Welcome to Gaia! ::

John ran his thumb over the pocket watch again. This little thing was meant to be able to take him to his Wonder, back from it, and eventually unlock whatever magical powers he was supposed to have. It had been a while since he had talked to Pendour about going to his Wonder, named Voyager apparently, and he was still nervous about doing so, especially since ghosts were actually a thing. It was one thing to think that they were only in movies and books and other forms of entertainment, but to be faced with the fact that he was going to meet one, and it may not even be friendly and that it could be evil… it wasn’t something that he was looking forward to.

Still, he had to go eventually. He couldn’t call himself a true Knight without ever having gone to his Wonder. Besides the ghost thing, it sounded really interesting! With that he powered up. He couldn’t help but marvel at his uniform. It suited him quite well he thought, and the coat was enough to keep him warm in any weather!

He only had to say the words that had come to mind when he had first been awakened…

Luckily, he was out in the park and not in his apartment or the Museum. Less likely to have any cameras around or possible Negaverse Agents finding out where he lived.

I pledge my life and loyalty to Pluto, and to Voyager.
I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine.

He had closed his eyes as he said this, and for a moment felt some wind. He couldn’t help but let out a small, inaudible laugh though when he thought about Pluto no longer being considered one of the main planets of the solar system that the Earth resided in.

But something felt different, and when he opened his eyes he could see why. The sky was much darker than it was on Earth. There was a chill in the air, though his coat made sure he wasn’t cold. There appeared to be… trees? He couldn’t really tell; it was much too dark. As he turned around to see if there was anything that he could actually make out there appeared to be… light in the distance just in front of him? He squinted, trying to see if he could make anything out, but unfortunately it was much too dark.

“Well, better than nothing I suppose.” He muttered to himself as he started to walk towards it. Whether he was actually going anywhere he wasn’t sure. He could only hope that he had teleported near his Wonder.

After a minute or so and with the light becoming stronger and stronger, the trees eventually parted and from what was in front of him there appeared to be a long dock with torches lining it, a strange light emitting from them. They didn’t appear to be on fire like regular torches, something else was keeping them lit.

As he got closer to the dock, suddenly there was a bright flash of light, blinding him for a moment considering his eyes could barely make anything out before, and when he was eventually able to see again, he gasped at what was in front of him.

A large galleon, much larger than those seen on Earth. It looked more like one of those ship from that Pirate manga that he had briefly read when one of his friends had decided to introduce him to the world of manga and anime. And it was in, from what little the light gave him for seeing, that it appeared to be in some sort of sand ocean or lake. He wasn’t sure which, but he would have loved to explore it. The only problem being that the ship didn’t appear in any way to be ready to go out and sail, and he doubted that it was supposed to do that in the first place.

The unearthly, though he supposed he could call them “plutonian”, lights flickered on and he could tell that while the ship was large and imposing, there was certainly signs that it was old and uncared for. The bow of the ship was starting to point downward, and it appeared to be cracking at the base, as though it could fall at any second.

The keel and hull appeared to have sunk into the sand as though it would be swallowed right up. Moving to the main mast, it appeared as though the ship was broken on… purpose? As one looked to the Quarterdeck and where the Captain’s cabin was the ship appeared to be a bit on the dusty and abandoned and falling apart. Something in his head told him that that part of the ship was not supposed to look like that. As he walked toward the ship, really wishing he had some sort of lantern or something, a light on one of the sides of the dock caught his eye, and he hurried toward it, only just missing one of the broken boards that had a few nails sticking out of it. He would have to go back to Earth and see if he was up to date on all of his shots.

When he got closer, he could tell that the small pool was not there all the time. The pool appeared cloudy, and he couldn’t see anything inside of it. But it did appear to give off a light. They meant something, he was sure of it and he knelt down to reach his hand closer to it to see what would happen. It felt cold and wispy, but it did not feel like he was being pulled in. In fact, it almost seemed to be rejecting his hand, he could not get any closer to it.

He stood back up, the pool disappearing back to who knew where. One of the many mysteries of the planet he supposed. He was much more interested in his wonder. He was sure it was his. He was dressed like a pirate, the ship looked like it belonged to one, this was definitely his!

He made sure to look down and avoid more broken boards of the dock, and eventually made it to the plank that was sticking down from the side of it, leading into who knew where. The entrance appeared to be lit a small amount, but not enough for his tastes. He really wished he had talked to a Pluto Knight before leaving. At least they could have told him to bring a flashlight!

He tested the plank a bit before he made his way up. Luckily it was wide enough, but he could only hope that it could hold his weight as he made his way up. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to try swimming in the sand. He wasn’t sure if the ship was just a ship in sand, or if it was magical and the sand would swallow Voyager before he even knew what was going on.

He made it, the plank only creaking a few times, and he let out a sigh of relief. He had at least made it onto his darn Wonder. Now he just had to find where the scary ghost was. It didn’t appear to be that hard though, he could have sworn he heard some humming coming from inside. He was sure it was the Captain’s cabin though. It was the most likely place at least and if he was wrong, well, there was the whole rest of the ship to explore!

Because the ship was so big, he had to figure out what floor the cabin was on, which made him thankful for the humming, and eventually he found himself at the right one, if the light filtering from inside that he could see inside of the hallway told him. Though now it seemed to be less “humming” and more noise that sounded like a hum but was a mix between humming and making noises with an open mouth.

There were no lyrics, though he did quite like the song, whatever it was. He took a deep breath and let it out before he wandered in, trying his hardest to be quiet so that he didn’t surprise the ghost.

Unfortunately for all of his caution he managed to hit a squeaky board and the “music” stopped. “Who’s thar?!” The ghost yelled in what seemed to be surprise. Voyager took a moment to see if the ghost was going to come running out to attack. “Well? I don’t got all afterlife now do I? Come on in already!” Well, the ghost seemed friendly enough which calmed down Voyager’s nerves quite a bit.

He made his way into the cabin and wasn’t too surprised to see a transparent figure with a full beard, long hair, and what was clearly a Pirate Captain’s outfit on along with being translucent. Still, seeing a ghost in front of him did surprise him a bit. One could never be too ready for these things.

The ghost, or his ancestor Voyager supposed, had had his feet propped on the desk in front of him which had been next to the wall closest to Voyager and had been in a relaxed position. When he saw Voyager however, he looked surprised for a moment before he yelled out, “Amazin! You have to be a descendant!” He said, getting up from the table and floating over to Voyager and “pinning” him against the wall as he took a closer look at the Page. “What’s yer name? Not the Wonder, we both know that’s named Voyager, it’s on the ship fer Order’s sake, your actual name.” The ghost said as he backed off and stood in front of the Page. Voyager had never felt so small. He was surprise he was descended from what appeared to be a giant. Or perhaps that was the outfit. He shook his head. “Apologies, I was expecting a ghost, but seeing the real thing was still a surprise.”

The ghost huffed and crossed his arms. “No need for apologies lad. Yer the first Knight in a while to come here, I was startin to think that no one was going to come. Must have meant there was trouble for a long time.” He said with a nod. “I’ll introduce myself first then. The name’s Morland Darkwater. Makes sense for a Knight like me eh?” He said with a laugh. When he was done he looked at Voyager again. The Page took that as his queue to speak. “John Keating.” Morland nodded his head. “Good name. Good Voyager name, I like it!” He said giving John a grin. “I’ll just call yeh John then. Gets confusin if I call you by the Wonder name. Used to be a Knight of Voyager meself.” And then for a moment Voyager could see a sad look cross Morland’s face. “Can’t tell you everything that happened. I was alive during the fall, only one here of course. Just one Knight per Wonder. I can tell yeh about meself, but if yeh want to know anything about the planet or otherwise I’m afraid I can’t yeh.” He said with a sigh.

Voyager nodded. Morland continued. “I can help yeh with other things though. Least I think. The ship came with some instructions, not that you or I could read em now. There may be pictures though, but you’ll have to search for it. It’s somewhere around here. Been a while since I looked at them. Probably hid them for good reason.” Before Voyager could say anything about that, Morland started to look around. “First thing’s first lad. Yeh got to get yer ring. There should be one around here. I don’t know what happened to the others.” He said.

“All… right then.” Voyager replied, unable to come up with anything else to say at the moment. Most of the questions he had thought of meeting his ancestor had flown right out of his head. He thought he may have been able to ask the old Knight more about this place, but it appeared that the both of them would be starting from scratch. He had to find this ring first though, it didn’t appear that Morland would be willing to talk to him again until it was found.

He took a look around, making a bit of a face at how dusty it was. Morland grunted again. “Can’t really tidy up as a ghost yeh know. That’s yer job now.” Voyager could tell he was grinning under the massive beard that he had. He noted to himself that along with a lantern or flashlight to bring next time he would have to bring a feather duster as well. Hopefully the dust wasn’t dangerous or magical or whatever. And so with the little amount of light that he had, which was one lamp over the desk that Morland had been sitting at, he scoured the room, and eventually on some shelves saw what appeared to be a box. It appeared to have a keyhole though, so that meant the key had to be somewhere as well. He assumed in the same room, otherwise it was going to take quite a few trips back if he had to look over the whole ship.

He spotted another desk, this one much more ornate and intimidating. This must have been the Captain’s. The other desk must have been some sort of writing desk or whatnot for some assistant. Honestly the cabin was a bit too large considering it held the two desks, shelves, and the bed on the side. Still, Voyager could see himself sleeping in it if he was able to fix the place up. He only hoped that he didn’t have to worry about bed bugs like he did on Earth. If all life was wiped out, surely that meant those as well?

He didn’t have time to worry about it though. Or at least he chose not to. He had at least a few hours, it was night after all and the museum was closed. But he had to be into work the next day which meant that he couldn’t be here too long without losing sleep.

He moved over to the more ornate desk and after looking through a few drawers he found a small key that he figured most likely belonged to the box. He set the key on the desk and wen to retrieve the box from the shelf and move it to the desk as well. He didn’t hesitate to open the box, he assumed that it was safe enough, Morland didn’t say anything about it being booby-trapped.

And it opened, sitting on what appeared to be a small velvet pillow was a ring that looked like it was made just for him. Morland moved over and raised an eyebrow. “Well, that makes sense. Was wondering what was in that box.” He said, taking a quick look at the shelf. “Go ahead and put it on, looks like it’ll fit yeh.” Voyager nodded and moved the ring, sliding it onto his middle-right finger. It slid on easily. Immediately he was filled with knowledge that he could use it to send messages at the very least, though he felt that there was more to unlock with it in the future. He was still a Page though, and this was his very first trip to his Wonder, and he hadn’t even had a battle yet. He took a breath and let it out. He had to remember that he had to take all of this slowly, he couldn’t do everything at once.

Suddenly a piece of paper popped up on the desk and he picked it up and looked at it. It appeared to be a way to upgrade the ring. “Interesting…” He murmured to himself. This was only the start. And he was already much more interested in learning about this ring and his Wonder.

Morland nodded, though Voyager couldn’t quite see it considering he was just out of eyesight now. “Good. That’s a start. Now you can learn more about the Wonder. I already told yeh it’s named Voyager. Good name for a ship. Doesn’t move though. Didn’t actually travel with it.” Morland said with a grin as Voyager looked at him in confusion. “Nah mate, a smaller boat was used for all our travelin needs. Ship was used more to hoard what we found when we were out and about.” Voyager’s face lit up for a moment before Morland held a hand out. “Don’t be getting your hopes up too much lad. It’s been ages and while they have been preserved, knowledge about em is gone. You can look at them, but if you want to learn about them you’ll have to spend yer time doing that. Ain’t no descriptions about em.”

It was Voyager’s turn to grin back. “Sounds like my kind of thing. I already do a bit of that as a day job, or at least I evaluate them. I want to see what they look like.” So his Wonder was a museum too? How perfect was it? Morland smirked. “Aye, well, looks like yer a natural then! Definitely my descendant!” He let out a hearty laugh. When he was able to speak again he had a calmer look on his face. “As much as I want yeh to look around, I don’t think yeh can be here for too long. No food or water.” Morland shrugged. “Not a problem for a ghost like meself, but I’m assuming you can’t just live off of air.” He said grinning at Voyager. “I’ll give yeh a small tour but then yeh best be on yer way. You can come back and visit again o’course.” He said before he moved towards the doorway. Voyager followed him, wanting to make sure he was able to at least memorize the basic layout of the Wonder.

He followed Morland up a set of stairs and through a door and he was outside on the deck. “All right. This is of course the deck. Needs some cleaning up of course, but if you ever want tah hang outside or whatnot then you can do it here. I don’t remember anything on Pluto coming out to attack anehone, so yeh should be good. Maybe you’ll come up with something tah do, but just know it’s a deck. Oh and uh, you look towards the bow,” He said, making sure to move his gaze and Voyager followed “You can tell that’s in disrepair. Don’t go over there. And it’s supposed to be like that. Show the passage of time or somethen on Pluto. I’m sure it did more in the past, but by the time I got ‘ere it was just like that. Yeh’ll be able to move around the ship don’t you worry. They closed that part of inside so yeh don’t need to deal with it. Maybe someday we’ll see what it was fer, but fer now it’s just like that.” Voyager nodded. It did make him curious though. Perhaps there was more to this Wonder and Pluto itself that they didn’t know about?

Morland moved back inside, there was still 2/3rds of the ship that wasn’t damaged and had plenty of space. The Wonder was huge. It would be years and he still wouldn’t be able to fill in all of the space if he wanted to. They moved down two sets of stairs this time and when Morland opened the door, Voyager couldn’t help but let out a gasp. The ghost chuckled. “I see yeh like it! It’s the collection! Or Treasure Room as it was called.” He said as he waved his arm across the room. Quite a few places were filled with various items and some information on them, though when Voyager went to get a closer look to read them, he realized they were written in a language he couldn’t understand. Morland shook his head. “I don’t know what they say either. Language is dead to me. Least they have some drawings though.” He said with a chuckle. Voyager wasn’t surprised, nor was he disappointed. This is how it worked on Earth, so why would it be any different here?

“As yeh can see, these contain a lot of treasures. A lot of em are from different planets and wonders and whatnot. I know I added a few of them myself.” He said with a nod. “I’ll tell yeh now though, these weren’t all obtained through the best o’ means if you get what I’m seying. Yeh may have someone who comes here and finds something o’ there’s they want back.” Voyager couldn’t help but smile. “Appears that there’s a lot more in common with these Pluto Knights and Earth archeologists.” He chuckled. “I’ll give it back to them. Even on Earth, where I live now, countries are starting to give stolen artifacts back to their home countries. I’ll keep the information though. I can make my own notes, but I don’t want to give it back until I have some background on them.” He didn’t need a complete rundown of what the item was, just something basic would do.

Morland smiled. “Sounds fair lad. Not every Knight, and certainly not every Homeworld was all sunshine an rainbows. Except for Iris I think.” He squinted his eyes as he tried to remember but couldn’t. He shooks his head. “Anehway, we had our wars and our slavery and our plundering and whatever else. I would bet most of these treasures here came from those times. I myself tried to get them legally. Trade, bartering, gifts, yeh know. But, somewhere in our blood there’s just that bit of excitement that comes from discovering something that we know is important and taking it without permission.” He said, and Voyager could almost see a twinkle in the ghost’s eye. “Just keep it in mind lad. Hopefully you won’t get into aneh danger because of these, but you need to always keep it in yer mind that it could happen, yeh get it?” Voyager nodded.

It was what he had to do as an archivist on Earth as well. Even as he had been transporting legally obtained museum artifacts the number of times he had been attacked, accosted, and even arrested, and eventually released, were at least in the teens. Sometimes papers just weren’t enough apparently.

“Sounds normal to me then.” Voyager replied, moving his eyes back over to the artifacts, cursing himself for not bringing enough substance to stay here for a few hours to be able to study everything that was in here. He wasn’t even sure there was a restroom. Did they pee in the sand lake out there? As much as he wanted to ask it, he made a mental note to himself to never ask how restrooms were used on any Homeworld or Wonder that he went to.

He looked at his pocket watch, glad that it still worked, and was surprised at how late it had gotten. Somehow in the amount of time since he had gotten here and talked to Morland, it had already been a few hours. He assumed most of it was walking through that part of the forest first. He sighed and turned to his ghostly ancestor. “As much as I would love to stay here and learn more about all of this” he gestured to the entire Wonder, “and these” he gestured to the treasuers, “I have to get going. Unfortunately this Wonder is not enough to sustain me here, so I can’t stay for long.” He sighed. “It was good to meet you Morland, and I still have so many questions and things I want to see, but I need to get going now.”

The ghost nodded. “Ay, good teh meet you too lad. And don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye out on this Wonder for yeh.” He said with a laugh. When he was finished he continued. “Least I have something teh look forward teh now. Being alone ain’t bad, but havin someone teh look after the place is better.” He said, heading back up to where Voyager had entered with the latter following him. “Best be off then lad.” Morland said as Voyager took a step to walk down the plank. He would really have to secure that better the next time he came. He turned around to give Morland a wave. “Thanks Morland! I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can!” He said, and slowly made his way down, making sure that nothing broke. He safely made it down, took one last look at “Voyager” and made his way back to where he had first appeared. He had questions, and the answers would take time, but he was glad that he had made his first trip by himself and without dying.

Still, he would need a long nap after all of this!