A Cave in the Ocean

(Friday, 9th of Dancing Fool Moon, 2021)

It was now dark, and the seas were still as calm as ever, but this was an odd evening. It was just like that first night of Sanctuary, and Jack's soul seemed to be having an out of body experience. His soul decided to hang out over the ship, looking around the area of the still ship. Jack wondered why he was having an out of body experience like this again, when his eyes suddenly landed on an island. The island was remarkably small, only consisting of a cave that laid on a flat bed of rocks that barely stood out of the water. Jack flew over to the cave out of curiosity, not worried about losing the boat because it was anchored over the open water, not moving at all. Jack floated to the island using his spectral form, and placed his feet on the gravel ground, trying not to phase through the ground. Jack reached the entrance of the cave and curiously peered into the cave. Obviously, it was dark, but thanks to your glowing orange soul, the room was lit up from Jack's a amber glow, and Jack looked closely at the walls. The walls would have been perfectly smooth, if it weren't for the carvings in the stone. Jack looked closely at the carvings, and they were rather simple, taking the appearance of a storm sea while stars shone above the stone carved clouds that formed a layer over the wild waves.

"If my guess is correct, then this is an ocean or water temple." Jack guessed, but if this place ends up being a fire temple, he's leaving this place a bad review score on Welp.

Jack walked deeper into the temple, and for a while, the walls and tile were still the same. The tile reminded Jack of a chessboard, consisting entirely of tiles that he walked across the tile for. Jack's phantom footsteps made no noise against the ground even when he walked. It was eerie, listening to his own body make no noise. Jack continued walking down the hallway until he noticed a flight of stairs that led deeper downwards to the darkness. Jack noticed that the wall etchings stopped when he started going down the stairs, but they began once again when Jack came across what was at the bottom of the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, Jack found a circular stone slab that was etched with the depiction of a maiden with long hair surrounded by fish, seaweed, and sea shells.

"I guess this is the end of the line-"Jack was about to give up, but then he remembered that he was in his spectral form. "Oh right, I'm a ghost."

Jack walked straight through the stone circle and looked around the surprisingly well lit room. There were torches that lit up the room, and looking at their color, Jack realized that they were blue flames, giving the room a blue colored glow. There were two torches on either side of the entrance, and two more dead ahead, on either side on some kind of altar. On the altar was someone, Jack could tell they were a woman, but he couldn't make out many features because her long blue hair was blocking the view of her face. Jack thought she was a corpse, but then noticed how her chest was slowly rising, as though she were in a deep sleep. Still, the fact that this cave had no signs of food or fresh water was a major cause for concern.

"Hello, ma'am, are you okay?" Jack tried waving his hand in front of her face. "Why are you here? Are you being held here against your will?"

Then Jack remembered that he was in ghost form, and couldn't interact with the physical world. So Jack went straight up, phasing right through the stones layered above the small room before his phantom body emerged from the rocks and reached into the sky. Jack then flew back to the boat, phasing through the steel walls of the boat and finding his unconscious body as it slept on a small cot. Jack hovered over his body and jumped feet first into his torso, which felt as though his entire body was being painlessly melted and fit into a mold of your body. Jack's eyes shot open, and he got up from the cot and walked out of the storage room and onto the upper deck of the ship. Jack's eyes spotted the small island, and Jack prepared your leg for a jump, but something stopped him.

"Where are you going, it's only 2 AM you know?" Cheng was standing behind Jack, curiously watching as he put his aviator's jacket over his pajamas of a white t-shirt and sweatpants.

"I saw someone over there." Jack pointed his finger at the cave not too far away from the ship.

"Really?" Cheng smirked whilst walking to the railing beside Jack. "I've been out here all night, and I didn't see a single person."

"That's because they're inside the cave, at the bottom of the stairs." Jack explained, and Cheng raised an eyebrow as her smile only grew.

"How do you know this, you're an archeologist class, aren't you?" Cheng looked at Jack. "That is unless...you're a dual class?"

"Look lady, I don't remember shit, so if I secretly have a second class or whatever then I have no idea." Jack was getting tired of being ominous and stuff like that.

"Well if that's the case, riddle me this; have you experienced a feeling of your soul leaving your body?" Cheng asked, and Jack flinched because she was spot on. "Figures, it was your mother's class, the Dreamer, who granted you such an ability."

"You knew my parents?" Jack questioned the woman, who nodded. "So you mean to tell me this 'out of body experience' is my mother's ability?"

"And the archeologist class is your father's." Cheng confirmed whilst looking out to the sea. "The Dreamer class has more abilities than out of body experiences, they have a surreal set of abilities. Her class was kind of like Alice's warlock ability. Your mother's power stemmed from her Oath to the Masked King, better known as the Forgotten God of Dreams."

"Do you know what they are?" If Cheng was right and Jack did have the abilities of both an Archeologist and a Dreamer, then he wanted to master the latter's abilities as well as the former's.

"No clue, all I know is that they're real." Cheng shrugged her shoulders.

"Okay, so what about my parents, do you know where they are?" Jack asked, and Cheng pointed in a certain direction. "Huh?"

"Mythia, your parents are in Mythia." Cheng answered, and Jack noticed that the direction Cheng pointed in was North. "They were sealed with the most powerful enemies known to humanity on the continent to the North, sealing themselves on the continent with the unknown entities to reinforce the barrier."

"Hold on, my parents are still alive..." Jack trailed off, trying to draw a conclusion.

"Yes." Cheng crossed her arms and kept on smiling, following along with the conversation.

"And they're on the very island of some of the biggest monsters in history..." Jack knew these entities were the monsters that Herakles is so afraid of, because there were no other entities that could be such a threat that even Heracles couldn't defeat them.

"Well most of them are around human size, but yeah they are massive disasters." Cheng corrected, and that was surprisingly useful information.

"Then how the hell do you expect them to still be alive?!" Jack shouted in disbelief of the woman

"Because these two are known as the Lovers, the strongest couple." Cheng smiled before she began rubbing your hair to help calm you down. "Besides, your father wanted to go to Mythia for another reason."

"And that reason is...?" You wanted to know why your parents were in Mythia in the first place.

"Simple, your father's relatives were supposedly from Mythia." Cheng's words shocked Jack, and the woman laughed a bit to herself. "Before Geppetto put up that barrier, Mythia was able to be accessed, but it was still very solitary and never interacted with us, in fact, even I'm doubtful that there was even a civilization there."

"So you mean to tell me we sealed those disasters with gods know how many innocent people?" Jack asked, and Cheng's smile slowly faded. "How can we expect them to survive?!"

"I'm sorry, but I don't know." Cheng answered solemnly. "Before the disasters even caused 12/12/12, I had my best scouts look around Mythia, and they claimed there were signs of life, but no one was there. If even my best scouts couldn't find them, then they either don't exist or are especially adept at hiding. So if they exist, there's a good chance they're still alive."

"And my father wants to find these people?" Jack asked, and Cheng nodded. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because that barrier that's keeping them in Mythia is falling apart." Cheng answered. "You see, your parents weren't the only people we sealed with the Disasters, but there was another group, the 13 Children of Destiny, three of whom you already met."

"So if they got out...is it possible the Disasters made it out as well?" Jack decided that he was going to call this threat the 'Disasters'.

"It's extremely unlikely, and I believe that the Children of Destiny are only free because their connection to their home countries allows them to teleport to those countries." Cheng watched as Jack began to wrap his head around this. "I think I've talked enough for the evening, you have to satisfy your curiosity, don't you?"

"You're right, I'll talk to you later." Jack crouched to jump once again, and jumped over the water.

Amazingly, his foot didn't damage the ship in the slightest, and when Jack landed on the rocks before the cave, only the rocks beneath his feet were cracked. That means that his control is getting better. Jack summoned Buttercup and took out a candy labeled 'Night Vision'. Jack popped the candy in his mouth and put the wrapper in his back pocket. Like the 'Understanding' candy, it had the texture of chocolate, yet this one tastes like bananas. Jack's vision improved, and it felt like light became dark and dark became light. Jack entered the cave, and three steps in, his prosthetic leg suddenly sunk into the ground. Jack looked down at the ground to see that the tile he was stepping on clicked like a button, and a part of Jack remembered something important.

His spectral form doesn't trigger traps.

Jack used his prosthetic leg to spring himself forward to avoid the rain of knives that shot out from the ceiling, plunging them into the ground of the place where he just stood before. Jack landed a few meters away from the tile, only for his leg to plant itself onto yet ANOTHER trapped tile. This time Jack launched himself towards the stairs again to avoid a pillar of flames engulfing the spot he stood earlier. Jack landed on the tile away from the flames, thankfully not triggering anything, but the first step he took forwards triggered yet another trap. Jack launched himself for a third time, and this time he landed face first against the sloped stone wall that rested above the stairs. Jack landed with his back against the stairs, and begrudgingly got up from the stairs.

"Damn, I used to explore these things for fun?" Jack remembered that Alice said that he used to explore temples for fun back in his hometown.

Jack walked down the stairs until he came face to face with the circular stone that blocked his path. Jack wasn't strong enough to move it to the side, and Jack saw no devices like levers or puzzles that could move the stone. Jack thought for a moment before getting an idea, the idea involved summoning Stone Cutter. Jack raised the weapon back, with the blunt side facing forward before slamming Stone Cutter's blunt edge against the stone door, shattering it to pieces. The stone shattering caused some dust to cloud the entrance, and the archeologist coughed while waving the weapon in front of him to help clear the dust. The scene before Jack was the exact same as earlier, with the blue haired woman still fast asleep on the bed. Jack walked towards the woman, the ground clicking with two different noises as Jack walked towards her. When Jack was finally in front of the woman, he gently shook her. Much to Jack's amazement, the woman's eyes fluttered open.

"Hey there, Sleep Beauty." Jack decided to call her 'Sleeping Beauty' because that's what everyone calls people who sleep a lot.

"Hmmmm, good morning." The blue haired woman sat up and stretched. "Who are you?"

"Jack Grimm, and your name?" Jack introduced himself, and the woman took a moment to think, as though she was struggling to remember her own name.

"I am Lorelei Hesor." Lorelei answered whilst looking around the room. "I'm a noble from land...Oh darn, I forgot where I'm from."

"Well Lorelei, do you know why you're here in the first place?" Jack asked the girl, who needed a moment to remember the reasoning.

"Oh I think it was because of my noble family's ability." Lorelei explained. "My noble family's ability is the power to amplify all magic around us, but it can't be turned off. So whenever I go somewhere, everyone within a certain radius has their magic and their weapon's magic amplified ten times. This caused a lot of sudden magical awakenings in every town I went to, so I was forced here."

"I see..." Jack thought this could be a reason as to how you suddenly had an out of body experience on your first night of Sanctuary. "Well, come on, we should get you out of here and back into civilization. I know a genius mechanic who can probably whip something up for you."

"That sounds nice, thank you Jack!" Lorelei tried standing up, but when she did, her legs wobbled and she almost collapsed. Jack caught the girl before she could fall. "Oh dear, it appears my legs aren't what they used to be..."

"It's fine, hop onto my back, I'll carry ya." Jack helped Lorelei get on his back, and she wrapped her frail arms around Jack's neck. "Alright, let's head back to the ship."

As Jack walked up the stairs, he began to wonder. Not only was she incredibly light, but her magic...that couldn't be any of the nobles he knows of. Could it have been what caused his soul to leave his body? If it really belonged to a noble, then what noble? Hassan and Catherine don't have any amplification abilities, Hassan's noble magic is time related, while Catherine arrived months after the first out of body experience. Could Lorelei have been from a neighboring country? If she was, then why was she alone? Where was her family? Plus, if Lorelei was here since that incident, then how could her magic have affected Jack in the first place? Is there another member of Lorelei's family somewhere in Sanctuary? From her appearance, she didn't look like she's from any of the known countries. Jack reached the exit of the cave, and turned his head to Lorelei.

"Okay Lorelei, hang on tight." Jack jumped towards the boat, and held onto Lorelei's hands as you soared through the sky, making sure Lorelei was safe.

Jack landed on the ship deck, barely denting it and checking on Lorelei's body, she looked perfectly fine. Still slightly malnourished, but uninjured. Jack guided Lorelei to your bedroom / storage room. Jack set Lorelei down on his cot and he exited the storage room. Jack wanted to sleep, but with Lorelei now sleeping on his cot and your mind racing with all this new information, he couldn't sleep. Jack went to the edge of the ship and rested against the railing, taking a breath in before exhaling.

"Mom, Dad, what the hell is going on?"