Deep Sea Embers Chapter 6: Missing “goods”

The assembly bell rang, followed by the jumbled and panicked footsteps of the sailors, while Lawrence, the second mate, and the reverend, who was still out of breath, stayed in the cab.

The old captain looked out the window at the sea surface. At this moment, the White Oak was still in the depths of the spiritual world. The sea outside the ship's side was covered with mist, and the water surface was still as dark as ink, but the storm had subsided, and the terrifying loss The township has also disappeared - this can't help but give the illusion that the previous storm and even the collapsed real frontier were brought about by the ghost ship, and now all the disasters follow the ship's death. away from the White Oak.

Lawrence thinks of the horrific legends about the Homeless and Captain Duncan Abnomar, the fleet that was swallowed by the frontier of reality more than a century ago, and the sinking of the Lost in the encounter with the Homeless The ships in the deep sea suddenly felt that this was not impossible.

But anyway, now that Homeless has left, the surrounding waters have temporarily returned to calm. Although still in dangerous spiritual depths, at least he and his crew have a chance to breathe.

Next, Lawrence must determine what the Lost Country took from the White Oak—or left behind.

And it must be determined as soon as possible.

Without ruling out all hidden dangers, he did not dare to let the boat float to the real world rashly, because some things brought from the spiritual world would cause terrible pollution in the real world, but if he stayed in the depths of the spiritual world for too long, he and His crew would still be irreversibly affected.

Hearing the noise coming from the deck, Lawrence suddenly raised his head from his thoughts. He looked at the priest who was sitting in front of the incense burner, his face was a little better, and his expression was very serious: "Mr. Ron, How stable are we now?"

The priest coughed twice, and then took out a small compass with a beautiful shape and many marine symbols and sacred symbols engraved on its surface. After snapping the metal cover, the pointer on the compass immediately spun quickly, and It finally stopped at a certain position.

"We stay on the surface of the spiritual world, slightly close to the real world, the influence from the deep depths... is very weak," the priest looked at the state of the compass pointer, his expression suddenly a little confused, "strange... we are completely stable here. Now, with the relic closed, there is almost no sinking... ahem..."

"Perhaps the 'hit' of the Lost Homes, instead, knocked us into a safe route," Lawrence shook his head with a wry smile, trying to liven up the atmosphere with a cold joke, "I heard that in the spiritual world, There are some delicate balances that keep real world stuff free from a deeper 'pull'..."

"Mr. Captain, this joke is too cold," the pastor said, coughing twice, although he had recovered, but his state was not good at all, "Cough, anyway, today happened Everything must be reported to the church... The appearance of the Homeless is by no means a trivial matter. There have been reports of what has happened to the Homeless in the past few decades, but it has since been confirmed that the crew's gibberish or visions were out of control. The group hallucination of , but today we really witnessed it... Goddess is on, after you return to Prand, it is best to prepare mentally that you will not be able to sail again in the near future."

"I understand - neither the church nor the city-state authorities will allow a ship that has just suffered a vision disaster to return to the sea. This is for everyone's safety, and I have to report more than There are churches, city-states, explorers' associations... sigh, and my terrible wife..." Captain Lawrence pressed his forehead hard, sighed and waved his hands, "Don't talk about that, you need to rest now until you return to port. Before, this ship needed the blessing of the goddess."

The priest nodded slightly, and soon, the first mate, who had just left, returned to the cab.

"There are not too many people on board, and there are not many people on board," the first mate reported immediately without waiting for the captain to ask questions, "I personally checked the sailors who were assembled on the deck, and also went to the boiler room to check the crew. The mechanics there, they can accurately pronounce the names of the gods they believe in, and they are alive."

"No one is missing?" Lawrence's eyes widened. This should be good news, but he couldn't believe the situation reported by the first mate. "Where is the holy emblem?"

"The relic is also normal," the first officer nodded immediately. "The navigator is preparing incense and essential oils, waiting for your order to restart the relic."

Lawrence listened in disbelief, and once again couldn't help muttering softly: "...he really let the ship go?"

"Good luck is on our side, Captain," the first mate spread his hands. "We have nothing to lose. Maybe the terrifying ghost captain just happened to be passing by, or maybe he just ran into it by accident."

"Do you believe this?" Lawrence immediately glared at his first mate, "If good luck really favors us, we will never meet..."

Just as he was halfway through his words, a burst of hurried footsteps suddenly sounded from outside the door, and then someone pushed open the door of the cab, and a sweaty boatswain appeared in front of Lawrence. The tall man's face was full of horror.

"Captain! Anomaly 099 is gone!!"

The cab fell silent for a moment, and everyone looked at each other, but for some reason, Lawrence suddenly felt relieved after a brief shock—

That's great, after the encounter with the Homeless, the ship finally found something wrong, so that's right!

But then he controlled the expression on his face, and while walking towards the door, he hurriedly instructed the first mate to take over the steering wheel, and instructed the bosun to lead the way ahead.

Rapid footsteps sounded in the cabin corridor of the White Oak, and soon, Lawrence was led by the bosun to the deepest part of the steamship.

A special cabin appeared before his eyes.

The door of this cabin is engraved with dense occult symbols. The heavy and dark door seems to be cast from a single piece of black iron. The mysterious symbols extend from the edge of the door frame to the corridor, vaguely as if to Form some kind of closed cage to restrain the things kept in the cabin.

Lawrence glanced at the gate and confirmed that the gate and the surrounding symbols were not damaged, and then looked up again - the "Holy Relic Room" where the holy emblem was placed was right above the seal room. It is the key to ensuring that the ship is not affected by the "deep", and it is also the second insurance to maintain the seal. Even if it is closed, it should be able to ensure that the barrier between the seals is intact.

But under the condition that both barriers were intact, the contents of the seal room, the most critical cargo escorted by the White Oak on this voyage, anomaly 099 - the doll's coffin, disappeared.

Lawrence took a deep breath, stepped forward to open the door of the sealed room, and pushed the heavy door open.

In the sealed room, the lights are bright, and the gas lamps hanging on the four pillars illuminate the center of the room with almost no blind spots. However, the "goods" that should have been placed there have disappeared, leaving only the place where Several criss-crossing chains, and some off-white ashes scattered on the surrounding ground.

The bosun's voice came from behind Lawrence: "According to the seal requirements of Anomaly 099~IndoMTL.com~ this room has been kept lit, and every two hours a crew member will come in to re-strengthen the surrounding 'coffin' The chain and the ashes sprinkled on the floor of the room, but when the... ghost ship appeared, due to the chaos, the sailor who was supposed to be on duty did not enter the room in time, he was almost seven minutes late, and it turned out that anomaly 099 disappeared..."

"Just seven minutes late won't cause that thing to get out of control. At best, the seal weakens and changes, and the worst case is just a coffin running around in this room - here the layers of seals and holy The confinement of the emblem is not a decoration," Lawrence frowned and shook his head, "The current situation is that it has disappeared... The cargo has left this ship, and it has nothing to do with the sailor."

The captain's expression was a little nervous: "Then you mean..."

"It must be the Homeless," Lawrence said in a deep voice, "that 'captain' took Anomaly 099..."

Speaking of this, he paused and sighed softly: "Perhaps we should be fortunate that Homeless always takes away what it wants. That captain came for Anomaly 099, not our lives."

The bosun looked at his captain's face, and then at the empty seal room, before hesitatingly asked for a long time, "Then... we have lost such an important cargo, how should we report to the city-state authorities..."

Lawrence glanced at the sailor and patted the other man on the shoulder.

"The Lost Homes is a natural disaster, and we have marine insurance."

"...Does the insurance company pay for this?"

"They asked the Explorers' Association to issue a new bounty for Homeless without paying..."

"Captain, are you a little anxious..."

"Shut up."