Chapter 101: Fog and Mysteries (Patreon)

About an hour after we sailed from Guam, a fog started. Initially, the fog appeared as scattered pockets with areas of more visibility. But gradually, the fog became thicker and thicker until it seemed as if we were sailing through milk. The wind completely stopped, and a creepy silence enveloped the surroundings. I was at the helm, and it was a strange experience—gradually, everything became deathly silent.

I couldn't sail like this. The sailboat glided silently through the water, its bow disappearing into a thick, white wall of fog. My visibility didn't even extend to the bow. Extending my mana sense as far as it would go, I gained about ten meters of "visibility," but it wasn't enough to navigate. On the river, my mana sense sphere was wider; here, it felt like the fog muted it, like it had something in it that muted everything. I had a compass and the Travelers' Map, but as far as the sea conditions were concerned, I was sailing blind. Everything felt and sounded muted, adding to the uncertainty. I couldn't hear the waves lapping against the hull.

With my Mana Control, I closed and tied the sails, lowered the engine speed to the minimum, and called Mahya and Alfonsen over.

"We have two options," I said. "Either turn back and return to Guam or continue and head to the Marshall Islands."

"Weren't we going to Micronesia?" Mahya asked.

"The Marshalls are part of it, but we must drop Pohnpei."

"What factors need to be considered when evaluating each option?" asked Alfonsen.

"The same factor applies in both cases. I can detect objects up to about ten meters ahead using my mana sense. When someone takes over the helm from me, they will have even less visibility. It's dangerous to approach an island and navigate into a marina when you can't see anything, and the open sea is also dangerous without visibility."

"What do you think?" asked Alphonse.

"I think we should continue. Both to not lose this time and because the open sea may be dangerous without visibility, but less dangerous than an area near an island."

They both agreed with me, and I continued navigating. Our sailing speed was something like three or four knots. I was afraid to sail faster. At least in these conditions, the sea was as smooth and calm as a river, so Rue didn't experience any motion sickness.

The fog cleared a bit in the late afternoon, and visibility improved to about five meters from the boat's bow. For a while, I asked Alfonsen to replace me. After hours of navigating with my mana sense and seeing nothing with my eyes, my entire body was tense. At one point, I even closed my eyes to "see" better with my mana.

I lay on the couch in the saloon and tried to calm the nerves and tension in my body. I was tense like a spring, which didn't improve my mental peace.

"Sailing should be fun, not a stressful experience!" I complained mentally to the universe at large and felt amusement directed at me. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up; you're not the one sailing in those conditions." This time, I didn't get a reaction. I had become so accustomed to these sporadic "communications" that they no longer bothered me. Yay me!

I saw Mahya reading the Bible and writing things down in a notebook every few minutes.

"What are you doing?"

"Research."

"In the Bible?"

"Yes."

"Why?" I asked, completely confused.

"Looking for good sources of magical knowledge."

"In the Bible?" I felt like a parrot, repeating the same thing repeatedly.

"Yes."

"Could you break down what you're doing? I have no idea what you're talking about, and I feel dumb right now because you're not making any sense at all."

"My father, who holds the [Lore Keeper] class, told me that during his travels, he discovered numerous evidence suggesting that magical worlds were once technological worlds, a finding that is not surprising given the integrations. But on two occasions, he found proof that technological worlds used to be magical. He called it 'the ebb and flow of magic.' I believe that Earth serves as another example.”

HUH?!

I just stared at her, open-mouthed.

"Don't look at me like that. With this expression, you do look dumb. Listen to this:

"Book of Revelation, Chapter 18, verse 23: 'Your merchants were the world's important people. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.'

"After that, chapter 21, verse 8: 'But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.'

“In this case, I think the second death is a metaphor for reverse integration.

"Then, in chapter 22, verse 15, it says, 'Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.'

“Here, too, I think 'falsehood' refers to magic ceasing to work.

"Now listen to Exodus, chapter 7, verse 11: 'Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts.'

"And here is from the book of Daniel, right in the first chapter, verse 20: 'In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.'

"And in the second chapter, in the second verse: 'So the king summoned the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed.'

"Still, in the book of Daniel, verses 2–8, Daniel said: 'In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it. And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, 'Get up and eat your fill of flesh!' After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule. After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully.'

"I think the reference to a dream was added later because the text made little sense. But I'm sure that those are descriptions of mana beasts."

"Not monsters?" I asked.

"No. Verses 11–12 state: 'Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time.)'

“Monsters dissipate, so there is no need to burn them. Those were mana beasts, powerful ones.

"Now I'm going through the book of Acts, and here's what I've found so far. Chapter 8, verse 9: 'Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great.'

"The same chapter, verse 11: 'They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery.'

"And in chapter 19, verse 19, 'A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly; the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.'

“Scrolls are the way to learn spells. I believe they burned them because the magic stopped working."

"It's all very fascinating, but why do WE care?" I asked, bewildered.

"Runes."

"Runes?"

"Yes, how many rune languages have you learned so far?"

"Two."

"Did you notice they are different?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Exactly. The more runes you know, the more you can mix and match to make amazing things or create new rituals."

I started laughing.

"What is so funny?" She asked, sounding annoyed.

"You want to go look for things that were buried underground, and somebody dug them up," I said, laughing even harder.

She looked even more annoyed, and I roared with laughter.

We both heard a foghorn. We jumped up and ran to Alfonsen to check that everything was fine. He turned the wheel to the right, and we saw the shadow of a large ship. It was massive, resembling either a cruise ship or a cargo vessel. The fog made it impossible to determine the exact distance, but I could feel the ship's wave pushing us to the side and rocking the boat.

"Speed up," I told him.

"Replace me, please."

I replaced him on the helm, turned it further to the right, and increased the engine speed. I felt like I was on a thrill ride at an amusement park. Our boat went up and down in the ship's wake.

Everything calmed down after a while, and the sea was as smooth as a lake again. Alphonse stood beside me, breathing heavily. I noticed his hands were shaking.

"Are you okay?"

"Give me a moment, please."

Once he regained his composure, he said, “I hate fog!”

"Go drink something, rest, and recover. I'll navigate in the meantime."

"Thank you."

I remained at the helm until sunset, by which time the fog had nearly dissipated. Mahya replaced me, and I went to sleep. The sea was calm in the morning, without a hint of fog. Thank you, Guiding Spirits!

Alfonsen felt comfortable navigating; Mahya pursued her research on religious and magical topics while I practiced expanding my mana sense. It was useful in many situations; I had to maximize it.

We continued to sail for two days with no further surprises until we arrived at Arno Atoll. There was no marina or anything like that in Arno, so we dropped anchor a few hundred meters from the atoll and came ashore with the E-foils. I blessed the day we discovered these devices, and every day, I blessed Lis for converting them to be mana-powered. They solved so many problems for us. We spent a day and a half in Arno Atoll. There weren't any unique attractions, not even restaurants, but the lagoon was lovely, and swimming in clear water with no waves was fun. We enjoyed a bike ride around the atoll's perimeter and purchased many coconuts. After a day and a half, we gave up visiting Jaluit and sailed directly to Hawaii. We preferred not to take a chance that more surprising things would happen along the way and delay us.

As Alfonsen stated, "Should we happen to be ahead of schedule, we will find ways to occupy ourselves. However, arriving late would result in an embarrassing situation."