Deep Sea Ember

Chapter 12 Captain Ghost and the Cursed Doll

On either side of the wide navigation table, Duncan, the captain of the Lost Home, and the cursed doll Alice sat facing each other.

The atmosphere between the two (although these two may not be human) is not harmonious.

The doll lady who called herself "Alice" still looked a little nervous, although the ghost captain in front of her had promised her temporary safety, but in front of Duncan's naturally coercive +10 face, even the cursed doll obviously couldn't feel at ease.

She was sitting on her coffin lid with a dignified demeanor at the moment, but the fingers quietly pinching and grasping the edge of her skirt revealed her uneasiness.

Duncan was silent for a while, observing the ...... "lady" in front of him in his thoughts.

A doll driven by an unknown power, a "supernatural entity" who is obviously not flesh and blood, but can say that it can walk and even have a certain body temperature, if placed in his hometown, it is to get closer to science - and at least three and a half episodes.

Duncan didn't know what kind of existence a doll like Alice belonged to in this world, but in the process of spending the past few days with Goathead, he also learned some information, he knew that although there were "extraordinary visions" in this world, all kinds of extraordinary things were not ordinary things, and the doll lady in front of him was ......

Duncan guessed that even in this strange and abnormal world, she should belong to some kind of special being.

His guess was not unreasonable—the mechanically powered ship that collided head-on with the Lost Home was new and had a well-trained seafarer, and he had seen with his own eyes that many sailors on that ship were sticking to their posts despite being in great fear, and that there were a large number of cabins and objects inside the ship that could not be understood for their purpose, many of which were depicted with complex runic markings. The style of those markings is very similar to the symbols on the surface of Alice's "coffin"......

In other words, the purpose of such a cutting-edge ship is most likely to be to escort ...... Or "escort" the cursed doll of Alice.

Duncan adjusted his posture on the seat and looked at Alice with comfortable but serious eyes - there was no doubt that there was a great "guest" on his ship.

But from another angle, this doll lady doesn't seem to be a terrible person, she seems to be quite timid.

After all, she hadn't said anything when she first met, and she was frightened.

"Excuse me...... "Probably because Duncan's long silence and gaze brought too much pressure, Alice finally couldn't help but speak, "There are still ......"

"Where are you from?" Duncan finally withdrew his stressful gaze and asked in a more peaceful tone.

Alice was obviously stunned for a moment, as if she was reacting to the meaning of Duncan's question, and after a few seconds, she gently tapped the gorgeous wooden box under her body with her fingers: "From here."

Duncan's expression was a little stiff for a moment: "......"

"Of course I know you were lying in this box before," he coughed lightly twice, "But what I asked was where you came from—location, understand?" Do you have a hometown? Or something that can be called a starting point?

Alice thought carefully again and shook her head calmly: "I can't remember."

"Can't remember?"

"Where did the doll come from?" Alice folded her hands on her lap and replied dignified and earnestly, "Most of my memories are lying in the box, where I lay, being transported from one place to another, and occasionally vaguely feeling that someone is walking or guarding the outside of the box...... Ah, I remember some whispered conversations, the people guarding outside my wooden box, talking about something in a frightened and nervous tone......"

Duncan raised his eyebrows: "Talking about something?" What are they talking about around you?

"It's just some boring trivial things."

"But I'm curious." Duncan said seriously—he believed that it might really be just boring trivia, but now he really needed to do everything he could to understand the world, even if it was the noisy chatter of ordinary people in this world.

“…… Well, the most common thing I hear is a name, Anomaly 099 - they seem to use this to refer to me and my wooden box, but I don't like it very much, I have a name," Alice said as she recalled, "In addition to that, I occasionally heard them talk about seals and curses and something, but most of them have vague memories." I would sleep when I was in the box, and I didn't pay much attention to the movement outside.

The puppet said unhurriedly, and then seemed to suddenly remember something, adding, "But I remember what I heard recently, it must have been before I came to your ship, and the voices talking outside the wooden box frequently mentioned a place, the city-state of Prade, which seems to be their destination...... Should it be my destination too?

"Prand City-State?" Duncan looked restrained and silently wrote down the name in his heart.

He finally learned something useful, although he didn't know when this useful information would come in handy.

Then he raised his head and looked at the doll lady in front of him again: "What else?"

"Other than that, I spend most of my time just sleeping, Your Excellency, Captain," said the doll lady seriously, "when you are sealed."When locked in a large box like a coffin, and there were still groggy whispers around her, what else could he do without sleeping? Do you do sit-ups in the coffin?

The corners of Duncan's mouth twitched.

She is dignified and elegant when her head doesn't fall off, but in fact she will not only ride the wind and waves on the coffin board, but she will also suddenly pop out trash talk that chokes people to death.

He quickly built a new image of this Miss Alice in his heart.

But he still maintained the image of Captain Duncan who was calm and dignified on the surface, but he hummed noncommittally and continued: "So, except for being groggy in the wooden box, you don't know anything about the outside world at all, and you can neither tell me how the world is changing now, nor tell me where any port or city-state is.

"I'm afraid that's the case, Your Excellency, Captain," Miss Doll nodded seriously, and then opened her eyes slightly as if she had suddenly reacted, staring at Duncan rather nervously, "So...... Are you planning to throw me off the ship again?" Because I have no value?

Before Duncan could speak, he heard Alice say again: "Okay, I understand, this is your ship after all, but can you stop stuffing shells into the box this time?" Seriously...... Eight shells were a little too much......"

It was clear that the doll lady was not in a good mood—but she didn't dare to do it.

Duncan was also very embarrassed, he was mainly embarrassed that he didn't think about it at all when he stuffed the cannonballs into the box, and then he had to calm down and discuss the matter with the person involved - at that time, he only regarded Alice lying in the box as a standard horror movie cursed doll, and the pictures that came to mind were all moving towards this style...... How could he have thought that this cursed doll did not come out of the curse, but from the courtyard?

So all the preparations made in the early stage to fight against the curse of horror have now become embarrassing.

But Duncan is good that his skin is thicker, and that majestic and gloomy face is engraved on his face like a knife and axe, as long as the peripheral nerves are not short-circuited, he can still be stretched, so he forcibly ignored the embarrassment caused by the eight shells, but shook his head lightly: "I haven't thought about whether to throw you off the ship yet, after all, you always seem to have a way to get back on the boat, I'm just a little curious, Why do you have to return to the lost country again and again? It can be seen that you are actually very afraid of me and this ship - in that case, why not stay away from this danger?

"Is this ship called the Lost Home? Well, I do have a bit of a ...... Afraid of you and your ship, but isn't the depths of the sea more dangerous than this? Miss Doll quietly stared at the ghost captain in front of her, in her field of vision, behind this tall man was an boundless dark void, that darkness overlapped with the real scene in the cabin, as if the two worlds were forcibly superimposed, but compared to this huge suffocating shadow of nothingness, those things from the "deeper" parts of the boundless sea made her feel more dangerous as an anomaly 099, "In this world, is there anything more terrifying than the deep sea?"