Chereads / The Fool's Last Laugh / Chapter 86 - Memories Of A Ghost Ship part 1

Chapter 86 - Memories Of A Ghost Ship part 1

One by one the skeletons began to notice Gordan and scream out until the sound was almost deafening. Gordan covered his ears to block out the sound a bit but the skeletons continued to scream until Gordan realised that they had made no move toward his position even though he would have been easily accessible to their reach, so he decided to go forward and see what was inside the ship so that he could try and quiet the screaming skeletons.

As he began to approach the ship the skeletons followed him with their gazes until he entered the side of the ship through a large hole in the side. Swimming through the ship without the use of his arms was a bit tedious but once he got far enough into the ship he didn't have to worry about the screams which were somehow toned down for whatever reason.

Most of the rooms in the ship had holes in them so Gordan was able to travel from one place to another exploring without any real trouble other than when the holes in the walls were too small but then he could just use his claws to widen them and pass through without any problem. Most of the rooms were empty and on the rare occasion that he did manage to find something it was only an old weapon which was rusted through, or an occasional piece of badly corroded furniture. After so many rooms it was obvious to him that there was something rather suspicious to him about the area, so he placed one of his claws on one of the walls and injected a small amount of magic into it in order to see what was going on with the strange shipwreck.

Water began to drain from the ship as soon as the magic touched the wall, and soon Gordan was standing in the bone dry shipwreck which had somehow pulled itself back together and repaired itself completely down to the last hole in the sides of the ship. As Gordan walked through the halls he noticed figures slowly beginning to materialize with a blueish tone to their skin. They were the ships memories which had been trapped when it had met its end.

Once the figures fully formed they began to move about the ship and speak amongst themselves without paying Gordan any mind. As he walked around the ship he heard the sound of someone crying in the distance. The sound was quite intriguing to him and felt similar to the draw that he had felt when he originally had come to the shipwreck. He followed it through the halls picking up the different conversations which were going on, and as he followed the sound further and his frown grew deeper at what he was hearing. It seemed that this ship had been a pirate ship from the start of the first war, and all of the people who had been taken were being used as bargaining chips to drag influential groups into the war so that certain families would be able to gain the most out of the war as it was still in its infancy, and thought to be no more than the usual squabbling between the the humans and monsters. It was extreamly ironic that it was this event which had caused the squabbling to escalate to an all out war.

Several high ranking individuals from both the humans and monsters woke up to find that their loved ones had disappeared with only a cryptic note telling that their family's were now in the hands of the opposite party, so naturally the people did all that they could to get back those that they cared dearly for, they turned to the very people who had victimised them in the first place in order to secure their people. Even the monsters did this, but they were never found, until now Gordan had wondered about what had actually happened. Thinking about the skeletons which were chained to the side of the ship it was quite obvious what had happened. Not soon after the different families sought the aid of the nobles which would be able to help them in their time of need there was a storm on the ocean which destroyed any ship which was out on the water at the time, leaving no survivors. Several bodys were found which resembled those of the abducted individuals, and when the nobles suddenly turned tight lipped with their information all of the effected individuals were left to come to their own conclusions, and those would become the sparks which ignited the flames of war. There was never any room for negotiation after that had happened, and any monsters who still kept in contact with humans severed all ties completely. And though their were people who hoped for the survival of their children, they never found what they were looking for, not even a trace of the bodies.

Such a stupid reason for all of that war to have happened, but then again greed was quite a powerfull thing for those who constantly longed for more power and luxury. The more that Gordan heard the more his ideas were solidified, he heard of the plan which had been hatched in order to make it seem like either side was the one at fault while keeping the nobles in charge of the event clean from all suspicion. Once he had heard all that he needed he focused on the task ahead of him, finding the source of the crying.

He eventually found the room which he was looking for, the prisoners cells, which were located in a room behind the cargo hold, hidden in order to make sure no one realised what their actual cargo was. He gently pushed open the door and looked into the dark and depressing room which was full of the same type of blue images as he had seen above deck, but all of them were silent looking fearfully up tward the door which for them was still closed tightly. Gordan could see a look of half hope on some of the shapes faces, but most of them had guessed that they would not be saved, and whether that was becouse they knew who had captured them or if they realised that hostage situations rarely went well for the one who had been captured.

Gordan found the fact that all of the group seemed to have gathered together regardless of whether they were a monster or human. Which seemed to serve as a testament to how bad things must have been for them, if they had bonded with the race who they had been taught to hate for their whole lives. As he made his way through the room being carefull not to bump into any of the blue figures which were huddled together. At the very end of the room their were two figures huddled together crying softly, the source of the noise which had brought him down to the hidden room. When he got close the two noticed him and emediatly stopped sobbing to stare at him with hallow eyes which were looking at him as if they were seeing him in the future from their image which had been left over in the wreckage. Gordan saw that it was a young girl who was human, and a young boy who was from a bird race. Gordan smiled slightly as he recognized the young girl who had been a prodigy when she had been alive, he had even met her shortly before she had disappeared, and even though she had been a child he had enjoyed speaking to her. He hadn't known that she had been taken up in the whole mess since her parents claimed that she had run away from home in rebellion, something that would not have been too odd for her to do. The other child he only knew by reputation since by the time he met the parent of the child, he had already been taken.

Even though he was smiling at the two of them, there was a deep sadness in his eyes as he looked at the husks which were all that remained of the once promising children who had their whole lives in front of them and were set up to do great things, but that chance had been ripped away from them in the blink of an eye.

"Gordan, it has been too long... Sorry I never was able to follow through with the promise which I made to you."