War of Fire

Out to Sea

We had been walking for a while, following the map. We had made it out of the mountains in a few hours, and now we were hiking through the forest. It was getting more and more dense as we walked, and the leaves were all orange due to the coming of autumn. We hear a rustling of leaves somewhere in the forest, and we drew our swords. We saw a bush moving around, a few leaves falling off. Out the side of it came a small brown and black raccoon. "Oh, well," Laurence said. We all giggled at the fact that we almost attacked a harmless raccoon.

Three hours later

The forest was starting to get less thick as we approached the end of it. Soon enough the bright green grass started to fade into sand. We walked along the coast, following the map. We took a look at the map, and saw that we were supposed to go out to sea right when we reached an apparently large boulder. It wasn't far, just a mile. If we moved quickly, we can get there in twenty minutes.

25 minutes later.....

We were walking along the coast still, as we started to see a rather large boulder, stretching out over the turquoise ocean. Seaweed lined the bottom edges of it, with algae there too. We took a long look around; the person who left the letter must have left a boat for the person who was supposed to show up. I saw Laurence heading off into the forest to look for a boat. Me and Lucinda followed not far behind him. I saw a large group of shrubs off to the left a bit. On a hunch, I walked over to them and went behind them. Sure enough, there was.... Nothing? Really? This was going to take a while. I stood there staring at the shrubs for a minute, wondering where else I should look. Something there caught my eye, though- I saw a thin, dark gray slab wedged into the shrubs. It was rough on the edges, so I was careful when I picked it up. I could tell, by the texture, that it was a small chalkboard. It had some messy white handwriting on it. It was hard to read, but possible.

Down the coast a mile is a jungle. Find the first river you see, and follow it. At the end is a lake. It's surrounded by vines, so you'll have to look carefully for it. In the lake is the boat I said I'd leave you. The river is big enough to sail through, and then go in one direction until you reach land. Good luck.

Just then, Laurence came out through the trees. "Find anything?" he asked me. I nodded, not looking up from the mini chalk board. "Really?" he clarified, as he came up to me to look at the slab. He read it under his breath to himself. "We should go and show this to Lucinda." I said. He nodded, and we went off in the other direction to look for her. We soon reached that boulder, and then we saw her walked around the boulder, examining it. "Hey, Lucinda, we found something over in the forest!" I called to her. She looked over at us, and started approaching us. We showed her it and she said: "Wow, they really don't know how to hide stuff well, do they?" "Well, they can't hide it well, really. They needed the other person to find this note, but we found it first." I said. "True," she said. "So, should we head out to look for the boat?" Laurence asked. "Yeah, sounds good." I said. We walked along the sandy coast for about an hour and a half, until we saw a fairly wide river. I saw a large amount of tall jungle trees, thick as soon as you entered the bright green grass. They were about two yards wide, those trees. I looked up at the high canopy as we walked along the river. We started to lose it as the vines thickened to hide it. They did a good job. But, we did soon find our way back to the wide river. We followed it for about a half a mile in, and we finally reached the rather large lake. As we had gotten closer to it, we heard the steady creaking of the boat swaying from side to side in the calm water. The water in the lake was surprisingly clear and blue- there were a few green and navy blue fish darting around, and some coral and seaweed around the lake's floor. We approached the lake, and looked up at the boat. It was fairly big, but not super big. It was just large enough to hold all of us for a decent amount of time. "How do we get on? There's no dock," Laurence asked. We stared at the boat for a second, and then Lucinda said that she can make a long enough bridge to reach the boat if she uses her magiks. She took her staff from her back, and used it to create a misty and colorful bridge to the top deck of the boat. We took a step into the bridge; it was stable. We then walked all the way across, then boarding he boat. We took a look around the top deck. Towards the front was the steering wheel, and in the back was a door that led to the bottom deck. The door creaked as I opened it. Inside the room was a bunch of barrels full of bananas, apples, and cocoa beans. That was a lot of food... We were set. Maybe down the stairs was more food, I thought to myself hopefully. Downstairs was a few beds, five of them to be exact. They were lined up against the left wall of the ship, with tiny windows above each. I kneeled onto a bed to look out one of the windows, and to see all the sea life under water. I saw the same blue fish there, still making their way around the water. I got off the bed, and looked to what was on the right and end sides of the ship. On the end were three large chests, and on the right was some barrels. The barrels contained water, milk, and beer in a few also. But that was just the bottom row. On the top were some barrels filled with oranges, sugar, flour, and wheat. A few dangling light bulbs hung off of rusty metal chains, producing a dim light in the room. I walked to the end of the below-deck area to the chests. I opened the one in the middle. Weapons. There were two bows, two enchanted swords, and a... wand? This was kind of perfect for our group, surprisingly. But why would a shadow knight need a wand? I went to the other chest. A bunch of long paper bags? What was the purpose of that supposed to be? I picked one up. It was heavy- something was in it. I opened it up at the top, and then looked inside. Oh! There was a loaf of bread inside it. This was good, because we don't know how to cook well. I guess that Lucinda could summon some food for us, though. In the bottom of the chest were some smaller bags, which revealed a variety of different flavors of cheese inside of them. The last chest was split into two parts. One was full of ended pearls, and the other was full of jars of magma cream. Magma cream can come in handy, for example, I could use it for certain spells. This was different, though, because even if you aren't a magiks user, you can use it. Out of no where, the boat gave a movement forward, and I fell back onto the ground. Doing that, the jar I was holding fell back into the chest. Luckily, it didn't break, though. Laurence came rushing down the stairs. "Lucinda started to sail the boat-" he trailed off. "Are you okay!?" he asked, coming over to help me up. "I'm fine, Laurence," I told him. "There's actually some pretty useful stuff down here," I said, brushing off my pants. "Really? Like what?" he said, looking around. "Well, we have an assortment of drinks," I started, laughing. "And then we have some cheese, bread, bows, swords, ender pearls, magma cream, and a wand," I told him pretty much everything that was down here. "Also fruits, a lot of them." I said. He raised his eyebrows, surprised at the amount of supplies we have. "And beds, obviously." he added. "Obviously!" I agreed, giggling. He smiled. "Hey guys, got a minute?" Lucinda called us from above deck. "Yeah, coming!" I replied. I looked to Laurence, and he nodded. We went up the stairs, then out the door onto the main area. We went and stood next to Lucinda to see what she wanted us here for: "We've reached the ocean," she said. I looked out at the open sea, everything I could see was blue. It was amazing, how big it was, if you thought about it. Even if I saw it every time I woke up in Phoenix Drop out my window. The further you looked out, the darker the sea got; it was getting deeper and deeper as we got out. I wasn't scared of this boat sinking, I'm not sure why. I trust boats, probably because I've never been in a boat and it sank. We stood there for a few minutes, until we heard a loud crack of thunder. We jumped- the sky had been so clear when we boarded not long ago! Now the sky way quickly getting darker, clouds crowding together. "There's a storm coming," Kaetlyn said. "We should go down below deck." Laurence says. I nodded. We walked across the floor, our footsteps heavy on the oak planks. We opened that creaky door, and stepped inside. "We're set food-wise," Lucinda said. "Yeah," I agreed. Within the next minute, we started to hear tapping on the ceiling; it was raining. "We're going to be stuck down here for a while," I said. Lucinda nodded, agreeing.
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It had been about five hours since the storm started, and we were fine. Eventually we had given up on waiting for it to give, and we took a nap. I had woken up about ten minutes ago, and the storm was coming to an end. The rain was getting less heavy, and loud. Also, the lighting and thunder had been less frequent. I went upstairs, and looked out the window. Yes, the clouds were getting lighter, and separating. Just then the rain let up, and I went outside. It was still a bit cloudy, but that was perfectly fine. We can still sail. The sun was also starting to peek out from behind the gray clouds. I went downstairs to wake up Lucinda and Laurence. When we came up, I saw something in the distance. It was surrounded by fog and haze, but I could make out land. This was not our stop, though... This was snowy. Something told me that we were no where near a savannah.