- John -
"This is looking quite promising!", Mike called out, once again much louder than neccessary.
"I think so too. I didn't even know there was an island here, but it seems like there's one hell of a forest growing on it", John agreed.
He'd long since learned his lesson about trying to quiet Mike down, so he just continued rowing while once again wishing he'd had enough money to buy a proper boat.
One with a motor that allowed him to just relax and stop rowing for a moment and, most importantly, one that wasn't taking water even in the best conditions.
'Well, at least I get a workout this way, even while being far away from a proper gym.'
Just as he was contemplating simply turning the boat around and returning to the mainland, where he knew his girlfriend Tony would be waiting for them, he felt a sharp thud as the boat reached the shore.
While turning around to truly take in the view for the first time, he heard the splash of his friend jumping in the water and immediately followed after him and helped him drag the boat up the gravelly shore of the island; just enough to be completely sure their only way back to civilisation wouldn't be dragged back into the pacific by the waves.
When he looked up, he was stunned by the beauty of the forest starting only a few meters behind the shore.
It consisted entirely of spruce trees, some of the tallest he'd ever seen and with very dense needles which made the undergrowth, consisting only of a few shrubs and the thick and lush moss covering everything, appear quite dark with only few light spots every now and then.
But even beyond the obviously very healthy plant growth, John couldn't help but notice that the forest emitted a certain allure.
It felt peaceful, almost too peaceful for someone like him who had barely left NYC a few times in his whole life; it was as if no human had ever set foot on it, but that assumption was immediately proven wrong as he noticed a small sign nailed to a wooden post directly on the edge of the forest.
Curious he walked towards the sign and it seemed like the crunching of his wet shoes on the gravel beach pulled Mike out of a similarly stunned state as John had been in just a moment ago.
'Or maybe it's the splashing sound from the water in my shoes', John mused.
He hated wet shoes, but while stepping into the boat in the small harbor that had been their starting point he had missed the water inside of it, which had unfortunately been high enough to immediately fill up his sneakers.
As the two of them reached the sign Mike read it out loud, because of course he would.
"'Keep out, this island is private property', yeah right", he mocked,"there's no way we're turning around now, after three hours on this damned rotten piece of wood. Not to mention judging from the state that sign is in, even the owner probably hasn't been here for some years."
Only now did John notice that the moss was even covering the post and the strangely crooked and rusted sign.
'Wait, what is that?'
Just in case he reached out his hand and tried shaking on the sign, surprised when it slided to the side, apparently only fixed to the post by a single nail, and revealed another sign directly below this one.
This time Mike didn't read it out.
Do not enter without consulting the Academy
Leave the island before nightfall
Suggested tier of intervention: Tier 6 or higher
The two quickly exchanged a glance.
"Must be some kind of inside joke or something", Mike shrugged.
It clearly hadn't shaken him enough to quiet down a notch, but John didn't miss his friend's uneasy gaze as it wandered over the words on this second sign again.
And while he too didn't feel quite as confident as he had beforehand, he still agreed with the sentiment Mike had expressed before: He really didn't want to row back the long way to mainland Canada right now, not after bragging to Tony that he wouldn't be afraid to camp out in the wild, no matter if he'd never really left the city before.
And so the two of them began the arduous task of setting up their shared tent, something they definitely hadn't counted on to be this hard before.
But compared to this digging a small hole for their fireplace by precisely following the instructions from a youtube video they'd written down back in the inn and preparing their sleeping gear went over without any problems and quickly the only thing left to do before enjoying their dinner later in the evening was collecting a bit of firewood.
"John", Mike called out from his sleeping back as John was once again checking if the boat was far enough away from the waves.
"Yes?", John turned around.
"Let's take a walk in that forest for now and explore a bit. We can try to collect some firewood on the way back, okay?", Mike suggested, already taking his hatchet from inside his backpack and sticking it into his belt, obviously having already decided how he was going to spend his afternoon.
John immediately voiced his agreement and made his way over to Mike after checking the boat one last time.
He had already completely forgotten about the sign and was just aching to get out of the sun burning sun.
The journey to this island hadn't exactly been easy after all and now he was sticky with sweat.
...
- John -
As the two entered the forest the first thing John noticed was how cool it became. He had expected it to be cooler in the deep shadows thrown by they trees, but this was even better!
The thick moss on the ground also felt incredibly soft beneath his feat and as such without further ado John took of his wet shoes and set them on the ground directly behind the sign post, at the edge of the forest before enjoying the feeling of the moss beneath his feet. It was like the sort of thick and expensive carpet Tony had always wanted to own.
'Maybe when we go back to New York we can buy a carpet like this', he thought, happily to finally be able to escape these shoes.