Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Return to the Lost Island ❯ where i found my host ( Chapter 4 )

RETURN TO THE LOST ISLAND

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Iridia Sunheart.

 

Notes: Just another writer's block. A little adventure of my feminine avatar in what I called survival mode. Inspired by Jules Verne, one video-game and various books about marooned characters trying to survive with their wits.

 

 

 

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Where I found my host…

 

The first thing I found entering the cave was my host who was waiting for more than a century.

 

The skeleton of the Captain Nemo was waiting on the floor of the cave. I sighed. I finally found the reason of my presence on this island. Now I just have to give the great man a decent and proper burial.

 

Near the entrance, I also found a nest with some feathers and eggs, a mysterious key with four crystals and an incomplete waterproof suit. I hummed seeing the feathers and used some of my materials to make some arrows for my bow. Standing up, I remarked then the engraving in the rock that designed the cave as Granite House built in 1860. That reminded me of something, but I couldn't think of what for now. I then resumed my exploration.

 

Two parts of the cave were too dark to explore for now without a source of light. I entered a part that was lighted by some windows in the rock. Although this part seemed to have been vandalized, I salvaged many things: A hammer, nails, a screwdriver, a steel chain, charcoal, some metallic thread, some planks, two shirts, some wicks, a musical partition, an unusable block of black powder, a cannonball, some old glass slides, iron shots, tubes of glass and some zinc stripes.

 

The musical partition was incomplete, the black powder too compact to use and the slides needed a projector to be visualized, but I found two new rooms and even some maps and papers written by my predecessors.

 

One map was of my island. According to it I was on the Isle Lincoln in the South Pacific Sea. Another map explained how Granite House was built by deriving the waters from the lake. According to this map, there was a well somewhere in the cave: A good reason to not explore without a source of light.

 

One of the papers was notes from a chemist. It showed how to make a Becquerel Battery, a Volta Battery, nitro-glycerine, sulphuric acid and black powder.

 

The other paper was a damaged letter written in French:

 

“I, Captain Nemo, write those lines to the one who will discover my body.”

 

“I was visiting those caves where lived my friends, Cyrus Vance and his companions… that I was attacked by a… when I was exiting the water.”

 

“I was… I am incapable to rega… I will have finished this… for it to resist… monkeys who vandalized this place since its abandon.”

 

“Then I will die facing the rising sun. One last time I will look to the sky and those curious vertical stripes of light near the horizon. This optic phenomena and the sound of the generator, betray the presence of the… that I have surrounded the Lincoln Isle and that cut it off from the world.”

 

“This solitude, it's me that wanted it! But nothing is eternal: I know that during storms, my field is ruptured and allow some intrusions.”

 

“I bet that someone - you, my reader - will take foot on this island and will discover this note… Put my body in a coffin and bury it at the threshold between land and ocean…”

 

“…repair my waterproof-suit and… dangerous… Take care… search to kill you… some ferocious watch-dogs: Once the alarm ring, they'll activate traps and will set up ambushes everywhere in the island. To destroy them, aim for their Gravity Plate, that's their weak point…”

 

Well… That's explained many things…

 

I pursued my exploration and found one last map: It marked the approximate position of the Lincoln Isle. Like my GPS showed me, the nearest land, New Zealand, was at some 1200 miles from the island. I needed to recover the use of my phone or my powers as a Guardian if I wanted to come back home.

 

The last room held a good place to make a fire and even some much needed material to build a crude chemical lab. I had enough chemicals and even some notes from a chemist. I decided to make a new camp here and to proceed to make some experiments. I also needed time to build the coffin for the late Captain Nemo.

 

I managed to construct a makeshift distillatory system with a glass tube and two metallic recipients.

 

To test it, I did one of my first chemical experiments of my childhood: I produced some alcohol with the maple syrup.

 

Then I boiled water and with the glycerine produced a candle. One of my wicks achieved to make a usable item.

 

Using the iron sulphate, I make sulphuric acid (SO4 H2).

 

For the rest of my experiments, I needed some saltpetre. I lit my candle and began to explore the rest of the cave.

 

The path to the lake was walled, but I found an old rifle and a spent electrical lantern. Now if I could find what I needed for a Becquerel Battery…

 

The second part of the cave have a water source, another electrical lantern, a vial of sulphuric acid (if only I found that earlier), sulphur and a broken projector.

 

I also found the last message from my predecessors engraved on the wall.

 

“You, who will read these words.”

 

“Love this island which was hospitable to us and remembers: Nothing is impossible to the Man with Knowledge.”

 

“A hurricane threw us on this shore with no weapon nor tool.”

 

“We nevertheless managed to draw from this land everything required for living in comfort and it's almost with regret that we leave it to go back to civilization.”

 

I smiled as I meditated on those words. How truly right. I didn't notice it, but I found myself in love with this island. Although I was lost away far from my home, I would gladly live on such an island for the rest of my life `IF' I had no choice.

 

I found a metallic ladder leading to the underground, but then my sixth sense began to scream inside my mind.

 

A powerful psychic echo reached my perception: I heard the struggle and screams of a man against a monster. Goku seemed also to perceive it and I soothed him, promising him that as long we'll be together, nothing would happened to us.

 

At the bottom of the ladder, I found the rest of the waterproof-suit and the so-long-searched-for saltpetre. My candles lit an underground little lake of salt water. I smiled as I saw a light coming from its depth: There was an exit underwater. Probably from where the Captain Nemo came.

 

I blinked. I noticed some movement from the water: A sinuous silhouette swam in my direction. With a roar, a cross between a shark and a dinosaur jumped at me and Goku. Only our reflexes saved us from being devoured by jumping up the ladder.

 

I tried to control back my heart-rate back in the cave. Now I knew what wounded grievously the Captain Nemo. I didn't know from where this reject from the Prehistory had come, but I would gladly send him back to the list of the Extinct Species. But how…

 

I considered my weapons: A crude knife, a pick, a fork, rocks, a bow and arrows and a rifle. The last was my best chance, but that creature was agile in the water and I didn't know its resistance to projectiles. Testing it would expose myself to it and I ran the risk to finish like the late Captain of the Nautilus.

 

It was during my making of some black powder that I finally found a solution without risk for me: I still had the cadaver of the porcupine and the toxic berries. I stuffed the body of the bait with the berries and threw it into the underground lake.

 

It worked perfectly. The monster ate the whole bait and began to trash under the effect of the toxic. I coldly witnessed its end as it sunk under the water forever. It was only an animal and the Shade of Nemo wouldn't be appeased by this revenge, but I felt better to have killed it.

 

I went back to my lab and made Nitric Acid (NO3 H) by the distillation of sulphuric Acid with saltpetre. With it I finally assembled my Becquerel Battery and proceeded to recharge my two electrical lanterns.

 

It was dangerous, but I also made some nitro-glycerine. I stocked the explosive here since I needed a stabilizing substance before I could really use it.

 

Since I have two lanterns, I used one to repair the projector. The slides should have some knowledge useful to me.

 

Using the repaired projector and a crude screen, I finally learnt who my predecessors were.

 

The slides were a mixture of photos taken by my predecessors and some coloured photos taken by the late Captain Nemo.

 

They were pushed in a balloon by a tempest and forced on an unknown land later baptized Isle Lincoln.

 

They were three white men, one black man, one young boy and a dog. They considered themselves as colons and decided to valorise the fertile land.

 

The next slides showed their first hunts, how they made baked clay bricks and the production from their pottery oven.

 

I saw the engineer Cyrus Vance managing to synthesize nitro-glycerine: An explosive that would enable them to make some great works. Using it, they pierced a new water exit for the lake which made Granite House accessible.

 

Granite House was rapidly transformed into a comfortable home. The ability of those men inspired me great respect.

 

Luck seemed to smile when they found on the shore a chest full of useful items. In fact, it was the Captain Nemo who gave them this gift.

 

Some of the Monkeys of the isle were friendly, but others played some nasty tricks on the colons. I giggled as I could attest both sides.

 

I saw a slide where Gedeon Spilet killed one of the great felines scouring the big forests of the island. A good thing that I didn't push inside the forests.

 

Cyrus Vance built Becquerel Batteries and created a telegraph between Granite House and a farm built at the feet of the volcano. I nodded: That confirmed my suspicion that a volcanic activity destroyed what was on the other side of the rope bridge.

 

During a work, they found a chest full of copper pieces, probably an ancient pirate treasure.

 

I laughed at the next slide and hugged Goku. They tamed one of the Monkeys and the animal was fully considered as a member of their fellowship.

 

The next slides showed how they blew glass and the building of the windmill.

 

I frowned as I saw the next slides: Some pirates attacked them. They wanted to make a base from the island to support their raids.

 

An explosion destroyed the pirate ship. In fact, it was Nemo that booby-trapped the ship.

 

The last slide showed that the group armed Granite House with cannons salvaged from the pirate wreck. That explains all the cannons, cannonballs and powder kegs that I found near the windows.

 

And suddenly, it hit me. I KNEW this story! It was based on one of the novels of Jules Verne that I didn't read: “Mysterious Island”! I saw adaptations in films and TV series but never read the book. However, I remembered that the isle was supposed to be destroyed by the volcano and Nemo died with his submarine.

 

Well, well… So Jules Verne actually based his novels on some real facts. He disguised his knowledge in the science-fiction genre since no one at that era would have believed him. Beside, I thought that the great author would never have betrayed the Captain Nemo. The two men had too much honour for that.

 

I passed a day to repair the water-proof suit and to make a coffin for the Captain Nemo. In the morning I reverently lay the great man in the wooden coffin and with some efforts lowered him outside Granite House with the help of a solid rope and a pulley.

 

Respecting the last will of the Captain, I buried him on the beach, the threshold between land and ocean, facing the East to see the rising sun. I used my pick to engrave his tombstone and then prayed with Goku for the soul of the great man.

 

“Here lay Nemo, Captain of the Nautilus and the greatest explorer of the Seven seas, may he rest in peace for all eternity.”

 

“Iridia!”

 

I jerked back from my prayer at the sound of the voice and turned in the direction of the stone arch. Nemo was there, smiling and pointing to the small pool at the feet of the arch, and then he disappeared like smoke in the wind.

 

I walked to the pool and once again heard his spectral voice. “A gift for you…”

 

I was pulled in by something shining in the water. I reached and extract from the sand a golden ring. My eyes widened as I recognized this particular ring. It was my own copy of one magical ring from one of my many adventures. It had the particularity to grant one almost unlimited feat of magic once a day. Ideal to escape some dangerous situations.

 

Unfortunately, there was only the ring. It lacked the central magical gem that was the power source. The ring by itself was merely a crude A.I. with the control matrix to form the spell needed by the user. I shrugged: That only meant that the gem was somewhere else in the island. Probably where the underground salt lake would take me.

 

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