Deep Sea Embers

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In the midst of loud noises, the shriveled body the sailors had jokingly called “the mummy” suddenly sprang into the air from the ship’s deck. It launched itself with such force that it resembled a cannonball. The mummy landed with a heavy thud among scattered items across the deck.

The unexpected commotion startled the sailors. Lawrence, watching from a distance, sprang into action. He leapt from his lookout post and, accompanied by squick-acting crew members, rushed to where the strange figure had fallen. Amid the debris, they found the decayed corpse, clad in a sailor’s uniform, entangled and struggling to extract its head from a broken wooden crate. The figure seemed disoriented, shaking its head in confusion before weakly muttering, “I… I saw…”

Gus, the ship’s first mate, hurried over and helped pull the mummy from the wreckage. He asked sharply, “What did you see?”

The mummy’s reply was odd and barely coherent. “I saw my grandma…”

Exasperated and skeptical, Gus pushed the mummy aside and demanded, “You fool, what does your grandma have to do with any of this?!”

Meanwhile, Lawrence concluded that the disturbance caused by Anomaly 077 was just a diversion and turned his attention to a recent rescue—the “castaway” found at sea.

The survivor, an elf wearing typical attire from the southern regions, was reclining against a cargo winch on the deck. He looked disheveled and wet but had no visible injuries. His expression was vacant, his eyes empty.

As Lawrence approached, the elf turned his head slowly and weakly, his gaze drifting over his surroundings listlessly.

Ted Lir, the elf, was lost in a fog of confusion. Since repelling the mummy, his mind had been clouded, filled with echoing noises and fleeting shadows, disrupting his clarity of thought.

He was aware that he had left the frightening realm of subspace; the feel of the sea breeze and the rhythmic waves were unmistakably real. However, the trauma of crossing the “Dark Traverse” had deeply affected his psyche, leaving a mental scar that dulled his senses.

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Ted Lir recognized his remarkable fortune. Few survived entering subspace, and even fewer kept their sanity after such a terrifying experience. He had little tto ponder his miraculous survival. The remnants of his sanity urged him to fully regain consciousness and anchor his thoughts in reality. However, he wasn’t completely safe yet; lingering toxic influences and shadowy entities from subspace subtly continued to assail him, attempting to drag him back into that dark, chaotic realm.

Suddenly, a rumbling noise interrupted his thoughts, like thunder muffled by heavy drapes. A figure approached—an older man with graying hair and a solid build. His words sounded distorted and foreign.

“Con, snap out of it,” Lawrence urged, gently tapping the elf’s cheek to rouse the stranger from his stupor. His voice mixed concern with curiosity, “Can you tellyour name?”

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From the shadows, a cautious voice spoke. Martha, ever vigilant, warned Lawrence, “Be careful, Lawrence. There’s something strange about this man—he emerged from the sea right after the sun disappeared. We have no idea what he might be…”

Lawrence replied calmly, his hand resting discreetly on the pistol at his waist where a soft, eerie green light flickered, “It’s okay, Martha. Even if he’s something unnatural from subspace, he’s no stranger than the rest of us. Did anyone get a clear view of how he cout of the darkness? What exactly happened?”

Hidden in the shadows, Martha kept a watchful eye on the elf, who lay there with wide, unseeing eyes. She whispered, “There was no sign of him at all. Ever since the sun vanished, I’ve been watching through the spirit realm. He just appeared out of nowhere… as if stepping out from the shadows.”

“This is new toas well…” Lawrence murmured, his gaze drifting past the ship’s railing to the turbulent sea that surrounded the White Oak. A small patch of ocean, illuminated by the ship’s lights, appeared normal. But beyond this lit area was an unseen boundary, leading to a vast, dark abyss as if the rest of the world had plunged into a void.

And it was from this very threshold that the mysterious elf had appeared.

Suddenly, the “castaway” leaning against the winch stirred, shifting his gaze.

Lawrence immediately refocused on the elf, examining him closely.

The elf opened his mouth, emitting a series of harsh, unintelligible sounds, a jumble of noises that defied human speech: “@##?%……?”

Startled, Lawrence could only respond with a puzzled, “…?!”

As these alien sounds reached his ears, a wave of alarm swept over him. As a seasoned captain accustomed to navigating the Boundless Sea, he instinctively drew his revolver with near-imperceptible speed. At the stime, the alert sailors nearby aimed their weapons at the “castaway”. Even the “Sailor” who had just emerged from a pile of debris was now brandishing a curved knife, his movements urgent and defensive.

The “castaway” on the deck, now fully alert, widened his eyes in apparent confusion. He extended his hands, a universal gesture of peace, yet those harsh, grating sounds emerged again: “%&**%???”

But then, he fell silent abruptly.

Ted Lir, the elf, suddenly realized the sounds he was making were not any human language; they were just senseless noise, an echo from subspace.

In a moment of sudden insight, Ted Lir becaware of the strange transformations unfolding around him. The world seemed to warp and distort nightmarishly. The seemingly ordinary sailors surrounding him were now cast in fluctuating shadows, their shapes shifting eerily. Behind the gray-haired captain, numerous sinister eyes appeared, ominously watching the scene. The deck beneath him felt as if it were turning to mud, and an invisible, foreboding curtain seemed to be slowly drawing back. The encroachment of subspace was near, threatening to swallow everything…

Bracing himself to prevent the further opening of subspace rift, Ted Lir was drawn to a peculiar vision. A faint green flsparked into existence around Lawrence. This spectral fire, ethereal and ghostly, began to dance and spread as if alive. It enveloped each sailor in its eerie glow, transforming them into spectral figures. The flswept across the deck, climbed the ropes, encircled the bridge, and wrapped around the chimney…

On the sidelines, the “mummy,” who had been brandishing a curved knife and causing a stir, let out a startled scream as the ghost fire rose. He jumped back as if burned but quickly recovered. With a trace of casualness, he cautiously touched the flwith his knife, igniting a small blaze at the tip, and then held it up, seemingly attempting to blend into the fiery display.

Before the subspace portal could fully open, it abruptly closed. Ted Lir felt the disturbing noises and shadows within him being expelled and scattered by the unseen flames. The ghostly fire cut off the last connections to subspace, returning him to a sense of reality that was clearer and more stable than he had experienced in a long time.

Looking up in awe at the captain, now surrounded by the faint green flames, Ted Lir felt a strange sense of familiarity.

“Why does this fire seem so familiar to me?” he wondered to himself.

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“What in the world was that?” murmured Lawrence, equally perplexed. He continued to watch the elf, who no longer appeared to be a malevolent cultist or a vile demon. Unsure of what to do next, he pondered, “Was that ssort of spell?”

Breaking the silence, Ted Lir finally spoke in a language everyone could understand, “Who are you? And where am I?”

“You can talk?!” Lawrence’s surprise was clear, but he was relieved to hear the elf speak a human language. Despite his confusion about what had just happened, his immediate sense of crisis diminished. “This ship is the White Oak. I’m the captain.”

“The White Oak?” Ted Lir’s brow furrowed in a mix of recognition and confusion. Still recovering from mental strain and fatigue, he struggled to connect his memories. “What’s your connection with the Vanished? With Captain Duncan?”

“Captain Duncan?” Lawrence, taken aback by the mention of that rarely spoken name, quickly composed himself and nodded. “He’s my boss.”

Ted Lir looked puzzled, his mind racing to make sense of the situation.

…

“Ted Lir is missing?!”

In the grand and mystical “Witch’s Mansion” in bustling Wind Harbor, Duncan’s face showed shock and concern upon hearing the alarming news. Lucretia, who had just returned to the city, delivered this unexpected and troubling update.

“Yes, I’ve just received word from the academy,” Lucretia confirmed with a solemn nod. She had only stepped out briefly before returning with this news. “Ted Lir left the research station near the ‘glowing geometric body’ just fifteen minutes ago via a teleportation portal. However, he hasn’t arrived at the designated point here in Wind Harbor.”

“Only fifteen minutes ago?” Shirley, intrigued and slightly anxious, leaned in closer to the conversation. “That doesn’t seem like a very long time. Do we really need to organize a search for him…?”

With a serious expression, Lucretia turned to Shirley, “Using a teleportation portal is a precise process. If the person doesn’t arrive at the exact moment the portal opens, it’s an immediate cause for concern.” She then added, reflecting the seriousness of the situation, “This could likely be a malfunction of the spell, possibly triggered by the recent extinction of the sun.”

The room filled with a tense atmosphere as the implications of Ted Lir’s disappearance began to unfold, hinting at a deeper, more sinister issue possibly linked to the supernatural cosmic event of the sun’s disappearance.