Six months after leaving the island of Nautilus and receiving a request to research the Sea of Mystery for unusual divine activity, Cauron Thorn opened a carefully printed piece of mail.
The envelope was a dark color, symbolic of death, something that the now 18-year-old man knew well.
Could it be one of the professors I studied under in the library? Perhaps Dr. Elliot or Mr. Plonk finally entered the Great Beyond with…
He paused as the carefully inked letters caught his attention.
Golden ink?
Starting from the top, he read the words quietly under his breath, his grip tightening on the paper after each sentence.
"To my young student,
"If you are receiving this letter, then I have died during my research into the Ghostship phenomenon without results.
"As I am writing this, I can already feel the plague I have contracted warping my sense of thought and driving me towards insanity, a path I cannot avoid even with the efforts of the greatest doctors in this world and the next.
"I have many regrets, one of them being my inability to meet you after you set out to sea to follow my call, a sin I wish to remedy with this letter.
"With my suspicions upon my likely death, it can be reasonably assumed that this is not a naturally occurring plague, but rather something engineered to kill those powerful enough to avoid an early grave.
"Furthermore, this turn of events could only make sense if and only if my research into these phenomena was heading in the right direction and accurate enough to warrant the creation of such a deadly disease."
There was a gap in the letter, a place where the golden ink was cut off and replaced with a subtly different kind, nearly identical to the first.
Cauron paused on it, not yet allowing his emotions to catch up to him, but also not remaining unaffected.
"Throughout my search for more Ghostships, I stumbled upon information pertaining to the man known as The First King. Of course, his true name seems to have been erased by the Knowledge Barrier after his disappearance. Through fragments of his diary scavenged from his abode in the Sea of Polar Storms, I came up with a reasonable idea of why he abandoned the world.
"It is likely, but not certain, that upon returning from the Abyss and being hailed as a hero, he had been infected with the very same disease I am now blighted with. As mentioned in the third diary, he developed strange eating habits after his return, and stated that nothing tasted the same as before, a similarity to the fate I now share. Therefore, while this evidence is slim, it is hopefully enough for the smartest human I have ever met to carry on my research.
"Yet, it is still too early to tell whether this plague will even kill me. Perhaps you might not even see this letter, and the demise of my quill would be for naught… If not, however, then I wish you the best in your adventures and urge you to seek a Ghostship of your own to set back your aging to a certain degree, as I have.
"And now, to you, Cauron, I hope your life will extend longer than this old man's, with your dream not ending in tragedy.
"Yours truly, the King of Dreams, Leonardo Drynch."
There was nothing else on the paper, but an additional sheet was attached to it, informing of Lord Drynch's funeral that would take place on November 19th, 3000.
The orange-haired man simply stared at the black piece of paper for a moment before walking towards the bow.
Once there, he sat down on a bench, closing his eyes and taking a hard breath in, and then out.
So he believed he was killed…
Rubbing his eyes slowly, he thought back to his brief exchange with the crimson-haired man back during his childhood.
He wasn't heartbroken over the loss; his relationship with the man was never more than occasional pen pals sharing knowledge.
Yet, inside his heart, he felt a tiny crack emerge, one that would only grow throughout the century-long life he had yet to live.
…
Dressed in a thin black suit with an orange tie, Cauron stood over the open grave of his fallen research partner.
Gently tossing a bouquet of chrysanthemums into the hole, he tipped his black top hat towards the tomb, a light rain twinkling from the heavens.
Beside him stood two men, one of whom was Javier Flock, the heir to the Ghostship who was to become a Sea King upon January 1st of the next year.
His black beard was cleanly trimmed with water droplets sticking to the hair follicles like miniature tears.
Furthermore, his suit was an intricate dark magenta, woven from fresh threads brought from the island of Stone Haven near Sea Fallen in the South, while his skin reflected a pale white hue similar to that of a ghost.
He stood at 1.85 meters, and his mixed colored pupils were an unusual sight to Cauron, who had never encountered anyone with such strange eyes before.
As he stared downward into the grave, Javier patted another man on the shoulder, the son of Leonardo Drynch and the heir to his fortune.
Leonardo Jr, named after his father, had crimson hair marred with streaks of white from his age, his own beard ragged and unkempt.
His eyes were brown like his mother's, who stood slightly behind the group, while his height was significantly less than that of his father.
Unlike the orange-haired man, he was openly crying while Flock comforted him quietly without a single foul glance from any others in the crowd.
It was an open funeral, one where five thousand attendees came to pay their respects to the man who had kept order during times of chaos.
Taking a breath and turning away from the hole in the ground, Cauron made his way towards the main building, which housed a bar.
He was a genius, yes, though that did not prevent him from dabbling in the most rudimentary of beverages during his darkest of hours.
"One shot of Augustine Rum."
The young bartender nodded his head and poured him a glass, the man quickly downing it in one gulp.
"Quite the glass for someone so young."
A voice caught his attention, his head turning to the left where he spotted a brown-haired man sipping on a similar beverage.
He was clean-shaven without a single hair on his face, his black eyes glistening in the candlelight.
As a funeral guest, he wore a black suit with a black tie; however, unlike the other guests, he held a child within his lap.
"You've brought a toddler to a funeral?"
Cracking a slight smile at the sight of the tiny creature in its own micro suit, he watched as the boy's eyes followed him sluggishly.
"Is there anything wrong with father-son bonding time?"
Both men chuckled now, an obvious understanding instantly spreading between them.
After calling the bartender over once again and buying Cauron a drink, the brown-haired man turned back to him with a friendly smile.
"The name's Twynam, Marcus Twynam. The kid is Julius."
Smiling back and shaking the man's hand, the orange-haired scholar introduced himself as well.
"I'm Cauron Thorn, a scholar from Nautilus who—"
He was interrupted by Marcus, who seemed to have lost all composure in his surprise.
"You're Cauron!? Leonardo spoke about you often!"
He dug his hand into his pocket to reveal a note that he had been given by the Sea King before his untimely death.
"You're the kid he had been counting on to continue his research, right? Then you'll need this!"
Accepting the note the man pushed into his hands, Cauron looked down in confusion, unfurling the paper and reading it silently.
"H-he's leaving me with money?"
Within the note, a bank code alongside a message was written.
"Marcus, as I do not think I can trust the mail service with such an important matter, I will give this to you to pass along to my research partner when you can. It is 1,000 Draughts, enough for Mr. Thorn to continue his research without the worry of starvation."
Looking up with both brows raised, Cauron watched as Marcus simply shrugged his shoulders, a sly smile tugging at his lips.
"He was worried I'd steal some of the money."
The man laughed.
"But he eventually gave in when I told him how much wealth there was in the Twynam Vaults!"
Standing up quickly and patting the 18-year-old on the shoulders, he turned and headed off, waving at him to come along.
"Why should I…"
He paused, thinking for a moment before doing as he was signaled, the voice of Twynam responding soon after.
"You're quick to understand! I like you!"
Navigating through the crowded bar filled with grievers, the two men eventually arrived at a sealed doorway blocked by a burly man.
"No entry."
He was a brute, one that resembled a rock closer than he did a man, a thought that made Cauron cackle on the inside.
Marcus simply sighed at the security officer's comment, slipping the burly man a piece of paper listing his identification.
"L-lord Twynam…!"
The man stuttered out a greeting before hurrying to move out of the way with a respectful bow.
"Y-you're good to enter!"
Rushing to get out of the man's way and allow him through, the bodyguard nearly knocked over a waitress, who in turn showered him with a seemingly never-ending stream of curses.
Cauron watched the situation silently with his lips curled downward, a trace of confusion evident in his expression.
The brown-haired man shook his head and exhaled hard, placing his hand on the doorknob and turning it.
Creakkkkkk!
The door opened with a screech, revealing a dimly lit room with a few couches and a card table in the middle.
Two men sat within the room, figures whose presence shocked the orange-haired man greatly, his head tipping down abruptly and his hat falling to the ground, half-forgotten.
"Cauron Thorn, I introduce to you Lord Floyd Brymyn and Lord Kouri Belvedere."
Smiling and bouncing the baby Julius on his hip, he moved aside, allowing the two Kings to watch the young man with their piercing gazes as he approached them.
The two powerhouses raised their brow at the name, a murmur coming from the King of Curses' mouth.
"So it's him, eh?"