Reflections on the Warpath - [An Isekai Progression Fantasy]

After mooring the Ana-Marta, Mahon had taken Jack to find an island guide. He said that a group of four gladiators would be too intimidating even if they were allied with the resistance. As a result of that, Marko, Corrine, and Jay were tasked to scout Hooktown for any Smothering Grasp influence. In actuality, that meant they wandered into the small town searching for anyone who didn't smell like fish or sea salt.

They couldn't find any.

The charming, sun-washed buildings looked beautiful in the early morning light, but since the fishermen had already begun their day's there wasn't much life to the village. Seagulls squawked as they encircled Hooktown from above. Based on the town's emptiness, Jay didn't think they'd have much luck.

"So Jay, you ever been off-island before?" asked Marko.

"Only during the advancement tournament," Jay replied.

"Try opening your stats, or watching a past fight."

Jay tried.

A high-pitched whine needled through Jay's ears as his thoughts walked in circles around the memory of the gold coliseum screens. No matter how vividly he remembered them, Jay couldn't conjure one before him now.

What the hell?

"It doesn't work when you're this far away from the coliseum. The system's too expensive to run over large distances," said Corinne.

She held out a finger and a tiny white bird perched on it, after bringing it to her ear for a second she let the bird fly away and chuckled, only explaining herself when Jay kept staring at her.

"He didn't know the difference between islanders and gladiators, but it was worth a try."

Marko nodded before returning straight back to their conversation.

"Pretty strange, eh? You go years living without floating rectangles until you get to the coliseum then suddenly you get a headache when they don't appear."

"Yeah, that is strange," said Jay. He pointed at a poster nailed to a wooden building deeper inside the town and began walking towards it.

"They do have a system here though," said Marko, once again trying to do anything else but search for the Smothering Grasp Alliance. "But it's not as advanced as the coliseum's, and only merchants get to use it."

"Why's that?" asked Jay.

"It's older," answered Corinne. "And since the Mercantile system works across a whole continent it needs to be simpler otherwise it would just be too expensive. You're not missing out on much though, its only real function is to track wealth and make trade easier across the Shores."

The trio reached the poster, Jay scanned their surroundings for anything suspicious before reading through it.

'The Apex Horizon Mercantile Collective wants to bring wealth, trade, and industry to the Whispertide Archipelago'

The rest of the text spoke about how 'the Directorate', an arm of the Apex Horizon Mercantile Collective, planned to transform the archipelago into a booming trade hub by utilising its natural resources.

Jay looked at the collection of small buildings that made up Hooktown, the wooden structures somehow both idyllic and neglected, depending on how he framed them. Good or bad, Jay doubted the Directorate cared much about the island of Saulin.

SZZZZT.

Marko tore the poster from the wall, scrunching it into a ball and pocketing it.

"Well, it looks like they came here, realised the island had nothing but fishermen, and then left. Not much more to investigate then," he said.

Jay wasn't sure what to think about his teammate's lax approach to investigating, but didn't have time to question Marko before their captain Jack walked over to them followed by a scruffy haired teenager wearing a forest green moko.

"Kestrel, meet Luka. He's our guide for today," said Jack.

Jay, Corinne, and Marko introduced themselves to Luka before telling their captain everything they saw while walking through Hooktown. Luka seemed amused by Marko's harshly honest assessment of the small town and confirmed that the Directorate had visited the island once before never returning.

Jack reminded Kestrel that they still had two spots to investigate, and couldn't ignore the rest of the island just because Hooktown seemed quiet. He decided to leave the town, knowing they'd have time to investigate it again before they left. Jay agreed with his decision; the crack of dawn wasn't exactly the best time to investigate a town and its people.

Saulin's forest didn't have the oppressive heat and humidity that the Emergent Bloom had; it didn't have the aggressive wildlife either, for which Jay was even more grateful. Compared to his experience last week, the trek across Saulin was light work.

Kestrel talked as they walked, although Jack steered the conversation away from their alliance whenever it veered too close, presumably to limit what Luka heard. The youngster didn't speak much, preferring to listen to Marko's ramblings and laugh at Corinne's rebuttals rather than join in with them. He did tell them more about the Archipelago's situation as they walked however.

The Directorate had arrived on Whispertide shores five years ago and strong-armed their way into control, buying out the region's three largest ports and steering the trade towards their many shadow companies. Two years after they arrived, the Directorate ramped up their operations and began opening mines across the Titan bones within the Archipelago, even after the locals protested.

The people of the Titanic Shores weren't as combative as the rest of Eterna. Most of the continent's harmonisers didn't focus their essence on fighting and the ones that did certainly didn't live in the Whispertide Archipelago. Because of this, the Directorate didn't bring many soldiers to enforce their control over the region.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Their strategy saved them money and might have even worked if it wasn't for don Enzo and the Howling Wind. Luka didn't know how the resistance started, but he knew that the Howling Wind had once struck hard and fast against the Directorate. The company were almost forced out of Whispertide, but they held on for enough time for reinforcements to arrive and had been reasserting their dominance over the islands over the past year.

Curiously, Luka didn't know anything about the Smothering Grasp Alliance. It seemed like most of the natives, as well as the gladiators, had been kept in the dark about the B grade fight until it began.

"Not long left now," said Luka. He sat on the ground for a short rest, looking up at the four gladiators while trying not to pant. Kestrel had cut a good pace on the ascent to the Lookout, the second key location on their list, and until now the boy had been too prideful to ask for a break.

"Looks like the forest ends soon," said Jay.

Luka finished a big gulp of water before nodding back.

"Trees can't grow this high," he said. "It's too windy. All the islands here have irregular up-drafts and wind currents surrounding them, some more than others. Saulin is completely fine at sea level but the winds get more aggressive the higher up you get."

"I wondered why there weren't as many animals up here," said Corinne.

"The smaller ones might get swept away by a strong gust, the bigger ones… they're scared too."

Jay was about to ask Luka what the bigger animals were scared of when the youngster stood up and began walking again. He dismissed the thought as nothing before following the boy uphill. When they reached the edge of the treeline, Luka tied the spare cloth from his moko into a knot around his waist and encouraged Kestrel to do the same. The waterproof cloaks worked great as windbreakers but Jay could see them catching the wind like sails if the mountaintop was as gusty as Luka promised.

Even wrapped up and expecting a battle, the buffeting winds punched Jay in the chest less than ten paces from the safety of the treeline. A gust knocked him half a step back before another assaulted him from his flank, almost tipping him off balance. Jay crouched to his knees, dropping a hand to the floor to steady himself against the rapidly switching currents. Ping gave up on flying in the air beside Jay, instead pressing against his back so the wind wouldn't separate them.

Kestrel trudged forward, struggling to match Luka's pace. The teenager was the only one of them who didn't use his hands at any point during the final ascent. Jay assumed it was to impress them but Jay was more shocked by the lad's foolishness than impressed by his balance.

Luka dropped to the dirt.

Jay did too.

He didn't know why, but trusted the young guide enough to copy him.

The wind whistled over Jay's ears as he covered them with his fingers. Rocks whizzed through the air, hurled across the mountaintop by the gusts. One smashed into the crumbling soil beside Jay's face while another shattered against Ping's surface, inches from colliding with Jay's face. He heard a few more rocks whirr above him until eventually Luka stood up and waved Kestrel after him. Jay checked his flanks for any more rocks before standing up and walking once more.

Luka pointed to a wooden structure built in a crag between two boulders and powered towards it. After witnessing the threats the wind brought to the mountaintop, Kestrel followed suit. They hiked over the rocks with twice the pace and half the caution they'd had before, scrambling across the wind-swept soil and scree until they reached the wooden cabin.

Jay's ears had gotten used to the thrashing mountain wind during their final ascent. When he followed Luka into the wooden building the sudden quiet shocked and almost confused him. Luka laughed at Jay's surprise and again as each member of Kestrel had the same reaction. Once everyone was inside, Jack began looking around the small structure, even though there wasn't anything in it or much room to look with all five of them crammed inside.

"Does it look like the last time you came here?" he asked Luka.

The boy nodded before flipping a switch hidden at the far end of the room and opening a concealed doorway cut into the stone, he saw a set of stairs carved through the boulder and into the mountain itself.

"This is just the entrance," he said, "the real lookout is below."

Kestrel followed Luka down the stairs into a more spacious room that was sparsely furnished and carved from stone. It stretched the entire width of the mountain, which admittedly wasn't very far this close to the peak, and had slits carved in the walls that looked out across all three of its faces onto the island below. Jay saw down to the shoreline and even to the neighbouring islands with clarity, quickly understanding why this spot was called Lookout. Strangely, the wind didn't attack the slits like it did the rest of the mountain's surface. Jay couldn't even hear it whistle by.

While Marko gawked at the view and Corinne joined him by scouring Saulin's coastline for anything interesting, Jack followed Luka around the room, searching for any evidence of the Smothering Grasp Alliance. He opened every box and drawer inside the lookout, running his finger across a spartan looking bed in one quarter and wiping away a smear of dust.

After fifteen minutes of searching, they found nothing. Jack called the squad together for a meeting. They huddled closer to each other and Jay watched Luka inch closer to them, leaning his ear towards the huddle.

"Looks like they haven't been here," began Jack.

"That's a good thing, right?" said Marko.

"It's something," replied Jack. "It means they haven't invested much into Saulin. Good for the people that live here but not particularly helpful to us as we'd probably rather they wasted their time trying to map out this empty rock of an island.

"Sorry Luka."

The youngster laughed before realising that being addressed meant being noticed. He sheepishly met Jack's stare before backing off to the other side of the room.

"If we think they think they didn't come here, is there any point in investigating Old Beach?" asked Corinne.

Jay agreed with her question, it seemed like Saulin had nothing more to offer to Kestrel and all their searching did was waste time. Their day had already been mind-numbingly uneventful so far.

"We're still checking it out," said Jack. "There's still a chance they visited and we have orders. We can't return to the Sanctuary until nightfall anyway."

Jay resisted the urge to groan at his captain. Jack likely knew the orders were pointless yet he blindly followed them anyway. He made a good point on leaving the island however, and there wasn't exactly anything better to do while waiting for sunset.

Jack called Luka back and they made their way up the stone stairway. Their guide glanced out of the building for a few seconds before exiting, warning them that the wind had picked up since they'd entered the Lookout. Jay wondered how that was even possible but trusted the boy, he'd feel it for himself in a few seconds anyway. He retied the knot on his moko and exited the Lookout's entrance with Ping hovering just behind him.

The moment Jay stepped out of the Lookout, the wind howled at his ears once more. The gusts were more chaotic than before, and Jay couldn't hear Luka although the boy stood less than five metres in front of him. They walked along the same trail they'd ascended the mountain on, taking the journey a single step at a time. With the rapidly changing wind patterns, Jay couldn't afford a single misstep lest a sudden draft catch him off balance.

As before, Luka blazed a trail ahead of Kestrel. He defied the wind by staring straight at it, refusing to bow.

But then he stopped.

And then he ran.

The boy turned back to Kestrel, waving his arms and screaming as he sprinted towards them. Jay couldn't hear the boy's cries through the roaring wind and instead of joining Luka in retreat he walked towards him. Since he couldn't hear anyway, Jay blocked off his hearing with Eye of the Storm and scanned the mountaintop for whatever Luka was running from.

He glanced at the mountain's south face as a gigantic eagle soared into the air above Luka. It stretched out its wings, reaching over twenty metres across as it kept rising.

Jay wondered how the giant creature could even keep itself in the air until he realised that the winds had stopped crashing into him anymore. He sensed the air flowing upward, as if each gust worked in unity to push the giant bird skyward. He released Eye of the Storm and the mountain top was quiet somehow still quiet.

Well, apart from Luka's constant screaming.

"ROC! IT'S A ROC! GET BACK TO THE LOOKOUT!"

But even if Luka wanted to get to safety, the roc had other plans. It had stopped rising and Jay felt some of the winds return to the mountain top. The enormous bird stared down at Luka, hunter's eyes locked in on its fleeing prey.

Jay felt the slivers of liquid metal roll down his forearms as he formed two fists.

Perhaps their day wouldn't end up so uneventful after all…