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As they neared the surface, Ms Octavia stopped and peered at the side of the ship She looked at Alex and motioned him to come closer When he did, she drew her tentacle across the ship’s side, underlining the faded letters she found there

Ka o aru o 5

Scavengers

It seeht about it, he admitted he wasn’t an expert on ship names After all, he’d only known one vessel with a nahter, Claire And there were a lot of spaces in the name, which made Alex wonder if some of the letters had been washed away They would probably never know the answer

He and Ms Octavia broke the surface, giving Alex a chance to catch his breath and check the weather before taking a closer look inside the vessel On shore, Henry and Crow carried a long red plank between the toward Florence The rain and wind continued on all around the island, and clouds were thick above thee stor out to sea, Alex could tell where the rain field ended, about half a mile offshore, and it seemed to be consistent all the way around--at least from what Alex could see When he was ready, Alex and Ms Octavia headed underwater once hlighters, looking for anything useful Alex spotted a fine-looking rope, perfectly coiled around a stairway railing And the sides of the ship were in good shape Not wooden like the pirate ship, but made of some hard material If only they could cut a portion out of each side and attach it to the pirate ship like a bandage over the splitbut there was no way to cut throughdown the stairwell to see as belowdecks Moving cautiously, they swaing, giant trunks that were padlocked and bolted to the floor Alex wondered if they’d be able to pry them open, and if so, what they’d find inside There were doors with the s broken out and vast rooe machinery

They went down another level to find even iant instru politely in place, as if the ship weren’t resting at a forty-five-degree angle under water

When Alex began to run out of air, he h the ship Along the way, Alex unwound the coil of rope and pulled it with hih the water, and Ms Octavia enfolded several are wooden box of tools and carried it upward, showing her treoods and struggled through the water to drag theher near the surface, her than Alex expected By the time he reached the shore, he was spent He heaved the coil of rope onto the land next to a small pile of other useful itee He went back to get the waterlogged toolbox fro it ashore, and dropped it to the ground with a thud Water trickled out of it through cracks in its sides

Fox and Kitten, eren’t able to collectand coust of wind bowled Fox over and sent him across the rocks like aworse

Alex, still breathing hard, approached Florence and Copper "There’s a ton of stuff on the ship Ms Octavia and I found Machinery and strange-looking equipht be worth you taking a look Al is too heavy for us to carry The ship is in really great shape--except for the rip in the side that caused it to sink"

"That’s very encouraging," Florence said She stood near the split in the pirate ship’s side, and Alex could tell she had n one half to the other, whichto need a lot of help putting this thing back together This will be an interesting patch job, and it won’t be easy to ensure it’ll be waterproof" She shifted her bow and looked down at Alex "Do you have any ical components left or did we lose them all in the wreck?"

"I have what’s onhis pockets

"Do you have any preserve spell components?"

"A couple I’ll ask around Do you think that would help?"

"Marcus used that spell on Si into the cat, it’ll keep the sea fro into our ship So yes, I think it would help treether"

Copper approached She could no longer squeeze inside the ship through the split now that Florence had pushed it closed and propped up the bow and stern with rocks to hold the ship in place "Can you let me in?" she asked "I want to check the stability of the structure toa ship that’ll split apart on a rough sea with all aboard We’ll need to be certain we shore up the beams properly"

"We’d be in deep trouble without you, Copper," Florence said She hoisted Copper into one half of the pirate ship so she could assess the condition froo

Alex nodded "We can try to make some new preserve co that would cutthe toolbox with his foot, "like this padlock"