Reflections on the Warpath - [An Isekai Progression Fantasy]

"Team Kestrel, there's three locations I need you to scout," began Samira. She picked up a blue tile and tapped it against one of the islands. "A longtail will take you to the island of Saulin. It's not a bone, but there's three important locations on it. Once there, I want you to investigate Old beach, Hooktown, and The Lookout. I don't believe the Smothering Grasp Alliance has got to the island yet but we can't be sure. Do you understand your objective?"

Jack nodded instantly. Beside Jay, a dark-skinned, short haired woman that he assumed was Corinne stared at Samira for half a second before nodding too.

A bone?

"Can you tell us more about what's going on?" asked Jay, unwilling to simply accept his fate as a foot soldier.

Samira began to sigh but one of the elders behind her stepped forward, limping slightly as he put pressure on his right foot. The man's sun-bleached, white hair had fled the top of his head and retreated behind his ears long ago, thinned down by age. His deep brown eyes rolled over team Kestrel, surrounded by wrinkles fit for a man who'd lived two lifetimes.

The other elders regarded him with reverence. Although they all looked alike and were dressed in similar faded multicoloured cloaks, this man commanded Jay's attention in a way that the others didn't.

"Honoured gladiators, I welcome you to Whispertide. My name is don Enzo, I'm the leader of the Howling Wind Resistance. The people of the Whispertide Archipelago are under threat from a corporation known as the Directorate. The Directorate wishes to build mines upon the very bones we live on, stealing the Titan's resources for their own gain. We ask that you please fight for our people, our towns, and our home."

"And I'm assuming that the Smothering Grasp have signed up to help this Directorate?" said the second unknown gladiator. The lanky, silver haired man addressed Samira instead of Enzo, and pointed at the red tiles strewn across the map and stacked up by a city named 'Red Rock'.

"Yes. And as we know, they've had a head start," said Samira. "We can learn more about the surrounding conflict later, but our opponents are the Smothering Grasp Alliance, not the Directorate. I need to learn their current positions, as well as anything else the Howling Wind haven't managed to learn over the last week."

She pulled a necklace with three stone rings on its string and handed it to Jack, the final gladiator in the room and the one who'd been waiting for Jay at the Pits with Cyrus. She looked at each of the four gladiators across the table from her and spent an extra second locked on Jay.

"Jack is the captain of team Kestrel. Once you understand the situation on Saulin, he will relay the information back to me using this relay.

"We're currently in an underground hideout called the Full Moon Sanctuary. Boats are only allowed to enter or leave this island during the night to hide the resistance base Dawn is in less than an hour away, if everything goes well you'll arrive on Saulin shortly after sunrise, investigate the island during the day, and return once night falls. Understand?"

This time Jay didn't question Samira, time was of the essence and there was no need to be abrasive. All four members of Kestrel nodded.

"Somebody will lead you to the docks. Pick a longtail and leave the sanctuary as soon as you're ready. Jay, there's a gift from the storm sage waiting for you upon your return."

Jay perked up and raised an eyebrow at Samira.

"What is it?"

"A memory crystal. I haven't looked inside."

Huh.

Jay debated asking to see it now but felt the room's urgency press into him. The crystal would still be here after the mission, right now Kestrel had orders.

After a short journey through a series of tunnels, Kestrel entered the Full Moon Sanctuary's underground harbour.

A sliver of moonlight crept in from an opening on the harbour's seaward side but the same orange crystals that illuminated Samira's war room lit up the underground docks from its low-lying rock ceiling. They cast an almost sickly glow on the ships vying for space within the concealed cave and gave the rippling seawater a slight yellow twinge.

"Ok, who pissed in the ocean?" asked Corinne, voicing the thought that Jay was mentally dancing around.

"What can I say, it was a long journey!" replied the silver haired gladiator that Jay realised was Marko. Kestrel's fourth member shrugged for emphasis as he sheepishly raised his hand.

Their banter faded beneath the dockworkers' shouts as they coordinated the arrival of another ship to the enclosed marina. There was hardly space for another arrival in the crowded dockyard; the existing ships were already packed like sardines, larger boats moored wherever the cave had ceiling space to store them. Some were mere inches from colliding with the overhead rock.

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Hope it's high tide…

Jack led Kestrel to another part of the docks, following the guide that had led them out of the war room. He didn't shut down any of his team's jokes but nor did he join in.

"Now that, is what four people look like!"

"Stop complainin'. You said four, Don showed you four, then you went and splashed your ass about it!"

"Hey! I said four people. Not four gladiators wrapped in steel armour and armed to the teeth! Ana-Marta ain't have the buoyancy to deal with them four giants."

"Well maybe if you weren't such a fat bastard then your boat wouldn't sink, eh Mahon?"

"Well maybe if your wife knew how to fuckin' cook then you wouldn't be such a plank o' driftwood, eh Manny! How about you eat a chunk of lard so that a stiff breeze don't knock you off your boat, huh?"

A round of laughter erupted from the half dozen sailors sat on a line of colourfully painted narrow boats gently bobbing on the slight underground waves. They all wore the same style cloaks as don Enzo and the other elders but coated with a strange wax that stopped them from absorbing water.

"Welcome to Whispertide, regular-sized gladiators," said Mahon, letting Jay put a face to the colourful voice. He wasn't as fat as his defensiveness suggested, but carried a little more weight around his belly than the rest of the sailors. He drummed his fingers against the yellow exterior of his boat, grasping it just above the painted green letters that read 'Ana-Marta'.

Mahon's face had the signature deep tan that spoke of a lifetime exposed to the elements and although he had no more hair left on his head, his impressive moustache almost made up for it. The sailor's brown, walrus-like facial hair covered his mouth and half his cheeks, Jay spotted a few crumbs embedded in it but didn't want to make another comment on the man's eating habits.

"I like that guy," said Corinne. She pointed towards Mahon who gave her a wide smile in return and Jay saw a golden front tooth poke out behind the curtain of moustache hair.

"Think we'll sink your boat?" asked Jay, smirking as he gave the Ana-Marta an exaggerated appraisal with an upturned nose.

"She'll hold ya just fine big fella," Mahon replied. Giving the boat's hull a slap and splashing his neighbouring boatman in the process. "She ain't the biggest but she's damn near unsinkable when I'm pilotin' her."

Jack stepped onto the Ana-Marta, dropping it half an inch deeper.

"Are you ready to leave now?"

Mahon walked over to his seat at the boat's rear. He pressed his hand into a complex-looking bronze mechanism and waved the rest of Kestrel onboard.

"Where we headed?"

"Saulin," said Jack, "How fast do you think you can get us to Hooktown?"

The rest of the longtail pilots began to laugh.

Mahon simply smiled, wrinkles framing the corners of his eyes.

"For you, my friend, I can be there in ten minutes."

As it turns out, the ten minutes was closer to forty. It was still faster than Samira's hour-long estimate, but Jay made a mental note not to trust Mahon's ETAs in the future.

Jay thought the journey would be an opportunity to get to know his new teammates, to talk about their gladiator careers and speculate on the fight.

Mahon had different ideas.

During the initial exit of the Full Moon Sanctuary, the longtail driver demanded absolute silence from his passengers so he could fully concentrate on steering the boat. A shallow ring of rocks and coral called 'the Belt' surrounded the sanctuary, making it treacherous to leave without knowing the specific route that cut between the formations. Mahon didn't even use the boat's engine to guide them out after leaving the cave, instead punting them past the rocks using a lacquered wooden pole with a clump of glowing crystal taped to the end he prodded the rocks with.

The Ana-Marta's hull scraped against the ground multiple times during their exit, their early morning leaving time meant Jay often heard the rocks before he saw them. The occasional glimpses of the narrow channel he caught when the glowing crystal dipped underwater gave Jay a newfound appreciation for the boatman's precise guidance.

After they'd passed the rocks, Mahon tied the pole inside the Ana-Marta and sat towards the boat's rear once more. He reached into a pack beside the engine and tossed a cloak to each of his four passengers and told them to wear them. Each poncho-like cloak had a slightly different yet equally multicoloured design, and was made with the same waterproof coating like the ones Mahon and the other sailors wore. Mahon told Kestrel that the cloaks were traditional Whispertide clothing called mokos, and that they'd stand out like sore thumbs without them.

Those were the last coherent words said on their journey.

The bronze mechanism Mahon sat by looked similar to the frankensteined motorbike engines strapped to the back of longtail boats on Earth, but Jay reckoned Harmony meant that Eterna had thought of a more elegant mode of seaborne propulsion to his home planet.

He reckoned wrong.

While the engine stayed to a mild purr while they exited the docks, it was a different beast on the open sea. The bronze contraption glowed orange, tiny runes etched into its surface seeming to ignite at Mahon's touch. It roared at the waves behind it, flinging the boat's nose into the air and almost tossing Jack backwards.

Foamy seawater spurted upwards, drenching all four passengers. Without the mokos protecting them they'd have been soaked within seconds.

But beyond even the water and the noise, it was the journey itself that silenced the members of Kestrel. Ana-Marta didn't simply cut through the waves, she practically jumped on top of them. A burst of propulsion would drive the boat forward, lifting it into the air before gravity punched it back down to the surface, jolting Jay's spine as the boat's hull slapped the water.

After hundreds of consecutive bounces atop the ocean, Mahon slowed his boat down as they neared a rapidly growing island. The early morning sun poked out beside a forest-covered mountain in the island's centre and Jay saw a smattering of wooden buildings making up a coastal town as they drew closer.

Jay cracked his knuckles beneath the moko, feeling the liquid metal roll down his forearms. Three deep inhalations didn't do much to calm his churning stomach. The tumultuous journey hadn't bested Jay but his pre-fight nerves were trying their best.

He looked up at Kestrel before turning back to Saulin. He and his team had been trusted to scout the entire island for Samira.

But Jay had bigger dreams than becoming a Limitless Ascent foot soldier, and he couldn't let orders get in the way of them.