Roth slowly rolled over, his hands brushing against the soft fur of the blanket draped over his body.
“Hmm?”
His hand rubbed against it again, and he frowned, his eyes still closed. As he rolled over, a sharp clanging noise sounded from somewhere outside the room, and he swiftly sat up.
What- I’m in the bed?!
Roth quickly twisted to his right and left, then let out a sigh when he saw Alisa sitting in the corner of the room. Her eyes looked a bit red and tired, as if she had cried at some point during the night. When she saw Roth waking up, she pushed the blanket covering herself off, and then started to stand up.
The memories of what happened just before he fell asleep washed back into Roth’s mind, and he covered up his face in shame.
I turned into a sobbing mess, fell asleep on her when I was supposed to be keeping watch… then she must’ve woken up either during it or sometime after, then got up and took up the task of keeping watch herself… Please let her have woken up after.
“Ah… Alisa, how are you feeling?”
Roth hurriedly pulled himself out of the bed, jumped up to his feet and walked over to the girl. He could see the bruises on her shoulder already having darkened, and she moved with a painful stiffness as she stood up.
“I’ve been better. A lot better. I’ve been awake for a while… it’s just the hunters out in the woods who are left alive, right?”
Alisa’s eyes looked tired and defeated as she spoke, and she winced as she straightened her back.
“Them and Jean Farsue, he was just coming back when everything happened…”
Roth’s words trailed off as he tried to find the right words to say. Alisa had been willing to put her life on the line to save the people of the town. She’d said that they were what mattered most to her.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“They are with the army of specters now.”
That was all she said, and Roth hesitated for a few moments before speaking again.
“I’ve heard that a few times, now… can I ask, what does it mean?”
Alisa glanced down at the back of her hand.
‘You’re not from here, are you?”
“I-”
Alisa cut Roth off before he could speak.
“I think… a wandering ghost, that’s what the other winter merchants called people like you. Regular, sentient humans who sometimes show up in red zones. Your crew seemed to know nothing about Regards, and even after everything that happened over the past few days, you were trusting enough to fall asleep in front of someone you barely know.”
Roth’s ears perked up as he heard the same phrase Lia had used when talking to him before. In the past, he’d thought she was just coming up with a weird name on the spot, but it was apparently a thing. Also…
“Alisa, are there more people like me? Folks who seem like they aren’t from this time?”
She shrugged and nodded her head at the same time.
“I’ve never met any other wandering ghosts before, all I know about them is from a brief mention from another winter merchant…”
Alisa’s speech trailed off as she seemed to think of something.
“I can ask when we encounter another merchant, but I think it’s best if you try to keep it hidden. What little I heard wasn’t good, and it seems to be true. Wandering ghosts come out of red zones, and anyone coming out of one of those might be corrupted. Your crew are the only wandering ghosts I’ve ever met, and one of your crewmates managed to steal all of my mist.”
Alisa let out a small groan as she bent down, scooping one of her discarded leather jackets up off of the floor.
“I’ve never heard of that before… and what I felt for a moment, I think it was worse than the corrupted deity artifact.”
Roth’s hand stiffened as he recalled the order Regards fell in.
“So then Cundy… he was possessed by a God rank Regard?”
“No, that would be impossible. You asked about the army of specters before, right? They are why you don’t need to think about rogue God Regarded. The spirits of the lost will eliminate any threats on that level. They are the reason this continent still exists. The east coast would’ve long since fallen without them fending off major threats.”
Then a stronger deity ranked corruption… What if it is the same thing that possessed Bindon back on the island? It completely took over his body… if the same thing has happened to Cundy, is he gone for good?
Just as Roth was about to open his mouth to ask Alisa another question, there was a light knock on the doorframe, and the older female hunter peeked her head inside the bedroom.
“The folks who went to grab supplies are nearly back, and the rest of the men are already leaving to look for any other supplies that can be salvaged from the town.”
The older woman’s eyes lingered on Alisa for a moment, and she let out a small snort before speaking again.
“Hendricks, are you still capable?”
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“Don’t worry about it, Madam Weiss.”
The older woman’s gaze lingered on Alisa for a few moments before she turned to leave. With her back turned, she spoke again.
“The two of you are the only Regarded left in the town. It is your responsibility to protect and defend everyone for the time being.”
Madam Weiss suddenly turned back around, locking eyes with Roth.
“And you, newcomer. Don’t trust this girl.”
Without giving either of them a chance to respond, Weiss swiftly walked out of the room, and a moment later, the duo could hear the door to outside bang shut.
“What the hell was that? Alisa, why-”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Alisa’s voice wavered a bit, but Roth wasn’t sure if he was just imagining it. Her face was out of sight as she ruffled through the pile of jackets Roth had stripped off of her the previous night. Roth followed her lead, scooping up his own backpack and double-checking that he had everything he needed. Map, gloves, spyglass. Holl’s red captain’s badge fastened to his jacket. The silver revolver holstered in his belt.
Roth glanced at the door, then pulled out his map and held it open. Almost every building in the town had been utterly destroyed. Where before there were marks denoting walls and shops, now there were just a bunch of rubble-looking marks strewn along the streets.
Furthermore, the map was red. A dim, light shade of it, with low opacity, but it was all over town. Each small, bleeding spot denoting where someone had passed away the previous night bled into the next, creating a veritable carpet of death.
After taking a few good looks at it- and scrolling around for a while to try examining the sea around the island, with no positive results- Roth started rolling the map up. Most of his mind was still caught on what the elderly female hunter had just said to him and Alisa.
Last night she seemed like she might be concerned about her, but she seemed a lot more hostile now… and warning me not to trust her? Who else is there? Holl’s dead, Bindon is long gone, and Cundy is probably possessed by some powerful deity, the same one who took Bindon away. I don’t know Alisa all that well yet, but I’ll definitely take her over any of these random townsfolk. She has explained a lot to me, and there’s been nothing to suggest she would randomly stab me in the back.
Roth’s frown grew as he tossed his backpack over his shoulders. Thinking just now reminded him of what the town’s two now-deceased hunters on Alisa had been. They’d called her treacherous, too.
If that was true, I probably wouldn’t be alive right now. If Cundy really stole all of her mist, then she probably needs some right now, more than anything else. The hunters don’t seem to know that she is weakened, based on what Wiess was just saying, and they don’t seem to be all that friendly with her, either. If she not only did nothing to me while I slept, but also kept watch until morning… I think I’m safe with her.
Roth noticed that the girl was still gathering up her things when he was already finished, and he walked over and lightly tapped on her back. She flinched and Roth realized that he might’ve accidentally hit her bruise.
“Sorry. I wanted to say, I trust you. You said before that sleeping around someone is the most dangerous situation you can be in, right? I’d be happy to sleep with you any time.”
“...”
Roth’s brain took a moment to register what he’d just said, and he quickly backed away.
“Ah! That's not what I meant, I just fumbled my words!”
“I understand… thank you.”
Alisa looked up at Roth, and he could see that her eyes were a bit wet.
-
A few dozen minutes later, the duo arrived at the large boat shed near the shore. Most of the hunters were already gathered up around it, a few of them impatiently loading up supplies using a ladder to climb onto the deck. A series of logs had already been dragged in between the entrance of the boat shed and the water’s edge, in a similar method to what Roth had seen when he and the crew first arrived in the town.
Just as Roth and Alisa arrived, another of the hunters ran over from the docks area.
“One of the smaller fishing boats is missing! I already looked around, and I don’t think it was any of us who took it and tried to run!”
Roth didn’t have to think for more than a couple of moments to come up with a possible culprit. Cundy. He had no idea why his possessed crewmate would steal a boat and sail off into near-certain death on the freezing sea, but Roth didn’t think anyone else on the island would do something like that.
He hadn’t seen any signs of his wayward crewmate either, even when the night temperatures dropped far, far below freezing. Even now, in the early morning, Roth’s breath was still making a thick cloud in front of his face, and on the walk over, his feet had crunched through the thin layer of snow left at the end of the previous day’s rainstorm.
In some places beneath the thin snow the rain that’d come just before it had frozen into a thin, invisible sheet. It was just the thing that had caused countless accidents both on the roads and on ships in Roth’s past time period, and it wasn’t much better here.
He nearly fell twice on just the short walk across town, and had to catch Alisa one time. This was with both of them wearing sturdy winter boots.
“Well, Captain Roth, what do you think of the ship? Can you get us to another settlement before we all freeze to death on the water?”
Jean Farsue walked over to where Roth and Alisa were standing, then gestured at the boat before them. It was still mostly shrouded under the boat shed, but a few of the hunters were finishing lining up the logs beneath it.
Right, they want me to captain this thing…
Roth looked up as the ship was rolled out from the shelter of the shed, grating heavily against the logs beneath it before sliding noisily into the frosty waters of the Fractured Sea. The masts were still collapsed against the deck, and a few of the hunters on board had tossed down ropes to people on the shore, who were using them to pull the boat over to the docks.
This thing… doesn’t have a propeller, does it?
When Roth climbed aboard and started helping the townsfolk raise the ship’s three sturdy masts, two significant things stood out to him.
He was strong. Way, way stronger than before. Somehow, as he was helping hoist the huge wooden mast into position, he got the feeling that it might not be an impossible task to accomplish with only a bit more than his strength alone.
As for the second thing…
We’re screwed. This thing is an expedition ship. Powered by wind and sails. Not a small fishing boat with a motor attached. I really, really hope someone here knows how to use this ship.
‘Captain’ Roth wasted no time asking Jean Farsue and the other hunters if they knew anything about sailing.
“Marie Island is a common shipping hub during warm months. If we need to travel, we just ride with a passing merchant.”
“I guess I’ve seen sailors use them before, I could try to give a few tips?”
“Anpo knows a lot about moving by ship, he uses his own to travel up north every summer.”
Roth saw hope in the final person’s answer, but when he questioned the young hunter, Roth’s mood fell back to the gutter. Anpo did indeed have experience. With a canoe. Both he and Jaren seemed willing to use what they did know to help Roth out as much as possible, but he still wasn’t feeling hopeful.
As a last resort, Roth reached under his jacket, pulling off one of his gloves before grasping the metal centerpiece of the necklace given to him by Lia.
“Please, Lia, if you can hear me, I’ve become the captain of a ship I have no idea how to captain. Help.”
There was no reaction from the cold piece of metal, and Roth regretfully tucked it back under his shirt and slipped his glove back on.
I somehow feel that the ‘crash course on sailing and seamanship’ mini class my mom made me take before going out to sea with the crew for the first time was intended more for casual summertime sailboating, not a freezing late November death run on a revolutionary-era expedition ship.