Climbing the colossal chain was not a pleasant experience.
The links were so impossibly huge that each one felt like a sloped, rusted courtyard. The wind howled through the gaps, carrying the freezing chill of the descent phase and threatening to peel them right off the metal and send them plummeting into the Sky Below. They had to move carefully, relying on their bare hands and boots to find purchase on the ancient, pitted iron.
They could have flown, naturally. Cielle possessed the essence capacity of a Monster with two cores, and she could have easily wrapped him in her arms to carry them straight up to the underside of the island. Sunny had vetoed that idea before she could even suggest it. They had absolutely no idea what sort of nightmare was waiting for them on Shipwreck Island, and wasting her essence fighting the crushing gravity during a descent phase was a brilliant way to get them both killed.
So they climbed on foot.
The grueling effort took the better part of half an hour, their muscles burning as they navigated the curved, slippery surfaces of the massive links. Sunny kept Happy wrapped around his body while he sent Gloomy just ahead of them to sweep the immediate path for any nesting scavengers or hidden traps while his own eyes remained fixed on the girl climbing just below him.
Cielle had her white wings folded tightly against her back to minimize the drag from the violent wind. Her face was completely blank, her green eyes fixed on the rusted metal, and she moved with such ease that Sunny was so accustomed to seeing. Yet, something about her presence felt distinctly different today.
She was unusually quiet.
Cielle was never a particularly talkative person, but she usually filled the silence by stating random facts or asking unhinged questions that made Sunny question his own sanity. Ever since they had left the shelter of that small hollow, she had barely uttered a single word. The heavy, electric tension from their intense kiss still lingered in the air between them, thick enough to cut with a blade.
'She is overthinking,' Sunny concluded, his hands gripping a jagged edge of rust as he pulled himself higher. 'Or maybe I am the one overthinking. No, I am definitely overthinking. But what exactly is going through her head right now? Is she regretting it? Is she questioning the taste of my lips? With her, it could literally be anything.'
His mind unhelpfully supplied the vivid memory of her pressing him against the cold stone, the sudden and demanding heat of her mouth, and the way her wings had shivered violently when he finally gave in and pulled her close, they were so close to just going a bit further…. Sunny almost missed his footing on the slippery iron, cursing quietly under his breath as he dug his fingers harder into the rust.
They shared a house. He was entirely used to her being a variable in his otherwise crappy life. But the sheer intensity of what had happened in that cave had shifted their dynamic, transforming their questionable bond into something much more dangerous and confusing.
Sunny finally reached the top of the last colossal link and pulled himself over the edge, feeling the gravity shift and stabilize as he set foot on the actual surface of Shipwreck Island. He turned around immediately and offered his hand. Cielle took it without a shred of hesitation, her palm warm against his glove as he hauled her up onto the solid ground beside him. She released his grip a second later and took a slow look around their new environment.
"We are here," Cielle stated, her voice giving away absolutely nothing.
"Yes," Sunny replied, watching her carefully. "We are. Welcome to the graveyard."
Shipwreck Island was a profoundly desolate and eerie place. The ground beneath their boots was covered in a thick layer of black, creeping moss, interspersed with pale stones that looked uncomfortably like shattered bone. The wind was slightly less violent up here, broken by the uneven, rising terrain of the landmass, but the atmosphere still felt incredibly heavy and oppressive. Just beneath their feet, anchored by the very chain they had climbed, the iron giant hung suspended in the abyss, a dead monument swinging blindly through the sky.
They began to walk inland, leaving the edge of the cliff behind. It did not take them long to find a distinct path leading upward. It was not a natural formation by any means, as someone or something had carved unnaturally straight stone steps right into the rising incline of the island. The steps were wide and shallow, their edges worn smooth by countless centuries of harsh weather.
"Stay close," Sunny whispered, gesturing for Gloomy to slither up the stairs ahead of them and keep to the dark edges where the black moss grew the thickest.
Cielle gave a small nod and reached into the empty air, her essence flaring briefly in the dim light as she summoned her weapon.
Sunny frowned, fully expecting to hear the familiar, heavy clinking of her chains. Those chains were her preferred tool for sweeping enemies off their feet and maintaining absolute control over a chaotic battlefield. Instead, a long, sleek spear materialized in her firm grip, its pale shaft ending in a cruel, gleaming tip.
"Spear?" Sunny asked, raising an eyebrow at the weapon. "What happened to the chains? I thought we agreed chains were best for unknown environments."
Cielle looked down at the sharp metal tip "Chains do not stab. I feel like stabbing something today."
Sunny blinked slowly, deciding right then and there that he absolutely did not want to unpack the implications of that statement. 'Right. She is in a murderous mood. This is fine. Everything is going to be completely fine. I might even be in one, who knows… Wait, do awakened get periods? Surely they do right??...'
Sunny did not ponder on his otherworldly knowledge and its comprehension as they followed the unnaturally cut stone steps up the slope of the island in a tense silence. The climb was slow, with Sunny constantly waiting for a Nightmare Creature to drop from the sky or burst from the pale rocks, but the landscape remained perfectly still. The absolute silence was broken only by the crunch of their boots and feet on the stone and the distant, deep rumble of the island continuing its long descent toward the Crushing.
Eventually, the stairs leveled out, bringing them to the very heart of the desolate landmass.
Sunny stopped dead in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat as Cielle halted right beside him, her grip tightening slightly on the shaft of her spear.
Resting on the flat, mossy ground directly before them was a ship.
It was a massive wooden vessel, larger and more imposing than any building Sunny had ever seen in the waking world. The ancient wood had somehow remained completely untouched by the ravenous passage of time, refusing to rot into dust or petrify into useless stone. It looked exactly as if it had simply fallen out of the sky a few days ago, carrying with it a profound sense of wrongness.
The ship was, however, heavily damaged. The entire bow of the colossal vessel was completely shattered, exposing the dark, cavernous interior of the lower decks like a gaping wound. There were large, jagged breaches scattered all along the length of the massive wreck, with thick, unnatural green vines spilling out of the cracks. The vines crept over the ancient wood like parasitic veins, anchoring the dead vessel firmly to the black moss below.
'What in the world is a ship doing here?' Sunny thought, his mind racing to find a logical explanation. 'There are no rivers in the Chained Isles. There are no seas, no oceans, no bodies of water at all. The Sky Below is just a void of empty space. How did a massive wooden sailing ship end up stranded at the heart of a floating rock?'
The mystery was fascinating, but Sunny quickly lost interest in the logical impossibility of the vessel as his eyes were drawn upward, hypnotized by a completely different and far more terrifying sight.
Coiled entirely around the midsection of the massive ship was a dead, withered tree.
It was colossal in scale, its thick, twisted trunk wrapping around the wooden hull like a giant python slowly crushing its prey. Its naked branches stretched high into the bruised sky, looking exactly like pale, reaching fingers or broken, splintered bones. The tree was completely dead, devoid of a single leaf or sign of life, yet its presence felt overwhelmingly oppressive, as if it were still actively feeding on the ruined ship.
Sunny felt a sudden, violent jolt in his chest.
He recognized that tree immediately.
He had never seen it in person before, but he had spent countless hours staring at its exact likeness until the image was permanently burned into his memory. It looked very different in reality, completely stripped of its vitality, but the unique twisting shape of the trunk and the specific spread of the branches were unmistakable. It was the exact same tree depicted on the reverse side of the mysterious coins he had been collecting.
The only difference was that on the coins, the tree was full of life and in brilliant, glorious bloom. Here, it was nothing more than a dead husk crushing a ruined ship.
'The coins,' Sunny realized, his heart beginning to beat a frantic rhythm against his ribs. 'The tree is here. The ship is here. Which means the coins might have come from inside this wreck, or at least, the wreck is directly connected to the source of the coins.'
A wave of greed washed over him, completely overriding his usual sense of caution.
Initially, his plan had been simple and entirely focused on survival. Sunny had only wanted to scout the vicinity of the island, map out the surrounding terrain, and search for any lingering traces left by the dead Chain Worm. It was supposed to be a standard, safe information gathering mission.
But now, staring at the bone-like branches of the dead tree, everything changed. He felt as if this little scouting expedition had just dropped him right on top of the ultimate prize. The secrets of the coins, the hidden legacy of the Chained Isles, and whatever immense, world-altering rewards came with them could be sitting right inside that shattered wooden hull, waiting for him to claim them.
"Sunny," Cielle said quietly, breaking through his greedy trance.
Sunny blinked, forcing his focus back to the present moment. He looked at her, noticing that she was staring intently at the dark, cavernous breaches in the ship's hull.
"Do you see that tree?" Sunny asked, his voice low and thrumming with excitement.
"It is dead," she replied factually.
"It is the tree from the coins," Sunny explained, unable to hide the eager grin creeping onto his face. "The coins we need. The ones that hold the key to the sanctuary. This ship is connected to them. We might have just found exactly what we were looking for without even trying."
Cielle did not look particularly excited by the prospect of ancient treasure. She simply kept her eyes on the green vines slowly shifting in the astral wind. "The plan was to search for the worm."
"Plans change," Sunny countered smoothly. "The worm is dead. The treasure is right in front of us. But we are not going to be stupid about it."
He forced his rising greed down into a tight, secure box in the back of his mind. He was a survivor first and a thief second, and running blindly into an ancient, mysterious shipwreck in the middle of the Dream Realm was a fantastic way to end up as a permanent stain on the floorboards.
"We will scout the perimeter first," Sunny ordered. "Lets clear the rest of the island. I want to know exactly what is behind us before we even think about stepping near that ship."
Cielle gave a small, agreeable nod. "Okay."
They spent the next two hours doing exactly that, executing a slow, meticulous, and incredibly nerve-wracking sweep of the area. They walked a wide circle around the heart of the island, staying well clear of the ship while checking every large boulder, every shallow ditch, and every patch of deep shadow. Sunny kept Gloomy and Happy moving constantly, extending his perception as far as his shadow sense could reach.
He waited for the inevitable ambush.A stone gargoyle leaping from the rocks or even a flock of iron-winged horrors to dive from the low-hanging clouds.
Nothing happened.
After two full hours of sweeping the vicinity, they found absolutely no trace of any abominations. There was no sign of the dead Chain Worm's kin, no scavengers feeding on remnants, and no wandering Nightmare Creatures. The island appeared to be completely, entirely empty.
"What do you hear?" Sunny asked, crouching behind a pale, bone-like stone and looking back toward the distant ship.
Cielle was kneeling beside him with her spear resting lightly across her thighs, her eyes closed in deep concentration. He, by now, was almost certain her Flaw was some kind of severe hypersensitivity, an agonizing over-tuning of her nervous system that made most things physically painful, but it also made her the greatest tracker he had ever worked with. She could hear a heartbeat through solid rock and feel the ambient flow of essence shifting in the air long before his shadows ever noticed a threat. Though it was all a speculation of his… Maybe she was just born sensitive? Sunny lampooned internally.
"Nothing," Cielle said flatly, opening her eyes to look at him.
"Nothing at all?" Sunny pressed, frowning slightly.
"There is wind," she supplied "There is the sound of the island falling. There is your heartbeat. There should be nothing else alive on this island…"
Sunny scowled. He did not like that specific phrasing at all.
The silence of the island suddenly felt much heavier and far more sinister. It was not the peaceful silence of a safe haven. It was the suffocating silence of a graveyard waiting patiently for a pair of foolish grave robbers.
He looked at Cielle again, noting the rigid posture of her shoulders. She was staring at the ship with an impassive face, having barely spoken ten words in the last two hours. The awkwardness from their time in the hollow was still there, a silent barrier preventing their usual easy banter.
"Are you sure you are alright?" Sunny asked, deciding to address the elephant in the room.
Cielle turned her head to look at him, her brow furrowing in confusion. "I am uninjured. My essence is full. Why would I not be alright?"
"Because you have been completely silent," Sunny sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. "Ever since we left the cave, you have been acting like a coiled spring. You are using a spear instead of your chains, and you are looking at every shadow like it owes you money."
"We are in the Dream Realm," Cielle pointed out, her voice perfectly level and devoid of any sarcasm. "Something terrible always happens here. I am holding a spear because I am ready to stab the terrible thing when it inevitably arrives."
Sunny rubbed his face, fighting the urge to groan out loud. 'She is impossible. Absolutely impossible. I wonder…. If i have set sail in the crimson sea… '
"Fine," Sunny said, standing up and dusting the black moss off his knees. "If you are ready to stab things, let us go look at the ship. Keep your guard up. If something feels wrong, you tell me immediately. Do not ignore your senses… "
Cielle stood up smoothly, her wings twitching once. "I know."
They left the cover of the rocks and began walking directly toward the heart of the island. The shattered bow of the wooden ship loomed larger and larger with every step they took. The dead tree coiled around it looked even more menacing up close, its pale branches scraping against the sky like skeletal claws. The thick green vines trailing from the broken wood looked wet and unnatural, glistening with an unknown substance.
Sunny kept his hand hovering near his hip, ready to summon his weapon at a fraction of a second's notice. Happy and Gloomy slithered rapidly across the black moss right at his feet as well.
They finally reached the shadow of the massive hull, and the sheer size of the breaches in the wood was staggering up close. Entire sections of the ship had been caved inward by some force, leaving huge piles of splintered timber, rusted iron nails, and dead moss scattered randomly across the ground.
Sunny stopped about twenty feet away from a particularly large pile of debris near the shattered bow, his eyes narrowing as he squinted at the mess. Something about the way the splintered wood was stacked felt inherently wrong, lacking the chaotic randomness of a natural collapse.
"Do you hear anything inside that pile?" Sunny whispered, not daring to take another step.
Cielle tilted her head, her green eyes focusing sharply on the debris. "No, but..."
Suddenly, the pile of debris moved.
The entire mound of splintered timber and rusted metal violently jerked upward, throwing black moss into the air.
Sunny reacted. He did not hesitate to ask questions, and he did not take a single step backward. His shadows boiled violently around his feet as he reached into his soul.
"Saint!" Sunny hissed sharply.
The shadows tore open, and a towering, imposing figure stepped out from the darkness. The taciturn stone knight materialized in front of him, her dark gray armor absorbing the dim light of the sky. Her ruby eyes glowed with a cold, menacing light from behind her closed visor as she assessed the threat. Sunny instantly summoned the Midnight Shard, the heavy, elegant tachi materializing directly in his grip, and immediately tossed the blade to his shadow. Saint caught the weapon flawlessly out of the air, falling into a perfect, impenetrable defensive stance.
At the exact same moment, Sunny reached back into his soul and summoned his own weapon. His newly acquired memory flared into existence, a cruel, heavy blade settling comfortably into his firm grip.
Beside him, Cielle dropped into a low stance. Her white wings flared out slightly to provide perfect balance, and the gleaming tip of her sleek spear pointed directly at the shifting pile of wood.
The debris rose higher.
The splintered planks, broken support beams, and rusted nails scraped against each other with a horrifying sound that made Sunny's teeth ache. The pieces twisted and snapped together in mid-air, assembling into a coherent, terrifying shape right before their eyes.
A tall, menacing humanoid creature pulled itself fully up from the dirt. It possessed no face, only a jagged collection of broken timber where a head should naturally be. Its body was a thick, armored mass of wood bound tightly together by creeping, muscular green vines. But the most terrifying aspect of the creature was its arms. They did not end in hands or claws. They ended in long, incredibly sharp, jagged wooden blades that looked exactly like they had been soaked in dried blood.
The creature let out a horrifying sound that was a terrible cross between a dry, rattling cough and the snapping of a massive tree branch. It took a heavy, thudding step toward them, raising its jagged blades high into the air.
'Undead,' Sunny thought grimly, his grip tightening painfully on his weapon. 'Or some kind of cursed construct. '
"Saint, take the left flank," Sunny barked out the order. "Cielle, you um… go get 'em.."
Cielle did not bother to reply verbally. She simply lunged forward with explosive speed, her spear flashing out in a precise arc aimed right at the creature's center of mass.
But just before the sharp tip could connect with the Wraith's wooden armor, a chorus of horrifying sounds echoed across the entire clearing, freezing Sunny to the bone.
Crack. Snap. Groan.
Sunny's blood ran completely cold. He ripped his eyes away from the single monster standing in front of them and looked wildly around the massive wreck.
Every single pile of debris surrounding the shattered bow was moving.
Splintered planks were rising rapidly from the black moss. Broken masts were assembling into thick, unnatural limbs. Countless piles of discarded wood were shifting, twisting, and pulling themselves up from the dirt all around them, cutting off any easy route of escape. The long, skeletal shadows of the dead tree fell over dozens of newly forming Wood Wraiths, all of them turning their jagged, blade-like hands toward the intruders who dared to trespass on their ship.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Sunny breathed, a familiar sense of dread washing over him.
They were not just fighting a monster today. They had just walked blindly into an entire army of them.