32 - trees?

Swimming in the ocean between islands Coldin had the inn tied to a raft behind him, this was one of Lee's modifications.

They could have easily paid someone to get them from the port to the first island but most people knew them so they couldn't hide the Inn.

One boatman argued that he should be getting the fair from all the inns customers as well to which made sense so the owner decided to have Coldin pull the inn while swimming.

Lucky enough the water was shallow and didn't have any powerful spirit beast in it so their was one less thing to worry about.

First they visited a small island that was sandy beaches and trees, other than that it was barren. So they set the inn up and let the guests enjoy the good weather and beaches.

The second island was of the bigger variety and had some basic fishing villages on. Stopping here they heard about a unique case on some islands over.

Apparently two islands hundreds of years ago suddenly grew a tree each. One was surrounded by life and the other one was on a barren rocky land. The locals said that at some point the two trees became the dividing line between the islands and that if one wanted to cross they would have to go to these islands.

It wasn't bad years ago but now it became a problem. One tree was on an island covered in thick vegetation and had poisonous spirit beast that would roam the island attacking what they liked. The other tree was on an island which the rocks below your feet would constantly shift and twist making every step forward feel like two steps back.

After hearing about this situation the owner and the guests agreed it would be safer to just wait for the teleport and skip them islands completely, however Coldin thought otherwise. He already extended this part of his journey to cater for the inn so now he had to get a move on.

Coldin discussed the matter with the owner and in the end she agreed to let Coldin try after all they still had two weeks before they could teleport and if Coldin could fix the problem why not?

After hearing of this from the owner Lee got to work to make Coldin anything that he needed but Coldin said no.

The guests were all amazed by Coldins courage and determination. Some even thought to go with him but hearing that one island housed poisonous spirit beast they thought otherwise. Even if they were strong, it only takes one bite, sting or scratch to poison and potentially kill them.

Quickly getting to work Coldin prepared everything he would need, food, water and finally metal.

Over the year he spent at the inn Coldin was always refining metal and now he had many pieces of metal all thousand refined and he also had four spirit refined.

All the spirit refined metal took three months compared to other layers of refinement but they where all much stronger, durable, flexible and light.

Each metal had a rough shape with streaks of grey running through them, giving them an unusual appearance.

He'd learnt from Lee that when blacksmiths produced spirit refined metal they would name it, giving it their own 'brand' and since Coldin technically refined them he could name them.

In the end Coldin just went with something simple based on the pattern that all his metal had, Moon Scar.

Moon to honour his wolf mother who raised him and scar as all the metal had the grey streaks that others would mistake for impurity's.

Once ready Coldin said goodbye to everyone in the Inn and headed out on his little mission, the first step getting to the islands.