"Row-"

"We're not on a stream, and life is most certainly not a dream," Nathan interrupted Ichtvar as soon as the phoenix began to sing.

"Just trying to fill the silence," Ichtvar said. "How about burn-"

"No," Nathan and Keith said simultaneously.

"Spoilsports," Ichtvar muttered.

"How much further do you think it is?" Nathan asked. "We've gone further than the others."

"Probably not too much," Keith answered, then they went silent for several more minutes. "My familiar is arguing with me over why you're sustaining a barrier as you row."

Nathan had created a small barrier in front of him, only two feet in diameter, half an hour after he had begun rowing. From time to time, he would shrink it down, only to bring it back up a few minutes later. Both barriers worked at just-under his Mana regeneration rate, taking up 10 Mana every second as opposed to the 12 Mana he recovered every second.

When he had begun that, it took him 11 Mana every second, which was part of why Nathan was doing it. Because of his boosted recovery rate, Nathan was able to constantly train his barrier spell and force magic, and he wanted to allow his magic to become familiar with the spell.

Since practicing a spell allowed one's magic to become more familiar with it, and thus, cost less to cast and make it easier to cast and alter, Nathan decided to train the barrier while traveling between those two islands. Between the next two, he would use a simple force push spell over and over. Those were his two basic spells, and he wanted to become as familiar with them as he could.

Rather than explain all that, however, he decided to answer simply, knowing Keith would understand.

"Training."

"Which is exactly what I said," Keith rolled his eyes. "Make sure you don't exhaust yourself."

"I'm being careful," Nathan stopped casting the barrier, which faded away.

"He wants to know why you just canceled it," Keith asked.

"Because Breezy says we're probably within half an hour of the next island."

"By my estimates," Keith said. "We're probably past the central island. One of the northeastern islands must have been close by."

While there were two islands to their northeast, Nathan and Keith had decided to keep moving clockwise around the central island for their journey.

"Maybe," Nathan stopped rowing. "Going to rest, Breezy will keep pushing."

Keith nodded.

"Keep in mind," he told Nathan. "My power of sight isn't always exact, and I may have missed things or put Dungeons from different islands together."

"I know," Nathan closed his eyes and began to rest.

"He says 'now shush so I can rest'," Ichtvar whispered, and Keith snorted.

The rest of the trip to the island passed in silence, Nathan opening his eyes when their range of light, which reached up to thirty feet after the completion of all four outer islands, passed the front of one of the platforms for statues in the water.

As they passed by it, Nathan and Keith noted that it had a statue actually on it, and they prayed to the gods that they would not need to move statues back into position there.

When they reached the shore, Nathan and Keith stepped off and examined the group of notifications in their vision. In addition to the standard Isles of Darkness Dungeon, they also had to move statues back into place and slay a total of fifty boars.

"If I wasn't mistaken," Keith said. "Then this island also has a lair of sirens and a den of wolves."

"Got it," Nathan nods. "Though it looks as if some of the statues are in place, which is a relief."

"Yeah," Keith agreed. "A huge one, if it's not just a few of them. Are you sending your wind elemental out?"

"Yes," Nathan answered, and the ruffling of his shirt and tie disappeared. "Having him hunt for and collect the fragments is much easier than doing it ourselves. He's faster, can see and sense more, and can handle monsters on his own. He can cover the entire island in the time it would take us to find only a few of the fragments. He'll also be able to give us a good estimate of what's on it, too."

"Yeah," Keith nodded. "That's why I was wondering. He's collecting the talisman fragments, let's deal with the boars and any other Dungeons we come across, and handle the statues once we've turned the Illuminaters back on."

"Agreed," Nathan nodded. "Let's go."

The pair began walking, Ichtvar soaring above the heavenly storm elemental, which remained above them, holding a lantern enchanted with the potent mix of holy juices that Nathan had used.

When they stepped off the shores, they were greeted with the sight of stone roads lined with stone buildings with an empty canal running down the center, and no time passed before they were charged at by a boar.

"Full Health," Nathan commented as he drew his sword, slashing at the beast's side.

At the same time, Keith shot several air slashes at it. Nathan sheathed his sword and Warp Stepped into the boar's path and braced himself, grabbing the boar by its tusks. Keith created a wind whip and lashed it around the beast, which attempted to break free of Nathan's grip. The mage's spell only took around ten seconds to rip through the boar's Health, then only seconds more to cut the beast in two.

Nathan promptly cut off the boar's tusks and threw them up to the heavenly wind elemental, which wiggled at him in response as it moved them to look as if horns.

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"Your familiar is really weird."

"Says the guy with Ichtvar," Keith snorted, and Nathan shrugged in response. "We've got some fresh meat here, let's eat before exploring the island."

"We should probably make sure the area is clear first," Nathan said.

"And that'll turn into us trying to clear the island," Keith said. "Just to make sure the area is clear. Our familiars can keep watch, their senses are better than ours, and my familiar is more powerful than your wind elemental. He can sense pretty decently outside of the range of light we have, too."

"But-"

"You just want to hurry up and get out of here," Keith interrupted him. "And you did a lot more work than I did on the way over. That was a long trip, you didn't eat, and you were active almost the entire way. Now shut up and carve out some steaks."

Nathan glared at Keith, then began butchering the boar. The mage had a point, and they should have made a temporary camp on the beach for a meal. They probably would have still been attacked by the boar, but at least they would have still rested a little first.

When he finished cutting out steaks, Nathan began cooking them on Keith's flames. After only a few moments of that, he frowned and looked at Keith.

"How do you like your steaks?"

"The way you've been cooking them is fine."

Nathan's frowned deepened.

"That's not flirting," Keith cleared his throat. "That's the answer. I'm actually not really a steaks person because of some bad experiences with them, and I know you're making do with an odd meat."

"Oh," Nathan said. "Eight inches or nine?"

"We were just talking about meat, and you ask that," Keith stared at him. "Why-"

"Breezy told me to ask you," Nathan told him. "He won't tell me why."

"Nine."

"He wants to know why."

"Because it's three times three," Keith answered, not quite believing the wind elemental was actually asking about the two lengths and why he picked the one he did. "And three is the magic number. Why does he want to know?"

"He says he's not su-" Nathan cut off as he heard the sound of rushing water. "You hear that, too, right?"

"Yeah," Keith looked around, and a moment later, their gazes were drawn to the canals.

"He says 'oh, it was for the canals'," Nathan told Keith. "He also says that he found another piece of the talisman, and that it's covered in slime."

Keith raised an eyebrow.

"I told him to clean it off."

Keith snorted, and Nathan continued cooking the steaks on the fire, before serving Keith one while eating the other. After they finished eating, they cleaned up, then watched as the canal's water levels drained.

"Did your familiar just turn them back off?" Keith asked.

"He says he got curious about what moving the eight-inch one into the slot would have done," Nathan said, and the pair began walking. "He says that he can't tell what's going on."

"Into the slot?"

"Seems he found some sort of control room," Nathan shrugged. "He also says the measurements aren't exact, he's just rounding. He said that it made something pop out. He pushed it back in. It popped back out. I told him to stop, but he's not listening."

Keith snorted again, then looked at one of the nearby buildings.

"Want to investigate?" He asked. "See how they differ from ours?"

Nathan nodded, and the pair entered one of the nearby buildings, Keith channeling light through his new staff's crystal to illuminate the inside while his familiar remained outside with the lantern. As they entered, his light shining in areas still in shadow from the heavenly storm elemental and lantern's light, the duo of teens heard a wailing.

"What was that?" Nathan asked.

"Something dying," Keith answered. "I got Points for it. Since phantoms need it to be cut into them, that was probably a shade. This staff is pretty useful for that."

Nathan nodded, then looked around the room they were in. There was an obvious stove made out of stone, set with inert enchantments. He wasn't too sure on what they were for, but Keith mentioned that they were there to act as the stove's actual heat source, and same for the oven.

Since he was already explaining things, the mage also explained the different enchantments he could tell from them to Nathan, then did the same with the opening in the floor with a thin stone separation, which seemed to be some sort of fridge and freezer.

"It might have had a wooden lid," Keith told Nathan. "Which would explain why it's gone. The only other thing in this house are those stairs, which lead to the roof. It's one-story."

Nathan looked around the space. No bathroom of any sort, just the one room with the cold storage and the stove and oven, along with the stone counter.

"What do you think this place was used for?" He asked.

"I don't know," Keith answered. "But whoever they were, they had similar dimensions for a human, maybe a little taller than us. Their stove, their doorway, and their stairs all match up with what I'd expect for a human who is maybe six and a half to seven feet in height, if that were the norm."

Nathan frowned, and Keith knew from the look in the warrior's eyes that he had a theory. Keith did, too, but he didn't want to voice it because there wasn't much to it yet.

"Depending on if this is the norm," Keith told Nathan. "Or not, we can expect that the people who lived on this islands may have been humanoid in form. We'll need to check every building just in case Breezy missed something, especially since he seems… occupied."

"He's found parts to both talismans," Nathan shrugged. "But he did say he'll need to go through the island a lot slower than the previous ones to locate the pieces because of all the buildings. He also says that the one we were in seems to be the basic blueprint."

"Let's check the roofs, too," Keith told Nathan.

"Breezy said he'll cover the roofs," Nathan told him. "Since they're plain and easy to look at it. We can handle the ground."

Keith nodded, and the pair left the building, then began checking the next several buildings, each identical to the previous, the only variance being an occasional bit of dust, or in one case, a trio of boars that surprised them, only to be blasted with lightning out of Keith's staff, the mage killing them from the entrance of the building with only a few attacks.

"Those ones were young," he told Nathan, then examined the doorway. "Maybe only a little wider than what we normally have on Earth? I'd say about half a foot wider."

"Meaning what?"

"I don't know," Keith answered. "Could be just something different about what they made as their acceptable standards. Why are our doors as wide as they are, not narrower or wider? Ever notice that it can be hard to move fully-assembled furniture through a doorway? Why do closets often have smaller doors?"

"To make it more uncomfortable for you to come out of it."

Keith rolled his eyes at Nathan's attempt at a joke.

"The point is," Keith said. "While we find that to be an acceptable size for doors of various types, not all species view things the same way. We already got reminded of that with Evala."

"Yeah," Nathan said.

"Come on," Keith said. "Let's check inside."

"Yeah," Nathan pulled out a marker and made an X beside the door.

"What's that for?"

"The air is cool," Nathan explained. "So the meat will spoil slower. We can come back later to grab some."

"Oh," Keith entered the building. "It is getting cooler. Think they're hitting autumn or winter?"

"Maybe," Nathan answered. "Let's hurry and check this place, I want to get done with this place."

"Want to leave after this island?"

"No," Nathan answered. "I just don't like delaying here. The constant silence bothers me. From now on, prepwork for any entrance into the game will involve ensuring we have music, with enough batteries to last for months."

Keith snorted and shook his head at Nathan's comment, though he knew the feeling. The constantly silence apart from them was eerie. At least they had the sound of the canal, when it was running.

"Something that might help with the silence here," Keith told Nathan. "Would be the water running through the canals again."

Nathan thought on that for a moment, then told his wind elemental to do whatever it was it had done to send water into the canals. A few minutes later, as they were leaving the building, they heard the sound of the water running through the canals once more.

"Better," Nathan said. "Let's get moving."