The Treasure of Mystery Island a story quest by Lily Byrd

The Byrd's Nest Inn Location in Jade Valley

The Byrd's Nest Inn in Jade Valley at the SE corner of the Jade Valley Outdoor Market

Violet's Ship. After it was destroyed by attackers at sea. Before it was stolen. Then returned.

The Treasure of Mystery Island
Volume one – The Brown Tricorner Hat part one



At Jade Valley in the Byrd’s Nest Inn - Lily Byrd’s journal
Arabella, who has recently been visiting me to see ‘how I’m settling in after the death of my family’, has been drugged, robbed, taken ill, and teleported all in the space of one day at my family’s inn. I’m going to try to catch up to her as soon as I write this all down in my journal. I don’t want to forget anything before I leave here to find her!!
My name is Lily Byrd, I’m one of the adopted daughters of the late brew master at The Byrd’s Nest Inn here in Jade Valley, Elysium, New Britannia. My adopted family, my beloved great-Aunt Morgana, and most of the usual staff at the Inn have recently been killed or are missing while fleeing the last attack on the valley (My sister Violet and I were sorting books at the Hall of Inquiry and Learning as a punishment for some indiscretion that isn’t important anymore and I’ve had enough thinking to know I should not feel this survivor guilt. I do though, and I miss them every day). Now I’m trying to make sense of my life, hire new help for the Inn (as our best barmaid recently left our employ), and make sense of this robbery and attack on my friend, Arabella. This mystery might just involve an old secret map. Shhhhh. The map I hint about may yet still be in Arabella’s possession and if not then I still feel obligated to help her find her missing items. It is the only honourable thing to do. Plus, did I say secret map? Let me start at the beginning.
You remember Arabella, right? She introduced all of us Avatars to Novia when we arrived, disoriented and confused, and guided our first steps in our new lives. Arabella had been travelling through Aerie and she was passing through Jade Valley on her way east to check on others who were on her list. She stopped in the Inn to check on me, after hearing of the loss of my family from a friend of hers in Port Phoenix. I took her to a few of my favorite haunts in town, including The Jade Dragons Guild Hall so that she could get a sense of the valley, the port, the people, and the life I lived by the water’s edge.
We had a good catch up (and good fishing) for a few days even if I was quite busy with the Inn, then just when she was ready to sail, the ship she had been waiting on, my sister’s ship, had been taken out of the harbor the night before yesterday, without even a whiff of notice from anyone. She looked VERY grumpy on the pier after hearing the news of the missing ship but let her things be taken back up to her room, nonetheless. She spent yesterday trying to hire a different ship. She had really liked the look of the SeaByrd and was disappointed to not be a passenger. I’m sure that had she been a passenger when it was stolen, it would already be returned to harbor and the pirates jailed; she is that courageous of a warrior. My sister Violet Green’s ship captained by Old Captain Smollett’, she had pointed out earlier when we were fishing at the pier, was plainly the largest and most seaworthy of all the ships in harbor so she was not pleased with the choices left to her in Jade Valley after the theft. She started asking about ships further from the Port. Eventually Arabella found another ship that could carry her to her destination, in a roundabout way but she would arrive nonetheless. She would have to go all the way to Xenos to then catch her alternate ship. That was all to be a few days in the future, but everything has changed, again. It’s all so confusing and thrilling at the same time. Deep Breath. Violet’s ship is missing!! Good thing she was up at the Keep when that happened, or I’d be worried sick. Violet is furious, especially after just getting it fitted out again.
Last night we had time to plan Arabella’s new travel arrangements and make some fishing plans up near the waterfalls before her departure a few days in the future and we ate our supper in the Singing Bear Pub at my Inn. At some point after supper during the singing we were offered a round of mead from someone feeling generous at the pub and after a toast with said mead we were both feeling quite full and sleepy. That’s the last I remember. There are few among us who have even a vague memory after the toast, though I did wake in my own bed at the cottage, fully clothed, and sick. Very sick. But not as sick as Arabella. No one was.
I know why now: In the pub before supper arrived Arabella and I had been chatting about her new lingerie, recently acquired while up in Ordanis Mortis, at the tailor she frequents there called the Nimble Thimble, while we were waiting on our fish stew. She has quite a collection of undies now and she is a nut for that very softest of cloth that is like water in one’s hands. I was letting Arabella know the tailor’s shop was part of my family’s holdings and she’d be getting a better price from now on for her purchases for future reference when Arabella, after looking about casually and leaning in a little closer, showed me an interesting map she had acquired in her travels.
It was stained and torn but still legible. She had found it buried under some rubble at the edge of the sea near Estgard in some washed up effects of a Kobold ship that had floundered in the strait. It was found in a battered Kobold chest with a telescope, a bottle of rum, and a tricorner hat (Billy Bones was written in the brim). The map was inscribed with some writing I couldn’t make out, some I could, and a large X marks the spot on it in plain sight. Plain sight. It might be THE MAP from that old tale that everyone remembers from our childhood’s nightmares no matter which side of the veil we were tossed onto. A map from the cruelest crew of pirates the seas had ever had the chance to throw into the wind. Captain Flint indeed. It gave me a shiver just thinking of that old tale Treasure Island. We both though it odd and thrilling to be holding something so ancient in our hands but disturbing, too.
Arabella put it away then, so we didn’t get our supper or drinks on it that evening. I wanted to take a better look at the map in the morning light. Arabella was planning on following the map after she’d finished the last stop on her assignment of checking how new Avatars had settled into the world. I had a look around the pub while I waited her return from her room and realized the tables were all full, no wonder I felt run off my feet with Jenny Hawkins gone from her barmaid job. Her dad, Jimmy was going to be angry that I didn’t stop her from fleeing to sea, like he did. It was a rare evening when the Inn was completely booked. I was sure that the stolen ship was responsible for this increase in business as passengers were inconvenienced by the delay of finding alternate transportation.
This evening it is the Inn that will benefit; though none of us here are happy that these folks have had their travel plans scuttled. The Inn is short staffed, but I can see Uncle Owain has everything under his firm guidance, he knows how to steady a crowd in an emergency and he is the best brewmaster around.
*find Chapter 2