Deep Sea Embers

Real life is different from weird stories. The biggest difference is that living in reality you have to consider a lot of real and trivial details——

Do the moving Cursed Dolls need joint care? Will Alice's frequent disassembly of her joints cause her to suddenly fall apart when walking in the future? Did the bacon and cheese on the ghost ship expire?

Do superheroes who socialize during the day and fight evil forces at night sleep? Do the evil forces who fight superheroes usually go to the supermarket to buy things?

This is never told to you in the story. The people in the story always come and go like the wind in white clothes. The cursed doll in the story only needs to suddenly pop out of its corners to scare people, just like in the story. The ghost captain never had to worry about having only bacon and hard cheese on board that were a century out of date.

In reality, the Cursed Doll was scratched all over after soaking in sea water, and even after taking a bath, he had to think about how to deal with the salt particles in the joints...

Standing outside the cabin, Duncan sighed, realizing more clearly that surviving on this ship for a long time seemed to require more than just determination.

He also had to consider a host of practical issues, especially as the crew increased.

There are actually not many living supplies on the ghost ship, and Duncan knows this very well.

This ship has an unlimited supply of fresh water, but the unlimited supply is only fresh water. The ingredients stored in the food warehouse will not be automatically replenished after consumption, and the only food available there is bacon jerky and hard cheese. Although none of them showed signs of decay due to the special nature of the Lost Home, Duncan still had reasonable suspicion that they had been in storage for at least a century.

In addition, there are no replacement clothes suitable for Alice's size on this ship (although the cursed doll did not mention the need for this), and there is nothing that can be used for entertainment - not even a chess set or a Vice poker.

The boundless sea is vast, but it is difficult for the Homeless Ship to obtain real supplies from this vast sea. The ship does not seem to have a reliable "home port" where it can stay for repairs, nor can it communicate with civilized city-states on land. channels.

Goat Head didn't seem to care about this issue at all, but Duncan was already thinking seriously about it - he wanted to find a way to improve the current lack of supplies on the Homeless Ship.

Further, he is also considering how to establish contact with the "city-states" on land.

Drifting blindly on the sea forever is an extremely inefficient method of exploration. Information about this world must be obtained from land. This is Duncan's deepest experience after "walking in the spirit world".

Putting this aside, even for his own physical and mental health, he must try to get more in touch with the "city-states" on the land and the civilized society of this world - otherwise he is really worried about what he will do after the long drift. He will really become a twisted, gloomy, and lonely ghost captain.

Thinking of this, Duncan turned his head slightly and looked at the pigeon Ai who was squatting on his shoulder and combing his feathers.

His gaze mainly fell on the brass compass on Ai's chest.

Pigeon tilted his head and looked at his "master", and suddenly said: "Open a branch base! Lay out a carpet of germs! Do you know how to operate it?"

Duncan was a little silent for a while. This pigeon was nervous most of the time, but the words it occasionally said were so appropriate, and even so precise that one couldn't help but suspect that it was very wise and foolish.

At present, walking in the spirit world seems to be the only feasible means of "traveling" to terrestrial city-states.

Although this method seems to have too many uncertainties, and there have been mysterious accidents like "Ai" since the last time it was used, Duncan knows that he will soon be on his next spiritual walk - not only In order to collect intelligence on land, it is also to verify and master a very useful capability as soon as possible.

As important as walking in the spirit world is the "special ability" of Pigeon Ai to bring back a ceremonial knife from a distant land.

If it brings back a knife, can it bring back more? What are the rules and restrictions on what this bird can carry? Can this process be controlled manually?

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

Pigeon thought for a while and said in a deep tone: "You need more crystal mines."

Duncan: "..."

He decided to give up communicating with the pigeon for the time being. It would be more reliable to wait until the next time he performs a walk in the spirit world to try it himself.

…

In the cabin, Alice finally figured out how to use the water pipe, and roughly figured out how to take a bath.

On the ghost ship with limited conditions, she could only take a cold shower, but for a doll, this was not a problem at all.

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

She patted the huge oak barrel and knocked on the pillar supporting the cabin. She kicked the floor under her feet with her toes, and then stood up and pulled the ropes and hooks hanging from the roof.

"Hello, my name is Alice," she greeted these cold things happily, just like she greeted the goat-headed gentleman before, "I will live on this ship from now on."

Nothing in the cabin responded to her greeting, but Alice didn't care at all.

Goat Head said that the Lost Homeland was alive, and many things on the ship were alive.

Although they didn't seem to have the real "intelligence" like the Goat Head, and they didn't even have the ability to communicate, this didn't prevent Alice from treating the entire Lost Homeland as a "neighbor" who needed to be greeted.

The Lost Homeland was a living object, and so was she.

Alice felt even happier after she was sure that her greeting was polite and appropriate. Then she took off her gorgeous dress and climbed into the oak barrel filled with water a little clumsily.

The first step was to take off the head and rinse it - the joints on the neck were not very strong anyway.

Miss Doll thought her plan was very reasonable.

...

The late night of the Plande City-State finally ended the hustle and bustle of the whole day. Under the pale light of the night sky, this prosperous "Pearl of the Sea" gradually fell asleep.

But in the quiet darkness, there were watchmen watching the city after it fell asleep.

On the tallest building in the Plande City-State, the "Great Bell Tower", a young lady with long gray hair and an unusually tall figure was standing in front of the window overlooking the city.

The lady's facial features were beautiful, but there was a striking scar across her left eye that was daunting. She was taller than the average man, and she was wearing silver-gray light armor and a battle skirt. She was obviously well-trained, with full muscles and well-proportioned lines on her limbs. Next to her, within reach, there was a giant sword emitting a faint silver glow - the hilt of the giant sword was engraved with runes symbolizing waves, and there was also a faint light floating on the blade like water waves.

Behind the lady, the sound of mechanical operation continued to come - the movement of the Great Bell Tower was running smoothly under the drive of the steam engine, and the complex and precise gear and connecting rod structure ran through the roof and floor, driving the four dials on the upper floor and the simulated planetarium hidden deep in the building to run continuously.

Judging from the sound, this huge and sophisticated machine is running very well, and no evil force has invaded the sacred steam core.

But Judge Vanna still has a faint uneasiness in her heart. She is annoyed by a bad premonition that something is about to happen or has already happened, and she is destined to be powerless to do anything about it.

Footsteps came from the direction of the stairs. The gray-haired woman in front of the window turned around to find the sound. She saw a priest wearing a sea priest robe coming up from the stairs. The priest was holding a copper incense burner in his hand, and the clean smoke was slowly lingering around him.

The priest came to the movement column in the center of the room, took down the old incense burner that was originally hung on the column guardrail, and replaced it with a new one. He observed the smoke escaping from the incense burner and confirmed that the smoke floated around the running gears and connecting rods without hindrance. Then he whispered the name of the Storm Goddess and turned to look at the gray-haired lady standing in front of the window.

"Good night, Inquisitor - are you keeping watch again?"

"I always have a bad feeling, and it has been like this in the past few days - especially tonight."

"Bad feeling? What kind of feeling?" The priest raised his head, with worry in his deep eyes, "Did the goddess give you a sign?"

"It's not such a clear message," the young female Inquisitor shook her head, "I just vaguely feel...something is approaching this city."