It was the morning of the second day spent on the sea, Eshanai hadn’t thought overly hard on how they would get back to the island. I figured we would build a boat and sail without much trouble, but when it came to it, a couple of problems had made themselves known. The main one had been that the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, this had been pointed out to me by Lubus, and I had felt pretty stupid for not thinking of that. Lubus and Red had worked together to come up with a new way of moving the ship that didn’t require wind. I had found trees for Red to absorb and the result of their work was what currently bore Lilian and me over the ocean with impressive speed. The boat was much bigger than the one I had used to sail to the mainland but was still small according to Lubus. It had what looked like a little house in the back with two bads for Lilian and me to sleep on, and some stairs leading to the lower deck. The most impressive thing about it though was what Lubus called propellers, they were currently submerged under the water, and their spinning was what propelled us forward. Lubus controlled it all using magic, using what he called magic circuits that he had embedded in the ship. Anyone with could make the ship move, but Lubus didn’t think me or Lilian had enough control of our magic just yet to try it. So we had nothing to do but sleep and keep a lookout for the island on the horizon.

That was the other problem after Red had made the ramp in the cliff and we had made sure there was no hidden rocks or something similar for us to crash into I had pushed the boat into the water and helped Lilian climb aboard. The thing was that I didn’t know where exactly the Island was, I knew it was somewhere to the west of the mainland, but the currents could have brought me further up or down the coast, how far could be anyone's guess. Lubus had seemed very annoyed when he had materialized the map in the little cabin and asked me if I could remember where I had washed up. His mood brightened when I recognized the cliffs I had crashed against, and the rocky beach I had washed up on. He apparently knew of the currents in the water in this part of the sea, from old books and scrolls he had said. It seemed to me that you could get a lot of useful information from these books and scrolls, and wondered why we didn’t have something similar on the island. Red and Lubus conferred again, and a little box with a spinning arrow inside appeared on the table above the map. The arrow settled down and pointed to the right wall of the craft. Lubus said that it would always point in the same direction, with it, the compass, and the map we wouldn’t get lost as we looked for the island. I marveled at how lucky I was to have brought Lubus and the dungeon core along for the journey, without them I was not sure if I would be able to make it back.

I stood on the front of the boat, the sun at my back, scanning the horizon for any sign of land. This was about as long as it had taken me to get to the mainland, the waters had been calm to my relief, and hopefully, it would stay that way. No big blue fish had joined us this time, I had hoped to see it again as I thought it was a bit of a lucky sign, but I had seen no sign of it. Lubus had said it was a whale when I had described it to him, sailors often thought they were lucky omens apparently, so I wasn’t alone in thinking that. Lubus had scoffed at that notion, saying it was only silly superstition, he might be right at that, the journey has been incredibly smooth so far, without the need for lucky signs. By midday there was still no signs of land, which I thought was strange, surely we should have been there by now. I didn’t think this ship was slower than my last if anything it was faster and could keep going through the night. Lilian came out of the cabin to stand beside me, excitement in her eyes, she had recharged her mana supply and not having seen the ocean before everything was new to her.

“Still no sign of it huh?” She asked looking out at empty ocean surrounding us.

“No, I thought we should have seen something by now,” I said and leaned against the railing, watching as the ship cut through the waves.

“Shouldn’t you be able to smell it?” Lilian said after a pause, and I stiffened before I looked at her.

“What?”

“You know, the island, I would think it has a lot of different smells coming out over the ocean, right?” Why hadn’t I thought of that? No matter, I smiled as I scooped the girl up in my arms and spun her around, we both laughed, and I kissed her on the forehead.

“Lilian you’re a genius,” I said and sat her back down on the deck.

“I do try,” she said with a giggle, and I practically beamed at her, before flicking out my tongue and tasting the air. Sure enough, there was a lot of different smells in the air, like trees, and dirt, and different flowers, and a lot closer then I would expect. We should be very close, at least so we would be able to see land. But when I looked around, there was only empty ocean as before.

“Lubus, change course,” I said for Lilian’s benefit and pointed in the direction of the smell. The ship lurched under our feet before Lubus followed my orders, and we were off in the right direction. Or at least so I thought, but as the smells associated with land grew stronger, there was no island in sight.

“Eshanai, look at the water, I can see the bottom,” Lilian said suddenly, and sure enough as I also looked down towards the water, I could see the sandy seafloor and coral formations.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Lubus, stop the boat,” I said in a hurry and had to grab Lilian before she fell off as the boat came to a halt, but I was smiling. “What is this do you think, it smells like we should be practically crashing into land and the sea is getting shallower. Some sort of illusion?” I asked, was this here when I left? I don’t think so, were we even on the right island? It was worth investigating at least, perhaps this was why no one came to our island, they couldn’t find it. I must not have noticed since I was going away if it even was my island.

It might be, I can’t see anything beyond a certain point, remember? We would have to be closer for me to tell. Lubus answered it was hard to remember that sometime.

“Ok, move the boat forward, but slowly,” I said, and we started moving at a snail's pace.

If we move any closer now we will get stuck in the sand, Lubus said and stopped the boat again. By the smell in the air, the island should be right in front of us, but I could still see nothing. Some scents were familiar, but there were new things I didn’t recognize too. I wrapped myself around the front railing of the craft and stretched myself as far out above the water as I could go. My fingers brushed against something, and I quickly grabbed it and pulled it back to the boat. It was a leaf I realized, and as I looked back up again whatever effect had hidden the island was now gone. There was a wall of green foliage blocking our vision, by Lilian’s shocked expression she could see it too.

“They're huge, the trees, probably twice or three times as big as the church back in the village,” Lilian said as she craned her neck to look up at the towering trees.

“I told you the trees on the mainland were small, didn’t I?” I said as I also inspected the big foliage. If this was the right island the trees had changed, they were just as tall as I remembered, but their trunks were much thicker around with roots as thick as my arm spreading over the forest floor. There were plants and flowers I didn’t recognize growing between the roots, I hadn’t been gone that long had I?

There is something strange about this place, as soon as you touched that leaf something heavy came over us, like a big blanket, Lubus said in consternation. I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.

“Maybe whatever protected the island has included us in its effect, do you think we will be invisible to any outsiders?” I said that must be it, maybe the island recognized who I was and is welcoming me home.

Yeah maybe, but I would hesitate to call it protection until we know more about it, I nodded reluctantly at that. Lubus was a bit too careful I thought, anything to do with my home just had to be good. Suddenly there was a commotion from the forest, the sound of high pitched yells and broken branches and I summoned my armor, spear, and shield as a big white furred monkey came jumping out of a tree to land in the boat in front of me. It wobbled in the water, and I could hear Lilian struggling to keep her balance behind me. The monkey had big sharp teeth coming out of its upper jaw to rest over its lower lip and chin, it roared at us showing off its sharp teeth to full effect. I took the opportunity to bash it in the face with my shield, ‘stupid monkey, there were better things to spend time on in a fight then to roar in your opponents face, leaving yourself wide open’ I thought. The beast stumbled back from the blow, giving me some room, and I was just about to stab it through the neck when I heard Lilian from behind me.

“Spider shot!” She exclaimed, and a big net of sticky spider silk trapped the creature’s hands against its face. It staggered back even more, and as the backs of its knees hit the railing, it fell overboard and into the shallow water below. It struggled free of the net trapping its arms and quickly scampered back into the tall trees of the forest, disappearing from sight.

“Nice shot, Lilian,” as said as I turned towards her and affectionately ruffled her hair.

“Thanks,” she said, out of breath. “What was that thing?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “We had monkeys on the island sure, but nothing that big. Something must have happened since I’ve been gone.”

“Yes, it was as big as a full grown man if not bigger,” Lilian said, and visibly shivered at the thought. “Do you think there are bigger things here than that monkey?”

“I don’t know, but I can probably smell them before we run into them and steer us around them. But don’t worry, I’ll protect you if we run into anything, and you will get a chance to practice your new spells,” I said with enthusiasm. Lilian nodded weakly at this, not as excited as I was. My smile faded at this, and I lowered myself to her level, “nothing will happen to you while I’m with you, ok.” I said and hugged her, she clung to me fiercely before we broke apart and she gave me another nod, more confident now.

Perhaps bringing a child with us to this island wasn’t the best idea, Lubus said in my mind.

What do you mean? I answered back, not wanting Lilian to hear.

Well, it seems like a dangerous place for a kid, she might get scared, hm, I hadn’t thought of that. Did you need to treat children differently than adults, were they weaker somehow. I could see that they were smaller sure, but it could be argued that Lilian is more powerful than me right now. I said just that to Lubus.

She’s not used to all this violence, I’m just saying you should be careful, protect her, now that I understood, protect the weaker members, so they had a chance to grow.

Ok Lubus, I understand. Now back the boat up and bring it around the island, there should be a lagune to the south where we can disembark. As we gained some distance, the trees didn’t take up all my vision any longer, and I could see the peak of bone tip mountain rising out of the forest in the distance. It looked like this was the right island, after all, now to find out what had happened while I was gone.