Chapter 523 – Maurice’s Assumptions
Chapter 523 – Maurice’s Hypothesis
Inside one of the laboratories deep inside the Radiant Star, Lucrecia completed a cursory examination of Taran El.
With the cooperation of the Academy of Truth, it was not difficult to transfer this great scholar to the ship, but it was obviously not so simple to figure out what had happened to him, even for the “Witch of the Sea”, who had seen a lot and had a great reputation in the field of occultism and curses, this was the first time she had seen such a situation.
Taran Ayre was obviously trapped in some kind of dream world, but his trapping did not show the slightest reaction of “curse”, nor did he suffer from signs of spiritual pollution.
Lucrecia lit the three candlesticks in the corner of the lab, and sprinkled the incense burner in front of the candlesticks with the powdered herbs she had personally prepared, then she came to Taran El’s side, and arranged crystals, bone fragments, and other things around him.
The ceramic shelled clockwork doll “Luni” and the rabbit doll “Rabi” were helping out in the lab, and when she noticed the grave look on her mistress’s face, Luni couldn’t help but speak up, “Is the situation bad? Is the elf’s life in danger?”
“The situation is unknown – it’s worse than bad,” Lucrecia said with a serious expression, “Taran-El fell into a deep sleep after trying to observe the sun, and if there’s a connection between the two events, it means that this sleeping situation is feared to be worse than bad. means that I’m afraid there will be more than one case of such slumber, how many people have looked up during the sun’s extinction? What level of ‘observation’ would it take to trigger such a slumber? How many have made moves as bold as this elven scholar?”
She shook her head slowly as she spoke.
“Talan-El’s actions were bold, but there is more than one scholar as bold as him on the great Infinite Sea.”
“Is there anything else you need us to do?” Rabbi, the rabbit doll, hopped up from the side and tilted his head in a thin voice.
“Next, I will attempt to connect into Taran-El’s dream world and help open a pathway back to the real world for him from the other side, but considering how complicated this dream world can be, I want you to watch over the candlesticks in this room, and if I’m still not awake in three hours, you’ll extinguish all the candles in descending order, which will forcibly awaken me. ”
“Yes,” Lunie bowed her head, “three hours, extinguish from highest to lowest, I remember.”
“The rabbi can accompany the mistress in her dreams!” The doll bunny, meanwhile, hopped over and hugged Lucrecia’s leg a little expectantly, “Rabbits are rabbits that dream!”
“One nightmare is enough,” Lucrecia rejected the bunny doll’s attentiveness without hesitation, “I don’t want such a great scholar to really die suddenly on my ship.”
“Okay, okay, Rabbi knows~” the rabbit doll lowered its head and made a frustrated sound, muttering as it walked to the corner of the room and sat down on the floor with a ‘plop’.
Lucrecia glanced at the doll and didn’t continue to pay attention to the other party, but instead, after making sure that all the elements of the ritual were ready, she sat down on a high-backed chair across from Taran-El, and then casually snapped her fingers.
The three candlesticks burning quietly in the corner were instantly colored with a layer of illusory veil-like curtains, and all the artifacts in the entire laboratory seemed to be coated with a layer of phantom shadows by this layer of illusory and hazy light, and the “Witch of the Sea” slowly dropped her head, and the next moment she had already entered into a dream world.
……
On the Lost Country ship, in the captain’s room, Maurice and Duncan were sitting at the navigation table, and on the wall not far behind them, Agatha’s hazy and illusory figure was floating in the ancient and old oval mirror.
“Aye has flown over to confirm that the large island ahead of us is indeed Lightwind Harbor,” Duncan said, “The Lost Country is now hidden in the depths of the Spirit World, and we’ll be contacting Lucrecia to confirm the current situation within the City-State from her before we board the island. As for now …… what remains before us is the question of the Lost Country moving out of thin air.”
“Frankly, I’m at a total loss,” Maurice chewed on his pipe, his brow furrowed like a couple of chasms, “I’ve heard of various incidents of ‘instantaneous movement’, from specific visionary effects to things like the ‘Sailor’, but what happened to the Lost Country is clearly different from all that. …… At the moment, it seems that the ‘sun going out’ is the most likely cause of the Lost Country’s instantaneous movement. of the most likely cause, though those of us on the ship were never aware of how, and when, the change occurred from start to finish ……”
“That’s why I’ve always felt that it wasn’t the Lost Country that was in trouble, but the ‘whole world’ outside of it,” Duncan murmured, “and the message from Captain Lawrence was hinting at that as well –When the sun went out, there were incomprehensible changes in the waters ‘beyond our gaze’. Tirian’s report suggests as much.”
“Has any further news come from Mr. Tirian’s side?” Agatha’s voice suddenly rang out from the mirror, “Has there been a response from Cold Harbor?”
“…… Yes, the situation is moving in the most bizarre direction,” Duncan nodded, “Tirian’s side has reconfirmed with the city-states that had previously broken off contact, and judging by the responses from various places …… other city-states, including Cold Harbor, are not only unaware of the sun’s extinction, but are not even aware that communication between them and Frost had been interrupted.”
Agatha’s expression changed slightly at once.
She opened her mouth, “That means ……”
“That means they didn’t experience those twelve hours when the sun went out,” Duncan spoke slowly, “In their eyes, the world was always functioning normally, and everything was fine in Frost, Prendergast and Lightwind Harbor, and then all of a sudden Frost sent a whole bunch of inexplicable and tense messages saying Something about ‘the sun going out’, ‘communications being down’ – and now the tension is spreading across several city-states, and in Tirion’s words. ‘They desperately need to figure out which side is out of sorts’.”
Maurice listened while he pondered, then he slowly put down his pipe, “Then it can be interpreted like this – after the sun went out, the entire world’s time stood still for twelve hours, and the Lost Country and the three city-states included were in fact ‘wrongly stayed normal’, as if in a nightmare where everyone slept through it peacefully, we …… accidentally opened our eyes and saw the truth that was located in the cracks of time.” Duncan gave a thoughtful look.
It must be recognized that a great scholar was a great scholar, and although Morris was unable to explain the principle behind it all, he had come up with an extremely enlightening conjecture.
So could this conjecture continue to be extended? In that world after the sun went out, were there more bizarre changes that had never been detected? Or even make this conjecture a little more extreme ……
Was the sun, indeed, extinguished for the first time?
These speculations floated in everyone’s mind, and the captain’s room fell into silence for a while, but just then, Duncan seemed to suddenly sense something, and frowned slightly in confusion, “Eh?”
“Captain?” Agatha immediately asked, “Did you think of something?”
“…… No, it’s something else,” Duncan waved his hand as he continued in his sensing, listening mode, his eyes seeming to be unfocused or gazing out at some place that wasn’t really in the room, “There’s a scent ……”
He lifted his head suddenly and looked across the room at Maurice.
“What’s Heidi doing now?”
“Heidi?” Morris froze, not knowing why the captain suddenly brought up this matter, “Heidi stayed in Prand ah, at this time of the day there should still be chaos over there because of the sun going out, the city hall will more than likely call her to go to the …… Heidi out of the question?!”
The great scholar finally reacted, and his face snapped into tension.
“She shouldn’t be in too much danger, but there’s something wrong with the state of the talisman I left her in,” Duncan frowned, and immediately afterward, he waved his hand into the air, and along with the ghostly green flames rising up into the air, Aye’s silhouette floated up into the air beside him, “I need a passageway to the dream realm. ”
……
“So that means you were actually ‘healing’ someone else, and then somehow ended up in my dream realm – and then you thought I was an intruder and poked me in the neck with that awl? ”
The elf scholar who called himself “Taran El” had a serious face as he looked at the “golden cone” in Heidi’s hand and spoke nonchalantly.
“Why do I think there are so many things wrong with your words?”
“Actually ……” Heidi was filled with embarrassment, if there was anything worse than accidentally injuring a patient with a golden awl and being discovered on the spot, it would have to be when it wasn’t discovered on the spot but the patient suddenly reacted to it after half a day and analyzed it with such a serious attitude! This matter – this elf scholar’s reaction was really deviating from the norm, Heidi had seen a lot of strange and bizarre patients over the years, but this type was really the first time she had seen it, “I also think it’s quite wrong …… but what I said are all true.”
“Everything you said is true, hmmm,” Taran-El nodded, and then asked immediately afterward, “What about the ‘other patient’ you mentioned?”
Heidi immediately turned and pointed in the direction she had previously come from, “That building is her dream …… ……”
Her words came to a gradual halt, and her demeanor stiffened.
In the direction of her finger, between the lush, sky-high trees and vines, a medical facility …… that was once so large had somehow disappeared.
“Gone ……” Heidi muttered, slowly turning her head, “but it was really over there before, a big …… “
“Miss Psychiatrist,” Taran Elle interrupted Heidi’s self-talk, the elven scholar spread his hands with a helpless expression, “I can hardly believe you when you’re like this.”
(End of chapter)