“Okay.” Bunton smiled as he finished dragging the trees out. As much as the man enjoyed felling them, it was obvious he relished this second part of the job. “Good work. The trees will calm down in a few minutes, so don’t mind them. First, we don’t want any branches. Stand back, because this is the messy part.”

Bunton went to work, and the results were something to watch. He tore through the tree like a storm, taking off every single limb from five trees in just a few minutes.

“Now we want the bark. See how this is a smooth barked tree? We can cut a line in each of the trunks like so.” He ran back and forth with an agility that was far beyond what he showed when fighting the actual trees, carving a deep line across the entire length of each tree. “Now peel that off, Riv. Don’t worry about tearing it. It will come off easy enough.”

They were left with several long sheets of bark, all of which Riv rolled into a neat bundle and bound with rope. It was hard for Marco to say how tough the bark was, but it was certainly flexible. It rolled up tighter than a parchment scroll, so compact that Aethe was able to take charge of all of them herself.

“Now, the wood on these trees is mostly worthless. The outer wood, anyway. Lucky for you, these are mostly heartwood, and the heartwood is pretty much gold. None of you can help with this part, so sit tight. I’ll be about an hour.”

They watched as the old man butchered the trees, carving plank after long plank from the smaller trees. When he had finally ripped the smaller ones to shreds and got everything he could from them, he took a different tactic with the largest tree, simply removing all the useless outer wood until he got to the core, which he then put over his own shoulder like it weighed nothing.

“The rest of the planks you all need to carry. Riv should be able to carry most of them. This one is mine. Just make sure you stay good and clear of me when I turn. The ends of this would hit pretty hard,” Bunton commanded, and everyone was more than happy to comply after seeing the Chopper’s skill around wood.

It was lunch when they got back to town, and all the wood was temporarily stored in a pile off the path as they ate. Floater found them halfway through.

“Come quick. Something’s happened.” His face was dark. “Kelda is calling for you.”

“Got it. On my way.” Marco sprang to his feet. “What about the others?”

“Probably better if they stay. Safer. But it’s up to you.”

In the end, they all came along. Riv simply was too curious, and Elisa wanted to make sure things were handled well. Aethe, it appeared, was just flat-out concerned for her new boyfriend. She glued herself to his arm as they moved forward.

“Glad you came. I’m guessing that’s your problem.” Kelda pointed out sea. “If it is, I hope you can tell me how to deal with it.”

Out in the ocean was a floating fortress. A familiar one.

“Frisk,” Marco said. “I didn’t think he’d find me this fast. Or at all.”

“You know him, then. He’s been making a beeline here for an hour now. No hurry, but direct,” Kelda said.

“Sounds like him. He’s not a problem for your island, I think. I’m his goal.” Marco shook his head. Whatever he might want to do, he couldn’t very well conscript the island into his private battles. They had been good to him, and stood no chance at all of actually defending him if it came down to that. “Just hand me over, I think, and take good care of my friends. That should do the trick.”

Kelda gave him a long look.

“Gods, boy. You went dark fast. I think I have what I need, anyway. Get in the trees, back there. Hunker down. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“But…”

“Now.”

Kelda’s class was unknown, but there was something in her voice that felt impossible to disobey. Marco thought it wasn’t a class thing at all. She had just lived a lot of life and seen a lot of things, and was somehow able to communicate that in a simple word. Soon enough, he was behind cover, crouching down in a shadow and hoping it was enough. The message light from the ship came in soon after, flashing an image of the captain into being near Kelda, who had walked out to the shoreline and made herself visisble.

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“You are in charge?” Frisk asked. “Of this island?”

“Something like that. Is there any particular reason you’ve brought a battleship to my doorstep? I’m hoping it’s to take care of our pirate problem,” Kelda stated.

“Pirates?”

“Dozens of ships, and not a hint of help from your government. Not for lack of asking, either. Now, the last ship we saw was sailing east. If you leave now.…”

Frisk raised his hand.

“Stop. As much as I’d like to help, that’s not what I’m here for. I have another quarry,” Frisk said.

Kelda was a fine actress. Despite having a fugitive hiding precious few yards away, she shot the captain a glare so withering in an exhausted-grandma sense even the commanding officer of a floating fortress wilted in front of it.

“Should have known,” Kelda hissed before taking a more pleasant tone. “And what’s more important than the lives of citizen-settlers? I’d like to know. Please do tell me, captain… what’s your name, son?”

“Frisk.”

“Please do tell me what’s so important.”

Frisk gathered himself and tried to glare back before being neatly defeated by the woman’s gaze. He kept talking, anyway.

“A young male. Newly classed. Bearing an evil class, known criminal dealings. A danger. He would have been in an undersized ship, hardly better than a rowboat. Given that your little mystery island hides itself, I doubt he came here. But if he did, we’d need to know about it. Immediately.”

Marco sighed inwardly. If nothing else, his ship would give him away. The Foolish Endeavor was like no other craft, which meant it could be picked out of a crowd with no difficulty at all. If anything, the battleship should have seen it already. The fact that it hadn’t seemed to come down to one thing and one thing only. It wasn’t there.

“The ship,” Marco whispered. “What did they do with my ship?”

“We haven’t seen your boy, I’m afraid,” Kelda lied without even skipping a beat. “And now that you know that, I’d like to ask you to handle our damn pirate problem. They are like a nest of wasps. Kick a rock and ten pirates pop out at you, angry as hell. We’ve lost people.”

“No time. We have our mission.”

“Then take a break from it. A simple patrol….”

Frisk seemed to lose his patience then. He couldn’t risk yelling at Kelda without causing a bigger incident, given that the woman obviously hadn’t heard of backing down. He couldn’t get anything more from an island that only wanted to get work out of him. This whole trip must have been looking like a loss, and his actions reflected that.

“I can’t help. I will put in a word when we return to more civilized lands. I beg your pardon, and I’m taking my leave now,” Frisk said so fast that his last words blended together.

“Wait a second, you rotten, lazy….”

“Good day, madam.”

With not even a single additional word, Frisk dissipated into a burst of light and was gone.

“Stay put,” Kelda said out loud. “I have to look angry for a bit. Just give it ten minutes.”

Where Frisk had approached the island cautiously, he went full speed getting away from it. The ship was big but fast, and was out of view before the ten minutes were even up.

“Okay. You can come out. You and I might have established a debt there, boy,” Kelda said once the ship was out of view for a minute or so.

“I’ll say.” Marco said. “No argument at all. Though what did you do with my boat?”

“We put it in drydock, in that warehouse over there. Just had some of the burlier classes drag it in on skids. We weren’t trying to hide it when it first happened, just wanted to put it somewhere safe.” Kelda paused. “Though it sure worked out well. Your ship would have been spotted from a mile away. Whatever else that captain might have imagined, it wasn’t that we’d tug a tiny enemy ship clean out of the water to disappear it.”

“Well, let me know what I can do to repay this. You put your island in the ante pile there. I’m not sure what we can do to make up for that,” Marco said.

“It’s not the time to talk about it now, anyway.” Kelda waved back towards the meal area. “That interrupted your meal. Get back to it. Take your rest. See to your ship. After that, we can talk.”

They returned to their plates and finished their food. Riv and Aethe both took seconds, both seeming to basically be bottomless pits as far as food consumption was concerned. Marco wondered how they were able to hold themselves back on the sea. Neither of them took more than their share of the daily rations. Most of his mind, however, was spent on other things. They had all seen what just happened, so there was little need to talk about it. Instead, they talked about wood.

“It’s good stuff,” Riv said. “I’m not a carpenter or shipwright, but I can tell that much. It’s good stuff.”

“Monster materials usually are, as rare as they are,” Elisa said. “Let alone how seldom you see them outside of a dungeon.”

“This is an odd place,” Aethe said. “I’ve never even heard of an island that can disappear. Or one that changes into a resource paradise overnight. Or one with living trees. Not outside of a dungeon or a place like the hidden sea.”

“So what is it, then?” Marco set his fork down on his plate. “Elisa, you must have some idea.”

“None. Absolutely none. There’s nothing like it anywhere.” She tapped her own fork, then dropped it on the table. “I think if we get a chance, we had better go exploring. I talked to Bunton on the way out there, you know. He said places like that grove are all over. Little special but slightly dangerous zones, all easy to avoid, all with their own special kind of resource. We should take a look at a few.”

“Why?”

“To see what we can see and maybe we get something out of it,” Elisa said in her matter-of-fact voice. It had been a while since Marco heard that tone. “It might be a bust, but we should have time to spare anyway. Have you been keeping up on your charisma stat?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because if this island has something to share, it might share it with you. That way I’d at least get to know what it was.”