The party doesn't take long to reach the peninsula that they seek. They spot the aforementioned the sea lavender along the way, its modest, sweet, perfumy fragrance cutting through some of the mounting tension.
You dock your small boat on the shore of the peninsula and make your way up to the precipice.
You notice a place that looks quite suitable for mooring a boat and find a few hemp fibers on the ground near a large rock with marks where algae and moss had been scraped off in bands, suggesting that a rope was recently wrapped around it.
After a few minutes of looking around, it is impossible to not notice some flashes of light from a distance. You can't quite tell from where other than the direction with an unaided eye, but they appear to be consistent.
The flashing lights may be a coded message.
Tettia looks out over the water, shading her eyes.
"Does anyone else see that light? That's not random. There's... information in that. A code, I think. "
Tettia, being an expert on Aquan grammar, is able to decipher what the message is saying.
“Status? We must go.
Leaving Karnax behind. It is waiting with instructions.”
"Yes, you may be right," Aurelian agrees. "Can you send a message back, do you think? If not, we should just go and find this Karnax!"
"Umm, yeah. I think so. If I had a light or something like that," Tettia answers, her face scrunching up in thought. "I might be able to do with a spell of illumination and a shield to act as a light block."
She looks around and then realizes that no one has a shield.
"Or maybe a cloak? What message should I send?"
"Someone docked here, and not that long ago," says Sarine as she points out the shape of the grotto and the marks left behind by rope. As Tettia finishes deciphering the light signals, Sarine frowns.
"I don't think we should respond at all, Tettia. Given how we got here, it's likely that whoever is sending that signal is with the Faceless. The message said that they were leaving someone with directions behind. Let's go find out what they know before we show our hand."
Primose holds up her light wooden shield "I have a shield, Tettia, should we choose to go that route."
Aurelian shrugs at Sarine's words.
"But if they are watching, they may be surprised when we come if we do not send a message," he replies. "Still, even if they are ready, they will not stop Aurelian Fache. Whatever you think is best is fine with him..."
"If we attempt to fool them with a signal & fail, it could be worse than doing nothing."
Zay frowns, listening to the proposals in a distracted way, more interested in poking at a spot along the shore and crouching to pick up some fibrous strands from the ground.
"I think a craft was moored here until relatively recently."
Standing up, Zay squints at the bright sun playing off the waters, and scratches at an ear before answering. "I say send a message. Short. We've clearly been seen if they're signalling us, and I think no message is worse than a simple one. Perhaps just something like... 'acknowledged'?"
"I think we need to send something," Tettia says. Considering her options for a moment, she reaches into her backpack to pull out one of her wands.
"Silly me," she says, also pulling out a brass lantern. "I can just use this."
A moment later and she has the lantern lit and holding it up she sends flashes of light towards their mysterious neighbor. In perfectly correct Aquan (an A+ message, in fact), she sends, 'Status as planned. Beginning next stage.'
Not long after Tettia's message is complete, a reply message is flashed across the gap: "Acknowledged." After that, the light on the other side stops flickering. As far as you can tell, it will take the group about an hour by boat to reach where the light was coming from.
"They either bought it or they're pretending they bought it," Tettia says with a shrug. "In either case there's not much else we can do. Are we ready to go?"
"You speak excellent Aquan, Miss Tettia. Apparently so do our mysterious message-senders." Zay digs their bare toes into the sandy beach soil, then pulls what looks like a carved piece of driftwood from their pack of things, and murmurs a few words whilst holding the wood. Their sun-browned skin seems to grow rougher and woodier in texture.
"Alright, now I'm ready," Zay says before tucking the piece of wood away. "Let me see if I can find tracks near where that other boat moored..."
"Yes," Aurelian agrees eagerly. "Though first we should make sure they have left no other clues here."
Aurelain and Zay don't find much of note, just some boot-tracks and the aforementioned signs of a boat being moored here.
Having spent a fair portion of their life on or around ships, Zay is able to make suggestions for choices of canvas, the shape to cut it to, and will test and tug at the sail-in-progress as it is formed, before declaring their satisfaction.
Primrose isn't craft or engineery and thus her application of knowledge of engineering principles doesn't translate as well as she likes. "I think you should need to attack that to that, if that makes sense like that." she explains to Zay as she tries her best to offer assistance.
Tettia is happy to provide her knowledge of mathematics and physics in the construction and deployment of a sail.
She seems slightly put out that Zay ... anyone, really ... would have more knowledge about a subject than she does. However, she keeps that to herself.
The party makes short work of rigging up some rudimentary sails, and your new estimate for time would be about five hours before reaching the island from which the light came.
You can tell that a storm will be coming in over the waters around 7:00 PM, in just 3.5 hours. If you were to cast an extended slipstream on the boat the trip would only take you 3.25 hours, just fast enough to avoid the storm altogether.
Zay shades their eyes with one hand and gazes out at the horizon with a weathered squint. "There's a storm coming. In a few hours. I.... should be able to get us there before it breaks," the last said with some reluctance. Zay pokes into the sand with a bare toe.
"But if that's the plan, then we need to go now, to beat that storm."
Zay sits in the stern, draped half over the back, fingers trailing in the water, a drifting, dreamy look on their face. The other hand holds the same driftwood stick as earlier, and slowly, the blond begins to tap it against the wood of the boat, while whistling a curious, piping melody. As the sail fills with wind, the boat seems to receive an extra burst of speed, skimming over the waves light and easy.
Zay is utterly oblivious to Tettia's mild pique, too busy soaking up the sounds of the wind filling and snapping the single sail, the bright sunlight dazzling on the blue waves, and the faint ozone scent of the impending storm. Zay looks likely happier than the others have witnessed-- in their admittedly very short acquaintance.
Your rod would do the trick to extend it. As for weather, you think the storm will last 8 hours from when it starts.
Aurelian enjoys the boat's travels under Zay's power, standing impressively in the prow with one hand on his hilt as he watches for any threats. The storm should likely know better than to try to slow him down.
Tettia, in contrast to Aurelian, huddles down low in the boat, holding her bag close in front of her chest as if to protect it. "Will you sit down?" she hisses to the swashbuckler. "You're rocking the boat!"
"It is the motion of the ocean," Aurelian assures her.
"If this boat capsizes I will never let you hear the end of it," Tettia whines, her face pale.
"But that means you realize Aurelian Fache will save you and you will not die if the boat capsizes," Aurelian points out.
"Once that storm hits, we'll have at least eight hours of rain," Zay says, not seeming terribly discomfited by this prospect. "We should take steps to make sure our boat doesn't fill with water while we're absent, though..."
With the boat having settled into easy, swift motion, extended through the magic of the driftwood stick, Zay reclines against the stern and retrieves a briarwood pipe and small pouch from their pack. Thin fingers retrieve fine, dark tobacco from the little pouch, tamp it into the pipe's bowl, and then, another fingertap lights the weed, a minute spark flickering into the bowl.
"Are you seasick, Miss Tettia?" Zay asks while relaxing bonelessly against the stern, returning one to drape absently over the tiller and the other holding the pipe to their mouth for a slow draw.
The group makes it across the way, just barely beating the storm to shore. With a group effort you find a rock overhang to dock your boat under and successfully secure it for your eventual escape. The island that you've landed on is not dissimilar from Ancorato as far as the flora and fauna around you. Not far off, you see a structure:
An ancient, square, stone tower stands in the sand at the
water’s edge. The tower’s battlements show few cracks
and little wear despite the construction’s apparent age, but
the tower’s upper stories have crumbled away, and only a
broken stump and piles of rubble remain.
Moored not far from the tower in the opposite direction is another boat that is not much larger than your own.
"I'm not seasick," the young woman snaps back, her blond curls a wet mess from the spray of the waves. "I'd just much rather not end up swimming for my life because someone is too cocky to sit down in the stupid boat!"
~~~~~
Once they've reached the shore, Tettia's mood improves drastically. She takes a moment to sketch the main elements of the tower, noting the architectural style before stowing her drawing gear.
"It's interesting that they use Aquan - a language primarily used by water dwellers - to communicate, but still use a boat to travel from one island to another. Shall we investigate?"
"Alright..."
***
Zay gives the boat a pat as if promising wordlessly to return, before carefully emptying out the pipe, wiping the inside of the bowl with the tail end of their shirt (this does the shirt no favors), and returning the pipe safely to their pack.
"Shall we check out that other boat? Or go directly to the tower?"
Aurelian thought you did not like that type of talk," the swordsman says, amused.
"Yes, let us check the boat first," he suggests.
He glances around to see if there's anything he needs to take care of before they head into the tower.
"Wait, what?" Tettia responds to Aurelian's comment. "What type of talk?" she asks suspiciously. She then waves a hand as if dismissing the subject. "You know what? Nevermind. I don't want to know. It was probably ... nevermind."
She leans in close to Primrose and whispers, "It was probably about ... sex. He can't seem to talk about anything else."
"Let's not waste any time, then," Sarine says as she follows Aurelian toward the boat.
Sarine casts False Life as they approach.
Primrose had been doing her best to ignore everyone and everything being said. She kept to herself as her face changed in color. She closed her eyes and held herself with her arms and when Tettia whispers in her ear she can't take it anymore. She turns away and loses her previous meal in a very non-ladylike fashion once, twice and finally after retching a third time she pulls back and plunks down on her bottom.
"Are we there yet?" she groans.
* * *
Once they are finally there, she falls out of the boat and climbs to land on all fours before collapsing on the ground on her stomach and just laying there. "I hate boats, ships and anything not on land. I never want to leave again."
When everyone moves off towards the boat she groans "Can't we lay here for awhile?" before taking her feel reluctantly and trudging along.
Zay gazes down at Primrose in her state of post-horking misery, their own brows drawn slightly. "I should have brewed some mint-ginger tea. It helps. Next time I'll make some before we get back on the boat. I don't remember you being this sick on the ship, Miss Primrose.
"Could you cup your hands for me? You'll want to get that taste of vomit out of your mouth. It's not good to let it linger there."
***
On shore, Zay wordlessly offers a hand to Primrose to try and coax her to her feet.
Like Sarine and Aurelian, Zay is all eyes for the approach to the boat, scanning for tracks and other information.
"Mint works very well for that," Tettia says with a nod. "That's because the menthol in the mint helps relax the muscles of the stomach. So it keeps you from ..." her words trail off when she realizes that she's not helping. "Sorry. When I get nervous I blabber."
"Oh, it's mostly useful information," Zay says blithely to Tettia.
Prim thanks Zay for all of their help on and off the boat, paying no mind to Tettia's not-helpingness. She grumbles "It's questionable useful information at best at this juncture."
The young woman seems to lose about two inches of height at Prim's criticism. "I was just ..." she begins lamely, but then decides that nothing she says will help and closes her mouth and looks away.
Nothing appears to stir in the direction of the tower, and as the group approaches the boat it is quickly evident that no one is nearby. There are quite a few tracks near the boat heading west from here, and with some work they could be identified. The boat itself is labelled Liberty's Herald—it looks to be the size of a ship's boat, not the full ship.
Zay crouches by the tracks, nose scrunched a little.
"This boat, it has a good Andoren name," Aurelian notes.