Join Me In Paradise ~Samuel Drake~

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

"Is that it?" Sam's voice interrupted the silence, Nate stopped the boat for a moment to get a good look at what was in front of them - and quite honestly, it really wasn't much.

Before them was a cluster of islands, most of them weren't very big and the place was surrounded by rocks. Some were poking out of the water while most of them were jutting out from the islands to make tall cliff sides or random spires connecting parts of the islands together. Other than that, the islands themselves were covered in sand and tall, thick trees. It wasn't much that they could see at the moment but if Nate had learned anything from his previous adventures, it's that there is always more than what the eye sees.

"It must be, this is what the map shows." Nate pulled out what they got from the tower back in that town in Madagascar, fitting them all together and holding it out towards the sun to make sure that these were the right sets of islands, and what they had confirmed it. Nate set everything back down and turned the motor back on, glancing back at Sam. Ellie was still curled up on the small wooden bench that was built in to the back of the boat, Sam had her head on his lap while he tried and failed to run his fingers through her hair, he stopped doing that fairly quickly as the tangles were too much, Sam being afraid to wake up Ellie by yanking too hard on her hair.

Sam carefully moved his hands under Elli's head, getting up and setting her back down, resting her head on top of one of their softer backpacks. He went over towards Nate, leaning down a little to get a better look through the windshield of the boat.

"So...maybe Libertalia is more of a...more of a small, beachside shack."

Nate smiled softly at that remark, his hands still on the wheel as he flicked his eyes towards his brother. "Yeah, maybe it's a treehouse."

Pressing down on the gas as the boat gently pulled forward along the water, Nate went slow so they could watch for anything out of the ordinary - plus, he didn't want to wake up Ellie yet. Sam wasn't the only one who felt guilty about what happened back in Scotland, Nate partially felt responsible. When Ellie asked them to shoot her in the leg for a distraction, Nate believed if he hadn't froze up like that, he could have objected. He could have spared her the pain and thought of something else like slapping some snow on Sam, sending him out towards the Shoreline soldiers while he screamed bloody murder about being a killer snowman. Maybe that was the better option than having Ellie limp for the rest of her life with a bullet wound that won't be able to properly heal for a while.

"Or maybe Avery spent his entire fortune setting up this treasure hunt..." Sam's voice began to falter, and the humorous tone turned sort of sour. "...and ran out of money to actually build Libertalia."

Nate didn't like that possibility, but he agreed with Sam. It was a very real problem for them, and the treasure hunter hated to think that they came all of this way to find a few rotting homes with a few worthless relics. He just hoped that there was something more to this cluster of islands, he wasn't sure what he was hoping for yet, but anything more than what they could see on the surface was good enough for him.

The brothers drove around for a little while, Sam telling them to stop at a few smaller islands if they saw anything man made on them. They went out to explore each of the islands but not finding too much apart from some other pirate initiates who didn't make it, Nate keeping some of the letters that they kept on them along with a few small treasures he found along the way.

Finally they pulled alongside the last island that they haven't checked yet, this one having a massive tower sitting on top of a more hilly part of the island.

"Should we have Ellie with us for this one?" Nate asked, Sam nodding in response as he went over to wake the sleeping woman.

At first Sam gently shook Ellie, frowning once that didn't work, but he kept on trying with other various methods. Ellie eventually peaked her eyes open at Sam running his fingers through her hair again, purposefully trying to work through the tangles. She rose up, twisting her body and giving Sam an evil look, the annoyance on her face rather clear.