Deep Sea Embers

On both sides of the large nautical table, Duncan, the captain of the Lost Country, sat facing the cursed doll Alice.

The atmosphere between the two (although neither of them may be human) can be called rapport.

The puppet lady who claimed to be "Alice" still looked a little nervous. Although the ghost captain in front of her had promised her temporary safety, in front of Duncan's natural pressure +10 face, even a cursed puppet would be too nervous. Obviously uneasy.

She was sitting on the lid of her coffin maintaining a dignified manner at the moment, but her fingers quietly pinching together and grabbing the hem of the skirt revealed her uneasiness.

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

A puppet driven by an unknown power, a "supernatural entity" that is obviously not flesh and blood, but can walk and even have a certain body temperature, if it is placed in his hometown, it will be close to science—and At least three and a half episodes.

Duncan didn't know what kind of existence a puppet like Alice belonged to in this world, but during the past few days with the goat's head, he also learned some information on the sidelines. He knew that although there are "extraordinary visions" in this world , but all kinds of supernatural things are not ordinary and visible things, and the puppet lady in front of her...

Duncan guessed that she should belong to some kind of special existence even in this strange world.

His guesses were not without merit—the mechanically powered ship that collided head-on with the Lost Country was new and had a well-trained crew, and he had seen it with his own eyes, despite the conditions of great fear, Many sailors on the ship are also sticking to their posts, and there are a lot of cabins and items whose purpose cannot be understood inside the ship. Many items are depicted with complex rune marks, and the style of those marks is similar to that of Alice. The symbols on the surface of the "coffin" are very similar...

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

Duncan adjusted his posture on the seat, and stared at Alice with comfortable but serious eyes - there is no doubt that there is an extra "guest" on his boat.

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

After all, she didn't say anything when she first met her, she was so frightened that she lost her head.

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

"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 reflecting the meaning of Duncan's question, and after a few seconds, she tapped her finger on the gorgeous wooden box under her body: "From here."

Duncan's expression stiffened instantly: "..."

"Of course I know you were lying in this box before," he coughed twice, "but what I'm asking is where you come from—place, understand? Do you have a hometown? Or something that can be called Something from the place of departure?"

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

"Can not remember?"

"Where did the doll come from?" Alice folded her hands on her lap, and replied dignifiedly and seriously, "Most of my memories are lying in the box. Shipped to another location, occasionally vaguely felt walking or guarding outside the box... ah, I also remember some whispered conversations with those guarding outside my wooden box, they used fear and nervous Talking about something in the tone of…”

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

"Just some boring stuff."

"But I'm curious." Duncan said seriously - he believed that those things might really be just trivial things, but now he really needs to do everything possible to understand the world, even if it's the noisy gossip of ordinary people in this world also good.

"...well, the one I hear most often is a name, Anomaly 099—they seem to use that to refer to me and my crate, but I don't really like it, I have a name," Alice recalled Said, "Other than that, I occasionally heard them talking about seals and curses, but most of them are blurred. I would sleep when I was in the box, and I didn't listen to the movement outside very seriously."

The puppet spoke unhurriedly, and then seemed to suddenly remember something, and added: "But I still remember what I heard recently, it should be before I came to your ship, those in the wooden box diplomacy The voice of the conversation frequently mentioned a place, the city-state of Pland, which seems to be their destination...should it be my destination too?"

"Pulland City State?" Duncan looked inwardly, and silently wrote down the name in his heart.

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

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

"Other than that, I just sleep most of the time, Captain," the doll lady said solemnly, "When you are locked in a big coffin-like box, there are still dizzy people around you." What else can you do if you don't sleep when the whispers are in your ears? Do you do sit-ups in the coffin?"

The corner of Duncan's mouth twitched.

She has a dignified demeanor and is an elegant beauty when her head is still on her head, but in fact she can not only paddle the coffin board to ride the wind and waves, but also suddenly burst out trash talk that chokes people to death.

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

But on the surface, he still maintains the image of the calm and majestic Captain Duncan, he just hummed noncommittally and then said: "So, apart from being drowsy in the wooden box, you don't know anything about the outside world. , you can neither tell me the changes in the world today, nor tell me where any port or city-state is."

"I'm afraid that's the case, Captain," the puppet lady nodded solemnly, then opened her eyes slightly as if suddenly reacting, and looked at Duncan quite nervously, "So...you are planning to throw me overboard again Is it because I'm worthless?"

Before Duncan could speak, he heard Alice continue to say: "Well, I understand, this is your ship after all, but can you not put shells in the box this time? Seriously... eight shells It's a little too much..."

It can be seen that the lady doll is not in a very good mood - but she doesn't dare to show it.

Duncan was also very embarrassed. He was mainly embarrassed that when he stuffed the cannonballs into the box at the beginning, he didn't think about the situation of calmly discussing the matter with the person concerned. At that time, he only regarded Alice lying in the box as a standard horror. The cursed puppet in the film, all the pictures that popped up in his mind were towards this style of painting... How could he have thought that this cursed puppet didn't come out of the curse, but came out of the courtyard?

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

But Duncan is good because he has a thicker skin, and the majestic and gloomy face is carved on his face like a knife and an axe. As long as the peripheral nerves are not short-circuited, he can still hold it, so he forcibly ignored the eight shell belts The embarrassment came, but I just shook my head calmly: "I haven't decided whether to throw you off the boat, after all, you always seem to have a way to get back on the boat, I'm just curious, why do you insist on throwing you over and over again? Back to the Lost Home? It can be seen that you are actually afraid of me and this ship—in that case, why don't you stay away from this danger?"

"Is this ship called Lost Homeland? Well, I am indeed a little... afraid of you and your ship, but compared to this, isn't the depths of the sea more dangerous?" The puppet lady quietly stared at the ghost in front of her. Captain, in her field of vision, behind this tall man is a boundless dark void, that darkness overlaps with the real scene in the cabin, as if the two worlds are forcibly superimposed, but compared to this huge The suffocating shadow of nothingness, those things from the "deeper" part of the boundless sea made her feel more dangerous as anomaly 099, "In this world, is there anything more frightening than the deep sea?"

(Mom!)