MTL - Deep Sea Embers-Chapter 6 The missing "goods"

The assembly bell rang, followed by the jumbled and panicked footsteps of the sailors, while Lawrence, the second mate, and the chaplain, 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 beyond the ship's side was covered in mist, and the water was still as dark as ink, but the storm had subsided, and the terrifying Lost Homes had also disappeared. It's gone - it can't help but give the illusion that the previous storm and even the collapsed real frontier were brought by that ghost ship, and now all the disasters are away with the departure of that ship White Oak No.

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 ship that sank into the deep sea during its encounter with the Homeless. A sea ship 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 ship 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 They will 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, his expression was very serious: "Mr. Ron, our current How is the stability?"

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 finally stabilized. stopped at a certain location.

"We stay on the surface of the spiritual world, a little closer to the real world, the influence from the deep depth... 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, after closing the holy In the case of objects, there is almost no sinking...cough..."

"Perhaps the 'hit' of the Lost Homes instead bumped 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 there are some subtleties in the spiritual world. balance point, freeing real-world stuff from a deeper 'pull'..."

"Mr. Captain, this joke is too cold," the pastor said, coughing again, although he has recovered, but his state is not good at all, "cough, in any case, what happened today is not good. It 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 it was just a group illusion caused by the crew's gibberish or visions out of control, But today we really witnessed it... Goddess is on, after you return to Prand, you'd better prepare mentally that you won't 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 want to report not only the church, the city-state. , Explorers' Association... ah, and my terrible wife..." Captain Lawrence pressed his forehead hard, and waved his hand after a long sigh, "Don't talk about this, you need to rest now, until you return to port, this ship will be Need the blessing of the goddess."

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

"There are not 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 remaining people there. Mechanic, they can accurately pronounce the names of the gods they believe in, and it’s not wrong to be alive.”

"No one is missing?" Lawrence's eyes widened. This should have been 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 but grunt 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 accidentally ran into it."

"Do you believe this yourself?" Lawrence immediately glared at his first mate, "If good luck really came to us, we would never meet..."

Just 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 the sweaty sailor appeared in front of Lawrence, this tall man His 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—

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 ordered the chief mate to take over the steering wheel, and the captain of the boat to lead the way.

Quick 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 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 A closed cage to restrain the things kept in the cabin.

Lawrence glanced at the gate and confirmed that the gate and surrounding symbols showed no signs of damage, and then looked up again - the "Holy Relic Room" where the holy emblem was placed was directly above the seal room. The key to being affected by the "deep layer" is also the second insurance to maintain the seal room. Even if it is closed, it should be able to ensure the integrity of the barrier between the seals.

But under the condition that the two barriers were intact, the contents in the seal room, the most critical cargo escorted by the White Oak on this voyage, anomaly 099 - Doll Coffin, disappeared.

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

In the sealed room, the lights were bright, and the steam lamps hanging on the four pillars illuminated the center of the room with almost no blind spots. However, the "goods" that should have been placed there have disappeared, leaving only a few vertical and horizontal lines. Staggered chains, and a few off-white ash scattered on the surrounding ground.

The captain's voice came from behind Lawrence: "According to the seal requirements of Anomaly 099, the lights in this room have been maintained, and every two hours a crew member will come in to re-strengthen the chains around the 'coffin' and the floor of the room. The ashes were sprinkled, 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 had 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 - the layers of seals here and the confinement of the holy emblem. It's not a decoration," Lawrence frowned and shook his head, "The current situation is that it has disappeared... The cargo has left the ship, and it has nothing to do with the sailor."

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

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

Speaking of this, he paused and sighed softly: "Perhaps we should be thankful that Homeless always takes what it wants, and the captain came for Anomaly 099, not us. life."

The captain of the boat 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.

"Homeless 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..."

"To shut up."