Mysteries of the Sea

The soft burbling whirr of the elemental engine came to a sputtering stop as Hayden released brass and wood gear assembly that engaged the elemental engine. In front of them, the breeze from the South Sea filled the open sails of the Flying Noodle with its briney scent. Hayden quickly released the rope holding the sails open and began pulling them closed, hand over hand. The sails drooped as soon as the rope was released, but the sea elf kept reeling the rope in, pulling them tighter against the mast.
 
"Well, Ileisgar," Hayden commented to the brass dragon introspectively, "we're almost home again. You wouldn't remember it, of course. You weren't built until later, but I remember these seas. I've been swimming in them since before I could walk, and when I did learn to walk, it was on the deck of a ship." The little brass dragon's pistons clicked softly as he tilted his head to watch Hayden, the gears that controlled his neck turning swiftly and silently.
 
Hayden tightened down the sail rope and tied it off so that it wouldn't open again. "My parents had a schooner before the war, you know. I was a little mistri running up and down the decks and getting in my mom's way while she tinkered with the engines she built. It wasn't an eletech engine like the Noodle. The ship was small, so of course my sister and I fought, and we got ordered to go jump in the sea when we got underfoot"
 
The sea elf artificer turned to the dragon. "Fly up and see if you see anything on the horizon will you? I won't be gone long, but there are pirate ships in the area, and I don't want them to find the Noodle." The tiny dragon lifted his wings, and with a puff of air and a small jolt of arcane energy, he took to the skies and began circling the small yacht.
 
Hayden, on deck, picked up the metal staff leaning next to the helm and, using a pencil, began to trace and reinforce the rune work. A few minutes later, a light touch against their leg broke their concentration. Hayden looked down, and a white and blue ceramic crab with bright brass between their plates looked up at them.
 
"No, not today, REPO," Hayden replied, shaking their head. "I need you to stay on top with Ileisgar. He can't swim that well and if he sees something, you'll need to come get me." The large crab tilted its shell in the way that a human might tilt their head in confusion. Hayden sighed and pointed up at the dragon who was just now coming back to a landing. "Stay. Stay here. Good boy. Listen to Ileisgar."
 
The tiny brass dragon puffed up and flapped its wings to stabilize itself as it landed, and then shook its tiny mechanical head. "Nothing nearby? Good." Hayden walks over to the edge of the boat and sat down with their staff lying flat on the deck to tie the laces on their clothes tighter. "I was really little when the civil war started, and it took a few years for the fighting to reach the sea. There were rumors in all the ports, of course, but it really didn't hit home until the food shortages started."
 
Hayden looked out to the horizon and dangled their feet against the boat. "We were fine, of course. The sea always provides, but people on land started starving, and that drove them out into the sea to steal food, supplies, or anything else. It got too dangerous to stay out on the sea, but I was really too young to understand that. All I knew was that I had a little brother coming and my parents were moving to a house on land."
 
The sea elf shook their head to dismiss the uncomfortable thoughts and looked up at the metal dragon. "You're in charge, Ileisgar. Keep an eye out for danger. If you see a ship on the horizon, send REPO down to get me. If I'm not back up by dark, send REPO anyway. Pirates won't sail by moonlight; there's little chance of finding a ship in the open sea, and too much chance of sailing into shallow waters."
 
Again the brass dragon puffed up as REPO click-clacked behind Hayden. With a final nod, Hayden slid down into the water. The salt water was warm, even this far into October, and the taste/smell of the water gave them a sense of homesickness that they hadn't realized they felt. They quickly started down into the dark depths of the water below, their staff held in one hand at their side.
 
It was rare to dive down in the middle of the ocean for no reason, and if Ya'eesh al-Kibab hadn't specifically made the request to search here, they wouldn't have done it. Searching for wreckage was almost impossible, and even if you found it, it was rarely profitable. It was just too difficult to make the long journey from the surface to the sea floor.
 
Hayden touched the runes for the detect magic spell that they'd placed on their staff earlier as they sunk down further into the depths. The warm, sunlit sea above was replaced with the cold darkness of the deep, and even as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. The staff itself glowed with magical light to their senses, but beyond a few startled fish, they could see nothing but water.
 
The further down they traveled, the colder it got, but the temperature hovered at a chill no colder than a fall day in Eisen. After roughly twenty minutes they touched the bottom and for as far as they could see, which wasn't far in the darkness, it was nothing but sand and small rocks. Well, they thought to themselves, I wasn't expecting to find the location immediately.
 
After about an hour searching the sea floor, frustration got the better of them. Aside from some crabs and a very territorial tuna, this part of the ocean was empty. Hayden had just begun swimming to the surface when a blue and white crab swam down to meet them. "Ileisgar send you down, huh?" Hayden asked, giving the crab a rub on its shell before swimming up faster. "Let's go see what he spotted."
 
Hayden swam up to the surface of the water and quickly scanned the horizon. A ship, not much bigger than the Flying Noodle, was bearing down on them. Hayden couldn't see anyone on the ship - it was too far away - but there was no reason for anyone to intercept them in these pirate-infested waters unless they were looking for a fight.
 
Hayden pulled themselves up onto the boat, water dripping. "Ileisgar!" Hayden called as they started running towards the sails. "Time to go!" They reached out and quickly untied the rope holding the sails tight and started pulling them open. "Get REPO on the ship and let's get out of here." The mast ropes holding the sail released, and the sail fluttered loose and began to fill out as Hayden caught sight of the crab climbing up over the edge.
 
"Hold on! I'm going to get us out of range of that cutter," Hayden shouted to the constructs. They released the lock on the gear that held the elemental engine disengaged with their foot and shifted the engine forward. The burbling whine built and grew louder as Hayden pushed the ship faster. There was a lurch as the sails filled out and caught the wind, while the elemental engine drove the Noodle through the water at an angle that a simple sailing vessel couldn't match.
 
The Flying Noodle quickly began to outpace the cutter, and it wasn't long before it disappeared over the horizon. REPO the crab shook its shell, spraying water all over the deck, as Ileisgar landed next to the helm. "Good job, gentlemen," Hayden acknowledged with a brief incline. "Well-spotted on that ship." Hayden turned the wheel away from the shipping lane they were near and pushed deeper into rarified waters.
 
As the ship settled into the wind, they dropped the speed of the engine and let the sails take over the thrust. Hayden locked the engine and reached into the helm for a map that they spread out on a nearby shelf. "That rumor was a bust," they explain, making a light mark in pencil where they had just stopped. The map was filled with notes, over half of them already crossed out.
 
"Good thing it only cost us the price of bad ale in a worse tavern. The next place is that 'cursed' island. You know, the one that 'even pirates fear t' land'" they added in a bad imitation of the old sea dog that was telling ghost stories in Kastiana. "If I hear one more legend about floating islands that end up being a fata morgana of the shore, I'm going to start a bar fight."
 
Hayden walked back over to the wheel and, compass in hand, turned the ship into a more direct route towards the island, a path near where traveling isles liked to show up. "The islands aren't true islands, you know," Hayden pontificated to the air as much as to Ileisgar. "Many of them are really just floating piles of debris. Some are actually turtles or other large sea creatures. A rare few might actually be magical - the remains of some wizard battle no doubt - but I never found one. The rumors about this cursed island said that no ship can land on it without getting dashed upon its rocky shores, but I have faith that Lucetius will protect us. Plus, I'm not going to anchor the Noodle right on it."
 
The sea elf artificer regaled both Ileisgar and REPO with a litany of stories as the ship sailed toward the Sea of Ruin. The non-stop chatter filled the time and kept Hayden busy as they calculated and recalculated their route from the path of the sun.
 
It was getting close to dusk when Hayden frowned severely at the horizon. They had been expecting the island at any moment, but the shape that rose out of the ocean was unlike any other island that they'd seen before. Sheer cliffs twenty feet tall and improbably manmade, surrounded a large jagged pyramid.
As the ship got closer, Hayden's frown deepened. The cliffs, covered with lichen, barnacles, and seaweed that had collected at the edges were ancient and pitted. Tiny, stunted trees grew out of weeds at the top as they got closer, but it was obviously the base of some kind of structure.
 
"Where in the twelve seas of night did this come from? Sephira's eyes and Lucetius's beard!" Hayden cursed, standing in amazement at the structure. "There's no way this should be here!" Hayden stood with their hands on their hips, affronted at the column jutting out of the ocean. "Why it's not even a proper island!"
Hayden stomped over to the edge of the boat and took a closer look at the structure. "Well, I found Ya'eesh's 'anchor', I think. What he does with it, I have no idea. Let's go back. We'll let him decide. I'm not about to jump on that thing without someone to come with. With as many traps as Olympus has, that anchor probably has wild magic on it."