"Yes, what is it, Teedu?"
"Lord Quentin, there is a situation in the control room that demands your immediate attention." Teedu's voice was distorted and fuzzy, like he was talking through an old radio.
Quentin wished he had spent more time learning about technology the last time humans had their second industrial revolution.
"Thank you, Teedu. I will be down shortly."
He pressed the surface of his watch again, closing the tattered notebook he had been reading prior to the interruption. After retrieving his thin jacket from the rack, he extinguished the magical fire illuminating the space with a snap of his fingers.
Teedu was waiting for him when opened the door to the circular control room. The holographic sphere that had once filled the center display was now replaced by a flat, two-dimensional map of a chain of islands.
"Your agents have awoken, Lord Quentin. Would you like me to summon Lord Gabriel to hear the news?"
Quentin gave the servant a quick nod, and he dismissed himself. Now alone, he looked over the map of the islands.
The largest had a prominent red dot that pulsated in slow intervals. The typography of the land was rough and irregular. The largest island was mostly mountainous, a deep well indicating a caldera at its center. The red dot glowed from within the caldera.
Four green dots, and one blue dot were scattered in various places around the island chain, all but one of the dots had moved from where they were placed originally. The dot that had not moved concerned Quentin the most. As he pondered a plan to approach this problem, the door to the control room opened again.
Gabriel stepped into the room, striding over to Quentin's side at a leisurely pace.
"What's the news?" He looked up at the display, picking out the locations of the dots. "Ah, your . Why is that one blue?" Gabriel pointed at the blue dot.
"They should all be blue. But that's not what concerns me." Quentin had cleaned himself up since last time Gabriel had seen him. He stroked his well-trimmed beard, contemplating.
Gabriel turned to him, raising an eyebrow. "I assume giving them access to magic as soon as they arrive on these islands was part of your plan?"
Quentin nodded. "Yes, but it doesn't make sense why it only worked for one of them."
"Well, how did you give intend to give it to them? Skill books? Ritual? Intravenous injection?"
"There were these platforms—"
***
Beth trudged through the dense undergrowth, frequent trips on branches and slips in mud set her back, but were not enough to stop her. There was no real landmark to go off of besides the mountain she had awoken at, so the only way was forward. The landscape was uneven and treacherous at times, likely worn down by the intense storms that usually plagued the tropics.
Her splint seemed to be holding for now, though she did stop to check it more often than was probably necessary. Vigilance was a good habit to have in this environment, one likely to save her life in the future.
Progress through the jungle was slow-going, but Beth needed to keep moving. It was imperative that she find her friends, assuming they had to be nearby. They all had been on the deck of Todd's boat the night before, though she didn't remember passing out after seeing the bizarre constellation in the night sky.
Keeping her mind preoccupied with figuring out her situation seemed to be her most effective way of coping with the constant pain from her leg. That is how she had coped with the pressures of the RAF and life on base back home.
Home.
She wanted to reminisce, but couldn't afford to get too caught up in homesickness. The RAF, and by extension, her commanding officer, would surely notice her being gone longer than requested. Flexibility with taking leave is one thing, but returning days or weeks late would be unacceptable.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She pushed those thoughts out of her mind. There was no way of knowing how long it would be before she could return home.
Her path through the jungle opened up into a wide clearing, with a deep sinkhole in the center. The pit was just deep enough to make climbing out of it a challenge, if not impossible, without proper gear. At the bottom, a familiar man lay unconscious on a patch of gravel, surrounded by mud and puddles of murky water.
***
Roy's journey to the main island ended earlier than expected. Unfortunately for him, it was not a successful journey either. He was sitting in the grass at the top of the beach, staring longingly across the blue expanse separating the two islands.
After a long session of brooding, Roy stood up to continue his exploration of the island. If it ended here, then the island was not as large as he had initially guessed.
It seemed to be long and narrow, with a thick jungle running through the center. The island was wide enough to prevent him from all the way across it, except at the narrowest end, closest to the main island. The vegetation obscured the geography further inland, forcing Roy to find out the hard way.
Before venturing into the overgrowth, he backed up as far as he could on the beach, gazing above the treetops for any hills or mountainous areas poking through. His hunch paid off when he spotted a tall, sheer rock face at the center of his island.
He wondered if he would be able to get a better view to the other islands. He couldn't contain his excitement at that thought, and at finding a new destination to head towards. The early setback had deflated his enthusiasm, but he felt renewed at a new prospect. With little hesitation, he pushed onward into the dense jungle undergrowth.
***
Traveling through the jungle in sandals was a terrible idea, though Roy trudged on anyway. Thick, sticky mud patches, threatened to steal the sandals right off of his feet. He found it best to avoid them altogether, but every other surface was coated in a layer of moss or mud, sometimes forcing him to trudge through the muddy ground.
As he ventured deeper, the lack of wildlife or insects became increasingly unnerving. What little he knew about jungles, he knew that they should be absolutely everywhere. It was uncanny, like he was inside a theme park. It was the same feeling he had earlier in the day upon gaining access to the user interface.
When he stopped to rest on a rock, he opened his user interface menu to inspect it again. The health display for his left foot had changed to a yellow-green, but his head still looked more orange than yellow. He was facing east, following the direction of the hill he had seen from the beach.
Nothing else had changed about it from what he could tell, so he returned to his long trek through the jungle.
***
It was now late evening, and the sheer cliff face Roy had seen earlier loomed overhead. At the base of the cliff, there was a small crevasse in the rock. He rushed forward with the exciting prospect of spelunking in a real cave, stopping at the entrance to peer inside. It was dark and narrow. It seemed just large enough for him to crawl in, though the possibility of getting stuck terrified him.
With the sun now setting, he was out of options. He steeled himself, and venturing into the cave.
It was nearly impossible to see, his eyes taking a long time to adjust to the low light. He was able to make out the end of the cave, disappointed at how shallow it was. It had opened up to a larger cavern, barely tall enough for him to stand.
Roy ran his hand along the cool, damp walls of the cave, shrieking in surprise at the appearance of a notification when his hand touched a strangely geometric stone embedded in the wall.
Interactable: [Stone Button]
Press?
[Yes] / [No]
With a moment of a thought, he mentally accepted the prompt.
The cave lit up in a blue and purple glow, a hidden lantern embedded in the rock at the top of the space providing light.
His eyes clenched shut at the sudden brightness. As they slowly adjusted, he noticed writing in a language he didn't recognize drawn on the walls. There were geometric diagrams and symbols, similar to the constellation he had seen before blacking out and waking up on the island.
Roy gazed around at the sight in awe, before falling back in surprise at the emergence of a pedestal in the center of the room. The top of pedestal was flat, presenting an ancient scroll tightly bound in a leather string. It looked perfectly preserved, but he wondered if it would bring some sort of curse with it.
Shrugging off the potential dangers, he retrieved the scroll, and unraveled it with slow, gentle movements.
Intricate, alien symbols had been scribbled across the interior of the scroll. Messy lines connected small dots and large circles with a symbol within it. There was no distinct shape to the diagram, unlike the eye constellation he had seen before.
He brushed his hand lightly across the surface, feeling the texture of the paper. A new notification appeared in his vision.
Consumable: [Scroll of Awakening]
Would you like to use?
[Yes] / [No]
He raised an eyebrow at the text. "That name seems suspiciously vague. What is it awakening? What is this supposed to do?" He looked around at the cave walls for answers. None of the drawings gave any indication to their purpose, nor did scroll itself.
"Sure, why not? Maybe it'll awaken a love of beets for me." His face scrunched at the sour thought of their taste. "Never mind, that'd be impossible."
The scroll reacted to his acceptance, each of the symbols inside the circles glowing blue. Matching symbols on the walls also began to glow blue, overpowering the purple light from above.
His eyes began to burn, and the headache returned in full swing. The scroll dropped out of his hands as he fell to the floor, clutching his scalp and crying out from the pain.
Roy blacked out, collapsed on the floor of the damp cave. The light from the walls faded, returning the space to a soft, purple glow.