Chapter 28

Chapter 28: Pale Night

Life in the Mortal Realm was not the same as life in strange stories. The biggest difference was that when you lived in the Mortal Realm, you had to think about a whole pile of real and trivial details –

Did a moving cursed doll need joint maintenance? Would Alice, who took her joints apart all the time, someday fall to pieces in the middle of a walk? Had the salted meat and hard cheese on the ghost ship actually gone bad?

What about superheroes who entertained guests by day and fought evil at night – did they ever sleep? And after fighting a superhero, did the forces of evil still have to go to the market for groceries?

Stories never talked about these things. People in stories always came and went like the wind, dressed in spotless white. The cursed doll in a story only needed to crawl out of some dark corner to frighten people. The ghost captain in a story never had to worry that all the salted meat and hard cheese on his ship had expired a century ago.

But a cursed doll in the Mortal Realm felt itchy all over after soaking in seawater, and even taking a bath meant thinking on the spot about how to clean the grains of salt out of every joint…

Standing outside the cabin, Duncan sighed. He now saw even more clearly that surviving on this ship for a long time would take more than just determination.

He also had to think about a whole stack of practical problems, especially now that the number of crew members had increased.

There were actually not many daily supplies on this ghost ship. Duncan knew that very well.

This ship had an unlimited supply of fresh water, but that was the only thing that was unlimited. The food in the hold would not refill itself once eaten, and the only edible things there were salted meat and hard cheese. Because of the Vanished’s special nature, they showed no sign of rot, but Duncan still had good reason to suspect they had been stored for at least a century.

Besides that, this ship had no spare clothes that fit Alice’s size, though the cursed doll had never mentioned needing any. There was nothing for leisure either – not even a chessboard or a deck of cards.

The Boundless Sea was vast and endless, yet it was very hard for the Vanished to get real supplies from this wide ocean. The ship seemed to have no reliable home port where it could rest and refit, and it had no channel at all to trade with the civilized city-states on land.

Goathead seemed to pay no attention to such problems, but Duncan was already thinking about them seriously. He had to find a way to improve the Vanished’s current shortage of supplies.

Beyond that, he was also thinking about how to build contact with the city-states on land.

Drifting blindly on the sea forever was an extremely inefficient way to explore. Information about this world had to be taken from the land. This was Duncan’s deepest realization after his walk through the Spirit Realm.

Even aside from that, for the sake of his own body and mind, he needed to try to have more contact with those city-states on land, to touch the civilized society of this world. Otherwise, after drifting for so long, he really was afraid he would turn into a twisted, gloomy, reclusive ghost captain.

Thinking of this, Duncan turned his head a little and looked at the pigeon AI, who was squatting obediently on his shoulder, preening her feathers.

His gaze mainly fell on the brass spirit compass on AI’s chest.

The pigeon tilted her head at her Master and suddenly blurted out: “Open a branch base! Lay down fungal carpet! Hey, do you even know how to run things?”

For a moment Duncan fell silent. This pigeon seemed deranged most of the time, yet every now and then the words she blurted out hit so exactly on point that he could not help wondering if she was acting stupid on purpose.

For now, walking in the Spirit Realm seemed to be the only workable way to “go” to the city-states on land.

Even though this method seemed to have far too many uncertainties, and the last time he used it a mysterious accident like “AI” had appeared, Duncan knew he would soon make another walk in the Spirit Realm. It was not only to gather information from the land, but also to test and master a very useful ability as quickly as possible.

Just as important as Spirit Realm walking was AI the pigeon’s “special ability” to bring back a ritual knife from far-off land.

If she could bring back a knife, could she bring back more things? What were the rules and limits on the items this bird could carry? Could this process be controlled by people?

After thinking for a while, Duncan decided to ask the pigeon directly: “Do you know how you brought that knife back?”

The pigeon thought for a moment, then said in a deep tone: “You need more crystal ore.”

Duncan: “…”

He decided to give up talking with this pigeon for now. It would be more reliable to try this himself the next time he carried out a Spirit Realm walk.

…

Inside the cabin, Alice finally figured out, with some fumbling, how to use the water pipes, and roughly worked out how she was supposed to take a bath.

On a ghost ship with such limited conditions, she could only bathe in cold water, but for a doll, that was no problem at all.

But before jumping into the tub, Alice decided to greet everything in the cabin first.

She patted the huge oak tub, then knocked on the pillars that held up the cabin. She tapped the floor with the tips of her shoes, then stood on tiptoe to tug at the ropes and hooks hanging from the ceiling.

“Hello, my name is Alice,” she said happily to all these cold objects, greeting them the same way she had greeted that Mr. Goathead earlier. “From now on, I will be living on this ship.”

Nothing in the cabin answered her greeting, but Alice did not mind at all.

Goathead had said that the Vanished was alive, and that many things on this ship were alive.

Even though they did not seem to have real minds like Goathead, and could not even communicate, that did not stop Alice from treating the whole Vanished as a “neighbor” who needed to be greeted.

The Vanished was a living thing, and so was she.

Sure that her greeting had been polite and proper, Alice felt even happier. Then she took off her fine dress and clumsily climbed into the oak tub that was now filled with water.

First step, take off her head and rinse it – her neck joint was not very strong anyway.

Miss Doll felt that her plan was very reasonable.

…

In the deep night, the city-state of Pland finally ended a whole day of noise. Under the pale glow of the night sky, this prosperous “Sea Jewel” slowly sank into sleep.

But in the still darkness, the gaze of the Night Watcher watched over the sleeping city.

On the highest building in Pland, the Great Bell Tower, a young woman with long gray-white hair and an unusually tall, straight figure stood at the window, looking down at the city.

Her features were very beautiful, but a striking scar across her left eye made her look fearsome. She was taller than most men and wore light silver-gray armor and a battle skirt. Her body clearly had been well trained, with full, well-shaped muscles in all her limbs. Within easy reach beside her lay a greatsword that gave off a faint silver glow. Runes shaped like waves were carved into the sword’s hilt, and dim light shimmered along the blade like rippling water.

Behind the woman came the constant sound of machinery. The movement of the Great Bell Tower was running smoothly, driven by a steam engine. Complex and precise gears and linkages ran through the roof and the floor, turning the four clock faces above and the Mimicry Orrery hidden deep inside the building.

From the sound alone, this huge and delicate machine was in excellent condition. No evil power had disturbed its sacred steam core.

But Inquisitor Vanna still felt a faint unease. A bad premonition gnawed at her, as if something was about to happen, or had already happened, and she was fated to be powerless before it.

Footsteps came from the stairway. The gray-haired woman turned toward the sound and saw a priest in the long robe of a sea priest coming up from the stairwell. The priest held a copper censer in his hand, and clean-smelling smoke slowly coiled around him.

The priest walked to the central pillar of the movement in the room. He took down the old censer hanging on the pillar’s rail and hung up the new one. He watched the smoke drifting from the censer and made sure it floated unhindered among the turning gears and linkages. Only then did he softly recite the name of the Storm Goddess and turn to look at the gray-haired woman standing at the window.

“Good night, Inquisitor. You are standing night watch in person again?”

“I keep having a bad feeling. It has been this way for days – tonight it is even stronger.”

“A bad feeling? About what?” The priest lifted his head, worry in his deep eyes. “Did the Goddess send you a prophetic vision?”

“It is not that clear,” the young female Inquisitor shook her head. “I only vaguely feel… something is drawing near this city.”