Nasir and Nox's ocean exploration trip had NOT gone well; as they were swimming, the people of a passing ship recognized them as being monsters and captured them! Locked in the same cage, and with Nasir's wand confiscated, there was nothing either of them could do but wait for a chance to escape - which would be coming as soon as Nasir's wand brought itself to him. A while passed, and the two tried their best to find some way to pass the time... Before a huge crash woke them both up. For whatever reason, the ship had ended up running into rocks! The whole ship ended up falling apart - which unfortunately didn't include the cage, though it thankfully ended up floating on some broken wood, drifting toward an island in the distance... Recognizing it'd be a long time before they'd arrive, the two tried to get at least a little rest along the way.
Nasir awoke as Nox bumped into him, the umbrakin trying his best to stay in shade as the sun rose. "...Mmh? R-right, we're stuck in a cage..."
"H-hey, um... We need to get out before the sun gets much higher."
Nasir quickly came to full awareness as he realized just how bad the situation was for Nox. "Oh crap, right!" Maybe the cage's door had weakened in the crash? He got up and gave it a few good hits, and while it seemed a bit loose, it still wasn't budging. "Damn it, we need to hit it harder..." There was a sturdy-looking branch in front of the cage, but certainly not within the bird's reach. Although, Nox definitely had something that could work... "Can you grab that branch with your tongue?"
"Might be a little far, but I think so." Nox reached out with his tongue, and despite the several feet of distance, managed to get enough of it around the branch to pull it back, at which point Nasir took it. "Okay, hopefully this works!" With the branch in hand, Nasir gave the cage's door a heavier hit, finally breaking its lock and swinging it open! "Alright, go, go!" He and Nox rushed out to find better shade, although the umbrakin stopped in confusion after a moment of being in direct sunlight. "...That's weird... The sunlight feels different. Still not good, but... I don't think it's actually going to hurt me here."
"Really? ...Well, regardless, we should try to stick to shade as much as we can just in case, at least for now. We'll figure out why it's different later, we need to find out where we are first. Stay close." Nasir took the lead for the moment as the two began to explore the beach they'd ended up on. Before long, there was the first sign of intelligent life, some tattered old clothing on the ground. "Well, at least we're not the first people to see this place," Nox commented. Next to it was a large bone with some leather wrapped around one end, which Nasir picked up and hefted in one hand. "This'd probably be better than that branch for fighting... How strong is your tongue? Maybe you could use the branch now."
"I don't want splinters in my tongue."
"...Fair enough." Keeping hold of the branch just in case the bone club broke, Nasir batted aside some reeds to continue onward with Nox. As soon as they passed through, they heard a sort of hissing growl to their right; a very large turtle, about half Nasir's height, was angrily staring them down!
Nox stepped back a bit, intimidated. "Okay, even I know turtles shouldn't get this big!"
"Definitely not, I've never heard of- Ah!" Nasir dodged to one side as the turtle tried to charge into him. "Okay, apparently we need to fight it!"
Despite the turtle's size, it wasn't particularly tough; plenty of blind spots, slow movements, and obvious attacks made it a fairly easy fight. When Nox landed one last hit with a leg spike, the turtle suddenly burst into sparks instead of dying, disappearing. Both he and Nasir were in stunned silence for a moment, before he turned to Nasir. "...Turtles don't do that, right?"
"...No. No they don't. I've heard conjured creatures do though... So someone definitely does live here, and they have stronger magic than I do." Very confused, Nasir approached a nearby gate and tried to open it, though it didn't move at all.
"Step back from that for a sec, there's a button here." Nasir moved back as Nox brought out his tongue to push the button, which opened the gate. "Theemth kind of pointleth, hathing the button right there." Nox reeled his tongue back in, and the exploration resumed once again.
The new section of beach had another couple turtles to fight, which the two managed, though not without Nasir being bitten by one. "Ow, stupid thing..." Soon, they came to another gate, this one with a lock near it. "Hm. You didn't see a key on the way here, did you Nox?"
"Nope. Not even all that familiar with what they look like."
"Well... Look around for something metal." They both began searching. During that, Nasir was happy to come across an uncommon seaweed-like herb useful for alchemy, while Nox was the one to find to key in a small cave nearby. "Got it! I think." The two got back together, Nasir confirmed it was the key - an iron one that wasn't in the best condition - and the two unlocked the gate.
After a different small cave where they needed to put something on a pressure plate behind one they needed to leave alone - accomplished by Nasir throwing a rock onto the right one - they finally left the beach, coming across more wreckage and a large, floating blue crystal. Nox cautiously approached the crystal. "Woah... You know magic stuff, what do you make of this?"
Nasir went up to it as well. "Never thought I'd actually see one of these... It's a healing crystal. They're really rare, I thought they only existed in a certain mountain, but... Apparently not. Watch that bite I have." He put a hand on the crystal, and in seconds his bite wound healed over entirely, leaving behind no indication it'd ever been there.
"Woah, cool! I guess we're good if we get hurt then, huh?"
"They can only do so much healing before needing to recharge for a while, but yeah, pretty much infinite healing! I've heard they can even bring back people that die, but... I really don't want to test that."
"Same here." With the most significant thing investigated, they looked around for anything else of interest. Some knives were stuck in a tree, which Nasir offered to Nox, though the umbrakin was too worried his tongue's grip would slip and he'd end up getting cut, and a scroll with an explanation of basic fire magic was on a pedestal near there, making Nasir even more frustrated at the reminder that he still didn't have his wand.
Moving on from that, a 3X3 grid of pressure plates was found, along with a sign reading "X marks the spot." Nasir looked at the sign, then the plates. "...Well, that's easy enough." He set down rocks on five of the plates so the depressed ones were in an X pattern, a nearby gate opening at that.
Nox was clearly impressed at how fast that was solved. "Leave it to a wizard to figure out a puzzle in seconds, huh? Hard to believe stuff like this actually exists out in the world, though."
"Believe me, you don't go to the kind of ancient places I do, it's more common than you think. Wizards of the past usually don't want to risk their knowledge going to stupid people." As he passed the gate and started to round its corner, Nasir yelped in surprise and jumped back as some kind of fish person lunged at him with a harpoon!
"Hey, you leave him alone!" Nox rushed over, though the two quickly found that fighting was the only option again, which they did. It was tougher than the turtles, and the fish creature actually dodged at times, though it soon was hit enough to burst into sparks just like the turtles.
"That thing almost looked sapient... Ugh, their harpoon disappeared with them, I wanted it."
"Magic is weird, their weapon isn't part of them..." Carrying on regardless, to the right was a large closed door with a statue and sign next to it, the sign mentioning something about how important a captain's weapon is to them.
Nasir quickly came up with an idea. "That statue's got its arms out, I bet if we give it a certain thing that door's gonna open."
"How are you so good at this?"
"Just a guess. Wouldn't be my first time needing to give a statue something." There were more fish people to be fought in the opposite direction, which Nasir and Nox did, though their harpoons continued to simply stop existing for no clear reason. A couple more herbs were found at least, a mushroom and what just looked like yellowish grass - though Nasir insisted to Nox that they were significant. Floating blue sparkles were in one section next to a sign saying "East windgate terminus."
"What's a windgate?"
"No idea, it must be someone's personal term for something." Nasir approached and cautiously touched one of the sparkles... And suddenly disappeared!
"What the- NASIR!"
Nox could hear Nasir's voice in the distance. "I'm okay! It's a teleporter, come through and give me a hand!" With that, Nox moved in and was teleported as well, finding Nasir fighting more fish people. With the two getting more used to fighting together, it went fairly well, though the somewhat small area led to them taking a few hits.
Nasir leaned against a rocky wall as he caught his breath. "I'm sick of hitting things to fight... Where's my wand already..."
"I'd definitely appreciate some kind of weapon at this point too, just my spikes aren't going to be enough if this gets much worse..."
After a little while, the two took a look around. There was another teleporter that would likely get them back, and a small crate on the ground. "Hope there's something good in that, or this was pointless..." Nasir opened up the crate, checking what was inside. A shovel, a note, a rapier, and a sling... "Hm, seems like a good haul. Never used a rapier before, but I can probably figure it out... And I guess I've got a ranged option now, just gotta gather up some rocks."
Nox checked the note. "'In the shadow of the blue light, I buried it.'... Maybe that's referring to that healing crystal?"
Nasir nodded, smiling. "Not too hard to think like I do, huh? Hang onto that crate if you can, we can carry more stuff in it." It was a little awkward, but Nox managed to carry the crate as the two retraced their steps. After healing themselves at the crystal, Nasir grabbed the shovel and reread the note to be sure. "...Okay, so... It's probably on the side of that tree that's opposite the crystal. Give me some help, this might take a while." The two dug for a while where Nasir indicated... And eventually, sure enough, they unearthed a chest!
"Sweet! Can't believe people actually do this!" While he was a bit tired from the digging, Nox opened up the chest. All it had was wooden leg armor of some kind... "...That's it?"
"Ugh, all that work... It's better than nothing, at least. You should probably take it, you actually fight with your legs. Let me help you get them on..." Nasir strapped the legplates onto Nox's front legs. "Heh, now we just need another pair for your back ones."
"This should be fine. Feels weird, but hopefully they'll work. Now, you said that statue back there might be important?"
"Right. I want to try giving it the rapier." They both returned to the door and statue, and Nasir put the rapier in the statue's hands... And the door opened, revealing a staircase descending into what looked like ruins.
Nox shook his head. "It's like you already know what to do..."
"I've just sort of got a sense for this stuff at this point. I'm sure there'll be things I can't figure out quick." Nasir experimentally picked up the rapier again, and found that the door stayed open. Without much else to do, they both went down.
The stairs did indeed lead to ruins, and oddly had some lit torches as well. "These can't be more than a few hours old, whoever lives here maintains this place. Good thing, too, I can't see in the dark like you can."
"Ah, now HERE'S something I can do." Nox carefully grabbed one of the torches with his tongue to light the way. "Jutht gotta not let it thlip down."
"Oh, thanks. It would've been kind of a pain to carry one of those myself, might've burned my feathers." While the two started to explore some, they stopped as they heard some shuffling ahead.
Nox kept his voice low. "Think that'th another fith thing?"
"...No, those guys hopped around, whatever this is isn't doing that..." Nasir carefully peeked ahead a bit, remembering the introduction to the previous type of creature. Something bipedal was ahead, covered in enough bandages that they looked like a mummy... Which, as Nasir looked them over, was exactly what it was. "...Apparently it's a mummy. Alive, somehow. Whoever lives here is a necromancer."
"Don't know what a necromanther ith, but I don't like the thound of it."
"We're definitely going to be fighting that mummy. Try to hit it with the torch, I doubt it'll like being burned." This time, it was the duo's turn to ambush the enemy, and the mummy was thoroughly defeated in a shower of sparks like always.
"Those certainly aren't going to be an issue if there aren't many at once. Hope there's never more than a few at a time..."
"Or, hope we'll be tougth enougth to handle them at that point." As they looked around some more and solved another simple puzzle similar to the one in the cave leading from the beach, gaining access to another room, a second crate was found, which Nasir opened as it was in an alcove a bit too high for Nox. "Woah, there's a flintlock pistol in here... You might actually be able to use this. There's even some-"
"Nathir, focuth, there'th more mummieth!" Narrowly avoiding being clawed by one in his distracted state, Nasir joined Nox in yet another fight. While there were 3 mummies this time, they still weren't much threat. "Um, what was I gonna say... Right, there's a bunch of pellets for that pistol."
"Ath dexthr... Dexthrouth..." Nox set the torch down. "Ugh, so annoying, I just want to talk right... As dexterous as my tongue is, I don't think it's gonna be enough for that."
Nasir sighed. "Yet another thing you can't use... It probably wouldn't be good to focus on using a gun anyway, it'd run out of ammo quick. We'll find something eventually." After emptying the crate to remember they'd checked it, they carried on, Nox begrudgingly bringing the torch, soon reaching a third room and taking down another pair of mummies. An altar was in the middle of the room, with a small horn on it.
Once he'd taken a moment to ensure it'd be safe, Nasir picked up the horn and inspected it. "Smells like dirt... Is this all we're getting in here?"
Nox set down the torch to talk. "Even you don't know what to do with this one, huh?"
"Nope, no idea... It's definitely important though." Stowing the horn, he led the way up a set of stairs on the opposite side of the room, which led back outside. Nox had brought the torch up, and tossed it aside as the sunlight returned. "Good riddance..." A button was nearby, and with his tongue freed, he pressed it, causing a rock wall to open up to the area with the healing crystal. "Oh, nice. So... Now what?"
"Think there was a way we haven't gone..." Nasir looked to both sides, and sure enough, there was a path to the left. "That way." It led to an open area, with a closed gate on one side and a closed door with a nearby lock on another, and a circle of rocks in the middle. A stone sign next to the gate mentioned standing in the circle of stones to call out someone's "servants."
Nasir cautiously looked around. "...Don't suppose you play video games, do you?"
"With what hands?"
"Right, yeah. Anyway, this just feels like a prime spot for a boss fight..."
"Well, this isn't a game."
"I guess, yeah. Um... Maybe if I blow that horn in the circle..." Nasir stepped into the circle of stones, got out the horn, and sounded it. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, before they both heard and felt a rumbling. "...What's-" Nox didn't manage to get anything more out, as some kind of large plant monster burrowed out of the ground behind him, biting him before he could realize what was happening! "Ah, help!"
Nasir moved to do so, before a second plant blocked his path, attacking him as well! "Oh god, what did I do!?"
"Damn it, I should've kept that torch!"
It was a tough fight, as the plants kept burrowing around and occasionally even spitting poison, but they eventually were defeated. They both turned to sparks, of course, but something more strange happened with the second one: When it disappeared, a glowing gem appeared and rose a few feet into the air, hovering in place. Nasir stood ready to attack it if needed, but nothing happened. Keeping his eyes on it just in case, he called out to Nox. "You okay?"
"I'm gonna be when we get back to that crystal... Don't touch whatever that thing is yet, we can't take another fight like that!" Slowly and cautiously, they both fell back to the healing crystal, refreshed themselves, and returned to the weird gem with a bit more confidence. Not quite as on edge as before, Nasir slowly reached out to touch the gem-
"NASIR. Stop touching things if you don't know what they are, you're gonna get us killed!"
"S-sorry! I'm usually better than this..." Instead, he poked the gem with the rapier. It shifted a little, but then went back to where it was. "...I THINK we're good..." With a sigh from Nox, Nasir touched the gem directly to no effect, then grabbed it out of the air. Its glow faded some, but it still had strange multicolored lights. "Whatever this is, there's a LOT of magic power in it... But I don't think we can do anything with it right now."
"Oh, great, all that for something we can't use. At least that gate's open, we better be done with this now. Let me take the lead, we both know I'm better at dealing with places where the environment itself wants you dead."
"Y-yeah, you are..." Nasir sheepishly followed Nox after putting the odd gem away.
The path beyond the gate led into a forest, with a sign stating "Twigroot forest." On the ground beneath it was a sack that clearly had something in it, which Nox carefully poked at before opening. There was a mortar and pestle inside - which Nasir was quite pleased with finding - alongside a letter... And Nasir's wand! "YES, finally!" He immediately grabbed it, immensely relieved to have his magic back.
"Don't you dare lose it, we need everything we can get."
The two read out the letter together. "Welcome to my island! I will admit, it's somewhat unusual for only two people to be here, but that just means less trouble for the monsters. I wonder how you're faring so far... Likely not well. A basic shadeling and a wizard with no spell tool isn't a particularly good combination. But, perhaps you'll prove me wrong, especially with me blocking the sun's UV rays for you... We'll see. Although, I believe I've found something of yours, wizard. It refuses to function for me, and seems intent on escaping my grasp, so I see little reason not to return it to you. And I'll see to scattering about some weapons compatible with the shadeling's anatomy, as well. Good luck to both of you! -The Island Master" Above the signature was an odd symbol with three bumps on the top of an oval section with some curved lines.
"So this is the guy behind all this... If he's so smart, why'd he get my species wrong?"
"Shadeling is an old term for umbrakin. It hasn't been used in decades though... How long has this guy been out here...?"
"No point thinking about that, we need to focus. There might be things worse than those roots around."
"Right, yeah..." With that, the two continued once more, nervous about what other dangers the island might have had...
![[NMA] Swampy assistance](https://sf.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5933/5933601_lolboy4_fid_lenn_search_blue_noncustom.jpg "[NMA] Swampy assistance")
