As we saw in part one of this tiny Raft series, Iselia had been annoyed by the shark one too many times and was now preparing for morning where she would go out of her way to get it out of her way, then feast upon its sharky flesh.
With a plastic bottle for a pillow and some leaves as a blanket, she settled down for the night, wooden spear grasped tight in hand, and soon awoke to the gentle rays of the sun on her face.
It was time to menace the menace.
After hopping into the water, it didn't take long for the shark to sniff her out. Prepared with her spear, she stabbed it, and stabbed it, and when it swam off to circle 'round and take her from behind, she stabbed it again.
Soon it was dead. Hungrily, she cut into the beast and harvested its flesh to cook later.
With the threat gone, Iselia dove back into the reef she had so hastily abandoned the night before and continued her exploration and gathering all that she could until... her harvesting hook broke.
She didn't have enough plastic to craft another one. It was time to push off and get back out to the vast ocean. At least she had plenty of resources now.
Before returning to her raft, she swam past the remains of the shark once more then, as an afterthought, tore off its head.
It would make a fine trophy.
With the shark's head stashed in her storage box, she recycled one of the island's trees into a sail and fashioned another anchor with all the rocks that had been found in the reef.
Setting forth, another island soon loomed in the distance — one significantly larger than the one she had just left.
It took all day to reach the land mass, but that was fine by Isela: as the wind carried the raft along, she picked up and salvaged all the plastic she could and fashioned two harvesting hooks.
Then, once anchored down, she started researching the various items she had been coming across, and with that research she figured out ways to create new items.
After a night of constant study and no sleep, Iselia hopped off the raft and onto land and eagerly began to explore this new island... an eagerness that was quickly destroyed by the tusks of a rampaging boar.
This creature was more annoying than the blasted shark, but after being gored several times she finally started anticipating its movements and soon it lay as dead as the shark did. Then she ravaged the carcass for some fresh bacon to eat later. AND took its head for a trophy, too.
Further on the island she came across a strange sight on this otherwise humanless world... a small sign of civilisation.
A shop complete with stock was right there, on this deserted island. There was no shopkeeper, yet she couldn't simply take the stuff, it was glued in place until she deposited trash cubes... a currency she did not have. It sold delicious recipes, bait for fish, all sorts of things! She would need to find some trash cubes and come back.
Even better, maybe she would find some human life after all. Maybe she wasn't alone.
Before exploring the island some more, Iselia went back to the raft and started making a few things. She needed some clay bricks to dry so she could build a smelter and start cooking the metal she was finding. There would undoubtedly be some more metal in the new reef around this giant island, she wanted to cook it all!
When day next hit, she dove into the water and discovered a tropical paradise complete with beautiful, colourful fish.
Swimming with the fishes, she found more sand and clay, rocks and scrap metal...
...and even a small and ugly fish that went out of its way to suicide-bomb her with its poisonous innards.
It didn't take long to find the metal she was after, although it was rather deep down and she had to keep swimming back to the surface to breathe. Hopefully one day soon she would research the means to create her own breathing apparatus and flippers... that would make these underwater excursions much easier.
In the meantime, she would get all of her findings back to the raft and research a couple of new things she had found, then continue the exploration of this most large island.
Until next time! 😊🦈⚔️