Stranded Together | Hermitcraft Mermaid au

Chapter 2: Oh God, There's More

It was a few days after the crew had encountered the mer-creature, and Iskall was still trying to repair the fishnet that had been damaged. He was starting to get bored of trying to retie small knots in the net and repair the broken ropes, but luckily Mumbo had invited him to go pole fishing on the lifeboat strung up on the side of the ship.

"You coming Iskall?" Mumbo called out, "I got the boat down in the water!"

"Yeah, yeah, just let me finish this up..." Iskall replied, tying one last knot in the almost repaired net. The Swedish man pushed himself up off the deck of the ship where he was sitting, adjusting the eye patch over his robotic eye as he walked over to Mumbo.

Upon seeing Iskall walking over, Mumbo pulled two fishing rods under his arm grabbing a bucket with the same hand, and swung his legs over the ship railing and onto a rope ladder. Iskall followed suit, climbing over the railing and grabbing hold of the rope ladder and climbing down to the much smaller wooden paddle boat.

Iskall seated himself in the boat behind Mumbo and grabbed the wooden paddles, placed them in the paddle rests and began to row the boat some distance away from the ship. Without the ship in the way, the two men began fishing. The two men talked occasionally, and bragged about each fish they caught to the other, but the two mostly fished in silence.

It had been a couple of hours or so, and Iskall was enjoying doing something other than fidgeting with the small ropes of the fishing net, especially in the company of one of his good friends. Iskall had made recent friends with Mumbo, and he had been introduced to the mustached man through another one of his friends, Doc. When Doc invited Iskall to help man the deck of a ship they would be taking on an adventure, as he called it, he ran into Mumbo who was also helping around the ship. The two men quickly became "deck" friends, and also made friends with Impulse and Zedaph who frequently worked on the deck of the ship as well.

Iskall had just reeled in his fishing line with nothing on the end when a yelp came from behind him and the boat suddenly lurched to the side Iskall was sitting on, nearly throwing him into the water. He spun around to see a large splash of water and that Mumbo was no longer in the boat.

"Umm... Mumbo?" Iskall called, centering himself on the fishing boat and looking over the side of the boat where the splash of water came from.

No response. Iskall leaned closer to the water and waited in silence for his friend to hopefully resurface. He was probably playing some kind of joke on him, Iskall thought, although he was starting to get worried about him. Not to make Iskall wait a second longer, a figure burst up from beneath the water, sending Iskall flailing backwards out of surprise. It was Mumbo. He dropped his fishing pole into the boat, then used both his arms to pull his upper body into the boat. He rested there for a second, sputtering and spitting sea water out of his mouth before he spoke up.

"Could you help me out here?" Mumbo said to Iskall.

"Oh- yeah." Iskall replied, laying down his own fishing pole and grabbing one of Mumbo's arms, helping him back into the boat. Iskall had turned to face Mumbo in the boat. The man was completely soaked with sea water, his black hair slicked down on his head with water.

Iskall couldn't help but snicker, "What kind of fish are you trying to catch over there?"

Mumbo brushed his wet hair out of his face, "I was sure I just had a really big fish on my hook..."

"You know, the last time you said something like that, you caught some kind a mermaid." Iskall said, "or so I was told." Mumbo opened his mouth to offer a retort but then closed it again and looked over his shoulder. Iskall started speaking again, "Don't tell me-"