Chapter 359

Chapter 359: Stargazing

The White Oak still moved forward through the thin mist. The surging output of its steam core drove its huge, efficient propulsion system and pushed it quickly across this fog-covered stretch of sea.

At some point the sky grew darker. The cold wind over the water felt even more unpleasant. Lawrence pulled his coat tighter, decided that he had been standing in the wind on deck long enough for one day, and turned back into the bridge.

A young priest in a black robe trimmed with silver and blue stood by the machines, giving a benediction. He lightly swung the censer in his hand, letting smoke coil around several control consoles. When he saw the captain enter, he stopped and gave Lawrence a polite nod.

He was the ship’s priest for this voyage, Jensen. Lawrence was not familiar with this young priest. In fact, most captains who transported Anomaly items often had to deal with unfamiliar clergy. The priests on their ships were sent directly by the city-state Cathedral and replaced often. Usually, a ship’s priest would only complete two or three voyages with the same vessel. This constant changing, of course, was for safety.

After all, ships carrying dangerous goods could not avoid exposure to supernatural forces. As the ship’s “supernatural shield”, the priest would bear almost all the pressure from supernatural interference. That pressure came from the items on board, and also from the mental strain that built up among the crew during the voyage—even the Mortal Realm influence from every crew member’s dreams each night would be fed back into the priest’s daily benedictions and rituals.

But shipboard priests were still mortals. If they stayed under a specific kind of supernatural influence for too long, they would inevitably be affected and changed by it. After several long voyages, they would begin to lose their sharp sense for supernatural corruption, and might even become a crack through which Subspace could invade. So, after some time, priests who served at sea had to return to land and stay for a while in certain Cathedrals, undergoing purification and a reshaping of their Spiritual Insight. Most of them could recover afterward and would then be assigned to other ships as voyage priests again. Those who carried lasting spiritual problems could only stay far from the sea and spend the rest of their lives as priests on land, continuing to serve the Church.

In a sense, these respectable priests were also consumables of seafaring.

Then again… who was not a consumable in seafaring?

“Mr. Jensen, how are the machines?” Lawrence nodded to the young priest and asked with concern.

“Operating well, Captain,” the young priest said in a calm voice. “I just came back from the lower engine room. The whole power system and the steam pipes are all in good condition.”

Lawrence nodded with satisfaction. After exchanging a few casual words with the young priest, he walked to the wide windows at the front of the bridge and looked out.

It was gray outside on the deck. The sky was dimmer, and thick, blurry clouds covered the heavens. A hazy light wandered between the clouds and fell weakly on the sea. The weather was not very good, but they were already not far from Frostholm, so they probably would not be trapped by a storm or anything else too nasty before reaching the city-state.

Lawrence suddenly frowned and looked at a crew member seated at a console not far away: “Is Frostholm still not responding to our signals?”

“No,” the crew member in charge of monitoring the telegraph system said with a shake of his head. He wore headphones and held a pencil in one hand. A small machine in front of him glowed with an orange-yellow light. “We also haven’t received any reply to our signals. But judging by our position, we’re already close enough to contact Frostholm’s Harbor directly.”

“…That’s not quite right.” The old captain finally felt a trace of unease. He raised his head again and looked into the distance, his expression growing steadily more serious. “At this time, at this position, we should already be able to see Frostholm’s coastline…”

He suddenly turned his head and looked at his First Mate: “Has the route been checked?”

“Just checked it. Our position is correct.”

Lawrence frowned. After a moment, he drew in a quiet breath: “I’ll go confirm it myself. Get the stargazing room ready.”

The First Mate clearly hesitated when he heard this. Before he could speak, the young priest Jensen stepped over and said to Lawrence: “Captain, at your age it’s not really suitable for you to enter the stargazing room…”

Lawrence glanced at the priest but did not speak.

He understood what the man meant. Entering the stargazing room meant taking on a certain amount of corruption. The light and shadow from the layers between the Abyssal Deep and the Spirit Realm put pressure on a person’s mind. As an old captain who had spent most of his life wandering the Boundless Sea, his mind was no longer as normal and whole as it had been when he was young. While observing the stars, he might very well lose himself.

But in many cases, only older captains had enough experience to see tiny hints of drift in a ship’s course from subtle changes in the starlight. Young navigators with healthy minds could not do that.

“I’ll finish as fast as I can,” Lawrence said at last after they stared at each other for a few seconds. His expression was very serious. “I suspect the ship has gone off course, but there’s also drift in the stargazing room. I have experience with recalibration.”

Faced with Lawrence’s firm attitude, the ship’s priest could only sigh and step aside: “…You are the captain. The captain is the law on a ship. I’ll prepare the protection.”

Lawrence nodded, then looked once more toward the bow.

In the direction where he should have been able to see Frostholm’s coastline, there was still only the vast, endless sea and a boundless veil of mist.

He pulled back his gaze and walked toward the passage leading to the stargazing room.

He left the bridge, went down a corridor, and stepped onto a stairway that led to the lower decks of the White Oak. After passing through several connecting compartments and doors, he reached the place where the stargazing room was located.

It was in the lowest level of the ship.

Lawrence stood before the door while the ship’s priest, Jensen, began to work. The young clergyman added special incense and holy oil to the censer as he chanted obscure scripture. He swung the chain in his hand so that the scented smoke slowly spread around Lawrence. Then he took out a small ritual knife marked with many storm runes and used it to cut a line through the air in front of Lawrence, symbolizing the arrival of the protection of Goddess Gamona of Storms.

The White Oak’s navigator had already hurried over after hearing the news. He was a young man with a slightly pale face who looked a bit uneasy. When he found out that the captain was going to enter the stargazing room in person to confirm the route, he grew so tense he almost tore the buttons from his clothes.

“Relax a little,” Lawrence noticed the navigator’s reaction and smiled, comforting the young man instead. “It’s not necessarily your fault. The Spirit Realm and the Abyssal Deep are full of unpredictable changes, and the Spirit Realm lens isn’t always reliable. Star charts shifting is normal. You just lack experience. That’s normal too.”

“I… I checked it over and over. Our route is fine,” the young navigator blurted. “But…”

Lawrence waved his hand: “I’ll figure out what’s going on.”

“Captain, the blessing is complete,” the ship’s priest said from the side at that moment. “You can enter the stargazing room now. But remember, don’t stay too long. Don’t use the gaze for too long. If you haven’t come out in fifteen minutes, I’ll go in to fetch you.”

“Ten minutes will be enough.” Lawrence straightened his clothes and spoke calmly.

Then he let out a soft breath, stepped up to the metal door inlaid with holy silver filaments and carved with storm runes, and pushed it open.

A dimly lit cabin came into view.

Lawrence closed the metal door behind him and quickly took stock of the stargazing room.

The room had no windows. That metal door was the only way in or out. There were no extra furnishings inside, and the only piece of equipment was a cylindrical device about a meter in diameter set in the center of the room.

It looked like an altar, but around its cylindrical base were many cranks, linkages, and mirrored parts. By its side stood a small platform where a person could stand. That was the navigator’s place. At the top of the cylindrical device was a transparent, inward-curving component.

It was a crystal lens held up by a very complex set of struts and rods. The crystal lens was bowl-shaped. Its inside looked empty at first glance, but when his vision focused on it, it seemed as if he could see ripples shining in the lens.

Those ripples were like a basin filled with seawater.

Lawrence stepped up onto the small platform beside the cylinder and looked at the lens in front of him.

A ship sailed across the vast Boundless Sea, and there were almost no landmarks on the water to use as reference. The city-states were islands scattered here and there. Once a ship missed its destination, the sailors would lose themselves on the endless sea. In such a world, navigation became a very important art.

Vision 001, the Sun, was a very useful marker in the sky. Using the Sun to confirm a ship’s direction was one of the basic skills of navigation. But the sky did not always show the Sun, and sometimes the Sun alone could not provide precise enough positioning. When that happened, how could sailors be sure they were still sailing along the right route?

The answer, of course, was to look at the stars.

Stargazing was an essential skill in modern ocean voyages.

Lawrence lowered his head and slowly bent down until his entire face sank into the hollow of the large crystal lens.

The stars were in a place very, very deep down. To see them, a sailor needed not only clever instruments, but also a sound mind.