Chapter 230: Day 229

Day 229,

Another case of stopping early for the day because it took us so long to find another island.  Just as well.  After last night and this morning we’re all tired and on edge.  Maiko and Lin are out scouting right now.  I volunteered to go this time, but I think the two of them like the alone time together.

But, last night.

We wound up waiting around long enough that I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, but still no sprites.  And then, just as I was starting to nod off, I was jolted back to wakefulness by the telltale groaning of trees being pushed and bent out of the way.  The sound that heralds the arrival of the Wandering God.  As that giant stepped forth from the night and into my lantern’s light it stopped at the edge of the upper pool and turned to regard me.

Unable to meet its gaze and too frightened to move, I simply closed my eyes, bowed my head and listened.

And waited.

A long moment passed.

A splash, followed by the sound of sloshing liquid.

Curiosity conquered fear and I cracked open my eyes.  Lifted my gaze just enough to see.

A greenish light now radiated from the upper pool, underlighting the Wandering God as it bent down with one massive hand submerged in the pool.  Its arm was moving back and forth slightly, as if either stirring the waters or perhaps manipulating something on the floor of the pool.  Or even beneath the floor given the shallow depth.

After a short time (probably short, moments seem to stretch at times like that) the glow faded, the being lifted its arm from the water and looked at me once more.  Or perhaps past me at the others.

I averted my eyes in deference/fear once more and waited for the sound of the Wandering God’s exit.  Hoped that would be the next thing to happen.

It was.

I waited for the sound of parting trees to stop.

Released my held breath.

Opened my eyes.

Cass was the first to emerge from hiding and join me.  Well, less “emerge” and more “dash over and start jumping up and down exclaiming how awesome that was.”  Her exuberance was balanced out by Lin’s wide-eyed speechlessness.  It was the first time she’d seen the Wandering God and it had left her shaken.  Shaking even, until Maiko gripped her shoulder and whispered something.

I was busy enough in my own fit of restrained nervous laughter that I didn’t process Cass saying she was going to check out the upper pool until she was already over there.  In a moment that would have been comical if I weren’t so afraid it was going to turn my apprentice into a tree or something, with my scrambling after her shouting to be careful and not touch it yet I reached her just in time to see her stand up, turn around, and wipe her mouth from having just taken a drink.

What followed was a brief lecture that she made clear she felt was undeserved regarding safety and caution around unknown substances, especially ones related to gods and spirits.  Cass argued that it wasn’t an unknown substance and didn’t smell, feel, or taste any different than it had on all the other days we’d been here.

I was too tired to belabor the matter, and Lin was still too out of it to chime in on the side of health and safety.  With no one other than Cass willing to try bathing in the recently god-touched pool we didn’t know what else to do with ourselves and went back to camp.

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I did hypocritically stick a hand in the water when no one was looking though.  Doesn’t seem to have done anything.

As… exciting… as that was, it was what we found this morning that-

Oh, looks like Maiko and Lin are back.  And they’re carrying something.

 

I’m up on first watch again.  Little bit harder to stay awake than the other times since I was actually able to help more with the rowing today.  I never had a lot of upper body strength even pre-fever though, so Lin still ended up doing most of it.  But more like a seventy-thirty split rather than a ninety-ten.  My arms are going to be sore in the morning though I’m sure.

The thing Maiko was carrying when they returned earlier was a lobster (or a crustacean similar enough to one in shape that I’m calling it that) large enough to feed all four of us for dinner.  Apparently this island has a hundred (hyperbolic?) different species of crabs, lobsters, and assorted carapace-bodied creatures crawling all over it filling about every niche in the foodchain.  As we saw, some of them get pretty big.  Enough to warrant a watch being kept.  Especially if there’s any kind of mass nighttime movement in and out of the water that we might get stuck in the middle of.

There hasn’t been anything like that so far, but I’ve shooed off one or two the size of my head that wandered over.  And another one the nature sprite’s been playing with for a little while now.  What is it with that thing and crabs?

But, back to this morning and the thing that’s had us on edge all day.

There was a note waiting for us when we got back to the boats, held down under the oars of mine Lin’s boat.  It was addressed to me, signed by Theo.  I’ve got it tucked away between the pages of my research notebook, but I’ll transcribe the contents of the message here too.

“I’ve allowed you to go this far because I thought you needed it.  Come back to the Village.  If you go to where you’re planning to go next you’ll regret it.”

Needless to say, that caused a stir.  Both from the content of the message itself and the very fact that Theo somehow both got a message all the way out here and knew what our plans were.  We did a quick circuit of the beach but didn’t find any sign of another boat having been there, and Maiko had been checking on the boats multiple times a day so she was sure the note wasn’t there yesterday.

Ultimately our best guess was that Theo had some sort of artifact or something enabling him to move about.  Either that or he was able to get a sprite or something to deliver it for him.

I refuse to entertain the admittedly less fantastical notion that it might have been one of my companions that planted the threatening letter on his behalf.  And it would have been on his behalf because I’m familiar enough with all of their handwriting at this point to know it’s not any of theirs.

Still, while it’s incredibly unnerving to know that he can pull something like this, I suppose the silver lining is that now we know he can.  For whatever that’s worth.

As for what to actually do about it, there was surprisingly little debate over whether or not to turn around and go back to the Village.  If anything, the letter seems to have had the opposite of its intended effect on our little party.  Lin and Cass frankly took offense at the idea of being threatened and told what to do like that.  I fear Lin might be of half a mind to track Theo down and “give him a talking to” when we get back.

Meanwhile, if Theo’s trying to dissuade us from seeing Iole, that must mean that there’s actually something to be learned from her and her book.  And from what Pat’s told me, he’s unlikely to physically harm anyone and whatever retribution he has is all going to be aimed at me.  And if that’s primarily going to consist of making my life difficult in little ways and obstructing future attempts to go digging for answers, then that’s something I’m willing to take for the sake of potentially finding a lead for Maiko and we’d best get all we can out of this current expedition.

It really is for her that we’re all doing this next leg of the trip.

Keep telling yourself that.

 

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