Hello, and welcome to the zone of infinite stories. In this blog I will be exploring some of my, and hopefully your, favourite stories in the entirety of their depth, from video games to literature.

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New posts every Wednesday and Sunday.

Wednesday 1 February 2017

Tales from the Sunless Sea - The Second Zee Captain

     The second Zee-Captain was a wise one and a foolish one. They were certainly more cautious about their trip than Ylvanna, and they definitely made sure to pass on more information about their journey than Ylvanna. However, they failed to take into account an ability for combat whilst at Zee and that for combat one might need a fully intact boat. They also refused to give away their identity; those who claim to have spoken to them claim they were female so I shall continue with that. She bore a particularly interesting story.

     The reason for the second Zee-Captain to become a Zee-Captain was a direct result of the death of Ylvanna, for she was an acquaintance. Her first mission at Zee, then, was clear – sail to where Ylvanna's first crash happened and seek out the boat. Sailing directly east of Fallen London, she searched for two days without finding anything on the nearby islands – so decided to pick one and get rations. When she landed on Pigmote Island, the entire place looked desolate save there stood two folk seemingly awaiting her arrival at a distance. When she and her crew approached, she noticed that one of the figures was a chief-engineer rat and the other a Seneschal guinea-pig clad in armour. Many folk cease to believe her stories at this point – though much stranger things have happened out at Zee.
The rodents proceeded to tell their quarrel to the second Zee-Captain. A most recent dispute that appeared to have no peace to garner and thus she was forced to make a choice. Pick a side or depart. 

     The side she chose was that of the Seneschal who then lead her to where the rest of the oversized Cavies were – Cavia. The central building of Cavia was a grounded Zee vessel where the guinea-pigs corralled nearby. There, she noted the situation by speaking to different folk and she reportedly noticed how utterly incompetent they appear to have been as a species. Due to the incompetence and not wanting to lose any of her own crew to a rodent war, she decided to advise only and went to meet the king of the Cavies who put her plan into action – a full scale attack to steal back something precious to the Cavies and then gain control over the island while the rats were weak.

     The plan was mostly successful though the population took a significant decline, but with control over the island, the king thanked the second Zee-Captain who stayed for some of the celebrations and departed. Not, however, before recruiting one of the Cavies as her mascott on-board her vessel, thus following Ylvanna's example of having a 'pet' on board. Having left, though, she felt somewhat important to the island and reportedly made multiple return trips over the next few months.

      Her tale follows with some difficulty, a scarcity in fuel and rations a scuffle with some Zee creatures. Not wanting any hostility, her main focus was to run – at first – and escape she did, only after taking some damage to her hull. She retreated south-west to the Shepherd Isles where she found some stories to trade and recruited a first mate and, shortly after, a doctor. At Abbey Rock, further south, her difficulties subsided as she struck a significant fortune.

     As she neared Abbey Rock, with every intention of just passing by, her lookout on her crew shouted that there was something interesting by the rocks – a wreckage. The Captain, hoping it to be Ylvanna's Wreckage and that there might have been some clue as to what happened to her, decided to dock and search the crashed ship. It was not the wreckage of Ylvanna, though it was that of a previous Zee-Captain who had grounded and left behind a large amount of fuel and food. The ship has strange markings on it showing signs of worrying struggle – however, the Zee-Captain's worries of returning to Fallen London were over for now. This tale is also surprising to myself as I believed there not to have been many Zee-Captains of this kind previous to Ylvanna - sorely we must accept that there are many unknowns out at Zee.

     As the second Zee-Captain neared to Fallen London again, she decided to stop and make an enquiry at the Hunter's Lodge, for she too had heard that one of the sisters was a friend to Ylvanna. Over the next week she managed to sit down for lunch with all three sisters, which was either a blessing or a curse. While none of them wished to discuss Ylvanna, they all had their odd stories to tell that had different effects on the crew. Some crew claimed they were being watched by Storm. Other crew claimed that Salt was aware of the and they just knew. One man claimed they should be weary of the attention of Stone. The three Gods – if they exist – had some part of their gaze on the second Zee-Captain. There were tests that support this claim.

     One of the crew told the story that while at Zee, some of the crew looked up at the shining on the ceiling of the Unterzee, spread out like stars over the cavernous expanse. With permission to gaze at them, they were rewarded with calmness and reduced fear for the rest of their voyage. Another time a crew-mate told the story that the Zee-Captain was eating a biscuit when a hard crunch had her picking some kind of stone from her mouth. It was a diamond. The crew warned her that diamonds are a sign of Stone – the God of home, hearth and healing - and should be cast into the Zee. The Captain refused, however, and sold it in Fallen London, instead.

     The next of her voyages had her with much food and ration so lasted a long time out at Zee – she learned many things such as sometimes it is better to fight. She took more damage to her ship but refused, still, to get any repairs until it was “absolutely necessary”. She also stopped by the port to the Surface and enquired what it was like up there and she learned that many neath-dwellers fail to survive in the heat above. The surface is not a safe option for us, either.

     Over the next days, little of the second Zee-Captain's story trickled back to Fallen London, though it was said she was seen heading too far North into some dangerous mists. After more visits to the Hunter's Lodge and finally Cavia, she met her match just off of Pigmote Island where she encountered a threat that did not take long to sink her damaged vessel. The cavies watched and wept at the coast as they saw their 'hairless advisor' and crew get picked off as food. That same evening, the Cavies got a raft together and found a passer-by to send a package containing what they found at the wreckage back to Fallen London that it might be useful to another.

     Thus begins the tale of the third Zee-Captain.



--- Howard Sterling, Chronicler Of The Fallen London University

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