Chapter Ten: From the Mist, A Ship
Waves rushed over the beach Shirou and Yuri had camped themselves. Both were bundled up in deference to the cold, damp air coming out from the sea. Still in the early parts of Spring yet. A fire flickered dimly into the night to help ward off the chill and heat up some of the snacks Yuri had brought.
"So what are we looking for?" asked Shirou
"Some drunk yokels were hanging out here a week or two ago. They said they saw a ghost ship of some kind. Since they were drunk, their concerns were handily dismissed, and the rumors debunked when nothing appeared the following week."
"But…?"
"But, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. According to Rin, reports and alleged sightings of this thing have been floating around at least since World War 2. So far, we're up to twenty-six appearances since the first one documented."
"How could they tell?"
"It's too big and too metallic to be anything older. And since it's done a fine job of vanishing before anyone can do more than point and gawk, I'm thinking a warship or transport that had a magus on it before it sank."
"But you're not sure. Has no one gotten a close look before?"
"It typically only shows up on cold, foggy nights." Yuri gestured to the clouds of fog rolling around them. "Rain and snow are optional, but not uncommon. All efforts to investigate the phenomenon have been met by frustration."
The sound of sheep bleating in the distance caught their ears, briefly drawing their attention from the harbor.
"Okay," said Yuri. "I know we live in a weird town, but I know for fact that free-roaming sheep shouldn't be a thing. Not this close to a city."
A blonde, tanned woman wearing khaki pants, a blue and yellow bikini top, and a yellow poncho of all things. More strange was the shepherd's crook she carried.
"Sorry," she said, speaking with an awkward Japanese accent. "Don't mean to bother you. But have you seen or heard any sheep?"
Yuri and Shirou glanced at each other, before pointing off towards the hilltops where the noise had come from. A brief, but polite thanks were conveyed, and the woman stepped off into the night once more.
"I stand by what I said: this town is weird. And I don't know if it was like this before the Tohsakas took ownership of the land, or if this was something thanks to the Holy Grail being set up here."
Shirou could hardly refute this out of hand, so he hummed noncommittally and looked out to sea with his binoculars. The fog was getting thicker.
"Hang on. I think we have something." Mana flowed towards his eyes, enhancing them. Static fizzling brimmed along the edges of his vision as he tried to focus on the object drifting along. "Looks like a steamer. I'd say late-18th, early-19th century by the looks of it.
"Any signs of life? A name? Flag?"
"Thing's banged up pretty good." Shirou continued looking the length of the ship over. "No sign of a crew. Or if it's actually running, no lights whatsoever."
"So either everyone has managed to miss this thing for the last sixty years, or there's some magical mischief going on." Yuri scratched her chin, then went back to jotting notes.
Shirou tried to pronounce what he was seeing. "Groan? Looks like G-R-O-E-N. Not sure what that word is supposed to be, but the second word is mostly rusted away. Starts wit ha 'K' by the looks of things."
Yuri furiously scribbled away in the notebook. "Groen…K…so 'Green'… what, exactly? You know what? I think that's plenty to work off of. Sounds like it's Dutch, or at least was originally Dutch." She wrote down a few more observations and snapped her notebook shut. "We're not boarding it tonight. We'll see what Rin can find out for us later."
A minute flare of mana pinged both of their senses. The two exchanged a look, and then a sudden shift in the wind hit them, water lapping closer to their encampment.
Panicked shouts rang out across the waves, the two Emiyas looking at each other.
"You have your memory modifiers?" Shirou asked, already grabbing the boat they had borrowed for this exact possibility.
"Yes, and the Lantern, too. Come on." Yuri grabbed the paddle and jumped in.
Getting closer, magically enhanced vision allowed them to clearly see two men bobbing along in the waves, their capsized boat some distance away. One was treading water reasonable well, so Shirou signaled Yuri to go for that one first. No sign of other rescue operations were materializing, so Shirou dove into the water with the flotation device, and let Yuri begin hauling them along as he went for the next person in the water.
Yuri focused on the iron anklets and started drawing on the weight stored within, giving her just enough weight to avoid being yanked overboard herself. Hand over hand, the rope eventually had the man at the side, and Yuri reached to pull the man up before he pulled the boat down. Warmth suffused the man and his clothes, banking against the icy water. With him looking up at her, she stared him into the eye, passing a gloved hand over his face.
Immediately, all struggle and fright bled out of him, cutting his fruitless splashing to nothing, allowing for him to be easily hauled aboard. Yuri dragged him to the bow, and then activated the Lantern. The brass rings that formed around the center support radiated, giving another source of warmth as Yuri paddled the boat towards Shirou. Thankfully, this one seemed to have more sense, and Shirou was more guiding the man than dragging him.
Pulling the man out from the waves, Yuri pulled her gauntlet on and hovered her hand above the man's head, just like his friend. By tomorrow, this experience would be a misremembered dream, save for the rescue. From there, it would be just another explanation to the emergency services and hope that
"Let's get back to shore."
Shirou and Yuri both looked over the aft of their boat, watching as the shipping freighter vanished into the fog before their eyes.
[EoBS]
"What the hell were you thinking?!" Rin shouted, slamming a hand on the table.
Yuri held a hand up. "Relax, Rin. We didn't reveal any magecraft, had plenty of evidence in our favor, and nobody in the ambulance even asked for our name."
Helping himself to some of the tea he and Yuri had brought, Shirou let the two girls hash things out for a bit. Rin had been kind enough to volunteer to host the meeting, at least for this particular week.
"Yes, and a 'silver-haired angel and her red-headed companion' really leaves it ambiguous as to who has been jumping into crazy situations to help people on and off again for the last year. That wouldn't be suspicious at all."
"Flattery will get you everywhere, Rin," Yuri sallied back.
Seeing as the main thrust of the argument had subsided, Shirou dared to interject between the two girls, "Rin, it's okay. I think by now we're just considered a couple of Good Samaritans with some thrill-seeking habits. And barring that one incident,
"-Which we helped cover up anyhow."
"-we haven't had anything that could be considered a breach in maintaining secrecy for magecraft."
Rin blushed, coughed into the back of her hand, and then crossed her arms over her chest. "Be that as it may, that was still a risky endeavor. Fine. What information did you manage to gather?"
"The ship was about three to four kilometers out, it was foggy, and the thing looks like a dilapidated wreck even then. Yes, this is all we were able to manage to see." The Tohsaka heiress eyed Shirou, softening slightly. "Besides, we found the name of the ship. Or part of it, at any rate. That's should help us narrow down our search, right?"
"That's not quite so simple. Some of the records might have been lost or misplaced, and if any survived, you'd have to sift through entire volumes of records dating back more than half a century! And that's assuming it was here legally, and around the time you're thinking."
"Drats." Yuri blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Any case, it sounds like it could have been a mage-made base of operations. No way of knowing for certain without boarding it somehow."
"And even if you did," Rin heatedly added, "it might be that there's still active Bounded Fields and other traps waiting to be triggered. And don't get me started on the unknown nature of the contents of this particular workshop, or if any of their projects lurking aboard."
Shirou drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, and asked, "Think the Magus who own/made this ship is still alive?"
"If he was, he'd have to be beyond ancient. Or something other than human. And that's possibly not even the worst part of all this. It hasn't come up in the reports, but there has been a string of missing-persons cases that line up fairly close."
"…How close?"
"Nothing definitive, but enough to be worrisome."
'And no one's managed to put these events together…why?"
"I had to dig pretty deep into some archives before I found enough information to make the connection. And with some of the other events that have happened since, some of which are magical in nature and needed to be covered up, it leaves more than a few gaps and bring
"That presents a whole other host of investigative challenges. If they were smart enough to keep lying low all these years, odds are good they've been covering their tracks; changing suppliers, erasing memories, using intermediaries. Hm…If this ship stays active, how much longer do you think it would be before it goes inert?"
"If it would have, I think that would have happened ages ago. It wouldn't be tied to any leylines. In all likelihood, if it has kept going after all these years, it could be self-sustaining from whatever the previous owner left on board."
A silence fell over the three of them.
"So," said Shirou, "to sum things up, we have an ancient Magus workshop that has been lying in wait for decades with unknown origins, an unknown purpose, unknown form of magecraft, similarly unknown defenses, all of which may have been self-perpetuating with an unknown power supply, and may have killed and/or abducted anyone who has tried boarding it. Does that about sum up this mess?"
"That seems like an apt summary of the situation at hand, yes."
Shirou held up a finger, but then dropped it and sank back into his chair. "And we're going to have to actually put someone on that possible death trap in order to shut it down…Terrific." he shook his head, then leaned forward. "Okay. So when do you think we can actually board it?"
Rin stared at him for a moment, and then said, "What."
"This is your backyard, and we're already here. No need to call worry about bringing the Association into this and possible bungling it up."
"No. Absolutely not! It's bad enough that I'm letting you scout this mess out for me, but I'm not putting you at risk for something that has a high chance of killing you if it blows up in your face."
"Aw...you do care, don't you?" Yuri teased, then sobered up. "Do you really trust Kirei that much? Or do you know anyone within the Association that would be willing to do this job without some kind of payback later? Do you have any leverage or influence on anyone over there?"
"Fine, fine! You've made your point. Is Maiya back in town yet?"
"No. Her business trip is expected to go on a little longer, and she hasn't called us that she's returning early."
"Of all times…" Rin grumbled, then regathered her composure. "I should ignore your helpful advice. But seeing as you are liable to go off on your own anyway, I'll accompany you."
Yuri raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"I am not going to leave myself indebted to you of all people. Besides, three is better than two, is it not?"
Neither of the Emiyas had a sufficient rebuttal to offer, and the three of them plotted their next move.
A/N: It feels kind of weird updating a story in such a relatively short time (about a month, with other stories being updated in the interim), but I don't think I have any real reason to complain, even if the chapter is a smidgen shorter than I was hoping for.
Currently reviewing the timeline I set up and how events align, but the general idea is that each little mini-arc is going to have a different combination or permutation the five (and eventually seven) characters getting up to urban fantasy adventures together.
As per usual, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or just an overwhelming interest in sharing your theories on what might come, let me know in a PM or review.
Until next time!
Winterman, out.