As the group approached the carved out rock, they still marveled at the glowing environment.
The rock was big enough to fit a house inside the carved out cave.
When they entered they saw some clearly rotting piles of wood and metal that seemed to have been chests once.
A closer inspection revealed them to be covering piles of gold jewelry, rings and necklaces, and some still beautifully polished gems.
Nojiko began to pilfer through the piles without hesitation, putting the gold and gems on a single pile.
Leaving her to her own devices, the group continued to look around the cave.
They saw some armor stands with rusted armor, clearly belonging to a woman. Even now, rusted and falling apart, it still showed the masterful craftsmanship involved in making it.
"We should take the armor, captain. I can tell you right now, the metal is incredible quality even rusted over. The only reason it fell apart was the leather holding it together. The rust is only on the surface of it, even after all this time. I can smelt it and make something out of it." Ring suggested, a craftman's gleam in his eye showing his excitement.
"Sure, why not." Aden agreed, as he knew Ring was a great blacksmith. He made Storm Hunt afterall.
"Oh my god!" came a shout from near a wall with bookshelves to the left of the entrance.
Looking over they saw Robin carefully flipping through a huge book, that seemed to be almost woven from some kind of fiber.
"What is it?" Aden asked a bit worried.
"This... It's all written in Poneglyph." Robin said, excitement clear in her voice.
"What's it about?" Buggy asked, curiously.
"There are snippets of history feom the Vois Century, a list of devil fruits i've never heaes about, and... Medicinal recipes. And that's just the first couple pages." Robin said, holding the book like the treasure it was.
"We're taking that book, then. No way we leave it here." Aden decided.
"Thank you." Robin thanked Aden with a smile.
They continued to look around for more useful stuff, when suddenly Buggy exclaimed.
"Hey, what is that?"
"What is what?" Aden asked appearing next to him out of thin air.
"DON'T...do that!" he got so scared his head flew upwards, and smacked against the ceiling. "What is that?" he asked, pointing at a strange contraption.
The object in question was a cube, about the size of a Rubik's cube. On each side there were circular holes almost touching the corners, leaving about a centimeter on each corner. Inside was mostly empty space, but there were five interconnected rings, each only slightly smaller than the other. They were all turned at different angles showing no visible way they stayed connected. The entire thing seemed to be made from a metal similar to the armor, but clearly not as weathered.
"Are those rings just....floating there?" asked Nojiko as they all got closer to look at the strange contraption.
"Seem to be... Question is..How?" Robi added her own question.
"Questions for later, i have a feeling it could be useful. We can figure it out when we get back to the ship." Aden decided and stored the strange cube in his pack.
As they began to gather all the useful stuff, a low rumble suddenly began to shake the ground.
"Ermmmm.. what was that?" Ring questioned as he looked around for the source.
"I don't like this, we're leaving!" Aden commanded, and the others followed without question. They gathered all the useful stuff afterall.
Running back on the same path they came, they noticed something bad as they got closer to the shore. The island wqs sinking. Ot more accurately, the giant turtle on who's back he island was, was diving.
"Move, let's move!" Aden shouted as he picked up the pace.
The others ran as fast as they could, but it seemed they would not make it back to the ship, before it was dragged below the sea. Aden cursed his stupidity at not leaving someone to watch the ship. Well, lesson learned.
Seeing they would not make it in time, Aden slashed out with his hand, sending out an arc of sharp wind at the rope currently dragging their ship under the water.
The rope was cut, the ship was freed, and Aden now used his wind to pick everyone up, and carry them to the ship.
As to why he did not do that from the start? Well, he did want his crew to be strong. The sense of danger made them try harder. Even though he saved them in the end, the fear they all felt was real.
Landing on the deck of the Vanguard, Aden immediately used his power to push the ship away from the island.
"That fucking turtle tried to kill us!" screamed Buggy in pure anger, now that the fear and adrenaline began to wear off.
"I disagree. I think it just did not care." suggested Robin, still a bit out of breath.
"What's that supposed to mean!?" Buggy shouted, not at Robin, just frustrated.
"She means...a being that old, and that large... Why would it care about a couple bugs on it's back. And the only reason it stopped trying to scare us away, was because we spoke the name of it's old owner. Or friend or whatever." Aden spoke, already knowing what Robin meant.
"Precisely." she nodded in agreement.
"Okay so the giant turtle just left and destroyed everything on the island?" Nojiko asked an obvious question.
"Nah." Ring answered "You know the armor we took? That kind of rusting pattern only happens in humid environment, not underwater. And judging by the fact there was no other plant life besides the meadow with the tree, the island dives rather often." he explained his reasoning to the others.
"Makes sense. The place did seem covered in salt in some spots." Aden agreed with Ring's assessment.(A/n no clue if i spelled that right)
After a bit of time spent watching the island disappear under the waves, the group decided to go through what they found. Nojiko counted the money, leaving them with a nice spending budget.
Ring asked Aden's help with melting the armor into rough ingots, as he lacked the forge needed to do that. Aden agreed to help, as it would halp him practice his other elements a bit more. As Aden melted the metal into the mold he and Ring made by just making an ingot shapes dent in a cannonball, he promised Ring they would buy everything he needed for forging at the next island.
Robin sat in her usual chair flipping through the tome she found in the island, using a third arm to sip tea occasionaly.
Buggy meanwhile tried to figure out the strange cube, only to end up scratching his head in confusion for upteenth time and guve up. For a couple minutes, at least, as he just jumped right back into it.
They spent a couple hours like that.
At some point, Aden decided to try and figure out the cube on his own. He poked and prodded the thing with no results. Until he decided to try and use his powers on it. He pushed air into the cube, gently at first just to see what happens. The rings on the inside began to gently spin in a strange way. Not only they spun on the axis against the other rings, but they also spun along their own axis. After a few minutes of careful wind pushing and being mesmerised by the rings spinning, Aden noticed a change. In the centre of the contraption, a subtle glow of white appeared.
With the strange patterns on the entire thing beginning to glow purple.
"What the hell? Is it...charging somehow?" Aden thought to himself as he increased the air input.
The rings spun faster now, the glow growing in intensity. Until the cube began to release a strange shimmering energy in front of Aden.
The energy was see through, silvery color, almost like extremely light fabric.
This energy seemed to impact against nothing, creating a shimmer in the air, similar to what is caused by heat.
The others were drawn in by the new situation and looked on in reluctant awe.
A few more minutes of this, Aden could have sworn he saw a forest in the shimmering wall, but at that moment, the energy dispersed and the glow stopped, the shimmering wall disappearing along with it.
"What just happened?" everyone asked at the same time.
"No clue. But i think i was too careful, that's why whatever it was trying to do failed." Aden said, still staring at the cube, the rings lazily coming to a stop.
"What was it trying to do?" Robin asked curiously.
"No idea. But i felt no danger from it, so hopefully nothing bad. I'll try again later, but we should still be careful. Whatever this artifact is, it seems powerful." Aden decided, with the others agreeing.
And so their day ended, new discoveries made, some money to spend gained. All in all a fruitful day.
As Aden closed his eyes and began to drift of to sleep, he thought he felt something brush against his side, but ruled it as his mind drifting away.
(Yay another one is done. Hope you enjoy. And once again i apologize for the future irregular chapter releases. I am trying. And seeing as this story is mostly me venting my idea, i dont wanna release something that is dime a dozen. Hopefully my writing gets better and more coherent in the future. Thanks for reading,)