Part Two: New Companions
Chapter 6: En Route to Luxmouth
Blake stepped onto the deck with a yawn. The sun was just beginning to rise, marking the second day of his voyage at sea. Thankfully, the remainder of the first had passed uneventfully, and he'd even managed to get used to the swaying with relative ease. Rather than attempt to continue traveling in the dark, they'd agreed to leave the boat at a standstill until morning.
Celia was slumped against the railing with bags under her eyes. She jerked upright when he stepped out from the cabin, trying not to look like she'd been nodding off. "Is my watch over already? I can keep going."
"I thought you said you'd wake up Felix in the middle of the night," he said, perhaps a bit too accusatorily.
Celia stood up and stretched. "He's the only one of us who understands how to operate this craft. He above all should get the most rest; what if we encounter rough waters which demand his full attention to navigate and he's still feeling drowsy?"
Blake frowned. "What if we get attacked by drowned and you're too tired to help us fight them off?"
"I can hold my own just fine," she retorted, rubbing her eyes, "even on minimal sleep. Besides, you showed remarkable talent with that stone blade of yours against the Usurpation. Surely you could best a waterlogged, shambling corpse?"
He rolled his eyes. "Just go to bed, I'll keep watch until Felix wakes up. We'll get moving once he's ready."
Offering a curt nod, Celia stumbled past him and entered the cabin. Blake wondered if falling asleep out there on the deck like she almost had would have been more comfortable, because the room was tiny. The beds were nearly close enough to bump into one another whenever the boat swayed, and the cabin looked to have housed a maximum of eight people. How Ray and his peons could stand the condensed space was beyond Blake; even when it was just him and Felix on opposite ends of the room the night before, he felt crowded.
The sunrise was pleasant, at least. He stared at the waters ahead again, imagining what awaited him in Luxmouth. Had they not been pressed for time by a supposed invasion, Blake might have been more eager to sightsee when they arrived, but that didn't stop him from daydreaming just a tad.
"I wonder if any of the others ever went this way when they left home. Could I be the first of us to travel overseas?"
He winced as he leaned against the rail. The battle the morning prior had taken its toll: his side still ached from the injury, and he was sore all over. Given the sheer number of opponents, and how he'd operated on muscle memory alone, it was a wonder he and his new companions had come away so relatively unscathed.
"I doubt that's the last of those Usurpers I'm going to see. I'll need to get back in shape."
The cabin's door opened with a creak. Felix emerged, looking the most alert of the three. Having neglected to don his leather chestplate, his simple undershirt was finally visible to Blake. It was only notable due to how messy it was; dust and gunpowder stains adorned the garment, but there were also traces of redstone discoloration in the cloth.
"Did I sleep in?" Felix asked, squinting in the growing light.
Blake shook his head. "Celia never tried to wake you up. Apparently she decided it'd be better to just power through the whole night and crash in the morning, so you could have more time to rest. "
Felix approached the boat's controls and fiddled with a few levers. The deck trembled as something below them hummed to life, and they slowly began to move through the water.
"I… guess I can see her logic. This vessel is hard enough to steer as it is, so drowsiness wouldn't help matters."
"I thought she said you learned how to drive it easily," Blake said.
"I learned how to get us moving easily," Felix replied, not looking up from the controls. "Actually controlling our direction is a different matter. I haven't had time to investigate the inner workings of the boat, but my current guess is the Usurpation has put together a very complex series of sticky pistons, observers, and redstone repeaters, among other components. The contraption somehow enables on-the-spot turning."
Blake stared at the levers and buttons adorning the bow of the ship and found he followed precisely none of what was just said. "Uh… maybe I'm better off without an explanation."
Felix shrugged. "If you say so. We've managed to recover quite a few new technologies from the Usurpation, you know. Were they not attempting to invade, cooperation might have led to all sorts of advances in crafting and engineering- even regarding the simplest of tools! Remember their curved swords?"
"I remember the agents trying to kill us with them," Blake deadpanned.
"Oh… um, right." Felix deflated and returned his attention to the controls. An awkward silence fell over them, the only reprieve being the gentle sound of the waves as their boat cruised onward.
The pulsing of the Bonemeal Core had since settled down, to the point it wasn't very noticeable. He still had so many questions about it, and the worst part was he had no idea if there even were answers to many of them. Was removing it without harming him even possible? If the invasion was based around Genesis Cores like the one he harbored, would he remain a target for the Usurpation?
"And if it can't be removed, what'll happen to me? Are these Luxmouth people going to keep me in the city? Lock me up? Will I have to hide from them AND the Usurpation?"
He paused, trying not to get too worked up considering the possibilities. The last thing he wanted was to be paranoid, and it wasn't as if his new companions had shown him any hostility.
"I guess they could've done me in overnight if that was their goal. I'm not sure why else they'd keep me alive if they want the Core so badly."
As Blake mulled over the possibilities, he realized that he'd neglected to ask one of the simplest questions on his mind.
"Hey. How did you two find me, anyway?"
Felix hesitated, then pushed a few more buttons before throwing a lever. The boat slowed to a crawl, and he headed back toward the cabin. "One second, I need to get something," he said over his shoulder.
While he was gone, Blake's attention returned to the sea. He stared straight down, watching the waves ripple around the boat as it chugged along. Seagrass swayed on the floor of the warm ocean, piquing his curiosity.
"Concentrate, right? Imagine it growing…"
A moment later, to Blake's amusement, an unusually tall clump of seagrass protruded from the sand. It wasn't tall enough to reach the surface of the water, still being five or six blocks short, but the effect was impressive regardless.
"I wonder if I can learn how to control the effect better."
As he was admiring the plant, as well as the curious fish which had gathered to investigate, he saw something in the corner of his eye. Tucked away between more seagrass and a coral reef, Blake could just barely make out the corner of a pale blue block. He didn't see it for long before the boat had trundled past, but he was fairly confident that it wasn't a typical sight for a warm ocean.
"Here, take a look at this."
Felix was back on deck, holding a yellowish scrap of paper. He spread the map open, and Blake tried to process what he was looking at while his ally explained. "This was confiscated from a Usurpation team which tried to sneak into Luxmouth. It didn't take us long to determine it's a radar built to track Genesis Cores."
"I've never seen anything like it," he said. He noticed that the sole object on the map- a purple sphere- had a set of coordinates nearly reading 0/0/0.
"My working theory is it's some combination of a map and modified compass," said Felix, "but we're still not sure of the technique used to make it. You can't just craft those two items together, after all, so the Usurpation must have more tricks of the trade than we could imagine."
Blake took a step to the side to get a different view of the radar, upon which the X and Z coordinates very slightly altered. Surprised, he shuffled closer to Felix to look directly at it again. The numbers returned to roughly the same values as before.
"Is it following me?"
"You have the purple Bonemeal Core, so it points to you. Luxmouth's researchers were able to have the map locate it by configuring the radar to the yellow one's energy signature. Of course, there was no assurance that it was tracking the twin Core at the time, but I think that's been settled by now."
"You're losing me with the jargon again," Blake said.
"Basically, if you have a radar and one Core, you can lock onto the other."
The sheet had two additional spaces beneath the purple sphere's coordinates, allowing a total of three Genesis Cores at a time to be monitored. Currently, however, only the first space was filled.
"That guy in charge- Ray- could control the grass with his own Core," Blake remarked. "Were you able to track him, too?"
Felix stowed the map away in his inventory and got the ship moving again. "Once we got close enough to him, yeah. I think if the radar hasn't been configured to find a certain Genesis Core, it'll just detect them whenever one is close enough. But I have no idea how close that is."
"These people are just full of mysteries."
His eyes wandered to the ocean again, just in time for another unusual sight to pass by at the seafloor. This time, Blake got a good enough view of the block's pale blue, glassy surface. "Did you just see that? There was an ice block below us."
"In the middle of a warm ocean?" Felix asked, looking puzzled. "Are you sure?"
He nodded. "I swear I saw one earlier, too. Maybe we're getting closer to a cold biome- but that doesn't seem likely."
Felix shrugged. "We didn't pass through any tundra or the like on our way here. Is it a freak accident of nature, or did someone else drop ice blocks overboard?"
"I'm not sure which one I believe less," Blake said.
Regardless of the explanation, and despite how warm it was out, the ice continued to appear as the day wore on. More and more blocks were visible underwater in large clusters, jutting out of the coral reefs like scaled-down mountain ranges. By the time Celia exited the cabin shortly after noon, the ice had reached the water's surface- and it was everywhere around them.
"What's all this, then?"
Blake grandly spread out his arms as if unveiling the sight to her. "A frozen warm ocean, your nobleness! Impressed?"
Celia didn't look amused. "I can see that. Why is it frozen?"
"Good question. I don't see snow anywhere, so I don't think we've entered a different biome."
"This could be a problem for our progress," Felix added. "The ice is thickening, and we might not be able to cross it in this boat. I can't say how long it would take for us to find another way around."
Blake looked through his inventory, withdrawing the wooden pickaxe he'd made before reaching the tree. He leaned over the rail and experimentally swung at a block of ice close to the ship. It smashed apart easily.
"Excellent thinking!" Celia exclaimed. "We can just break through whatever gets in the way!"
However, Blake shook his head. "Maybe for a few ice blocks, but I've only got a wooden pickaxe. It won't hold up long enough to get us through all of this. Do either of you have something stronger?"
"I have an iron pickaxe," said Felix, "but that would only delay the same problem. There's more ice ahead of us than I think we can just break through."
Celia didn't seem to be listening to either of them. She stood against the rail, squinting. "Look over there!"
She was pointing at something off the port bow, a few chunks away. The ice blocks in the distance were arranged in cube clusters, each large enough to encase a person. Some had partially melted away, revealing that their occupants were much worse: undead husks with teal, rotting flesh. Even from that distance, Blake could see the blue glow of their eyes as they pulled themselves free of the icy cells. Some even wielded tridents.
"Felix," he said, unable to look away, "take out the map again."
The drowned didn't seem interested in pursuing them from so far away, but that was hardly his concern. From the inexplicable ice to the encaged mobs, the evidence had birthed a worrying thought- one that was confirmed by Felix's reply.
"There's another Genesis Core being tracked! It's a yellow one, and we're moving in its direction."
Celia perked up. "This is our chance to claim another! Perhaps it is the cause of this phenomenon? How far away are we?"
Something had appeared in the distance, where the icy shoals were so thick as to be one continuous layer. A cobblestone tower of crude, bland design loomed over the frozen sea. The only notable detail aside from its height was a gray banner hanging on its side, sporting the black outline of a circle with four hands surrounding it.
"Not far enough," Felix said, now sounding apprehensive. "The signal's coming from that structure."
A small group of people exited the tower, all looking in their direction. They were too far to make out specific details, but Blake found their cloaks more than a little familiar. The Usurpation had established a base in those waters- and its agents were swiftly crossing the ice toward them.