The Flutes of Bonehook Isle

The wind was sharp and mean along the northern shore of Bonehook Isle, where the sea gnawed endlessly at the rock like a dog with a grudge. Arkolf stood with his thick orc arms folded, the hem of his coat whipping at his boots, glaring down at the barnacle-crusted wreck of what used to be a fishing skiff.

Somewhere deep within the remains, Rusty the penguin was rummaging like a raccoon in a royal pantry.

"Captain! Captain Arkol!" Rusty's voice echoed out of the boat’s broken hull, full of unearned excitement. "You won’t believe what I found this time!"

Arkol didn’t move. He didn’t even sigh—he just stared harder at the horizon like he could intimidate time into moving faster. "If it’s another cursed spoon," he growled, "I’ll shove it so far up your beak it’ll rattle when you talk."

Rusty popped into view, covered in kelp, sand, and pride. He held aloft what looked to Arkol like driftwood on a string.

"It’s a pan flute!" Rusty declared, eyes gleaming. "Ancient! Mystical! Possibly enchanted! Definitely important!"

Arkol leaned forward, sniffed, and immediately regretted it. "It smells like herring guts and regret."

"Exactly!" Rusty said, completely missing the tone. "That means it’s old! That means it’s valuable! And look—there’s more!" With a triumphant shuffle, the little penguin vanished back into the wreck and emerged moments later with two more pan flutes under each flipper, looking like a waddling musical weapon.

"A whole set, Captain! Someone hid them here like treasure! Or... or a sacred offering! Or—"

"Or someone forgot them after a bad beach concert and a worse storm," Arkol muttered. His tusk twitched. "What kind of fool brings a flute to sea?"

Rusty’s feathers puffed up with indignation. "These could be the Lost Pipes of Pommelhump!"

Arkol turned his head slowly. "That’s not a real name." Rusty gasped. "Is it not? Or... did it come to me in a vision?" "It came to you in a sand-crusted stupor," Arkol muttered, already starting to walk away.

But Rusty waddled after him, flutes clinking. "We have to take them to Wizard #1889! He’ll know! He always knows when something’s magical! Remember the pickle jar? Remember the haunted crab fork?" "I remember wasting half a day for Zorko to tell us it was a salad tong," Arkol said. He didn’t stop walking.

"But what if—" Rusty bounced in front of him—"—they summon sea spirits? Or open wormholes? Or play lullabies for dragons??" That stopped Arkol. Just for a second.

"...Dragons?"

Rusty nodded solemnly, clutching the flutes to his chest. "Sleepy ones. The hoarding kind."

A long, long pause. Arkol exhaled like he was releasing a cannon charge. "Fine. We go to Zorko. But if these flutes so much as squeak, I’m using them for kindling."

"Woo!" Rusty squealed, spinning in a happy circle. "Adventure! Ancient relics! Questionable music!"

Arkol trudged back to the boat, mumbling about “birdbrains and bad ideas,” while Rusty nestled the pan flutes into a velvet pouch he'd inexplicably produced from his feathers.

As they shoved off into the grey chop of the sea, neither of them noticed the faint shimmer that flickered over the surface of the largest flute—the softest of tones, like a sigh, drifting out over the waves.

Rusty didn't notice.

But Arkol, already rowing, paused.

"...Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Arkol squinted into the wind.

"...Nothing. Just keep your flutes dry. We're not turning back." And with that, the pirate and his overenthusiastic first mate sailed toward the Dream Master's tower—one step closer to answers, or, more likely, a whole new kind of trouble.

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