About an hour after we sailed from Guam, fog started. Initially, the fog appeared as scattered pockets with areas of greater 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 . 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,” I said.
“What factors need to be considered when evaluating each option?” asked Alfonsen.
“The same factor applies in both cases. I can detect objects 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,” I said.
“What are your thoughts?” Alfonsen asked.
“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. 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. To give myself a break from stress, I asked Alfonsen to replace me for a bit. 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.
I saw Mahya reading the Bible and writing things down in a notebook every few minutes.
“What are you doing?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
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“Research,” she replied without looking up from her notes.
“In the Bible?” I asked, bewildered.
“Why?” I asked, completely confused.
“Looking for good sources of magical knowledge,” she said casually, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“In the Bible?” I felt like a parrot, repeating the same thing over and over.
“Yes,” she replied, unfazed.
“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.” I crossed my arms, feeling increasingly lost.
She finally looked up at me, her expression serious. “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.
She smirked at my reaction. “Don’t look at me like that. With this expression, you do look dumb. I’m going through your historical texts looking for proof of this theory.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, thoroughly confused. “It’s all very fascinating, but why do WE care?” I asked, bewildered.
“Runes,” she said simply, like the answer was obvious.
“Runes?” I echoed, my confusion deepening.
“Yes, how many rune languages have you learned so far?” she asked, her tone challenging.
“Two,” I answered cautiously.
“Did you notice they are different?” she pressed.
“Yeah, of course.” I frowned, still unsure where she was going with this.
“Exactly. The more runes you know, the more you can mix and match to make amazing things or create new rituals.”
I started laughing, the absurdity of it all hitting me.
“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. “How the mighty have fallen and crossed to the dark side.”
She looked even more annoyed, and I roared with laughter, unable to stop.
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, keeping my voice steady.
“Replace me, please,” he said in a shaky voice, his grip loosening on the helm.
I replaced him on the helm, turned it further to the right, and increased the engine speed. I felt like we were on a thrill ride at an amusement park as 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, panting. I noticed his hands were shaking.
“Are you okay?” I asked, glancing at him with concern.
“Give me a moment, please.”
Once he regained his composure, he said, “I hate fog!” He shook his head, still visibly tense.
“Go drink something, rest, and recover. I’ll navigate in the meantime,” I offered.
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 every day and 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 a lot of 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 put it, “Should we happen to be ahead of schedule, we will find ways to occupy ourselves. However, arriving late would result in an embarrassing situation.”