The Islands of Fire: The Journal of Martin Jones

We left Olympus HQ on August 31st of [text ruined] at 9:30 AM.

I admit to being nervous as we departed, however, Dr. Madarame assured us that we were perfectly safe. After all, they did send those soldiers with us after all.

September 1st 12:34 PM. As we approached the island chain, the first thing I noticed was the massive atmospheric disturbance that had been raging for centuries. Dr. Madarame and his personal team had developed a way through however. To put it in the absolute simplest terms they could explain it to me with, it takes away the energy stored in the ions of the air molecules by separating the electrons from the atom. Now, how it does this without causing a massive ionized reaction is beyond my ken, and seeing as I have 3 doctorates in engineering from Harvard University with honors; it’s likely above yours as well. The device will require some time to charge using the ships limited - and I use that term lightly - power source, and we won’t be heading inland for a couple of days.

September 4th 4:26 AM. The device has charged. We are releasing the energy as I write this. They warned me that electronics may go down, however I have taken precautions from such an event… It may or may not be a giant rubber sphere. Don’t judge me. It’s air conditioned.

September 4th 4:29 AM. We have activated the relic gifted to us by the Curator. It seems to have brought down the force field surrounding the island for a short period of time. Now we just have to activate the weather device.

September 4th 4:32 AM. The device worked. The storm has parted and we are now able to enter the waters of the Ke Ahi-Ahi island chain. From this point forward, I will be updating this journal using the implant Dr. Madarame gave me. Laptops are hardly suitable for island life, and this way I will be able to update Ms. Russel live.

September 4th 4:57 AM. What is that? Some sort of… Oh no.

September 4th 5:01 AM. I’ve retreated to my rubber ball. What is that thing? It destroyed the Weather Machine. Is it still out there? The storm is encroaching again… God save us all…

September 4th 5:11 AM. One of the boats went down. They were… eaten alive by some sort of fish… things. I’ve decided to call them Harpoon Fish. They tore through the crew with some kind of tongue like appendage that they released. It cut through the armor and flesh like it was just any other sort of prey, and dragged the men into the ocean. I’d never seen anything like it. Luckily, they seemed to not like the taste of my rubber shielding…

September 4th 5:16 AM. The abandoned boat and any survivors sank. A squid the size of stonehenge and covered in a thin sheen of metal made sure of that. When the survivors tried to fight back, it shot superheated liquid metal at them to ensure they were well and truly stuck. This place… is hell on Earth.

September 4th 6:19 AM. We’ve made it to land. I’ve elected to use my rubber ball as more of a suit for the time being. I’ve deflated it for the most part, and used some spare parts lying around to make it into an airbag. I’m not sure how long this will work for me, but I feel safer having the balloon around me than not. Some of the soldiers are looking for food and survivors. They won’t find anything though. The bioscanners of the original ship showed no survivors.

September 4th 12:00 PM. The soldiers found food. A fruit covered in deadly spines that cause petrification at the source of its entry. They’ve already named it the Stone Fruit, though when I tried to argue with them; the discoverer slapped me with his rock hand, so I’ve dropped my campaign for the name Medusa’s Citrus.

September 4th 12:36 PM. Hard to believe that this place can even exist. While the soldiers fed on the Stone Fruit, I decided not to risk it and instead grabbed myself some leftover rations that had washed up on shore. After fighting off a Frightner Crab, I managed to snag myself some. Thankfully, the storm seems to be lessened on the island proper. Though it’s still raining, it’s certainly not the torrential downpour that would’ve surely destroyed us before. It’s strangely beautiful, in its own way. It is a tropical island after all. I wonder if the soldiers have enjoyed their lunch.

September 4th 12:48 PM. The soldiers mutated. All but one of them. They seem to have developed rocky exterior flesh with an extra set of arms. They are also incredibly violent and strong. I know, because as I watched they tore apart the first person they saw. He never saw it coming. I’ve chosen to hide in the bushes… wait, is it moving?

September 4th 12:51 PM. The Brush Tortoise has taken me away from the Stone Soldiers. Thankfully too, as they were becoming cannibals before my eyes. Needless to say, I didn’t want to be on the menu. With me is the last of the real soldiers. I don’t know where the researchers have gotten to, however Louis Calvin and I will finish this expedition without them. We have to…

September 4th 4:26 PM. The Brush Tortoise has a surprisingly spacious hollow inside its shell. It’s nice and warm without too much in the way of smell. As long as we can find our way back to it, this will make a nice shelter. One thing Louis brought up however, is that if something large enough to be mistaken for a sandy island hill requires camouflage… what is it hiding from?

September 5th 2:01 AM. They’ve been screaming for hours. My friends. At this point, they sound like they’re miles away and there’s nothing I can do to help them. But… I want to. I’ve decided to use some of the emergency sleeping pills that they gave us in case we needed them. And I need them.

September 5th 8:00 AM. My phones automatic alarm system alerted something to our presence. Louis is gone, I don’t know where he got off to but… if he’s alive, then I hope to see him soon.

September 5th 8:05 AM. The Brush Tortoise is dead. I was sent flying through the air and only survived due to the airbag system I had installed. While I was bouncing, I saw a campfire and maybe a sett
lement. I'm not sure what it is, but I plan to investigate.

September 5th 8:56 AM. I finally got a good look at what destroyed the boat. A truly titanic monster, at least the size of the Empire State building though much of it still remained underwater. It had to be the biggest snake I had ever seen, leaving a trail of death in its wake. Corpses of fish not native to these waters rising under the black, surely toxic waters that it created with its mere presence. How the other aquatic wildlife survived is a question I will have to study after we mount this beast over Miss Russel’s desk… should I survive that is.

September 5th 10:38 AM. I made it to the campfire site. Unfortunately, I was chased away by… If I call them locals, then I risk making one assume that they are humans. Which I would not be comfortable with even at my most generous. These chitinous humanoids had 6 arms, two legs, and the top set had a pair of claws that were large enough to crush my head if they chose to, notably though, they all seemed… female. Where were the men of this civilization? Were they devoured as well? They had noticeably feminine features, and human faces… but they were clearly more scorpion than woman. Based on the smell and bones littering their campground; I fear for what has occurred with my friends and colleagues. This must’ve been the screaming I heard during the night. Where is Louis? Am I to survive without him? God only hopes that he could survive… Are they… coming this way?

September 6th 3:48 PM. Due to the storm, my neural uplink had died. Thankfully, I did not. It seems that these creatures are primitive, as when they found my “airbag” function, they stopped attacking to study it. They seem to have decided to leave me alone for now, I thankfully - and quickly - took my leave. I managed to spot a male, a far more recognizable scorpion creature than the females, parasitically attached to the back of one of the warriors. I have decided to dub them Amazonian Mimic Scorpions. I do understand how that could be confusing, due to the fact that they aren’t from the Amazon, and are in fact thousands of miles from the massive jungle, however, I am frankly starving and I have no reason to assume that anything on this island is safe to eat. Save of course for my fellow crewmen, but even if I were to be interested in partaking in that forbidden flesh, I would be out of luck as it seems that they’ve already fallen prey to better predators. I’ll have to see if I can make it back to the boat.

September 8th 4:28 PM. There are more of them.

I made it to the top of a nearby mountain, only it wasn’t a mountain at all. As soon as I started gathering resources for a spear, the mountainous kaiju began to shift and shake as if my disturbance was an annoyance. It’s rumbling awoke the great bear with electric porcupine quills the size of telephone wires, and the creature that seemed to be shifting its shape with everything it saw. When I saw it turn into myself, I dove behind a rock and cowered. Nothing like seeing a 13 story tall version of yourself to make you forget about hunting for another day.

September 13th 5:01 PM. Gravity… raised the… I’m flying… Airbag… needed…

September 18th 6:28 PM. I arrived at the boat. I stuffed my face with as much as I could stand. There are 15 great monsters on Lugar Ap Noy itself. They seem to take shifts moving around the island and hunting. The number of hostile flora and fauna are too numerous to even hope that I could catalog even a number of them. Miss Russel, if you are still reading this, my neural implant has failed. The gravity storm that destroyed my airbag on impact also seems to have created a short in my neural transmitter. I fear that if I try to activate it again, I may not wake up. This is likely going to be my last update. Tell my family that I’m not coming home. Tell the world to stay the hell away from this island. I finally figured out whats causing the mutations though. It’s a rare mineral called tetracite that previously was thought to only exist on asteroids. It’s so abundant here, that it could easily power more than a hundred major cities for the next 500 years without even disturbing the environment. Hell, I think some of these creatures have evolved a sort of silver blood that uses this tetracite as a way to bond oxygen to their blood molecules. I’ve called these creatures Mirrors, as they take on the appearance of whatever they are looking at. In their native form, they seem to be… Oh.... Oh no…

September 18th 7:03 PM. 16

Neural connection lost. Researcher Jones, deceased.