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Binary Progression
Volume 3 - Chapter 32: The ship in the fog

Volume 3 - Chapter 32: The ship in the fog

Revenberry slowly opened her eyes.

"I managed to fall asleep in an abandoned concrete parking lot... I think I'm slowly adjusting to this world..." she said rubbing her eyes.

She looked around and saw that Bromy was missing.

"Where'd he go?" she thought looking around.

She heard a lone step somewhere in the distance, moments later another.

She stood up and looked out seeing the thick fog rising up to just below the floor they were in.

"Hello? Bromy." she asked taking a slow step towards the balcony-area.

A rough cough came from outside.

She walked outside and saw Bromy smoking, his missing leg was back, his bloodied trouser leg the only reminder it was ever missing.

"Don't scare me like that!" he complained breathing a sigh of relief.

Bromy looked back to her and flicked the butt of the cigarette down into the foggy abyss.

"I was just out for a smoke, be happy I'm being considerate of your lungs," he said before drinking some of the mead left out by Revenberry.

Upon seeing him hold the bottle she felt around her pocket and realised she was out of alcohol.

"Hey, is that my booze?!" she demanded.

Bromy took another swig of it,

"Sharing is caring." he replied.

"Well I don't care!" she exclaimed.

"Isn't the fog kinda weird?" he asked.

"I dunno... why?" asked Revenberry looking down over the edge before backing away a few steps at the sight of the long drop.

"I mean, I'm no expert on fog... I specialise in medicine and sadism... and name recognition apparently, but... isn't fog... soft, usually?" he asked pointing to his still-lit cigarette butt resting atop the wavy surface of the fog.

What looked like the solid part of the fog was only about three or four meters off the ground.

"What!?"

"I know right, kinda cool," he said looking at the large blob of fog.

Bromy climbed over the ledge and jumped off the roof and onto the ground, Revenberry rushed over to the ledge once more seeing him resting on a puffy bed of fog.

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"This definitely beats sleeping on concrete!" he exclaimed resting his head on the soft substance.

"A-are you alright?!" she demanded.

"Yeah! Jump down!" he said standing up on the surprisingly stable fog-floor.

"Like hell, I'm jumping!" Revenberry called out.

"You might not be attached to your limbs, but I am!" she added.

Bromy shrugged as he began jumping on the solid-fog, moments before falling through the surface and into the fog.

The bubble-like substance he jumped on was completely opaque, it felt like a solid layer of cloth or fur, except made out of cotton candy.

Like a submarine made from cotton.

"Oh, crap..." he thought.

As soon as he fell into the fog he made the realisation he couldn't breathe - the fog wasn't thick, but the air inside must have been low on oxygen and stank of rotting fish.

Regardless, Bromy stuck his head out and took a deep breath before going further down the fog.

Soon he noticed what he called the "fog walls", the same substance lining the bubble itself, he cut his way out with a scalper and took another breath, "Damn, Bony might have been better equipped to deal with this thing."

"Bromy!"

"Hey, Bromy!" Revenberry called out from the top of the building.

Bromy squinted as he was able to make out a shape in the mist-bubble, it looked humanoid.

Bromy came close and saw it was already dead, small beady, black eyes and large teeth formed in a permanent grin.

Its skin grey-green, though it was hard to tell if it was like that always, around the bubble lay dozens more of these bodies, some large some smaller, all dead.

He breathed a sigh of relief before stepping closer only to realise he stepped in a pair of clothes.

"Clothes?"

He picked them up, a white tunic, grey trousers and some sort of sandals, all laying in a pile.

There was about a dozen of these piles.

He cut another hole in the bubble to breath some air before returning.

Bromy lit his cigarette only for it to go out immediately.

"What the hell?" he thought tossing the cigarette away.

"There goes my plan of further diminishing my oxygen supply..." he sighed.

He stuck his head out for another breath before coming up with a theory.

He popped back into the tunnel and took a deep breath causing him to instinctively exhale.

"Carbon dioxide!" he exclaimed popping his head out for a proper breath.

When he returned to the bubble he approached one of the figures, "not exactly the fog-men of legends..." he noted.

He picked up one of the books.

He was relieved to see that much like everything else, it was written in English.

"Day one, the device failed, the great mist began to dissolve, we were forced to flee to our fog-ships, who knows when next we encounter a suitable fog to inhabit..."

"Day two, our supplies seem inexhaustible, we have enough water and fog for years!"

Bromy read the next entry.

"Day three, we were able to use psionics to convert the salt water into steam for us to drink... I hope we reach land soon."

"They drink steam?" thought Bromy.

He flipped a few pages forward.

"Day fifteen, we saw the fish-people again, they have large teeth, quite disturbing... they didn't seem hostile yet so we left them be."

"Day sixteen, the fish people are definitely hostile... they stand no match to our psionics, so we defeated them without any trouble... I'm not sure if it's the mana usage... but I feel exhausted... there are fifteen of us on this fog-ship... the last fifteen of our kind for all I know."

"Tired, eh? Looks like carbon dioxide poisoning to me."

"Day twenty... I... am tired... we captured a few of the fish-people... we're holding them hostage... we locked them away in a chamber... it looks like they can breathe the air just like us... though ever since we got them onto the ship... "

"Day thirty... our member count dropped to twelve... I'll write the detail later..."

"Day... something... I... I forgot to update the diary for a while... we wanted to offer a proper burial to our friend... let out their vapourised body into the atmosphere... but... we can't risk letting the fog out... I guess we will have to live with the remains of our comrade floating in the air..."

Bromy skipped to the end of the diary.

"It's the fish... I don't know how... but it's them... It's been... a day since I became the last survivor... the air is white with the smoke of our dead... I... I know I will join them soon... I pray this ship finds land soon... it was designed to find the nearest source of suitable fog... -122BI"

Bromy took the book and placed it in his pocket.

"So these are the fish people..." he remarked looking back at the dried out bodies of the large-toothed creatures.

"I guess all the white smoke in the air is the crew," he said looking at the bubble, the walls slowly healing after he left.

"If the race was so advance... there's no way they wouldn't know staying in an enclosed area would fill it with co2..." thought Bromy.

"The way they vapourise upon death is quite unusual... I suppose they might not have produced co2... but the fish-creatures... I guess they created co2 in the air..." he speculated.

Meanwhile, Revenberry rushed down the stairs of the building making it to just before where the solid-part of the fog started, she climbed over the railing and jumped onto the pillow-like ship.

[https://i.imgur.com/lRLOMU0.png]