Chapter 28 – Pale Night
Chapter 28 – Pale Night
Real life is not the same as a weird story, and one of the biggest differences is that living in reality you have to think about a whole lot of real and trivial details-
Do moving cursed dolls need joint maintenance? Will Alice’s frequent disassembly of her joints cause her to suddenly fall apart while walking in the future or not? Do the salted meats and dried cheeses on the Ghost Ship have an expiration date or not?
Do superheroes who socialize during the day and fight the forces of evil at night sleep or not – do the forces of evil that fight superheroes usually go to the grocery store after a fight or not?
The story never tells you this, the people in the story are always white as snow and come and go like the wind, and the cursed dolls in the story only need to suddenly come out of nooks and crannies to scare people, just like the ghost captain in the story never fretted about the ship only having salted jerky and hard cheese that had expired for a century.
Whereas in reality the cursed mannequins were so prickly and scratchy after soaking in seawater that taking a shower required an impromptu hunt for what to do with the grains of salt in the crevices of their joints ……
Standing outside the cabin, Duncan sighed, realizing more clearly that it seemed to take more than determination to survive on this ship for long.
He also had a whole host of practicalities to consider, especially with the addition of the crew.
There wasn’t really much of an abundance of living supplies on the Ghost Ship, that much Duncan was well aware of.
The ship had an unlimited supply of fresh water, but unlimited was all it was; the food bins were stocked with ingredients that didn’t automatically replenish themselves after they were consumed, and the only things edible there were salted jerky and hard cheeses, and while neither of them showed signs of rotting due to the Lost Country’s peculiar nature, Duncan still had a reasonable suspicion that they’d been in storage for at least a century.
On top of that, there were no replacement clothes on this ship for Alice’s size (though the cursed mannequin hadn’t mentioned a need for that), and there was nothing to use for amusement – not even a pair of chess or a deck of cards.
The Boundless Sea is vast and boundless, but it is difficult for the Lost Country ship to get any real supplies from this vast ocean, and it seems that this ship does not have a reliable “home port” where it can stay and repair, not to mention a channel to communicate with civilized city-states on the land.
Goat head seems to have no concern about this aspect of the problem, but Duncan at this moment has already seriously think about it – he wants to find ways to improve the lack of supplies on the Lost Country nowadays.
Further, he was also thinking about how to establish contact with the “city-states” on land.
Drifting blindly on the sea forever is an extremely inefficient means of exploration, the intelligence about this world must be obtained from the land, this is Duncan’s deepest experience after the “Spirit World Walk”.
Putting this aside, even for the sake of his own physical and mental health, he must try to contact more of those “city-states” on the land, and contact the civilized society of this world-otherwise, he was really worried that after a long drift, he would really become a twisted, gloomy, lonely ghost! Otherwise, he was really worried that he would become a twisted, gloomy and lonely ghost captain after a long drift.
Thinking of this, Duncan slightly turned his head to look at the pigeon Aey, who was honestly squatting on his shoulder and combing his feathers.
His gaze fell mostly on the brass compass on Aye’s chest.
The pigeon tilted its head to look at its “master”, and coldly came out with a sentence: “Open a sub-base! Spread the fungus carpet! Hey, can you run it?”
Duncan was silent for a moment, the pigeon was nervous most of the time, but his occasional words were so appropriate, even so appropriate, that one couldn’t help but wonder if he was being foolish.
For the time being, spirit walking seemed to be the only viable means of “traveling” to the land-based city-states.
Despite the uncertainty of this means, and the mysterious mishaps of the last time it had been used, such as Aey, Duncan knew that he would soon be making his next Spirit Walk – not only to gather information from the land, but to Duncan knew he would soon make his next spirit walk – not only to gather information on land, but also to validate and master a very useful ability as soon as possible.
Just as important as the spirit walk is the “special ability” of Aye the Dove to bring back a ceremonial knife from a distant land.
If it can bring back a knife, can it bring back more? What are the rules and limitations of the bird’s transportation? Can this process be artificially controlled?
After a few moments of thought, Duncan decided to ask the pigeon directly, “Do you know how you managed to bring back that pocketknife?”
The pigeon thought for a moment and spoke in a deep tone, “You need more crystal ore.”
Duncan: “……”
He decides it’s better to give up communicating with this pigeon for the time being, it’s more reliable to wait for the next time he performs a Spirit Walk to try it out for himself in that regard.
……
Inside the cabin, Alice finally stumbles to figure out how to use the pipes that take the water, and to roughly find out how a bath is actually supposed to work. In the limited conditions of the ghost ship, she could only take a cold shower, but for a human doll, this was not a problem at all.
But before jumping into the bath, Alice decided to first greet the entire cabin.
She patted the huge oak barrel and knocked on the pillars that supported the cabin, she kicked the floor under her feet with her toes, and stood on tiptoe to pick at the ropes and hooks that hung down from the roof.
“Greetings, my name is Alice,” she greeted the cold things pleasantly, as she had greeted the goat-headed gentleman before her, “and I’m going to live on this ship from now on.”
Nothing in the cabin responded to her greeting, but Alice didn’t care in the least.
Goathead had said that the Lost Country was alive, and many things on this ship were alive.
Although none of them seemed to have real “spiritual intelligence” like Goathead, and they didn’t even have the ability to communicate, it didn’t stop Alice from treating the entire Lost Country as a “neighbor” who needed to be greeted.
The Lost Country was a living thing, and so was she.
Convinced that her greeting was polite and appropriate, Alice’s mood became even more pleasant before she removed her gorgeous dress and climbed a bit clumsily into the oak barrel that had been filled with water.
The first step was to take her head off and rinse it off – the joints in her neck weren’t very strong in the first place anyway.
Ms. Doll thought her planning was very sound.
……
Late at night, the city-state of Prand finally ended the hustle and bustle of the day, and under the pale glow of the night sky, this prosperous “Pearl of the Sea” gradually fell into a peaceful sleep.
But in the quiet darkness, there is a night watchman watching over the city after sleep.
On the highest building in the city-state of Prand, the “Great Bell Tower”, a young lady with long gray-white hair and unusually tall figure was standing in front of the window overlooking the city.
This lady’s features are beautiful, but there is a striking scar across her left eye that is intimidating. She is taller than the average male, wearing silver-gray light armor and battle dress, she is obviously well-exercised, and her limbs are full of muscles and well-proportioned. -The hilt of the sword was inscribed with runes symbolizing ocean waves, and there was a shimmering light on the blade that seemed to float like waves of water.
Behind the lady, the sound of mechanical operation came continuously – the movement of the great clock tower was running smoothly under the drive of the steam engine, and the complicated and precise gears and linkage structure ran through the roof and the floor, driving the four dials on the upper floors as well as the anthropomorphic planetariums hidden in the depths of the building to run continuously.
Judging from the sound, this huge and sophisticated machine was in perfect working condition, and no evil forces had intruded into the sacred steam core.
But there was still a vague uneasiness in Inquisitor Vanna’s mind, a bad feeling that something was about to happen, or had already happened, and that she was doomed to be powerless to do anything about it, and that made her irritable.
Footsteps came from the direction of the stairs, and the gray-haired female at the window turned at the sound, and she saw a priest in the robes of a marine priest coming up the stairway, the priest carrying a copper censer in his hand, and the clean smoke was slowly winding around him.
The priest made his way to the movement riser in the center of the room and removed the old incense burner that had been hanging from the riser’s parapet and replaced it with a new one, he observed the smoke escaping from the burner and made sure that it floated unobstructed around the functioning gears and connecting rods before he whispered the Storm Goddess’s name and turned his head to look at the gray haired lady who stood in front of the window.
“Good night, Your Honor, Inquisitor – are you keeping watch yourself again?”
“I always have a bad feeling about this, as I always have in recent days – this night especially.”
“Bad feelings? In what way?” The priest looked up with worry in his deep eyes, “The Goddess has sent you an omen?”
“Not that clear a message,” the young female Inquisitor shook her head, “I just have a vague feeling …… that something is approaching the city.”
(End of chapter)