Deep Sea Embers

However, just as quickly as he recognized her, he became confused. Upon closer examination, Duncan realized that while this woman looked almost identical to Alice, there was something fundamentally different about her. Moreover, it couldn’t possibly be Alice in this place. He deduced that she must be “Ray Nora.”

Curiosity filling his eyes, Duncan locked his gaze with hers and ventured, “Are you the Frost Queen?”

Hearing her old title, she smiled wistfully. Shifting into a more comfortable position, she studied him with a puzzled expression. “And who might you be? How did you get in here without using that door?”

“Door?” Duncan replied, puzzled by her question. The mere mention of a door heightened his curiosity. “What door are you talking about?”

With a simple wave of her hand, she pointed toward a far corner of the room. Duncan’s eyes followed her gesture and landed on an ornately decorated door, which seemed to serve as the room’s entrance.

“Generally, the people who enter this room are either servants of this estate or guests holding a special key. You appear to be neither,” she explained.

The word ‘key’ sent a jolt through Duncan. Trying to maintain his composure, he cautiously inquired, “This key you mention—is it a brass key, perhaps like those used for winding up dolls? Are you, indeed, the Frost Queen, Ray Nora?”

Her smile widened appreciatively as she nodded in confirmation. “Yes, that’s me, Ray Nora. But I’m still curious about you.”

Collecting himself and suppressing the tumult of emotions within, Duncan responded with a level tone, “You may refer to me simply as Duncan.”

He provided only his first name, consciously leaving out his well-known last name. Yet, upon hearing it, Ray Nora’s eyes flickered with a spark of recognition, and her smile grew even broader. “Ah, you must be the renowned Captain Duncan. It’s starting to make sense why you’re here. Although, I must say, you are not at all how I imagined you would look.”

Caught off guard by her observation, Duncan’s gaze dropped to examine his own body. His physical form was disconcerting; it was entirely pitch-black, resembling a rough, unfinished sculpture as if the artist had rushed the process and abandoned it. His eerie, unsettling appearance was not what anyone would describe as ‘inviting.’

“This appearance is merely a temporary avatar,” Duncan tried to explain, a touch of awkwardness coloring his voice. Yet, he noted her lack of surprise and couldn’t help but ask, “You don’t seem very shocked to see me. Did you expect my arrival?”

“No, I stopped being surprised a long time ago,” Ray Nora responded, her demeanor completely unflustered. “When you’ve continuously witnessed the unimaginable, grappled with the mysteries of existence, stared into the abyss of mortality, and even experienced prophetic dreams before closing your eyes at night, you lose your ability to be startled or shocked.”

She flashed a smile, her tone so matter-of-fact that she could have been talking about mundane daily occurrences like the weather. “Eventually, the numbing effect of these experiences desensitizes you to any new astonishments that life might throw your way.”

As Duncan absorbed her words, he found himself mentally piecing together various shards of lore and rumors about the enigmatic Frost Queen. Ray Nora was said to possess psychic abilities from birth, including talents that ranged from communicating with supernatural entities to forecasting future events and discerning hidden truths.

While ruminating on this, Duncan maintained his outward calm. He walked over to a corner of the room and pulled up a chair, positioning it in front of the large bed where Ray Nora reclined. “I have a lot of questions. I hope you can provide some answers.”

“As do I,” Ray Nora replied, her smile returning. “It’s been an extraordinarily long time since I’ve had the luxury of a stimulating conversation. A visitor is such a rare and delightful occurrence. If you’re willing to answer some of my questions, I would be more than happy to reciprocate.”

“Very well,” Duncan agreed, diving right into his queries without hesitation. “What is this place? And why are you here?”

Ray Nora sighed lightly as if grappling with the weight of the questions he’d posed. “Let’s see, how do I explain this? Think of this place as a drifting nexus. It’s not anchored to any one location but rather serves as a conduit between multiple places. Do you see the veil of darkness along the room’s periphery? Sometimes, what lies beyond that veil changes, and under specific conditions, this room can connect to other ‘places.’ As for me, my role is to bridge my dream realm with the underwater world, an ocean realm bound by Frost.”

“Do I need to elaborate further?” she offered.

“No, that’s sufficient for now,” Duncan replied quickly. “Please continue. Why are you here?”

Ray Nora’s voice took on a softer, almost ethereal quality. “I’m here to safeguard a dream, to ensure that the entity lying dormant in the underwater abyss remains asleep.”

Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “Are you referring to the Nether Lord?”

Ray Nora paused, examining Duncan closely before speaking. “You’re more knowledgeable than I had anticipated. However, you’re not entirely correct. While it’s true that the entity in question originates from that ‘King of Darkness,’ what lies in the abyss is not the real Nether Lord. It’s more accurate to describe it as a clone.”

At that moment, Duncan recalled a phrase he had come across in a mysterious “dark space” he had explored—’the cluster controller has begun replicating itself.’ It suddenly made a chilling amount of sense.

So it dawned on Duncan: the towering underwater “pillar” he had encountered in the deep sea wasn’t actually the Nether Lord, but rather a clone that had manifested itself into the physical realm. Was it possible that this clone of an ancient deity had somehow breached the so-called “city-state blueprint” submerged in the ocean depths? Could the disruptive power it radiated have set off a chain reaction of calamities? And was all this a sign that the Nether Lord was losing its grip on control?

Could it be that the Nether Lord, which once seemed to be in a stable condition, had degraded over vast periods of time to reach this precarious state?

Taking this train of thought a step further, Duncan pondered the status of the other ancient gods, often portrayed as malevolent beings. If the Nether Lord had lost control, what about the so-called “Four Gods” that interacted more directly with the mortal realm? Could they too be on the verge of losing control? Had they already started spiraling into instability?

He thought about recent disasters that had struck regions like Pland and Frost despite being under the protection of the Storm Goddess and the God of Death. He recalled the malfunctioning of Vision 001—a powerful surveillance system. Were these large-scale systemic failures indicating that the entire world was heading towards a state of chaos and disorder?

As he sifted through these unsettling questions, Duncan’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Ray Nora’s voice, “It’s now my turn to inquire,” she said, her words snapping him back to reality.

Gathering his fragmented thoughts quickly, Duncan nodded. “Go ahead.”

“How did you manage to find your way here?” she asked, her violet eyes shimmering with curiosity.

“In the depths below Frost, I encountered the ‘clone’ you spoke of. Near its point of rupture, I found an ‘entrance’ that led me here,” Duncan responded candidly. “As for how I reached such depths, I used a submarine provided by Frost.”

“A submarine?” Ray Nora’s eyebrows lifted slightly, her face taking on an expression of tempered surprise. “Ah, so they’ve gone ahead and actually built a new one…”

“You knew that the ‘Rebel Government’ planned to construct a new submarine, even after they blamed you for their woes and executed you in the name of the ‘Abyss Project’?” Duncan looked genuinely shocked.

“Of course they would,” Ray Nora responded, her lips curling into a faint smile. “They are Frostians, after all.”

Duncan fell silent, his eyes intently fixed on Ray Nora, the former queen and now mysterious guardian of an even more mysterious realm. Her last words seemed to encapsulate a complex tapestry of history, politics, and perhaps even a touch of sorrow. For a moment, he felt as though he were staring into an abyss of unanswered questions.

Ray Nora continued her thoughts, her voice steady and resolute. “The people of Frost are not ones to quietly surrender to adversity. When plunged into the darkest corners of despair, they’ll ignite whatever they can just to fend off the consuming darkness. It was only natural that when my Abyss Project spiraled beyond control, putting our entire city-state on the edge of calamity, a rebellion would erupt. They dethroned me, doing whatever they deemed essential to ensure the survival of our people. They would inevitably explore the secrets of the deep sea, much like I had done, and construct submarines in an attempt to solve the problems at hand.”

She elaborated further, “They would strive to improve upon the machinery I had initiated, slow down the pace of the project, and learn from my impulsive methods. Their aim would be to carry out everything in a more balanced, less destructive way. If they stumbled, new rebels would rise up, ineffective leaders would be ousted, and fresh strategies would be tried. The cycle would go on, perpetually confronting the icy darkness and impenetrable depths of the ocean.”

She paused, raising her head to lock eyes with Duncan. “This process would continue until the last Frostian took their last breath or until the menacing darkness that we all feared was finally vanquished.”

With her eyes meeting his, she seemed to pierce through the uncanny, pitch-black form that housed his consciousness. The only feature of him that still seemed humanly warm was his eyes, which revealed an ocean of experiences and thoughts.

“I never anticipated, though, that you—a figure as legendary as Captain Duncan—would be the one navigating these perilous depths in a submarine. And a sentient, almost spectral version of you, no less. Does this mean my successors have become even more radical than I was?”

Duncan paused, his gaze dropping for a moment before he spoke. “They failed,” he finally admitted, shaking his head gently. “A cataclysmic event obliterated the city-state’s government before they could revitalize the Abyss Project. The entire system descended into utter chaos. However, the one silver lining was that the cataclysm eventually receded. Among the ‘spoils of war’ we discovered in the aftermath was the very submarine that allowed me to explore these depths.”

His words seemed to hang in the air, pregnant with a complicated blend of regret, revelation, and a tinge of hope. In that moment, the room seemed to encapsulate the countless stories, mistakes, and lessons that both Duncan and Ray Nora had lived through. It was a silent testament to their continuous struggle against an unyielding, dark ocean that harbored secrets as deep and vast as their own lives.

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