Vanna awoke with a start.
The weight of a strange and chaotic dream still clung to her chest like seawater in the lungs. Outside, the world remained shrouded in pale stillness—an unwavering silence beneath the glow of the World's Scar. Through the deep-sea-scripted panes of her window, the light illuminated the sill in a cold shimmer, whispering calm.
But her mind still burned with the memory.
A ship—no, a vessel forged from nightmare—rose from the seam between sky and ocean, cloaked in green fire, its hull ablaze with ghostly light. It loomed over Pland like a mountainous specter, and its advance was heralded by cries and haunting chants echoing from every corner of the dream.
Then came the sun—not the sealed, ancient sun of modern theology, but the blinding, unchained star described in heretics' texts: the "True Sun," unfiltered by divine glyphs. It rose from within the city itself, melting the streets, liquefying its people, until Pland was nothing but wax and fire.
And in the eye of the inferno, the Deep Church's cathedral stood unmoved.
In her dream, Vanna had cried out for guidance. She had offered prayer, a plea for the goddess of storm and tide to speak.
But only the chaotic toll of meaningless bells had answered her.
Now she sat upright in bed, the taste of salt still fresh on her tongue. Dressed only in her sleepclothes, she crossed the darkened room and flung open her window to face the night.
Pland slept quietly.
The city, tangled in its soot-stained grandeur, still bathed under the pale radiance of the World's Scar.
Yet her mind screamed that something was wrong.
She moved to her vanity, opened a narrow drawer, and took out a ritual blade.
It gleamed faintly—etched with the sigils of the Deep, its hooked shape twisted like a wave frozen in steel. As always, its symbols pulsed faintly in response to her touch.
With a practiced gesture, she scored her palm. Blood welled up, bright against pale skin. She held her hand against her chest and began to chant the name of Gormona, the Storm Mother.
Normally, the connection would come swiftly—like opening a door to a familiar ocean.
But tonight… nothing.
No whisper of divine tide. No divine presence slipping into her thoughts like seawater filling a broken lantern.
Only the roar of meaningless waves in her ears.
She tried again. Still nothing.
It was as if something—some curtain or void—now separated her from her goddess.
Vanna's brow furrowed in deepening dread.
The bond between faithful and god could weaken. It had happened before. The deeper truths of the cosmos—reflections between space, time, and the mind—meant even gods could lose their grip upon the world. But Gormona was not some petty deity.
The Storm Mother was the ocean's breath itself, her domain stretching across every tide and deep.
This should not happen.
Her wound still healed with divine speed, the magic still responding to her blood—so the blessing was not gone.
But something was interfering.
Something new.
She recalled again the dream—burning ships, the silent sun, the cathedral that would not fall—and then her thoughts finally coalesced.
A ghost ship.
A ship of fire and death, returning from beyond space.
In the most ancient texts of the Church—those half-censored even from inquisitors like her—there had been mention of such a vessel. A ship lost to the void between worlds, captained by a man whose name had been struck from every loyal tongue.
Duncan.
The ghost captain of the Ashfall Sea. The one who brought doom to the Thirteen Isles of Westerlan a hundred years ago.
Vanna stood up from her stool. Her expression was hard as iron.
If this was more than a dream… if the signs she had seen over the last several days were real… and if that terrible name was now drifting back into the minds of the faithful—
Then she would need to act.
She would not sleep again tonight.
And she would not rest until the Deep Church's archives confirmed or denied the impossible.
Not until she was sure that the ghost ship Lost Grace had not returned to cast its anchor upon the shores of Pland.
The streets of Pland were still.
Beneath the dim flicker of gas lamps, a lone figure moved quickly through the alleyways of the lower city. His silhouette stretched in unnatural shapes across cobbled stone, passing between pools of half-lit mist.
A strange city. Foreign architecture. Faint memories. A life not his own.
But Duncan moved through it all with a strange and growing ease.
The second soulwalk had been a success—better than he had hoped. Not only had he seized a new body, he had found his way onto the surface of a major city, moving freely now through its streets and structures. The world of the living, the world of civilization, had finally opened its gates to the ghost captain of the deep.
He could breathe again—not air, exactly, but something better.
Possibility.
This body wasn't in great shape. Chronic illness, weak lungs, bad joints. But Duncan didn't complain. If anything, it was fitting. So far, soulwalking only worked with recently dead hosts, and how many freshly deceased people were in perfect health?
A dog barked in the distance. Duncan ducked into a side alley, his feet quick and light.
He didn't know if it was a street hound or one of the Church's patrol mutts, but he wasn't taking any chances. He had no legal identity here, no documents, no alibi—just a new face and a smuggled soul.
Steam hissed from a vent above. The pale glow of the sky's massive scar filtered down between overhead pipelines.
When the sounds of pursuit faded, Duncan emerged once more into the open. He looked down a side street, checking signs until his eyes found what he was looking for:
A crooked building. Two floors, maybe three. Old wooden beams. A faded sign swinging above the door.
He approached the door, his eyes scanning the faint lettering.
"Rone's Curios."
Duncan chuckled.
A terrible name.
He checked beneath a loose brick and found a spare key. Then, with a satisfying click, he slipped inside and closed the door behind him.
The interior was worse than he imagined—dust-covered shelves, fake antiques, and a counter that looked like it had never seen a real transaction.
The previous owner of this body had lived in this mess—some kind of fake antique dealer by day, cultist of the sun god by night.
But the shop suited Duncan's needs perfectly.
It would be his outpost on land, his foothold in the world of men.
And soon, it would become his gateway between ghost and living alike.
He smiled.
This was only the beginning.