POV Andrissus Catemarino

As their ship, the Ice Queen, approached the Lost Islands, the chain of five islands, Andrissus became anxious. They have made this trip hundreds of times. They have breached, explored and harvested items on icebergs, but this time, they had this feeling, a premonition, that something is going to happen. Of course, no one ever knows what will be washed ashore on the islands or brought from the ocean’s depths, creating its name, the Lost Islands. But whether good or bad, they just have a feeling that something will happen.

Andrissus shook his head and called out to the crew.

“Alright, you know the drill. In groups of two, explore the coastlines of the islands. If you find anything, send sparks up and wait at your position. Don’t touch or go into whatever you find. We don’t need an accident to happen again.” As Andrissus said this, he stared at Aleoi.

“Ah boss, why you looking at me like that?” Aleoi complained.

With a deadpan stare, Andrissus responded.

“No one else was stupid enough to touch a stone object with runes carved on it.” Andrissus thought back to the incident a couple years ago and cringed. Three years ago, a major storm passed through the area, and once it moved on, the Andri Scavengers went to Five Islands to see if the storm brought anything from the ocean’s depths. And it did.

It was Aleoi’s first time scavenging the Lost Islands with the crew when he and his partner Renia discovered a small rai stone. The rai stone was a small, flat, circular stone carved out of limestone, about the size of a hand, carved with a series of unknown runes on it. As Renia released sparks in the air from a small carved rock to signal the crew of them discovering something interesting, Aleoi crouched down and went to pick it up.

When Renia noticed what he was doing, she grabbed his arm and yelled out, “Don’t touch that!”

Unfortunately, when Renia grabbed Aleoi, the sand shifted, and she fell. She caught herself before she fell onto the stone, but the top of her pinky finger touched the stone.

As soon as her finger touched the stone, black runes started travelling up her arm, and she collapsed.

Andrissus came just in time to see the runes reach every visible part of her body. Once he saw her and the stone, he ran back to the Ice Flower and emergency called the local adventurer’s guild about an unknown magical object washing up with runes and how Renia collapsed once touching it.

Within an hour, people from the adventurers guild and the runic guild arrived on the second island and, using specialized equipment, transferred the rune ria stone and Renia back to the main island.

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He still did not know the ria stone’s effect and what happened to Renia. He never saw Renia again when the guilds took her away.

Pulling back to the present, Andrissus just hoped that the growing anxious feeling he got as they moved closer to the Lost Island chain didn’t mean something similar would happen.

Just as the ship sailed past the first and second islands, he noticed something. A medium-sized iceberg was stranded in one of the sandbanks between two islands.

As he looked at the iceberg, that anxious feeling within his stomach grew. He just knew that there was something interesting in the iceberg, and that was where the crew would start.

“Listen up! We’re going to start with that iceberg.” Called out Andrissus to the crew, and the ship set course to get as close to the iceberg as they could.

The ship sailed closer and closer to the iceberg, and as they got just under 30 metres away from the iceberg, Andrissus felt them pass a magical border of some kind.

He called out to his crew to make sure if they felt what he did. “Did anybody feel that?”

“Ya, what is it?” Called out Juxxit, who seemed very confused about what he just felt.

“Hey guys?” Called out Sisiane, a retired adventurer. “I think we just crossed into a dungeon core’s territory.”

As soon as she said that, Andrissus’s blood went cold.

From what he knew about dungeon cores, they could range from benevolence to outright killing anybody who enters them.

“Turn it around! Turn the ship around!” Yelled out Andrissus. “Get us out of the Lost Island chain.”

The crew worked quickly, anxious by Andrissus’s tone shift, and exited the island chain.

He turned to the one mage in his employ. “Get us back to port as quickly as you can.”

The mage started chanting a spell, and soon, the ship started moving very fast in the water. What took around three hours of sailing only took an hour, and as soon as the ship docked, Andrissus turned to his crew. “Do not talk about what we found until I finish talking with the adventurer guild.”

He walked as fast as he could without drawing suspicion that something was wrong. He just hoped the adventure guild took him seriously.

Andrissus stopped before the guild’s sign, a staff and sword crossed together with the words Togiak Adventurer Guild written under it. Each continent mainly had their own guilds, and since he was on the Togiak continent, he had to report his findings to the Togiak adventurer guild.

He took a deep breath and entered the guild building.

POV Dungeon Core

The object crept closer and closer from outside of the islands. It moved fast and quickly, and the child could see beings on the object making noises as it got closer.

Soon the object breached their territory, and information flowed from their core. The object is a ship, and the beings on board the vessel are humans.

They watched the ship stop right after entering their territory.

The person who seemed to be in charge called out in a language that they did not know.

“Wbd tgruhwr yxxe matm?” Called out a man with pale skin and dark brown hair who seemed to be in charge.

“Rt, patm bl it?” A man with bright blue eyes and tanned skin responded back

“Hey znrl?” Strangely, as they continued speaking, the child started understanding what they were saying.

“I mabgb we just crossed sumh a dungeon core’s territory.”

They heard the person in charge yell out as they gained more knowledge of the language these people were speaking.

“Turn it around! Turn the ship around!”

Once that was yelled out, they turned the ship around, and the child watched them disappear into the horizon.

Will they come back? Wondered the child before returning to observing the area they were stuck in.