My hope came crashing down an hour later as I crested a rather large hill only to be greeted by the cerulean blue waters surrounding me. My morale wasn’t all lost, as I spotted some boats beached along the coast. Further down the same shoreline, I could make out a dock jutting out into the water.

The dock was lined with vessels moored to it. With a bit of hope, I made my way down the hill and across a large grass field to reach the sandy beach. At the shore, I found multiple boats, all tied to stakes along the beach on the way to the dock.

Walking further down the shore, I checked on some of the boats and found most were far from working order. I also had no way of pulling the good boats off the beach. The ships tied to the docks were already out in the water, and since they seemed to be still floating, I headed over to them. After inspecting the dock’s collection, I made my way back towards the beach and noticed movement within the grass.

Making my way over to the tall grass and looking around, I couldn’t find what had drawn my attention. With the sun over my head, I figured I could explore the island some more. I began by walking around the edge of the large grass fields that came up to the beach. I wanted to see if I could find any inhabitants or points of interest. After a couple of hours of walking around the island’s perimeter, I only scouted out the local plant life. Animals and birds seemed to be hiding or scarce.

Walking my way back to the docks as the light of day grew dim, I could see details of the planet above. The vast swaths of green rich lands made up most of what I could make out. I couldn’t see any kind of light pollution from cities on the darker side, so I wondered if it was inhabited or not.

Going back to one of the beached ships I spotted with a cabin, I climbed aboard and went inside. I found myself a bed and desk with a chair. The cabin also sported two hanging lanterns from the ceiling. I removed one of the lanterns and found it filled with a thick oil at its bottom. Removing the firestarter, I lit the lantern’s wick and then its twin.

After making sure everything I had was secure in my trusty silk pillowcase, I went outside and marveled at the night sky as it grew darker. I could see much more of the second planet as it slowly moved across the sky. That world’s vast swaths of green continents made up more than fifty percent of the face I could see. Even with more of the dark side visible, the signs of an advanced civilization weren’t apparent. As this system’s star fell behind the horizon, the night sky began to be illuminated in divine splendor.

The stars! There were so many of them! I could even see a few colored stars of distinct yellows, oranges, blues, and reds. These stars’ systems must be insanely close to this system to be as bright and colorful as they were. I was able to make out the ring that surrounded the planets as the sun began to illuminate the asteroid field from behind. The red and blue disk cut across the night sky like a knife reaching out into the heavens. I lay there on the deck and stargazed for hours.

My sky-gazing was interrupted as I heard something that sounded like a howl coupled with a chittering coming from down the beach. Not wanting to find out what the hell caused such a hair-raising howl, I decided to head back inside and went to sleep.

The following day I awoke to a slow rhythmic swaying of the cabin. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I raised my head to see if I imagined it, but the boat was going up and down, and I could now hear the waves slowly lapping at the beach much more than I could the night before. Getting out of bed, I ate another meal of jerky and juice before I made my way out onto the deck.

The water had risen at least two meters during the span of the night. I now understood why each boat had been tethered down by a couple of stakes. Not having bathed since I’d been reborn into this universe, I went back in the cabin to retrieve the half-used bar of soap. Tossing the bar over the water and onto the sand, I dove into the water to find it was pleasantly warm. Swimming onto the beach, I grabbed the soap and began scrubbing myself clean.

After lying in the warm sun for an hour, I got up and began my plan to sail off the island. Swimming back to the boat, I grabbed the pillowcase and tossed it onto the beach, and then jumped back off the boat. Grabbing my things, I made my way back up to the tower and inside. Pulling up my magic map, I made my way back to the room with the large bed and primitive science equipment.

Not wanting to lose the books and my assorted items, I placed as many of them as possible into the seemingly bottomless pouch and then onto the table, keeping one of the white gems as a good luck charm. I then made my way to the closest guard station, filling the now-empty pillowcase with food and water, hoping it would be enough for my trip out on the sea.

Making my way back to the dock, I settled on one of the smaller-sized sailboats as it looked the easiest to handle and stored my pillowcase in a wooden box at the ship’s side. I checked on the rigging rope and made sure the sail was in one piece. I looked back up at the top of the stone tower, just visible over the hill. I smiled and silently thanked whatever had saved me back in the Lolth system. I was now going to have the adventure I always dreamed of having.

Undoing the mooring ropes, I pushed off the dock and paddled slowly further out to sea. Turning the boat around, I raised the sail and changed the rigging to catch the wind, and I was off. With the docks on this side of the island, I figured the mainland or other islands had to be in the same direction. My biggest concern was why there were so many abandoned boats on the island, and where had the people who sailed them gone?

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I had sailed for a few hours at this point. The sun continuously beat down on me as I cut a line across the azure blue water. I began to regret not taking one of the ships with a cabin now as I only had the saltwater-drenched pillowcase to keep me from overheating as I continued. As the sun began its descent towards the horizon, I was startled to hear splashing to my side.

Looking towards the sounds, I watched as these pink animals began to jump and glide above the water. These creatures looked like dolphins from home but had what could be described as massive sails behind their pectoral fins. They also had a long blade-shaped bone along their back which ended in a point at the front of their beak-like mouths.

They followed my vessel for hours, coming out of the water and floating for a distance before crashing back into the water. I watched them following alongside until one of them suddenly let out a cry, and they began to swim away from my boat. Their cry of fear forced me to jump up and scan the waters for the shadow of a predator. Not seeing anything in the water, a rumble of thunder caught my attention, and I looked over to the horizon. A seething mass of black clouds with a dazzling lighting display began taking up the entire horizon.

If you asked me if Universe Six had a theme, I would have said in one word, rainbows. Each strike of lighting hitting the ocean in the distance displayed a new color out of the spectrum. I was in awe until my breath had been literally pulled from my lungs. I staggered and tried to suck in any air. I began to panic and fell onto my side. Then as it had left, the air came back with a gut-wrenching force. Pulling myself to the side of the boat and back onto my feet, I could see the storm approaching far faster than I could comprehend.

The water around the boat began to seeth as the waves crashed against the ship. I lowered the sail and began to tie everything off, hoping not to damage the sail, resulting in me being stranded out in the water. With everything secure, I grabbed the white gem and wrapped my feet and hands around the sail’s mast. I closed my eyes as I felt the sailboat begin to be tossed around.

I stayed in that position for what seemed like an hour before the waves began to grow larger. I focused on the white gem in the center of my palm and kept praying to make it through this ordeal. My prayers were promptly denied as a ‘crack’ above me came from the mainmast, right before it came down on top of me. I was struck in the head by something hard and heavy, probably one of the main pulleys, and then I felt the warm trickle of blood coming down the side of my head before my vision became blurry, and I knew blackness yet again.

The sound of cry or caw awoke me before the pounding of my head took over. Calming myself down, I waited for the pounding to ease, and then I took a look around. I was lying on a small sandbar with two trees in the middle. All around me were pieces of what I assumed were my sailboat. I had no recollection of what had happened, and I assumed the storm ran me upon this sandbar, and the waves had smashed the boat.

Getting into a sitting position, I shielded my eyes from the sun above and tried to see if I was anywhere near land. I was happy to spot large cliffs in the distance, maybe a kilometer away. Following them, I could see a large beach. Behind the beach, smoke came out from behind the hills.

Getting to my feet, I realized I still had the white green gem clenched in my fist. Looking down at it, I wondered if it may have been a lucky charm all along. That train of thought was killed as I heard waves crashing from behind me, followed by a snarl.

Whipping around, I found what looked like a shark with legs coming out of the surf and towards me. Glancing around quickly, I spotted a long plank and ran over to grab it. Tossing the gem into my mouth for safekeeping, I bent down and grabbed the plank when one of those damn floating boxes of text popped into view.

“I’m in the middle of trying not to die!” I screamed and grabbed the plank.

Running behind one of the two trees, I raised the plank above my head. As soon as this land shark came within range, I would strike. Two things I noticed as I waited, the land shark was slow, almost abysmally as it walked. The other and more curious thing was I had a sweet aftertaste inside my mouth and no gem. Had I spat it out? Why the hell did the gem taste like candy?

As the land shark came closer, the thoughts of the gem left my mind, and I struck at the snout of the shark as soon as it came into range. The blow seemed to confuse or stun it for a moment, and I kept striking and dancing around the tree. Soon, the shark’s head began bleeding at first, then started to look like fresh meat. The shark’s realization that it would not win and obtain an easy meal forced it to flee. The shark turned and began to slowly make its way back to the water.

I kept hitting the damn thing till it swiped its tail and hit me, sending me a few meters into the sand, tumbling ass over end. As I picked myself up and looked towards the now still land shark, the text box forced itself into my view, making itself clear it wanted me to read it.

[ System Notification ]

Rank D Bone Core has given two Energy.

You may use Energy to advance a system of your selection.

As soon as I finished reading the box, another much larger box opened up. The shark turning into green mist caused me to divert my attention. It wasn’t the typical white mist I was used to. I watched as the land shark condensed into a small but bigger green gem than the white ones.

“That’s different,” I said as I heard more water splashing followed by snarls coming from around me. Turning my head, I spotted at least six much smaller versions of the land shark coming out of the water and towards me.

“I’m sorry about your momma, guys,” I said as I pushed myself back to my feet.