Today was the big day... It had been three days since her training session with master Jeong and her body still felt sore, but she had come to a point where she could function at her full strength if she willed through the pain. It was a good thing Lin had always been a strong willed girl, at least from the moment she learned she was much more powerful than she gave herself credit for. She had made full use of this time when she barely even able to walk to study the map, and once she did so long enough, she realized the place was pretty close to Karate Island. This meant this map pointed to ancient ruins who might possibly contain some treasure yet to be discovered. The possibilities were endless, and it only made her more excited! Now that she could move, Linnea ate her breakfast quickly and headed for the docks.

She wasn't an archeologist or anything of the sort, only a simple explorer. But even there, there were things even a simple explorer could do: She could write down and document every detail of her adventure and later give it to an historian who could draw the same conclusions she would never be able to. Maybe getting one in their crew would be a good idea given the type of exploration Linnea wanted to carry out after all. She stepped into the Melusine and undid the ropes, immediately setting sail for the island nearby. She wasn't a navigator, but if she couldn't sail towards an island so close she could almost see it, she had no right calling herself a pirate in the first place. Linnea didn't bother changing her lateen sails to increase speed, she'd much rather benefit from the increased maouverability as she sailed around the island, scouting it... There she found something unnerving: There was a ship docked by the beach!

This was troubling... These these guys also have a map for her treasure? Linnea looked at her map: It had taken her quite a good deal of trouble to decypher it, not being an archeologist she had to go around searching libraries and walking around asking people. She was pretty discreet about in the end so she was still pretty sure nobody would have found their way to the island thanks to her asking around about it. Did this mean someone else was aware of this by the time she got her hands on the map? That was actually a possibility given that she got it off the hands of a dead man, who might have known where did he find that map, or who did he share its knowledge with before his untimely demise?

"Either way, I'd best be careful...", she thought out loud in a rather accurate assessment, as she turned the helm of her ship off the coast of the islet, instead opting to take her rowboat to land. This wouldn't be easy since she didn't know exactly how many people would she find there. They flew a Jolly Roger so pirates was the most obvious idea.

Taking her rowboat, Linnea also took care to leave her ship anchored far away enough that one might not immediately think that she was visiting this exact island. She also went the extra mile, placing her rowboat inside a rocky reef and making landfall there. First things first, Kenbunshoku Haki. She closed her eyes and focused, spreading her second sight over a wide area that pretty much covered the whole island. Well, maybe not the whole island but this place was indeed pretty small. There were some ruins towards the middle, where the temple would be likely located, so she headed there immediately. Eventually she spotted someone... Making way through the jungle, she eventually got close enough to look at the target. Wanting to determine what kind of person she might be dealing with, Linnea made some noise at the edge of the jungle by throwing pebbles and reading the man's emotions...

"WHO GOES THERE?", he shouted, scaring away the birds and animals... His aura reeked of killing intent, and at that moment Linnea's eyes grew cold. This one wouldn't be missed. A single shot to the arrow left him in death's embrace; though he might actually survive if he didn't move too much.

With the lookout taken out, she hid him under some brushes and threw dirt over the blood stains, completely masking her actions before she finally proceeded down a stairwell, and into the hidden temple... She was obviously not the first explorer to wander her way there along the years but her map did denote some secret passages an unwary explorer might have missed. And she also had Haki to let her see through walls...

Used B-rank Kenbu (25/40 STamina)

1 T1 pirate down

As she stepped down the staircase, the gleaming sunlight was immediately replaced by pitch black darkness as the ranger descended into a narrow hallway. Indeed she could hardly see down here, even with her incredible eyesight. If average joes were down here adventuring then they would most likely be carring torches. From the surface it appeared like this temple had a surface portion, but it must have been unable to endure the tides of time. Her map didn't even mention a surface portion, so it must have been written after its destruction. She wanted to take a moment to examine some of the etchings on the wall even if she didn't have the proper knowledge to examine them; her Kenbunshoku wasn't enough to gather up such details...

For now, she kept prowling through the narrow corridor, past one turn left, then a turn right, then another straircase heading down... Would this thing ever end? It didn't seem like it. Eventually, she saw a literal light at the end of the tunnel, and came upon a wide chamber with a huge staircase leading down. she could actually scan the bottom floor with her kenbunshoku... Five souls. Five more pirates in league with the one above. Maybe all of them weren't willing to treat intruders with killing intent but Lin wouldn't bet on it. She wouldn't shoot to kill out of the blue, but they wouldn't be standing after her arrows struck home. Drawing five arrows, she had one of them with each of those guys names on it. It would take her a minute or so to line up perfect shots, waiting for all of them to step outside any form of cover... But good things come to those who wait and this was no exception. The arrows flew freely and lodged themselves in the enemies' chests, dealing critical damage and knocking them all down in one fell swoop... And the archer was free to move on...


B-rank Kenbu active (25/40 STamina)

6 T1 pirate down

Spoiler:

It was time to go deeper... It wasn't easy since those pirates clearly had access to tools she just didn't. There were large gaps in the staircases and other traps created as the temple was weathered away with the passing of the years. But Linnea was a resourceful and an engineous girl. Using some vines that crept down from the openings above, she improvised ropes and attached them to an arrow. Of course, she tested the strength of the vines by attempting to snap one, but she wouldn't need that much resistance. If it could hold her weight for about a second, it would be more than enough, since her momentum would take care of the rest. Shooting the arrow towards a hole in the wall opposite the gap, she used it as an improvised grappling hook and leapt over the gap, the vine carrying her across it before snapping a few moments right before her feet touched the ground. Some rubble fell down from the impact and she made a note to land more softly next time... Linnea pressed on further down and had to repeat this little trick two more times, scavenging the arrows.

Once she arrived down, she was able to scavenge two arrows that were still mostly intact as she looked around. Could these guys really be the end of it? Impossible... They were just sitting around in an area completely devoid of treasure, it was far more likely that they were simply guarding this against intruders. Unlike the area above, these five men should have kept anybody out, if that anybody wasn't a marksman capable of picking them all off from a distance. Linnea checked the map to see where she should be headed and after looting the five pirates - some were still conscious but none of them would be going anywhere soon - she pressed on further through the only path that actually appared to lead somewhere, but she found no chamber as big as the first one... Actually, most of the paths appeared to have been thoroughly looted already... Fortunately the pirates still had some Beli on them to make the trip worthwhile if nothing else. She eventually felt another presence, two of them actually, roughly forty meters away at the end of another tunnel. She crouched down, took aim, and repeated the same thing she always did: Shoot an arrow at the larger aura's chest.




B-rank Kenbu active (10/40 STamina)


6 T1 pirate down

Used and scavenged 3 arrows from grappling hook, scavenged 2 more from beaten pirates; then shot another pirate = total 5 arrows expended

Her arrow flew silently into the large aura's heart; Linnea wasn't willing to take any chances with this one. She quickly ducked behind cover as the other aura took aim at her with a rifle, but to no avail. At best he would have seen a shadow hiding since Linnea wasn't using any source of light... One might have wondered how she could have made it this far should they not have any knowledge of Haki... But this guy had his rifle pointed straight at her and didn't look like he'd be turning it elswhere. A bullet flew past her in what appeared to be a blind shot, but as the guy had some form of light to help him see, it wouldn't easy to turn around and shoot before he shot her back. The guy voiced grievous insults as if hoping to draw out his friend's killer, and he did, Lin concotted a plan to distract him: Grabbing a small pebble, she cast it into the tunnel, its noise making it look like the attacker was on the move. The guy naturally shot at the other side of the tunnel by mere reflex, giving Linnea the time she needed to turn into the tunnel and let her arrow loose, nailing the pirate right between his eyes so he couldn't even get another shot out... She was getting better at this but none of these pirates were at a level such that she should be getting hurt fighting them.

As all the voices had now grown low and silent, Linnea scavenged one arrow from her freshest kill - looting his pockets as well - and found the other one broken. Their torches lit the path rather clearly and she could find that the other guy seemed to be a lot more well dressed and ornamented, and she was able to take two gold rings, a chain, and some beli off his pocket: He must have been the captain of this crew. But this wasn't all she found... The guy also had a journal in his hand - which contained a map similar to hers - and also an artifact he'd acquired somewhere in the temple. But both her own map, his map, and her Haki said the same thing: There was something behind this door. The only path yet unexplored in this temple laid beyond it... She examined the artifact in hand and the golden, draconic ornaments on the door. Her artifact appeared to be some sort of eye shaped blue gem, and with the draconic head missing one such eye gem, Linnea naturally tried to insert it there: But nothing happened. She rubbed her chin and stood over two hours examining the mechanism, gleaming what she could from the journal and trying to crack the mechanism... But she eventually gave up. She would have to study the gem, and the journal if she was going to have a chance at cracking it...


Still, her pockets were full and heavy from all the gold she looted off these pirates, so this trip wasn't a complete waste. Hopefully they wouldn't remember her face thanks to her hood and how dark it was, but she could hope. Most of them had survived after all... With her work done, Linnea went back to the shore, grabbed her rowboat, and headed back to the Melusine...


-exit-

B-rank Kenbu active (10/40 STamina)


7 T1 pirate down; 1 T2 pirate down


11 arrows used, 6 arrows scavenged = total 5 arrows expended