"You crazy bastard," said Renessa. She leaned back against the hull of the ship and chuckled. "You really led that whole mess of monsters back to the raiders?"

Felix grinned. "Truth be told, it's better in the retelling than it was living it." He sat down; the swaying of the deck under his feet was making his stomach churn, but he couldn't hardly recount his adventure from a static position.

He lay flat on the deck and kicked his feet up on top of one of the many crates strewn through the hold. "In hindsight," he said, "I really should have kept my boots. That was a long, rocky journey on my poor feet." He wiggled his toes for emphasis, not that anyone saw under his mismatched leather boots.

Trent grunted from where he lay, head in Renessa's lap. "What you should've done is kept your pants. That was a sight I didn't need to see. Damn near went blind."

"Nonsense!" Felix waved a hand in the air dramatically. "It was awe-inspiring, nay, heroic! To see me march off into that jungle with naught but my wits and my--"

"And that's where we're going to cut you off," interjected Renessa.

Felix smiled to himself. It had been a while since he had the leisure to be absurd. Atop the crate his feet were resting on was Liz, his pet lizard he had found as a hatchling forever ago. Or a few weeks ago. It depended on how one measured.

She was one of the few good things in this place. She hopped on top of his feet and chirped before scurrying down his legs and onto his chest. He gave her a good skritch behind her jaw and down the small fin that ran the length of her spine. Liz chirpped again and curled up on Felix's shoulder. She didn't fit as well as she used to, but that didn't seem likely to slow her down any time soon.

Koale tapped the claws of his feet against the wooden crate he squatted on top of. His arms were crossed and he seemed to be paying little attention to the conversation. "While I'm glad we have left, I don't think it is time for celebration quite yet."

Smiles faded across the hold. He was right, of course; they all knew it. Still, for a few moments they were triumphant.

With a sigh, Renessa said, "Fine, but let it be remembered that for once it was not me who brought reality crashing back in."

Felix lifted Liz and tossed her in the air, letting her pleased chittering fill the hold. After a long moment, he said, "So what's the goal then? We made it off the island, but we didn't exactly have time to make grand plans."

"Find land," said Trent. "Build a new home. Survive another day on this hellhole."

"Okay, granted," said Felix. "But how do we get to land? We don't know where it is other than the bit we just left. I, for one, am in no hurry to get back there."

Silence stretched. The sticcato tapping of toe claws, punctuated by the sounds of a pleased lizard filled the hold. Waves lapped against the hull.

"No one has anything at all?" asked Renessa. "Koale? Felix? You guys always have something."

"Something stupid," muttered Trent under his breath.

"I'll take stupid at this point," she said as she looked at the other two. Felix looked away. He'd figure it out, he knew. Just he wasn't there quite yet.

Koale shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see that we have any way to make progress there quite yet. We have no means to control where we are going, how fast we get there and have limited means to construct anything to change that."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Renessa nodded and leaned her head back. "So, first up is we need to do an inventory and see what we have. We can't decide how to get some measure of control until we figure out what we have to work with. During the chaos, we piled everything in so fast, I don't think anyone knows what we have here."

"I got it," Felix said as he got to his feet once more. He stood carefully, both not to jostle Liz and to find his balance. He leaned over to the crates he had been resting his feet on and mentally commanded it to open.

A blue box appeared in his vision. It was filled with a number of other, smaller boxes, which were in turn filled with a variety of icons. He glanced through them, making note of the contents. "We've got mostly wood here. There's a bit of waterfruit- maybe enough for a day, and some sails? Someone grabbed sails?"

"That was me," Renessa said. "I was working on the linen manufacturing when the raiders hit. It was in my inventory still when we made it here."

"Great! That will be useful when we get some more nails. And a mast." He trailed off and then shrugged. "It'll be useful eventually."

Felix did a quick sweep around the rest of the hold, mentally commanding the inventories to open and keeping tally of what he found. They had a lot of wood- he and Koale had stocked up prior to the attack after all, and it looks like more was gathered during his escapades. There was some more building material like vines and stone, and even a few seeds. Those weren't useful immediately, but like the sails, would be very handy later. What they were short on, was food and water.

Renessa pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay, new goal- we need to make sure we've got enough supplies to last us to landfall."

Felix ran his mind over what they would need. Same problem, different circumstances. The whole thing had been variations of the same since they’d crashed here. “Drinking water is going to be an issue quickly. We’ll have to figure out a way to get more. We’ll need fresh food soon too.”

“Even if we get fresh food, cooking is going to be hard,” said Trent. “Fire on a wooden ship and all that. Strikes me as a bad idea.”

Koale held up a single claw. “Cooking may be a bit of an issue, as will potable water, but as for food- we are in the middle of the ocean. Surely we can catch something?”

Felix shrugged. “Sure, in theory. But I’ll remind you how good we were catching critters on dry land.”

Trent snorted. “Yeah, shit is what you were.”

Renessa coughed and looked away, hiding a smile.

Trent looked pointedly at Liz. “If we get particularly hungry, we could always-”

Renessa rapped him lightly on the forehead.

“Aight, aight. What’s the plan then, hun?”

Renessa closed her eyes and hummed to herself. “Most immediate problem is water. We have some left, and the waterfruit so that should hopefully hold us through until we find something. Next we’ll worry about food, and with any luck, we’ll figure out how to cook before we need it. So, the pressing question is, how do we get water?”

“Easy answer is rainwater,” said Koale. “Set up a barrel, and catch it when it falls. Failing that, we’re looking at various means of collecting condensation. That will be more tricky, but one we can control, to some extent.”

Felix eyed his alien friend. “Are you feeling well?”

Koale raised his browrdige. “I have had better days, I will admit. Why do you ask?”

Felix nodded sagely. “That must be it. Clearly unwell.”

“What are you talking about?”

Felix wore an expression of faux-concern. “I know you were wounded in the attack. It must have been worse than we thought.”

Trent glowered. “Spit it out already.”

“Well,” said Felix, “Koale here was talking about building, what, two, three things? And he didn’t mention research at all.”

Koale sniffed. “Of course I didn’t. We already have everything onboard researched up to at least tier 1. We don’t have enough to spare to start running everything up to the second tier. Now, when we manage to catch something, well, that will be another thing altogether.”

Before Felix could say anything, Renessa cut in. “If you two are done, Koale would you kindly lead the way up topside and we can figure out how we are going to survive?”

Trent clambered to his feet, nearly over balancing and going back down as the deck shifted with the waves. “Going to take some getting used to,” he said as he offered a helping hand to his wife. She smiled and let him lift her up. She whispered into his ear and gave him a hug before heading topside.

Felix meandered to the ladderwell and looked up. There, at the top of the deck was a silhouette that Felix thought he had left far behind on that wretched island.

It was small and fuzzy.

“No,” he whispered, but the squirrel did not heed his pleas. With a squeak, it bound down the steps and into the hold.