“Sir, can I also enter now?” Lance asked, halting at the door of the bridge, his fist clenched, while the others strolled their way in.
Ewan chuckled and plopped on the captain’s chair, leaning on the high-back. “Come, sit,” he said. The side screens flickered with an array of data. Bits of feedback pinging in from the whole ship became a numerical output, and they refreshed every second. Yet, the lack of a working Ryvia module only created static noise on the main display. The Stormfalcon sailed blind.
“You’re our guinea pig, you’ve barely qualified to enter now,” Kidd said, reclining on an operator’s chair, swiveling around.
Ewan slapped his head with his Ryvia. “He’s my guinea pig, not ours,” he said.
“I also want one,” Kidd grumbled, fixing his messed-up hair.
“Nightingale, bring up the map of Morinfair,” Ewan said, keeping his Ryvia stretched beyond the ship to at least know if and when an obstacle popped up.
The static on the main screen shrunk to a corner and a large but dead map accepted the space.
“Stefan, take over,” Ewan said, rocking his chair.
“This inch of land running along this side is the eastern coast of Lostrax,” Stefan said, reaching out and pointing towards the leftmost side of the main screen, where a thin strip of land met the cerulean ocean. “Drarith is somewhere around here.” He circled an area on the lower part. “Ewan, can we have her focus on this part?”
“Nightingale, zoom in on the left side,” Ewan said. “And record these three’s details, you can take their orders.” The highest authority was his, but it would become a hassle if he was the only one who could manage Nightingale, on a daily basis or in an emergency. The four lived together after all, the Warship was their home. Even Lance was making his place among them, and Ewan warmed up to his presence, though he still hadn’t decided whether to ‘hire’ him long term.
“Yes, sir,” Nightingale replied.
“Can I give her orders too, Boss?” Kidd straightened up, and his eyes widened and glittered.
“Make that two,” Ewan said.
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Boss! No!”
“Sir, am I also included?” Lance asked, sitting at the edge of his chair.
“Do you want me to make it one then?” Ewan clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“Does it mean you will hire me, sir?” Lance asked.
“No.” Ewan cut him off, and Lance deflated. “Stefan, continue,” he said.
Stefan cleared his throat and focused on the zoomed-in map again. “We moved eastward from Drarith, and according to the stars, we should be around here,” he said and circled a small distance away from the Lostrax Continent.
“That small dot is Vestal?” Ewan asked.
“It is,” Stefan said. “From here, we’re moving east again, so the next island we’ll encounter on the way is….” He frowned and stopped on a speckle as he was moving his hand along the map.
“What, that island has a problem?” Kidd asked.
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“There shouldn’t be any island here,” Stefan said. “I’ve passed this area several times when I was working on a ship before. We never saw any island here.”
“Is that ‘the ocean remembers’ thing?” Ewan asked. “The map is outdated but it’s not old enough to record something from the planet’s time. An island wouldn’t vanish into thin air for no reason.”
“We had our ways to find the islands that hide from plain sight,” Stefan said. “Ocean reacts differently when near an island, you can see the native birds flying too, and seagulls are the biggest indicators. But there was nothing in this area.”
“Nightingale, bring up that island’s details,” Ewan said.
“Alasec, an island inhabited by a tribe native to Morinfair. Currently at war with the Swordfish Pirates, information outdated, reliability index has fallen below 1 percent.” Nightingale read the report that also came up on the screen.
“Swordfish Pirates?” It reminded Ewan of the Verns and the ships that attacked them. Their flags bore a curved swordfish insignia. And the details Nightingale displayed also had the same, but it had two swordfishes instead, curved at each other. The left mirrored the right, they made an oval. It was a combination of the flags of the first four ships and the last five ships...
“I knew it! They were super good at hooking the ladders, like they’ve done it their whole lives,” Kidd said.
“Isn’t this information from hundreds of years ago? Can it be a coincidence?” Lance asked.
“Regardless, it doesn’t concern us. Whether they were once pirates, still are pirates, or just happened to pick the same insignia, we’ve left them behind,” Ewan said. “What can concern us is the island. Nightingale, show us….I’ll call you Nyte from now on. Give us everything you have on the island and the tribe.”
“Affirmative, sir. Name registered,” she said, and an array of information popped up on the screen one after another. Soon, they crammed the display.
From the island’s area to its vegetations to its estimated age, it detailed everything, but most of it was about the Eyeless Tribe, well famed as the crow-herders. Their path was of the soul, they honed it by sacrificing their vision, and they called themselves the Whispered.
Ewan sat up abruptly, his chair uttering an abrupt yelp, when the last sentence struck a chord with a memory he had of Nana. She often talked of the beach where she was, of the ‘humans’ she inadvertently encountered, and of their bizarre. They lived blindfolded, spoke a foreign language, and only used spells that acted on her soul. Though he heard nothing about the crows, the other details of the Eyeless Tribe matched to a tee. She was on Alasec…
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Status: Healthy
Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
Subtype: Step-0 Elementalist
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 7.0
Spirit: 25.3
Anima: [Fire – 25.3 | Ice – 25.3 | Blood – 25.3 | Mystic: 25.3]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 1]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-1 Severynth [Spirit-Nebula: Zeroth Surge]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-B]
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Bloodthorn-Lotus [Iris]: Step-1 [Level-10] [Grade-D]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball]; Rainwarden [Staff]; Blackfeather [Overcoat].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Unknown Book [Radon’s Legacy]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 25,145
Crelith: 1,014