. Not ordinary bronze. Celestial bronze. He pocketed it without hesitation.

Then came the tremors.

It started soft. A pulse in the soles of his feet. Then another. A strange rhythm. Birds screeched overhead and fled the canopy. Trees groaned.

Ahead, smoke curled from a mountain's peak. A volcano. But why a volcano would produce rhythmic tremors... he didn't know. Still, it was a lead. And Lucas needed a way off this island.

He turned, just as the ground exploded beneath him.

Out came an automaton: a hulking thing of brass and bronze, shaped like a bear, with smoke venting from its back and molten joints glowing red. It roared in soundless fury, charging.

Lucas threw himself to the side. The automaton smashed into a tree, sending splinters flying. Lucas landed in a roll, already pulling on the mist. But the creature was fast, built for war. It adjusted, recalibrated, and turned.

Lucas conjured a wave of frost, weaving it between his hands and snapping it forward. The frost struck the bear's side, slowing but not halting. It came again.

He lured it into roots, into narrow gaps where its bulk worked against it. And when its charge faltered, he struck with telekinesis, pulling debris into its gears, jamming the joints.

After a few minutes of weaving through both roots and claws, the joints finally clogged, staggering the bear. Lucas raised his knife and let out a final blow to its vent core, which detonated in a hiss of white-hot steam.

He didn't rest.

One thing he learnt of automatons was when there was one, there was more.

Lucas kept moving.

As he neared the island's heart, the vegetation thinned. The ground grew warmer, vibrating beneath his boots. Here, he paused. Something was telling him there was danger ahead.

He activated his veil sight and saw what it was. Before him, the ground was covered in invisible explosive wards, simply waiting for someone to step on them. Magic Landmines. He attempted to carefully bypass the wards, sidestepping and tiptoeing across when he heard some whirring.

At a corner of the open field, a hole opened on the ground, and rising from it was what looked like a turret. Lucas cursed about the unfairness. Luckily, while he wasn't a blacksmith, the huge net feeding into the turret at least let him know it was a net gun.

But misfortune always came in pairs. Another automaton came. This one humanoid, with bladed arms and a sphere for a head. Lucas didn't fight directly. He led it into the mine field. It followed, Lucas noticed the net gun tracking him, so he focused.

When it fired, launching a net at him, Lucas shifted it with his telekinesis, redirecting it towards the automaton which wasn't expecting it. It tried to dodge, twisting itself, but its left side still got caught, causing the automaton to step back. Onto a ward. Lucas was halfway across the field when it exploded, destroying the automaton, he didn't look back his attention solely on dodging the nets and not stepping on magical landmines.

When he reached the end; the net-gun stopped firing, receding back into its hole, which shifted, transforming back to the plain ground, disguised again. Lucas didn't wait to catch his breath, he pushed on towards the volcano.

He reached the volcano as dusk bled into the sky. Smoke curled from the summit, and the air shimmered with heat, the temperature causing Lucas to stumble; his breath ragged, his mouth dry, his body working on will alone.

Carved into its base was an ancient door, titanic, circular, built of obsidian and reinforced with layers of celestial bronze.

Etched deep into its surface was a smith's hammer wreathed in flame.

The symbol of Hephaestus.

Lucas approached, exhaustion pulling at his limbs.

He knocked.

Then collapsed.