The Iron Battleship quietly anchored in the port of Zenglande. Above the battleship, the flag representing the Sea Mist Fleet fluttered in the wind under the sunshine. The pattern on the flag was a cluster of ice crystals as sharp as knives, with a crack in the middle of the ice crystals. The ice crystals were the symbol of frost, and the cracks symbolized self-exile.
The "rebels".
After the famous pirate captain and his entourage left, no one left the warship anymore. The Sea Mist was like an iceberg in silence, quietly anchored. Its tall and majestic sides and bow blocked the sight of all those curiously looking at it at the dock. At the same time, a city-state guard came from a nearby station and blocked the entrance to the pier to prevent unauthorized persons from approaching.
After the sheriff stepped in to disperse the crowd, the curious people who had gathered near the dock finally dispersed.
First Mate Aiden stood on the bridge of the Sea Mist, silently watching the movements on the dock.
He did not go ashore with Tirian - when the captain left the warship, he, as the first mate, had to stay on the ship and temporarily assume the captain's authority to prevent any trouble.
"Those city-state guards look nervous," a sailor muttered nearby, "Are they afraid that we will come ashore to plunder? I thought the city-state guards of the Pearl of the Sea, Plande, were better than those idiots on the cold sea."
Aiden said without even turning his head: "If they don't come out to maintain order, you're going to say that Plande's guards don't even have the courage to go out on the streets and block the roads - if I really ask you to go fight their steam tanks, will you go?"
".... I won't go. I don't want to be carried back to the deck in a bucket again." The sailor shook his head quickly, and then looked up at the direction where the steam walkers had just left. "The captain followed them... Is he okay? That tall woman doesn't look easy to deal with. I don't think the captain can beat her..."
"We are not here to fight. We are here by invitation. Do you understand?" Aiden finally couldn't help but glance at the sailor. "You and the rest of you, can you adjust your mindset? Have you forgotten the captain's usual teachings? We are now the Sea Mist Venture Capital Company - robbery is not sustainable. Doesn't doing business make money faster than robbery?"
"So when are we going to rob?"
Aiden thought for a moment, and a ray of sunlight reflected on his shiny forehead: "Of course, it's when the other party is unwilling to do business..."
Several undead sailors nodded, expressing their appreciation for the first mate's opinion. After a few seconds of silence, one of the sailors, whose left half of his head had completely shrunk, couldn't help but look towards the city-state and muttered, "Can we go ashore and take a look? Pland, I heard that this city..."
"Don't even think about it." Aiden interrupted the subordinate directly, "The captain has ordered that you are not allowed to leave the Sea Mist without permission. You idiots will definitely scare people if you go ashore. Plunder is not the North. Few people here have seen a talking corpse.
"So the captain only picked a few guys who looked the most like living people to go ashore, right?" The sailor with his head drooped said with resentment, and raised his hand to support his head. "Actually, I think I look okay. I use half a shell to cover this part, and then put on a hat..."
"Shut up! No one is allowed to go ashore without the captain's order!" Aiden gave the sailor a fierce look. "If you really have nothing to do, go to the cabin and see if those unlucky guys who were trapped on the deck are still alive. If they are, let them come and report..."
A slight clicking sound suddenly came from not far away, interrupting Aiden's instructions.
Everyone on the bridge heard the slight clicking sound, and several eyes turned in the direction where the sound came from. The sailor who spoke first was the first to discover the source of the sound.
Next to the captain's seat, there is a strange machine composed of many gears, connecting rods and compass needles. The machine is now quiet, but its several pointers are still trembling slightly, as if indicating that it had suddenly started running a moment ago.
"Did this thing move just now?" A sailor who was closest to the machine cautiously came to the side of the intricate and complicated machine and touched its compass needles which had already quieted down.
Aiden also came over, his eyes fell on the center of the machine
In the small hemispherical bowl - there was a little dried blood left there, which was left by Captain Tirian the last time he used this device.
The bald first mate's brows furrowed slightly.
As the captain's most trusted subordinate, Aiden is very familiar with this device.
Anomaly 203, the Bloodseeking Compass, is a brass machine of complex structure and unknown principle, once a collection of the Frost Queen, and now owned by Captain Tirian.
This machine should be considered as one of the more "positive" ones among the "anomalies" with rankings. The small bowl in the center can hold blood, and after absorbing the blood, it uses a series of compasses to indicate the location of the user's "blood relatives". The priority of its indication is related to the closeness of blood relationship, distance, and the user's wishes.
Compared to most anomalies that are directly malicious but can be fatal if improperly stored, the Blood-Seeking Compass is relatively safe in terms of "storage" and does not require any special sealing conditions - but on the other hand, once this device is activated, it will show its sinister side.
Firstly, once blood is injected into it, the user will be constantly tempted by the compass and will have the urge to continue injecting blood into it. Those with weak minds may even kill themselves from the uninterrupted bleeding. Secondly, although the blood-finding compass can indeed help the user find "blood relatives", it often brings "bad luck" in the process, and constantly leads things to the bad side as the user gets closer to their blood relatives.
As far as Aiden knew, Anomaly 203 had once guided a father to find his long-lost son, but when the two met, they accidentally killed each other.
However, these negative effects have never mattered to Captain Tirian - the captain's will is strong enough to resist the "blood donation temptation" of the blood-seeking compass, and as for the bad luck tendency when the blood relatives approach...
First, the Captain and Miss Lucrecia would never meet during the period when Anomaly 203 was in effect. Second, Abnomal and his son had always been "kind to their father and filial to their son".
Even the Blood-Seeking Compass couldn't create a more "plague-like" reunion scene than two cursed warships opening fire on each other after meeting.
Over the past half century, Captain Tirian has often used the Bloodseeking Compass as a kind of "alert device" to determine whether the Lost Homeland has returned to the real world.
Aiden and the sailors gathered around Anomaly 203, with several pairs of eyes fixed on the several quaint compasses decorated with intricate patterns surrounding the brass device.
The gears and pointers have become completely silent.
"... Maybe it just wants to move around," a sailor with a hole in his forehead said cautiously, as if trying to ease the atmosphere, "After all, this thing usually doesn't move..."
Aiden glared at the sailor and said, "If you don't know how to joke, you don't have to."
"How about... we wipe off the remaining blood in the middle?" Another sailor who looked like a dried-up corpse asked, "Otherwise, I always feel like this thing is going to wake up at any moment."
"No," Aiden shook his head. "The captain has said that the blood in the center of the compass cannot be wiped off manually. We have to wait seventy-two hours for the compass to absorb it all by itself."
“… What happens if I wipe it in advance?”
"No one knows. It's not easy to summarize the correct way to use 'Anomaly'. Who would bother to test various incorrect operations?" Aiden said casually. "Why don't you try it? It will be considered your contribution to human civilization."
"No, no, no, that's what I said."
Aiden snorted.
“Kaka—”
At this moment, the blood-seeking compass suddenly made that slight sound of mechanism operation again, and the conversation between the first mate and the sailors was instantly interrupted. Aiden looked at the machine for the first time. He saw that the side wheels of this thing began to vibrate gradually, and several compass needles on its edge also shook violently. Then, all the needles suddenly pointed to Pland... Around,
The Blood-Seeking Compass fell silent again, and this time it seemed that there would really be no more movement.
All its pointers avoid Plunder.
Aiden and the sailors looked at each other.
"… I said this thing just wanted to move around…"
“Shut up.” Aiden interrupted the sailor, but his eyes were still fixed on Anomaly 203, while his mind was recalling what he had just seen.
All the pointers turned to a random direction outside Plande, but he was sure that at a certain moment just now, there was definitely a moment when the needles of the blood-seeking compass pointed in the same direction - pointing to the city-state of Plande!
But that moment was extremely brief, so short that one would suspect it was just a coincidence of the irregular rotation of a few pointers. But in Aiden's view, it was as if several pairs of "eyes" of the compass had just fixed their eyes on their target and then shifted their gaze in horror.
Now that all the pointers of Anomaly 203 were pointing to the sea near Plande, Aiden felt that this was a case of "making things worse by trying to hide them".
He suddenly thought of a sentence the captain once said to him -
Anomaly 203 occasionally exhibits "living" properties, and does not always function mechanically.
This thing is scary.
"Something's wrong... There's something wrong with this city-state!" Aiden suddenly realized, "We need to tell the captain about the situation here.
"But didn't the captain order us not to go ashore?"
"Send a message first," Aiden said quickly, looking at a sailor, "Go, bring Perri over!"
The sailor ran away quickly, and soon he ran back to the bridge - a huge parrot with colorful tail feathers stood on his shoulder, grinding its beak on the exposed skull at the back of the sailor's head.
"Perly, I need you to deliver a message." Aiden said loudly.
The parrot immediately stopped bullying the sailor, raised its head and stared at the first mate: “Perly, you can pass the message.
"Go to the city-state cathedral, look for the captain's presence, and tell him that the blood-seeking compass points to Plander, and the city-state is not safe!"
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