Climbing inside I stand inside a quite large room, around twenty by twenty feet with a table in its centre, a desk to port and several shelves to starboard. Still resting on the table were a few nautical maps, and strewn around the room were a bunch of curios seemingly thrown off the shelf when it sunk. As I stare at the room I get the distinct feeling those maps should be rotten into oblivion, but they look pristine. Furthermore inspecting the room further I find a few books, all of them strangely untouched by time and sea.
I gather everything in the room at the central table. A total of seven books, two dozen maps, navigational equipment I don't even know the name of, and a dozen of curios, like a horn or sealed glass with a preserved heart. But the most exciting finding was a dark-silvery harpoon, about the length of my arm and seven barbs. Seems slightly excessive but what do I know.its handle was seemingly fashioned from some kind of leather that has mostly rotten away, but along its entire shaft and on each barb it was ornately carved, resembling waves and wind flowing along its body.
As I play around with it, I find that it seems to move far faster and heavier than it looks. At first, I even almost threw it out the window as it slipped my hands from the unexpected acceleration.Putting the harpoon aside, I started to look through the books. As I open the first book and start to read or try to, I notice only unfamiliar symbols, without any means of deciphering. But after I stared at it for a while, slowly, letter by letter the symbols start to make sense. After some changes of the light, I was able to read the books. At least some of them.
Of the seven I was able to read three.
The first were some kind of navigational instructions, orienting themselves by searching for some kind of patterns in the great blue.
The second was some kind of notebook. It almost seemed like somebody used it to record different equations and formulas, but different and as of yet undecipherable.
The third was a diary.
Day **
I've started a ***book to note down all ********** and retrace my steps if the need ******. Today nothing else note****** happened.
Day **
A fight occurred between ***** and ***. They are now **** scrubbing the deck.
Day **
...
Day **
...
...
...
I sat down and read. And read. And read it again and again and again. Each time deciphering more and more.
For the first few tens of pages, the entries appeared normal, describing the daily life of a ship's captain, sometimes describing scenes that seemed strange, like having merchants appear and give their thing to the crew, just like that.
But after about one and a half years of entries, something happened, pages were filled for a single entry and I cannot figure out what actually happened, but he acquired something, something he then delved deep into for years, writing down what he found in the daily entries, making the reading much more difficult. But after about three months he concluded that he needed a separate book for this research. Which is probably the strange notebook I found.
And then the entries started to become stranger, some kind of journey to a special place. A place that cannot be found?
Which he seemed to have found. And then he did something. According to the number of entries, it took almost a month but whatever he did, it succeeded but failed. Confusing...
His last entry was a long and crazed apology letter to his crew and some person named ****. However, that is supposed to be said.
...
As I looked at my small treasure hard, I got a fuzzy feeling. It was nice.So I continued to investigate my precious little treasures for a long time.
A long, long time. I think.
...
Over the days more and more of the two books made sense and I even started to decipher the strange equations in the notebook.
...
But I was never able to decipher any of the names.
...
One day I tried to solve one of the equations in the notebook that was left unfinished. I took a piece of wood from the lower decks and scratched it onto its surface with the harpoon. It turned out to be really difficult, as I got stuck several times and took me a long time. But I made it. I think.
I have nothing to compare it too. Which made me sad.
...
Today I decided to head out and explore again. I gave up on the equations since I think I have them solved but can't actually test it.