Round 2

Transcript at Bottom for ease of reading!

Day 1

On the second morning of my expedition into the Corded Castello, I was awoken to a letter at the foot of the velvet bed I had been given. It was yellowed, as if it had been aged significantly and just recently brought out of some poorly run postal office, but that could not have been, for it had my name and assignment on it. I was entirely surprised to learn that the name written in the faded ink was not Sydion- I had been under the assumption that we would be travel partners for the entire castle. A shame- I did enjoy his company, despite his business-like exterior. 

Taking his place would be one Mister President, an eccentric cat-like fellow. I had seen him when entering the castle initially but had kept a comfortable distance; he was far too much for someone like me having just emerged from a long stint of solitude. Today, I have had the utmost pleasure of being tested by this cat to my wit’s end. 

He speaks in a very strange manner. Not a sentence comes out of his mouth without a pun, and he seems to not notice any sort of peril around him. In addition, he constantly talks about his company, the likes of which I’ve never even heard of, and the details of which he doesn’t seem to be clear of himself. He is, without a doubt, the most unserious person I have ever met. A far cry from Sydion, indeed. 

The first time I met Mister President, or as I will henceforth refer to him, M.P., he was standing by the door of the Right Atria in a crisp business suit, looking altogether unprepared for any journey of the sort that this castle had previously thrown at us. He took me by the hand immediately upon seeing me and started advertising himself, all the while keeping upon me such a firm grip that he seemed to float in the air with the force of our handshake. When I inquired, he simply told me it was the result of an “uplifting pawsitive cattitude.” I was confused. I asked what that meant; and with the grin of a television radio show host, he told me “Not to purrry about it.” I never made any more headway into that field of inquiry. Once we opened the doors to the Atria, however, I will admit that the matter fled my mind almost instantly. The castle had already proven to be deceiving in its proportions – the Left Atria had been fairly large on the inside, and contained an entire forest. However, it was still a room. This was something else entirely.

The door opened onto a planked deck. A salty breeze wafted out from the door to us, almost as to lure us in. In front of us was a mast, tall and majestic, with a brilliant red sail rolled up at the crossbeam. Behind that, we could see nothing but clear sky, of a blue color that was so pure it was almost sharp. Once we had stepped aboard the vessel, however, the door swung shut behind us of our own accord. That door was to become our bane, as when we turned around, we saw that it had a hole through which we could see the other side: a dark room stocked with crates and barrels. The door from whence we came no longer existed, and we were stranded. Panic overtook me at first; my companion seemed perfectly unaffected. That brings us to now: stranded and without a clue of what to do next.

We are surrounded on all sides by endless ocean. The weather has been clear all day, and there are few clouds in sight. Those that do exist are tiny, white, and fluffy. The sun is strong, but not overbearing for now. I am writing this from the shelter of the captain’s quarters, which is easily the most luxurious place on board. Long ago, it was furnished with rich silks and velvet. Now, it is moth-eaten and dilapidated – but still by far the most comfortable place on the ship.

The ship in question seems to be an ancient Galleon. It has a spacious interior, complete with a couple massive crates that we have yet to open up. There are small rooms for the crew under the deck, each furnished with a hammock, a desk and wardrobe (both bolted down), and a mirror. Many of the mirrors are cracked. On the stern side, there is a two-story building slightly sunken into the deck. On the very top is the captain’s quarters. Beneath it is a room with a large square table in the center, with a massive resin sculpture in the middle of it. Upon closer inspection, it looks to be a map of the sea floor, with massive structures built on it. Whether we are anywhere near these structures, I have no clue. On the deck, there are three great masts, with a crow’s nest at the top. On our arrival, I had tried to fly up to the nest in order to get a better look at our surroundings, but when I had reached it, M.P. was already there, sporting a red bandana and loose rags and peering through a spyglass. Disregarding him, there was nothing of note on the ocean. Just miles and miles of open water. 

I have never fished before, but I did find some bait and a fishing rod. Water shouldn’t be an issue, as there seems to be a distillery on board that just wants firewood. I don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here, but it is clear that the biggest test to my survival will be my traveling partner. As for him, I’ve heard cats like fish. He should be fine.

Day 2

The second day on our journey was fairly uneventful. We are still surrounded on all sides by endless ocean. However, the weather has shifted slightly throughout the day, with more and more clouds cresting the horizon. I expect it may be overcast tomorrow.
Today saw our first attempt at fishing. It was, to say the least, an endeavor. I have little concept as to how someone running an entire company could act in such a lackadaisy fashion. If I didn’t know better, I would have suspected incompetence, but somehow M.P. managed to catch as many fish as I did, all the while chasing my lure like it was a toy and periodically diving into the water to score a catch without the help of his line. In one instance, I had a fish on my line, and he dove into the water in a speedo and bright pink goggles, emerging with a fish… connected to my line. It was, I will admit, slightly annoying.

We have decided to sleep in separate quarters, despite the captain’s quarters sporting multiple beds. I quickly learned that Mister President shuffles around a LOT, so I have taken one of the small crew rooms. It is dank, and somewhat uncomfortable, but it is a sacrifice I can live with. 

The rest of the day was spent learning how to sail this ship. We don’t have a destination as of yet, but it can’t hurt to know how to control this thing in the event we eventually learn how to get out of here. Mister President was surprisingly adept at sailing. He was able to both rerig the entire ship and create a massive tangle of ropes from all the leftovers. Today was windless, so we have yet to test out the full power of this ship, but we can steer now. 

On the topic, we inspected the door that we had come out of initially, and found a tiny iron lock. It doesn’t seem to correspond with any of the latches on the door, and my theory is that if we find a key that fits in the lock, we may be able to return. How we’ll find that key, I have no idea.

Day 4

After a quiet and uneventful third day out on the water, we finally heard something on the fourth day. A warbling wail sounded from the depths of the ocean, which made M.P., who was in the crow’s nest at the time, jump so violently that they nearly fell out, and had to scramble back up using the ropes and the climbing gear that had spontaneously appeared on them. It sounded akin to a whale song, except it was above the water, and incredibly loud. Any whale that loud would be bigger than the castle itself – I pray that it does not exist. Nevertheless, our boatmanship has finally come into play as we’ve started to sail towards the origin.
Living with M.P. has been an experience, but I am slowly learning how to translate what he says. I keep a small notebook on me to reference when I cannot remember one of what I call his “izzumz.” I am also growing more and more accustomed to his seemingly nonsensical way of doing things. It is an interesting thing- it always appears as though he has no concept of what’s happening, or if he does, does not care, but he has yet to complete a single task in anything less than a timely manner, and with hidden diligence. 

I’ve yet to learn, however, how to properly converse with him. I tried asking him about himself, but he seemed only interested in proclaiming his role in his company. Anything further he deflects. I understand; I, too, had a troubled past. Even so, it is difficult. My new plan is to workshop cat puns and then use them tomorrow. Maybe he’ll appreciate that.

“Cat”astrophe “Paw”lishing

“Purr”chance

“Whisker”y?

Absolutely not

Day 5

The cat puns were a bad idea. I tried a couple of them out today, but while he pretended to laugh like it was the funniest thing in the world, I could tell he was absolutely against them. I’m glad I at least prepared some; I think if I just “winged” it I would have embarrassed myself more. I’ve noticed he is rubbing off on me, though. 

The weather has continued to dour, and I fear we may be in for a storm soon. The wind picked up today, and watching the sails heave our vessel forwards as the billowing gale tried and tried to rip them from their lines was remarkable. The waves we left in our wake reminded me of jet streams in the air, only much more violent and showy. Fish were jumping out of the water, as if trying to follow us. We even saw a seabird for the first time. 

The bird was a white albatross, gliding high above the waves. I thought it would be nice to finally have something other than fish for dinner, so I shot it down with my bow and caught it. It was a big hit, and I even kept some of the feathers, and M.P. lent me some twine he had in his suit (why does he have twine in his suit?) so that I could make a necklace out of it. 

We heard the voice again today, seemingly louder. I think this is a good sign; we only have one lead, after all. We continue sailing onward. I don’t know how much longer we have to go, and I’m starting to lose my mind cooped up here. The water is beautiful, and sailing is hard work, but there’s just not that much else to occupy my mind. I wonder if M.P. knows any games.

Day 6

Games have to wait. A storm is brewing, and we spent all day today preparing the ship for it. I’ve never been in a big storm before, but Mister President wields the know-how of an experienced sailor. I wonder how old he is? At first glance, he acts very young, but he does things in a very methodical manner, especially when he doesn’t think I’m looking. On that subject, he actually changes quite a lot when he thinks I’m not looking.

Today, I was taking a break while he was finishing up with a particularly knotted up bit of rigging. I guess it comes with the territory of tangling things that you get pretty good at untangling them too. In any case, I decided to rest in the captain’s quarters this time, instead of going down under the hull as I usually do. To my surprise, M.P. almost entirely dropped his constant chattering and his playful gait. Something is definitely going on, but I can’t figure out why he’d try to hide all of this. Maybe I’ll ask him later. Today’s entry is shorter- I still have work to do. I’m bone tired already.

Day 8

The storm finally arrived. I have been in terrible storms all my life, but never have I seen something as terrible as this. It feels like it’s raining an entire ocean’s worth of water, and I swear that the wind is doing its damn best to tear down the masts. We took down the sails just before the first raindrops fells; good thing, too, because I almost got stuck in them while M.P. was rolling them up by running them all across the deck. It was, I must admit, very fun disassembling the ship at first, but once the storm really started to catch us, we had to speed up. Once again, I noticed that M.P. became much more serious, although he still managed to squeak in about ten cat-related puns a minute. 

I’m writing this from inside the captain’s quarters. I thought we were supposed to take shelter underneath the deck, with the massive crates that keep slipping our minds, but M.P. reasoned that staying above deck would let us monitor the status of the ship, and besides, if the crates weren’t secure (which we did not check at all) there was a chance we could get crushed by them. Incredibly pragmatic. That cat is such an anomaly. I hav

HAII HAITH’S DAIARY~

WOAH it’s so cooooool I can write whatever I want!! >-<

this is

purrfect 

God damn that cat. I’ll end this entry soon; they’re now sitting at a desk in oversized glasses and have somehow produced a chessboard. Who knows what’ll happen to this book if I don’t sit down and smoke this fool. He doesn’t know I played a very similar game almost every day in my past life. 

Day 8

I am recording another entry today as I want to capture what just occurred in the utmost detail. I was sat there in the captain’s quarters, playing a board game with M.P. I cannot recall which one it was, as we had gone through an incredible number at that point. He is a good match, but much better at games of luck. He somehow always manages to draw the right cards; how is beyond me. In any case, I was facing the window when something gargantuan shifted beyond it. It was a pale white, almost translucent, but it had a leathery look to it and was held up like a canvas by periodic juts of bone. It moved like a wagon wheel, which was helped by the fact that it seemed to go on forever. I rushed outside, followed closely by M.P. who had donned a captain’s hat and a peg leg, and a nametag that said “Hi! You can call me: Ishmeowl!” 

Outside, the storm was still raging, and I was almost immediately flung out of the boat by the rocking of the waves. Once I had regained my footing and found a rope to hold on to, the massive fin (for I know now that that is what it is) had disappeared under the waves. I was about to go back inside, fearing that I missed my chance but not wanting to take any chances in this storm, when it appeared again.
It was a creature unlike anything I had ever seen before. Its head breached the water first – it sported a long, horse-like face with massive tusks that fitted over its bottom jaw. Its pure-white eye pierced me for a split second as it soared through the sky with the grace of a dragon, then it plunged back into the depths, leaving an arch of scales and fin behind. Its scales were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. They were like marbled glass, each reflecting the stormy skies, which seemed to slide over the creature. Then, as I was in awe of the scales, it breached its head again, this time on the opposite side of the boat, and let out a terrible noise. It was as if a million tiny razorblades were scraping against each other, magnified to eardrum-shattering volumes. In the middle of the scream, the clouds grew black and a brilliant yellow bolt of lightning arced its way down the heavens and struck the creature straight onto one of its tusks. A blinding flash hit my eyes, and when I regained my sight the water was crackling, along with the scales of the creature, which had taken on a dangerous aura to them. I felt the electricity radiate from it. It was like standing next to a powerful psionic, when you are almost overtaken by the sheer force of invisible power acting on you, even without touching you. It was terrifying. The body disappeared in a matter of seconds, flicking a sharp, forked tail into the air before submerging into the depths. Not long after, the storm cleared. In all the confusion and ruckus, I had completely forgotten about Mister President, but I found him under the stairs with all his fur standing up on end like he had been rubbed with a balloon. 

Day 9

The storm has cleared up. The sea is glassy and clear once again, and sports a strange sight. Millions of pink jellyfish float on the surface, giving the illusion that flower petals have been thrown into the water. Fish are constantly coming up to eat the jellyfish, and we’re seeing types that we’ve never seen before. 

We finally opened up the massive crates in the hull. M.P. somehow found a massive two-person screwdriver, and had us both jump on it to lever open the crate. Surprisingly effective! Inside, we found something we would never have expected – a massive fishbone. To be more specific, it was the spinal cord of a whale. The other crate contained a massive length of steel cord (which Mister President almost immediately started balling up.) Upon closer inspection, there was a sort of carabiner at the end of the cord, and a loop of similar design on the bone. We decided to attach them, and what we got was… a very useless leash. 

Mister President has been acting a lot more skittish since yesterday as well. I would ask why, but I have come to learn that I’m not going to have any luck prying it out of him. Maybe something to do with eels? Thunderstorms? I suppose that’s not entirely my business. Even still, the cat puns remain omnipresent. The wailing sound made an appearance again today, and it was the loudest it’s ever been. We’re confident we are close to whatever is in here for us to find.

Day 11

I write from my bed in the Corded Castello once more. A lot has happened since I last wrote, and I’ve scarcely time to process it, much less remember to record it. However, this is an encounter I wish to remember all my life. It started on the dawn of the tenth day of our travels on that endless ocean. 

We woke up to the sound of wailing. It was seemingly right next to our boat. I bolted out of my bed and met M.P. on the deck. Out in the ocean, there was a single, massive fin. It towered stories above our ship, and cut through the jellyfish. All around, small fish were eating the jellies, but big fish had joined in, eating the small fish. We were about to experience just how true that statement was: the fin lifted up into the air and a gargantuan mouth opened up, sweeping across the waves and devouring massive swaths of sea life that lay in its path. It hadn’t yet faced the direction of our tiny ship, but it was only a matter of time. We didn’t have the sails set up yet, and we were panicking. Then we remembered the strange bone we had found under the deck. M.P. went down to start lugging the massive thing up, and as I went down to help, something metal caught my eye. On the bowsprit was another metal hoop. I ran down into the hull, where M.P. was setting up what looked to be the world’s most complicated Rube Goldberg pulley system, and grabbed the other end of the steel cable. It, too, had a carabiner on it, so I brought it up top and attached it to our ship. It all looked correct- it was just a matter of seeing what happened once everything was set into motion. M.P. managed to lug the whale bone onto the deck with one single crank of his machine (which immediately collapsed afterwards) and we worked together to push it overboard. It sunk into the water, and the line at the front of the ship went taut.

Then, the whole boat tilted forwards and almost did a front flip into the ocean. Something had grabbed onto the bone at the other end, and was pulling hard. We both braced against the ship, and watched as our ship, tilting almost fourty five degrees towards the front, and with the bowsprit nearly underwater, rocketed through the water. We seemed to fly, bumping up and down on waves. The line started to become more parallel with the boat, and we picked up even more speed as we saw what was pulling us so fast. The answer made me think that I had just put us in an even more harrowing situation – a pale fin rose out of the water, and I could see shimmering blue scales underneath us. 

We held on for dear life as the gigantic eel pulled us faster and faster through the water, until we reached a point in which there were no more jellies. Still it pulled, for what seemed like hours, until it finally slowed down, and we could see something which had, for over a week, been absent. Land.

There was a tiny island with a small, wooden hut on it. We floated towards it, and brushed up against its sandy shores. We both disembarked, and started investigating what was on it. Seemingly the only thing there was the hut. It smelled terrible, and looked like it was about to fall over. On the door to the cabin was a tiny lock, with a small silver key still in it. I turned the key, and before I knew it, I was on the sand. M.P. had tackled me to the ground, and as I was about to get up, I learned the reason that he did. The eel launched out of the water, and had stuck its head inside the hut. It drew back, and in its jaws was a squid, just bigger than a person. It held it in its jaws for a second, then tossed it up and snapped its jaws shut. While it was doing this, I noticed a small golden marking on the underside of its neck. I couldn’t make out what it said, however, before it vanished beneath the waves. 

I got back up and took the key out of the hut’s door, then brought it back to the cabin door. My suspicions, which had started when I first saw the key, were confirmed. The key fit into the lock perfectly, and when I turned it, I was greeted with the comfortable, solid ground of the Corded Castello. I was sick of the sea, and wasting no time, stepped back onto sturdy land. However, Mister President’s final words before stepping through with me are, I think, the most appropriate way to end this travel log.

PAWn voyage!