Is it bad enough to have a Homeless Ship in this world...
In the divination room illuminated by dim candlelight, Lucretia sat quietly on a high-backed chair covered with velvet cushions. She stared at the crystal ball placed on the table, but for some reason, a long time came to her mind.
What happened in the past, that afternoon a century ago...
The figure that was already slightly blurry in her memory stood on the deck, against the sunlight that was gradually sinking to the horizon. The tall body seemed to turn into a shaking and illusory flame in the sunset, speaking in a way that she had never seen before.
He told her in the deepest and most depressing tone he had ever heard:
"Our world is just a pile of extinguishing embers..."
By now, of course she knew that her father at that time had already been infected with madness, and would soon completely abandon humanity and choose to actively embrace the "blessing" of subspace, but she still thought from time to time that if one day she could
Talk to your father more and ask about the meaning of that sentence. Ask him what he saw at the border of the world. Will things develop differently in the future?
Maybe her father is still unavoidable in his crazy end, maybe the birth of the Lost Home is an "established fact" engraved in the long river of time, and no one can change it, but at least, she will know how it all happened, and know
Where should I go to find the truth - instead of being like now, where I can only control a cursed ship and wander in vain in this borderland that even the Holy See inspectors are unwilling to go deep into...
"Lucrecia, are you still listening?"
Tirian's voice suddenly came from the crystal ball, causing the young lady sitting in a daze at the table to suddenly wake up. Lucretia shook her head and temporarily put aside the chaotic thoughts in her mind.
"Brother," she looked at Tirian in the crystal ball seriously, and her tone became a little serious, "do you remember what father said before he drove to the border for the last time? That time he didn't let us follow..."
"Of course I remember," Tirian nodded, "He said he found clues to the Anomaly 000 and wanted to find 'a good medicine to heal the world.' At that time, he not only rejected the two of us, but also rejected several other ships.
The escort ship followed - and after he and the Lost Home returned, he and the ship became different."
"Yes, all the crew members on the Lost Home stopped talking, as if they were cursed with silence. But my father was still able to communicate with us clearly at that time. He said that he had not found Anomaly 000, and then said that even if there was Anomaly 000
existence, that is not the origin that caused the distortion of the world. The so-called good medicine did not exist from the beginning - from then on, until the day when he told us on the deck under the sunset that "the world is a group of embers", he never
Revealed anything related to that border trip..."
Tirian in the crystal ball didn't speak for a while. After being silent for an unknown amount of time, Lucretia spoke again: "After that, I specifically had contact with the Holy See fleet patrolling near the border, including the Fire Carrier, Deep Sea
Priests, scholars from the Academy of Truth, and even the languid Death Cultists, I asked them about anomaly 000, but they all said that there could not be anomalies or visions numbered zero..."
"I've also asked about it," Tirian said in a deep voice, "and the reply I got was the same as yours... There is no anomaly or vision numbered zero in the world. It's not that there isn't one at the moment, but there is no corresponding 'vacancy' at all -
—
"The list originally leaked from the Tomb of the Unknown King already listed all the numbers. Undiscovered or unformed anomalies and anomalies have their own vacancies to be filled. Even the 'Mycelium Bottle' and 'Fungi Island'
'The anomalies and anomalies that evolved in the course of history all found their planned positions afterwards, but at the beginning of the entire table, there was no zero position at all...
"That's why I said that my father might have been abnormal before he set off for the border. It's impossible for him not to know this information."
At this point, Tirian suddenly stopped, and then he looked up at Lucretia in the crystal ball, his expression becoming extremely serious: "Why did you suddenly bring up this topic? We haven't talked about this for half a century.
It’s over, what are you going to do?”
"...Don't worry, I won't plunge into that magnificent wall of fog like my father did." Lucretia rarely showed any expression on her face, but she still smiled this time, "I am looking for what my father left behind."
There are clues, but I definitely don’t want to follow his old path.”
Tirian was silent for a moment and nodded slowly: "...That's good."
Lucretia didn't speak for a while. The two brothers and sisters, who were separated by a long distance and rarely got together in the past century, each had their own thoughts, until the crystal ball heard the distant and vague sound of the Seamist.
The whistle blew, and Lucretia suddenly broke the silence: "Are you really going to Prand? Because of the 'invitation' from that consul?"
"The 'invitation' is not important. I don't care about the security issues of that city-state, but the consul said in the letter that the Homeless Ship has reappeared in the real world, and it is true. I must go and see the situation,"
Tirian said with a serious face, "That ship has not been seen for almost half a century, and now it appears again, which is really suspicious."
Lucretia thought for a while and asked: "You had an encounter with the Lost Home half a century ago. I remember you were still in Hanshuang at that time... What you saw at that time was really the Lost Home.
No.?"
"...It's absolutely true, although it's hard to believe, that's really the Homeless Ship," Tirian said in a deep voice, "I can't even remember the position of each of its masts and the distribution of each set of cables.
"
"Then... was it really 'father' who was standing on the boat at that time?"
Tirian lowered his head slightly, his face hidden in the shadows: "...It's him, although I would rather that thing wasn't him."
Lucretia looked at her brother in the crystal ball, hesitated for a moment and then spoke softly: "Be careful, if that is really him, you will be in danger."
"I know," Tirian sighed softly, "That is already a crazy ghost that has been completely distorted by subspace. I will not take it lightly..."
Lucretia shook her head expressionlessly: "No, I mean, if that was really my father, when he saw you transforming the Seamist into a big iron lump, he would definitely do something worse than half a century ago.
ruthless."
Tirian was stunned for a moment, and then his eyes widened: "What do you mean by this? This is a very effective modernization! What's wrong with steam boilers and rapid-fire cannons! And you have the nerve to accuse me - I have retained some of them after all.
, even one deck of your ship is still the shining star of the past..."
The crystal ball went out.
Lucretia breathed a sigh of relief and stood up from the chair.
My brother is still very energetic, full of energy after a little stimulation, and still has strong curiosity about modern things, which is good.
In the long eternity, what we fear most is mental decline and soul decay.
A burst of light footsteps came from the darkness, accompanied by the friction of mechanical mechanisms and clockwork devices. Lucretia looked around and saw a clockwork golem with a female appearance walking towards her.
——The devil's appearance is sixty-six times similar to her own, but its whole body has obvious riveting and mechanical joint structures. The outer shell is mainly made of fine steel and ceramics and is made into the shape of a maid's skirt. In the dim light,
Under the bright light, it looked somewhat weird and terrifying.
The demon doll walked all the way, and the clockwork behind it kept making slight clicking sounds. She came to Lucretia, offered the black tea in her hand, and her articulated mouth clicked, making a slightly stiff and dull sound.
Female voice: "Mistress, please have some tea."
"Thank you," Lucretia took the tea cup and asked casually, "Luni, where are we now?"
The clockwork golem known as Luni replied: "The Brilliant Star has just passed the 'Foghorn Island' and is currently sailing on the edge of the eternal curtain. Do you want to enjoy the scenery outside the window?"
"...Open the dome," Lucretia took a sip of black tea and put the tea cup back on the tray in Luni's hand, "It's getting bright, I should bask in the sun."
"Yes, Mistress."
Lu Ni lowered her head slightly and stepped back.
At the same time as the clockwork puppet's words fell, a slight vibration suddenly came from the entire "divination room"!
The creaking sound of the mechanical device's operation sounded continuously, the buzzing sound of the giant clockwork and the magic unit operating together, and the creaking sound seemed to form a concerto movement. Driven by countless gears and slides, the walls of the room began to move toward
The surroundings retreated and unfolded, and the originally dimly lit room was instantly illuminated by sunlight - under the sunlight, the entire room slowly bloomed like a mechanical flower, and finally blossomed into a stage-like appearance.
This is the upper deck of the Brilliant Star. The room where the "Sea Witch" Lucretia lives blooms into a towering stage at the front of the deck. Around this blooming mechanical flower, you can see the Brilliant Star's
The whole picture——
The ship was suddenly split into two.
The front half of the ship has been completely transformed, with countless runes and magical artifacts all over the hull, making it look more like a huge magical mechanism than a ship, and there are various
Strange materials collected from border areas or the sea reconstructed the deck structure of the ship, giving everything in sight a faintly weird and psychedelic color, as if there were endless magic rituals in those dense magic circles.
and runs between crystals;
But in the second half of the ship, there is a completely different appearance - there, half of the ship's hull presents a ghost-like translucent form, and a phantom-like veil covers the stern of the Brilliant Star.
In the floating illusion, you can vaguely see that part of the structure still maintains the original appearance of the ship——
A sailing battleship built a century ago, vaguely similar in style to the "Homeless".