The sea is always a bit harsh, this time of year, for all that they should be entering the channel and therefore sheltered from the worst of the storms off the cold sea. They're a bit off the usual course, having diverted for a thunderstorm some hours ago. Lharever (the skipper, not the Lharever who works in the mess) peers at the bank of fog with the dubious pessimism of someone who has had too many near misses in fog.

"Local traffic, this is the Cold Sea Logistics Support Ship Contemporary Accounts on a course 0.013 clockwise of South, currently at —"

They glance at the navigation system.

"Distance 450 units from the island without trees navigation beacon on bearing 0.214 widdershins of North. We're entering an unexpected fog bank, with limited visibility. If you can hear this, please respond with your own coordinates so we can avoid an accident."

And then, because þereminians believe in having backups, they hit the button for the horn, which plays a series of long, low tones that echo through the fog. Layered on top are theoretically machine-readable high-frequency harmonics with their location data — but Lharever has always been skeptical that they work properly.

Tsarer had just sat down with the book he selected for today's distraction from the horror of his situation when he heard his radio crackle with a signal it wasn't quite tuned to. Naturally he stood up, dropped the book, and rushed over to try and tune it, and had just managed to tune into the tail end of the transmission when the blare of the horn comes out of the fog.

After fiddling with the radio and reminding himself how to transmit rather than receive, he broadcasts, "Dzwej Rermjetsest satra Zestsaksanrewp Tsamjesa Memkswankan. Prejk tse kra njeppa? Narmjesa njepsa?"

He couldn't recognize what was said in the earlier transmission, or even recognize what dialect they were speaking, so he can only hope that they have someone there who understands federal scholastic.

It'd be just his luck for him to have somehow gotten the whole island teleported to the east coast or something.

... that's not any language they recognize. Which isn't saying much — not only are there plenty of historical regional languages still in use, but it could always just be one of those unified global language advocates who can never agree on which language ought to be spoken globally.

"Unknown transmitter, I didn't recognize that language. Can you please repeat in LCTL? Can you please repeat in SCOL? Can you please repeat in Cold Sea Merchant's Cant? Can you please repeat in Þrevlish?"

Lharever fiddles with the radio array to see if they can get a bearing when the unknown party transmits.

That didn't sound like any dialect that Tsarer's ever heard of. Are people out there sailing whatever size of ship has a horn like that and only speaking in a conlang?

No. If this is happening then clearly the island's ended up...somewhere else. Maybe there are humans on the other side of the stormwall, or maybe this is some other world entirely, but he's far enough afield that they're speaking real, other languages. People who the Kings never reached, for one reason or another. At least, not the Kings who ruled the mainland.

He broadcasts, "Bzer psjejppsaz bjest kra bzwast psezbzez bjesttar kra naj dzwej. Mresp dzazzaspen neprezb traksa tsarkpsjejppen bjasktsakkwasp bjest memneprezb nre," pauses for a minute, then repeats the last sentence periodically every minute or so. Hopefully that'll give them a good enough chance of finding him.

... ooooookay. Is the tone of the transmission panicked? Smug? Happy? Confused?

Their Network uplink is offline right now, but the local Network is working just fine. He pings everyone awake on the ship with a notification asking if any of them recognize the language.

While waiting to hear for an answer, he at least gets a good fix on the direction of the transmission. Without some idea of the transmitter's strength, it's hard to be sure how far away it is — but he can steer them well around it, just in case. There's no reason to hit anyone in the fog.

"Look, mate — it's a navigation hazard to be out on the ocean without speaking a language in common use. I think we've steered clear of you and will pass you by to our starboard, but still."

The voice coming through is initially worried, though not quite panicked, and certainly also confused, but is growing calmer over time. Maybe even a bit hopeful. There's a pause in the repeated message when Lharever speaks, and the voice's tone wavers a bit, but doesn't seem to say anything different.

It may be concerning to them when, as they make their closest approach, that it becomes clear through the fog that they are not passing a ship. They are passing an island.

Lharever throws the engines into reverse.

"Full stop!" they announce over the intercom. "Land where it shouldn't be! Memskol, report to the bridge to help me try and reestablish our position."

They stand up and search around in the equipment locker before coming up with a spyglass. What does the island look like?

It's vaguely conical, thickly wooded with oddly smooth and bulbous trees, fresh with spring green and draped in vines. The ground is rocky where it's visible through the foliage, and there's a small patch of sandy beach. There's a small dock on the beach, more fit for a ferry than a ship, with a boardwalk that leads up from the beach and to a wooden shack at the edge of the forest. A thread of smoke, just barely visible against the background of the fog, rises up from somewhere obscured by the trees.

Well, none of that looks like any island that should be along their route. They back off to a (hopefully) safe distance from the island, and post a watch to see if they drift toward any shallows.

The crew spends a while trying to figure out how they could have gone off course without much luck.

"Memskol, you try to raise Island Without Trees Emergency Services on the long-frequency radio. Vernish, take the—"

    "Sir — there's someone there with a radio, could we just row over and ask where we are?"

"Vernish. If you'd let me finish my sentence, you would find we are in agreement. Ask for volunteers to go with you, ideally good with languages."

Vernish ducks his head and heads out of the bridge.

About 30 minutes after first sighting the island, a small electric boat lowers from the side of the ship and heads toward the island's dock.

He's not sure whether he stopped hearing the subtle sound of a large ship moving past or if it's just faded into the background, and if he's actually heard it he's not sure whether that means they've stopped or whether they've disappeared, like the mainland evidently did.

Then he hears something shriller, smaller, but maybe getting closer. Maybe a boat approaching the dock?

He quickly grabs the radio's portable handset and runs faster than he has in a good few years out of the cabin, along the dirt paths to the boardwalk, and clacking over the boards and down the stairs to the dock.

A small electric boat is carefully navigating its way toward the dock, one of the three figures in it peering into the water in case of unknown rocks or shallows.

One of the other figures spots him running and waves.

That's people! A bit of the tension tied up in his chest slackens, knowing that. Now he just needs to hope they're friendly.

He waves, big and wide with his whole arm, as he heads down to the dock's jetty to wait and help them tie off.

They tie off with practiced ease and hop out. Their boat is a small metal affair, clearly intended primarily to go back and forth between the shore and the larger ship.

They already tried plenty of spoken languages, but you can't do sign over radio without a video link, so it's worth a shot.

Hi! Do you speak LCTL? Or SCOL? Vernish signs.

What a remarkable little vehicle. Tsarer isn't sure he's seen anything quite like it. It's a bit like if someone decided to build a motor into a dinghy made of metal, though maybe a bit larger than that as well. He hasn't ever seen the island just up an move either, though, so why not?

His reaction to the attempted sign is not even confusion so much as overlooking. It takes him nearly a second to realize they're attempting to convey anything, and once he does he can only shake his head. "Bzer psjejpkswan bjest kra naj dzjaw." It's something of an embarrassment of his, honestly.

"Mas dzaskwawn tar tsjew bjest katnjart?" he asks, gesturing back up the boardwalk. Hopefully with access to his books they can figure out a better way for him to communicate with them.

... sure, why not.

Vernish says something to one of the others, who radios back to the ship. The three of them all look agreeable, and follow along wherever it is that mysterious island person would like them to go.

Then he'll go ahead and lead them up and around and through, back to his cabin!

It's a relatively basic affair, at least as far Tsarer thinks of it. It's two floors, with four rooms plus the garage. On the first floor there's the main room, where he cooks, eats, and entertains his friends and family when they come by for holidays and the like, and his office for reading and working, and a door to the garage. Upstairs, there's the bedroom and the bathroom.

He'll take the current guests right to his office, showing them his radio (it's a big, blocky, desk-sized thing, which he replaces the handset back into), his drafting desk, and his bookshelves, which he begins to search for things dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other illustrated reference books he happens to have, briefly turning around and opening one to show its contents (full of unfamiliar script, but with an overall structure that might be recognizable as lexicographical in nature) to the guests, hoping to communicate what he's bringing them out for.

One of the sailors reaches for the book with an inquisitive look, while another watches and the third steps to the shelf and starts scanning titles.

Tsarer hands it over happily, then considers things for a moment, before grabbing a pencil and some paper, tearing off a strip, and writing something on it. It looks something like this. He points out each symbol and enunciates the associated phoneme, then tucks the slip into the collar of his shirt. Then he writes out what seems to be his language's entire alphabet, which is surprisingly small and seems to imply an equally sparse phoneme inventory.

Okay! Either this person is being an obsessive stickler about their conlang, the ship went way off course, or something weird is happening. It doesn't really matter which, because either way the þereminians are prepared for this.

The sailor with the book starts sounding out words under his breath to get a feel for the language's phonology and morphology. Vernish holds a hand to his chest and says "Vernish", and then points at the island person and looks inquisitive.

Morphologically, the language is quite dense with consonant clusters, as many six in a row when analyzing across syllables. The placement of sounds seems exceedingly regular, though. Syllable nuclei are exclusively vowels, and in the onset of a syllable, any plosive or nasal present will be first, followed by any present sibilant or rhotic, followed by any present approximant, followed by the nucleus. The coda in turn follows the reverse order, approximants followed by rhotics or sibilants followed by plosives or nasals, and additionally there seems to be some restriction on what sounds can appear in the coda and in what quantity, such that a syllable whose onset contains no plosive or nasal may not have one in its coda, a syllable whose onset lacks any plosive, nasal, rhotic, or sibilant may not have any in its coda, and a syllable without an onset may not have a coda either. It's an odd bit of symmetry, and doesn't help dispel the notion that this language might be constructed, or at least have been subject to some kind of unnatural regularization at some point. Interestingly, in the writing, characters representing the elements of a word's coda appear to be written backwards.

Tsarer is pretty sure that's the stranger trying to identify themself...probably. Hopefully. He'll go ahead and mimic the gesture, before retrieving the same slip as before and state, "Rermjetsest."

LCTL has much smaller consonant clusters, because some people have trouble with them. But the consonant clusters aren't that difficult, all things considering. One of the sailors is holding their phone above the book as they flip through it, presumably recording the text for analysis. The other two solicit additional vocabulary by pointing at things and looking inquisitive, since that seems to have worked well so far.

What a fascinating and fantastical little device! They're using it like some kind of camera, but a tiny fraction of the size of the smallest one that Tsarer's ever seen. Combined with the curious state of their boat, he can only assume that's these people's technology must be awfully advanced.

He'll do his best to not get distracted by that when attempting to provide vocabulary. Aside from just doing his best to name whatever particular object (or creature, if they're pointing out the office window) they're indicating, especially if the most obvious choice is something they've already gestured to before, he'll beg back the illustrated encyclopedia that's being captured on not-technically-any-film-that-he-can-see and flip through for images of what else they might be aiming for and reading them out.

That's tremendously helpful! Vernish smiles and clicks appreciatively in recognition of his efforts.

After a few minutes, they have enough noun-related vocabulary to try soliciting some location-related vocabulary by putting things on top of each other, or to the side, and so on. That and any maps in the encyclopedia might be enough to ask where they are.

The language evidently has a pretty limited set of basic prepositions (and indeed seems to be prepositional, rather than inflecting for a variety of locative cases or some other system), and when prompted for me specificity the islander man simply prefixes other words onto the preposition.

There is indeed a map of the island, labeled Zestsaksanrewp Tsamjesa, roughly meaning 'No-Bridge Island,' and which would seem to indicate that there's supposed to be a bustling port city just a couple miles north of the island, and indeed, ostensibly an entire moderately sized continent which matches approximately nothing in any atlas that the sailors have seen. Notably, all of the world maps' southern borders are labeled with zero degrees latitude, rather than ninety degrees south, and the southern border of the maps are consistently drawn in grey and labeled Zeddebbebdek, roughly 'Stormwall,' which if asked about, Tsarer will get a thoughtful look for a moment as he revises his expectations regarding where he's ended up, before explaining that it's is the permanent storm that surrounds the equator, where monsoons come from, and which no one has every managed to survive crossing, at least to his knowledge. Certainly no one's ever come back from the other side.

They caught at least half of that!

But yeah. If it weren't for this damn fog screwing with the ship's communications link, they'd be a lot more certain about what had happened here.

Vernish pulls up a map on his phone, and points out the Cold Sea region — to the north and west of the largest continent. Then he zooms in on the channel between an archipelago on the mainland, and taps the spot that the ship is supposed to be in.