After maybe an hour and a half of walking, Mark, Horan, Omet and Quet finally found something of note. By the sea, a small village of people lay scattered on the ground. Instead of the derelict outskirts and slapdash residences Mark and Horan had come to expect, this place looked like it had been virtually untouched by the Nabbing and subsequent fallout, nuclear or otherwise.

Shifting into their human forms where applicable, the four casually walked into the village, looking around in partial bewilderment. The looks they got from the locals indicated surprise, but more in the sense of an unexpected novelty than the distrustful concern most other human towns gave Mark and Horan.

Horan approached a local, who was hauling a bucket of dead fish from the small pier down the street. “Hey, we’re, uh, new to these parts. You know where we can get the lowdown on this place?”

The fisherman hefted his bucket onto his gut to better support its weight and eyed Horan, pausing briefly at the eyepatch. “New to the town, or the island?”

“...Island.”

“Then you’ll want the watering hole over on 3rd, same as the sign says. Barkeep says she knows the whole island like the back of her hand, and from what I’ve seen, she’s right.”

“Alright. Thanks, dude.”

“You too, uh, dude. And welcome to Honoka’a.” The fisherman went on his way. “Lots of new faces out here all of a sudden. Crazy…”

Horan sidled over to the rest of the group. “Well, we’ve got a name. Anyone heard of a Honoka’a?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing.”

“Sounds Polynesian.”

“Yeah, we can tell, Omet.”

“Just pointing it out.”

Horan nodded in response to their reactions. “Well, it confirms our suspicions. Seems like we’ll have to travel across the Pacific ocean, cross central America-”

Quet raised a hand. “Actually, humans made a canal so that you don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Wow, really? Humans really like splitting continents in half. But sure, we just need to sail across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, figure out exactly where the Norse live, and head over to help before they all die. At least we won’t have to deal with as many crazy apocalypse cults this time around. I’m starting to get why Deus wanted to put so much work into the Seraphium.”

“The what?” Quet raised an eyebrow.

“Wait, you ha-?” Horan held up a hand. “No, I can explain later.”

Mark folded his arms. “Whatever Deus has, we’re assuming that they aren’t all dead already, that is. We’re not sailing across the world, Horan. Our last trip took a month, plus we had a car for most of it.”

Mark received angry looks from all three Primoi. Omet duplicated themself while nobody around them was looking, just so that they could give him an extra angry look.

Quet sighed. “My family is in danger right now. We’re not going to just stay here.”

Both Omets nodded in accord. Only the purple-eyed one spoke. “Don’t be a wimp, it’s just two oceans.”

“I’m not being a wimp, I’m being practical! If we do try to go, everyone will be dead months before we get there!”

“I mean…” Horan looked around at the lively village and plant life around them. “How much do you really value your family?”

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The yellow-eyed Omet took their turn to speak. “It could take a while to figure out another way there, but that’s still more productive than sitting on our hands in the middle of the ocean.”

Quet nodded. “Spoken like Hurat.”

Horan noted that their argument was starting to draw glances from passing locals. The topic of their discussion, combined with the fact that there were two nigh-identical copies of the same person, must have made it a very interesting scene to listen in on. “Hey, uh, how about we take this somewhere less public? There might be some more info we can use at the bar.”

Mark shrugged and walked in the direction provided by the fisherman. “Well, it’s not completely insane. I’ll take it.”

-

The bar was bizarrely easy to identify as a bar. The signage out front was well-maintained, the inside didn’t look looted and there were a more reasonable amount of ants on the floor. There was even a vinyl record player in the corner playing some classic rock, as well as a Kanaka Maoli flag hanging from the rafters. Impressive, given the group’s standards.

The five individuals entered and looked around, eyeing the three or four people seated at the small tables. While passing through the entrance, Omet took the opportunity to combine into one again.

Horan strode over to the counter and looked at the drinks rack behind the barkeep. Actual expectable drinks, clean drinking glasses, no obvious health code violations. “Wow, it’s like the downfall of human civilization never happened.”

The bartender smiled and took five glasses from the rack. While she was turned, Horan noted the logo of some heavy metal band on the back of her brown leather jacket. “I’ll take that as a compliment, stranger. What’ll it be?” She turned back, counted the number of new arrivals again, shrugged and put a glass back on the rack.

“Well, we don’t have any water, so we’ll take four of whatever’s free.” Horan took a seat along with his three partners.

“You don’t have any..?” The barkeep shook her head. “Whatever, coming right up.”

“Oh, right, you wouldn’t buy things with water out here, sorry. Yeah, we’re new to this place.”

“So I heard. Haven’t heard anything about folks using water as money on the other islands, though. You learn more every day, I guess.” The barkeep took a pitcher of water and poured four glasses for her customers.

Horan took a small drink from his glass. “Yeah, it’s crazy what’s out there…”

Mark pushed his empty glass to the other side of the counter. “But I’d like to get down to business. We heard you’re the one to go to for info about this island?”

Quet stared at Mark’s glass. “Wait, where’d the water go?”

“Drank it.”

“I-it’s been five seconds.”

“I’m aware.”

“But that shouldn’t be-”

“I’m not used to it being this hot.”

The barkeep leaned on the counter and nodded slowly. “...Wow, you folks really aren’t from around here, huh?”

Mark’s eyes darted between her and Horan. “Well, uh, yes. That’s established.”

“No, I mean you’re not even from the other islands. You’re new to all of Hawaii, aren’t you?”

Quet lit up in recognition. “Oh, that’s where we are!”

The barkeep looked over the group at the red, green and yellow flag hanging from the ceiling. “What, did you not know that?”

Omet began getting nervous. They would have preferred to keep a low profile unless it was useful to do otherwise. “Well, we’ve just been sorta drifting for a while, we noticed the clear skies and came to visit.”

The barkeep regarded Omet with mild suspicion. “I guess that makes sense… Say, nice eyes. You don’t normally see yellow and purple next to each other.”

Horan decided to step in. “Yeah, it’s-”

The bar was rocked by the sound of splintering wood. It sounded like something had just smashed into the building. Unfinished drinks were spilled, unattended chairs fell over, and one window shattered when a chunk of debris slammed into it.

Horan shot to his feet and looked outside. “That us?”

Mark sighed and got to his feet as well. “That’s us.”

Outside, it seemed that a smooth, nearly perfectly spherical boulder had crashed into the front of the next-door building, caving in the frontmost wall. Other than that, nothing of note happened for a few seconds as the villagers crowded around the rock.

A deep, chittering growl came from the boulder as a crack sprang into existence at the top. The crack quickly began to widen as ridges formed at regular intervals along the boulder’s surface. It quickly became clear that it wasn’t cracking, but unfurling.

The boulder unfolded into a scaly, armadillo-like creature, the size and shape of a minivan. A wall of razor-sharp fangs protruded from its mouth, directly under its five bug-like eyes.

Omet gasped. “Oh no, a thing! And it’s cool!”

The creature rolled onto its feet, looked around at the conveniently gathered crowd, snarled and charged.