It wasn't unexpected, but the force of the waves following the arrival of what was determined to be Dokk's destructive force, had hailed from an endless connection to something that could not be reached without knowing the exact pathway. Whether by wormhole anomalies or great speeds, this was something they had no knowledge of where to begin. But the wisdom of Zoic and bravery of the crew, would set about a plan to destroy what was itself, a destroyer.
"How did you know that sending out elements of your world would trigger the entity of Dokk?" Deba asked Zoic as he remembered the ancient name of Foid. He stirred and stated that it was an old trick. Like a distraction.
"Foid has many old names..." Deba continued but was cut off.
"To speak the name would not be wise at this time." Zoic assured her.
"I won't. I heard tales and legends. None very good." She answered back.
"The thing about the elements of Fiod are that they carry the vibrations of the original creation of the world in its entirety. Those energy vibrations are contained and dense in their form. The Forgotten Moon will be what we'll use to keep what's out there at bay, while we head back to Arcan 748."
Zoic instructed the crew that unless he finds a sea vessel with the name of Titan, they'll need the scout ship on board to gain access to the surface and look for a captain of a sea vessel, a then-young man of the old world of their time. From memory of what the elders spoke of, the name of his ship was Titan. And every sea entryway had been limited to ports allowing only for sailing ships of the sea. None existed now for ships from other worlds. No accommodations would be found in that world in its present state.
One entire region of Arcan was entirely abandoned and a massive dead zone. No signals, or radio equipment could be picked up if one should be stranded there. It was known as the Dead Lands in a world that echoed of death.
Zoic had pondered on the possibility of the elements within the stones and gems he sent out amid the cluster of the Forgotten Moon to harness the dark energies away from the planet. But the journey toward Arcan 748 was the first step, and they would have to remain unseen as much as possible. Depending on basic manual flight in a rudimentary fashion. Dark forces had already claimed the planet and all living souls there were set on thoughts of keeping the dark energy supplied with whatever means they had. Rainier brought the ship's drones back in and collected the data. They gave some vital and key information. With the ship secure and no readings of any hints of trouble, they made for Arcan.
Titan was the only ship on those oceans that never hailed from any channeled frequencies or was tracked by any means of Arcan's rulers. The captain was a robust ancient from the old days and his parents regaled him with stories of how they escaped Fiod and then Arca and fled to this new world to live in peace. They called him Pacno, but he had changed his name to Pann since his early years. Although no one knew his true age, he would have been to that world at least 459 of their years, of age. But because of his long times in the world he now called home, he had discovered many magical and mystical things about the seas of Arcan. About the flow of the waters and secrets of the lands. Long before the complete invasion of Arcan there were ports that could only be accessed with a special ship, and a rare wind. And at certain times of Arcan's year. Pacno also kept the book of names from his former world. Some of those names were key to accessing the hidden ports of Arcan from one world to another. Since the takeover however, Pacno doubted that any such access would again be successful. So he sailed the seas and slowly began to accept a death that would eventually come.
On this very idea, having begun to lay heavily on him, it was at this time of all times that Pacno decided to brave the hidden ports of the ancient Arcan world. And the ship he commanded was such a special vessel to access those ports. How he came to be in possession of an obvious otherworldly craft was on account of his father's lifelong friend who lived in a remote cabin far away inland, nearing the borders of the Dead Lands.
All was quiet aboard the 773 as they set the course for their next destination. The hum of the engines and lights whirred like a small and faraway steady tone. This journey would prove that the Dead Sun was in truth the Forgotten Moon. But with the dark energy now focused on another pathway, a release was made of the grip upon Arcan 748. Passageways would be open now. Though the condition of those ports was a mystery.
Zoic awoke and wandered around the ship, checking the monitors for any sign of dark energy from the drones, but their status wasn't changed. Zoic unfastened a leather cord and loosened a rare stone he wore around his neck. He quietly placed it in a small drone and jettisoned it from the ship. He sent it on the far side of Arcan's pathway toward the suns but reversed, so as to set it in the opposite direction of where the planet was traversing. For a while he watched and waited.
Far below the Arcan clouds, Pacno sensed the change in the air. Zoic spotted the ship Titan. He focused on its captain. And the focus wasn't lost on Pacno. He set course and headed for a forgotten palace built into a mountain, with decayed gates and a haunted entrance. This was at once an ancient harbor. The seas had long receded leaving only dry, petrified ground and mountain trees. Nothing lived there. But there was something there that even the presence of darkness never learned of, and Zoic knew of the very mechanism that Pacno was drawn to and headed toward.
After some time, the 773 set back toward the Arcan planet. On board computers gave a reading that the original shielding over the planet was still intact except for the layers of dust and carbon from the nearest objects geared to keep it on a parallel track. Zoic had just arranged the world to discontinue its parallel path and to catch up on a higher trajectory with the suns. The drone would guide Arcan's movement away from whatever was based on the surface or in the surface of the planet itself. Pacno knew the signs to look for. And when he reached the ancient harbor, he made haste and searched for the planet's sounding wave. It would be in the mountain's entrance, a short way past a set of iron gates.
The seas were restless and the darkness sensed things amiss. The seas answered back with fury and Pacno knew the sign very well. Dokk's power was weak and waning in this area of the world. There, Pacno set up camp, and with portable equipment, set up a beacon. Zoic gathered the crew and prepared them and the ship to dock at the isolated location. Beyond that, they would have to use the ship's scouting pods to continue on any missions further into the more populated Arcan territories.
Pacno hailed the ship that he knew was just out there, though he couldn't see it. Zoic signaled back giving Pacno the go ahead to open the mountain's smooth-stoned side. The crew spoke very little, but there were nostalgic soft sentences about this world and how it was perhaps the last world that was meant to be an escape from their own worlds in the grip of an evil they all fought and still did.
The sounding waves flooded the entrance and Pacno channeled them into the mechanism that held the harbors around the sea and the inlaying mountain within a tonic hum. The planet's own natural song. The object was twelve measures of man in height, and had the appearance of a rod, with beads that flowed within magnetic liquid streams spinning around the top layer that sprawled out into a bowl-like apparatus. It was a grounding instrument. Very ancient and very precise in keeping a steady wavelength between the water and the sky. This in turn stilled the space so to allow a ship to land without detection from other elements.
Rainier held the ship in a steady approach as he lowered the ship in the trench provided by the mountain's now open gorge, Pacno waited on the small step ready to greet the members of the 773.
"Clear." Rainier spoke as he leveled off past the mountain top. "Extending hydraulic supports." It was actually the first time he'd landed a ship of that size but Zoic smiled. "Pretty good, captain."
Once the ship was settled onto its ground, the crew prepared to disembark.
Zoic emerged first and greeted Pacno with warmth and an embrace.
"Welcome! Welcome brave Sage of the Great Three Worlds beyond!" Pacno exclaimed.
"How do you like the ship, my friend?" Zoic asked as he waved his arm toward the massive vessel.
"Impressive and Incredible." Pacno said as he looked on and shivered a bit. "The legendary ship of Cova?"
"None other." Ackea smiled as she shook Pacno's hand, to which Pacno grabbed her arm and gave her a mighty hug. Ackea smiled even more feeling that he was a friend to be counted on.
The rest of the crew greeted Pacno as he welcomed them all with a much relieved looked on his face that they were all there, and ready to take the next step wherever that might lead them to. Pacno, like Zoic, was closely connected to the elders of Fiod as his father had also walked in the realm of the Shadowy Arch, a place that tests the resolve of warriors and sages alike. Zoic may have never thought of himself as a warrior but the escape-world of Arcan would soon prove that his Fiodian journeys were quite needed. A place of sheer tranquility in the unknown and the deep. For that, the crew of the 773, were already seasoned in warrior-hood. And this planet would take much to find all the hidden trickery of what had happened here. Arcan was no different now, than any of their worlds. The only difference now, was that most did not retain memories of where they originally came from.
Pacno began preparing for the next journey that would take them to yet another harbor. One that would be dangerous, for there were agents of Dokk and other sketchy characters about. Mingled in with the native population of the sea port of Huvado.
"We'll take my ship, but there should be room to bring a couple of scouting pods, and please, you must call me Pann! At least around the natives. I'm incognito!" Pacno laughed as he helped the crew gear up.
"The next harbor, that will be guarded by fifty-foot waves, if the sea is in a bad mood!" He laughed again.
Rainier, Deba, and Nackendara checked over the scouting pods and gave Pacno the dimensions of their size to determine if there was room on his ship for them, along with any smaller weapons that could be attached and would be needed considering the previous readings from before.
Going aboard Pacno's sailing ship, Rainer was back in familiar territory. He was enchanted by how similar the seas of Arcan were to Cova.
"It's all by instinct, isn't it?" Rainier asked Pacno. A little surprised at the question, Pacno finished raising a sail and turned to him.
"Everything must be. Like your crew mate here, Zoic. He didn't get orders of any specific mission. It's all played by ear. I've been around long enough to know that no plans can be laid without design and detail. In those things it may be needed for a final move against an enemy. But in the beginning stages, and following through, nothing can be foreseen confronting an unseen enemy." Pacno said musingly.
"How did you know to be at the mountain without knowing of our arrival, then?" Deba asked curiously.
"A feeling. It was that and the air was different. Something shifted. Something went in another direction." Pacno said softly.
As they sailed into Huvado waters. Zoic made no mention of the drone ship he sent above the planet's tracking, its cycles that were, as Zoic witnessed himself upon their first approach. Instinctively refraining from landing then. He and the crew had to know where the grip of dark energy was holding from, and once he knew the method, he could set about disengaging the world from spiraling down into the bottom of the entire expanse of space.
Nackendara read Zoic's expressions, and she knew something was in the works.
"One of the drone pods was absent from the ship's bay." She told Zoic.
"I know. I have a tracker on it. It's still making a route. So far undetected." Zoic answered.
"And with a part of the ship tracking through space, we could be almost anywhere if we were followed." She mused.
"We'll need to take the 773 up into higher fields above this system sooner or later." Zoic reached and leaned onto the side of the deck to stand closer. "But what we're looking for here, is a stone element about sixteen inches along from one side to the other and shaped in an oval form."
"Could it be in the sea?" She wondered aloud. "No, not this element. Not this object. It's probably hidden in a very secure location." Zoic supposed.
"The solar and lunar apparatus have been changed since anyone's been by, they've been localized. A beam has been fixed to keep a constant portal open toward the outer darkness. Away from the suns." Nackendara said while looking over the ship's maps of what fields of frequencies used to be in place.
"The entire world has been placed under a grid, the only edges are those that lead away from both small and greater light," said Zoic.
The skies were ominous. They all retired for the turn of night. A questionable span of time, now that nothing was familiar or as it was before. For two turns of day and night they sailed on.
The sea started to move faster as they approached Huvado. Pacno adjusted the sails and made haste to secure everything and the crew. "As usual, too many ships coming into the port town!" He shouted across the deck.
As they observed, waves began to form and crash into the distant, but now the visible land. The structures of Huvado were made of materials from the sea and floods that would have swept through the settlement were quickly redirected into a large encircled trench and washed back into the sea. Any ship or boat in the water though, was a different matter. The sea was angry and Pacno prepared to turn away and head for Stee. A smaller port town, and less likely to be ravaged by the high seas that surrounded Huvado. Although quieter, it was a place that hosted some of the more vicious types.
"Make way!" Pacno called out. "We'll be a little longer getting to where we need to go!"
The seas calmed as they came into Stee waters and there they docked. Pacno and the crew stepped off the ship while he went about and secured everything. Rainier sought out a land ship or vessel that would be able to traverse rugged ground. The others looked around at the somewhat dreary and moody settlement. Almost as if on queue, a fight broke out between two groups of folk, one accusing the other of foul play and superstitions being ignored. Pacno was grabbed by one of the combatants, as if he were somehow involved.
He struggled to gain his balance and he swung around and knocked his assailant to the ground.
"It's mistaken identity. I'm not the wizard that betrayed you." He said, gaining his composure.
Rainier and Nackendara both drew their weapons and held the fighting elements in their sights.
"Best move on, if you know what's good for the lot of you." Rainier told them.
"I would listen to him, he's got no time for the time that's been twisted here." Nackendara added.
This was something that resonated with their superstitious beliefs, so they dispersed.
"How did you know what to say?" Rainier asked her. Nackendara shrugged and mumbled "I just wanted to give voice to something I wanted to say out loud."
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