Thorns of Stone

Expedition Record: Day 7

10:33 AM

The couriers have just departed with the cuboid. Though they had initially hoped to arrive at 8 this morning, the fog delayed their arrival by two hours. It’s unnerving to see my greatest discovery go with them, but I trust that the couriers know what they’re doing and that they will deliver it safely.

With the cuboid gone, all that’s left for us to do is wait for the arrival of the yacht. We haven’t heard anything from them yet, but with any luck they’ll arrive within the next hour or two; our hosts have set up monitors on the docks and shore, and the lighthouse is lit and spinning. And just to be on the safe side, one of the boats anchored just off the pier is blowing its horn every half hour for ships trying to find their way here.

12:05 PM

The yacht still hasn’t arrived. I’m starting to get nervous; it should have made it to the harbor by now.

5:00 PM

We haven’t heard or seen any sign of the yacht. Sunrise has been on the radio trying to contact it, but we’ve received no reply. A search party is being organized as I write this, but I’m not sure it can even go out: the water is still choppy, and we’re apparently due for a storm to come through tomorrow. Coupled with the fog, and even Sunrise is having second thoughts. But if the yacht is having problems, especially with their engines, they’ll be helpless and in extreme danger if they’re caught up in a storm. Nobody knows what to do.

11:15 PM

Oh Celestia... We found the yacht.

About twenty minutes after I finished my last entry, a scout ran up to town hall, yelling that he saw the yacht just off shore. We all followed him to one of the nearby beaches and found the yacht drifting towards the sand. The radio antennas and all the masts were gone, the railings were ripped away, and the yacht’s left side was caved in. We got onboard as fast as we could, but found no one. There was no blood, no body parts, no signs of what happened to them.

I wanted to send out a search party, but Sunrise said no. The fog was still too thick, and a storm is coming in. None of the boaters wanted to go out, anyway, not after seeing what happened to the yacht. I wanted to scream at them that they were all cowards... but Celestia damn it, they were right. It was too dangerous to go out.

The storm has already started up; with the rain, wind, and waves hammering the coast, everyone’s taken shelter inside their homes or in city hall. Sunrise and her crew are in here with Thunder Twirl and Flawless Star. City hall’s well built and will be able to withstand the storm, and Sunrise said that we can go out and search for survivors once the storm ends and the fog lifts. But she’s not fooling anyone; it’ll be too late by then.

I’ve been trying to sleep for the past few hours, and I can’t nod off. I just can’t get the image of the yacht out of my head... What if my peers are someone out there in the ocean, struggling to stay afloat in only their life vests while I’m here and dry and safe? And yet, what could I do? To go out in that storm would be suicide. I hate to admit it, but Sunrise Storm is right; all we can do for now is wait for the storm to die before we can do anything else. That doesn't make me feel any better, or anything less than a helpless coward who's not willing to risk his life for someone else.