Perhaps because they were being filmed, the eight explorers ultimately didnât take anything and left the casino empty-handed.
Next, they headed to the ballroom.
The situation there was similar to the outside, yet subtly different.
The similarity lay in the fact that the ballroom also bore numerous traces of human activity, as if not long ago it had been filled with guests attending a grand banquet.
The difference, however, was that the ballroom contained things that shouldnât have been there.
For example, a thick layer of foul-smelling slime stretching from the entrance all the way into every corner of the hall. There was also a large amount of blood, black cloaks, and many extinguished torches.
âThe ballroom was enormous, and with the curtains drawn, it was very dim inside. We only meant to try pressing the switch by the door, but unexpectedly, the lights actually turned on. The shipâs power system is still functioning!â
After the lights came on, what appeared before them was a vast circular hall.
The floor was covered with thick red velvet carpeting, originally meant for dancing. But now, scattered across it in disarray were countless black robes. Some of them were stained with the same semi-transparent slime seen at the entrance, giving off a nauseating stench that made people instinctively cover their noses.
Along the edges of the hall, extinguished torches had been placed at intervals on the ground.
âIt looks like a large number of people in black robes once held some kind of gathering here. After it ended, they left their robes behind. And at the center of where the crowd had gathered⌠there was a massive stageâŚâ
In the video, as one of the crew members passed in front of the stage, he caught a strong smell of blood. At his call, everyone gathered in front of it. The camera focused on the stage, and Everly saw that on the red-carpeted floor, there was a huge pattern drawnâsomething resembling a ritual circle.
On the outer side of the pattern were two circles, one large and one small. Inside the smaller circle was a triangle, and from each of its three sides extended several winding, tentacle-like lines. Within the triangle itself was another circular shape resembling an eye.
On the curtain hanging behind the stage, someone had painted an eye-like symbol in blood.
The metallic scent of blood everyone had noticed was coming from these two patterns.
âWhen we saw those symbols, we were all terrified. We thought we had stumbled into some kind of ritual site for an evil cult. But after searching the entire ballroom, we couldnât find a single body. So we were never able to determine whether the blood was human or animal.â
The ballroom was simply too foul-smelling, and that magic-circle-like pattern was genuinely horrifying. After confirming that there were no peopleâor even human remainsâinside, the explorers hurriedly left the unsettling hall and took the stairs up to the second floor.
From the second floor onward was the cabin area. Most of the rooms were locked and required keycards or special keys to open. Only a few doors were left open, revealing rooms where valuable items were casually scattered about. In one room, the bathroom shower was still running. Following the sound, the group nervously entered and saw the showerhead lying on the floor, water gushing out continuously and draining away through the floor drain.
On the drain cover, there were even a few strands of blonde hair.
It was reallyâtrulyâfar too strange.
What on earth had happened on this ship? Where had all the people gone?
The eight explorers grew more frightened with every step. They didnât dare linger in the cabin area any longer. Picking up their pace, they followed the evacuation maps posted in the corridors and found the captainâs cabin located on the starboard side of the sixth floor.
Fortunately, the captainâs cabin door was not locked.
The group entered the captainâs cabin and searched it thoroughly, but they didnât find anything like a diary or a shipâs log. However, while pulling open a drawer of the captainâs desk, they used too much force and accidentally yanked the entire drawer out. Because of that, they discovered a letter stuck to the bottom of the drawer.
The camera captured them reading the letter, but perhaps to avoid leaking sensitive information, it didnât deliberately film the contents. As a result, Everly couldnât see what was written.
She looked at George questioningly.
He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, still looking shaken. âIt was a letter written to the captain by someone signed Sâ˘T. The main content was about three suspicious individuals. Sâ˘T said that among the passengers on the Golden Anchor, there were two âinvestigatorsâ and a powerful witch. Their presence would inevitably bring disaster and unforeseen changes to the voyage. He hoped the captain would carry out a full-ship screening as soon as possible, find the investigators and the witch, and kill themâso as to eliminate the threat before it could grow.â
âWhen we saw that letter, we thought its contents were probably related to the strange situation on the Golden Anchor. So we secretly took it off the ship and handed it over to the captain. But last night, while the captain was holding the letter and reading it halfway through, something strange happenedââ
âRight in front of all of us, it suddenly became worn, yellowed, and aged, and then, as if erased by an invisible eraser, it disappeared completely!â
âWhat time was it when that happened? Did you notice the time?â
George shook his head and looked toward the captain, who frowned in thought. At that moment, it was Pennyâthe video editor who had been silent until nowâwho spoke up first:
âI remember⌠it was a little past 7:59 p.m. My phone has an hourly chime. When the letter disappeared, it was exactly 8:00.â
Again, the time! Last night, Misha had witnessed the Golden Anchor suddenly aging, and it was the same time period. After that fleeting âagingâ moment, lights appeared across the massive ship, and singing and voices could be heardâright at 8:00 p.m. That means the shipâs sudden aging occurred just after 7:59. This is absolutely no coincidence.
But what exactly does it mean�
Everly had never encountered such a bizarre âmovie-like scenarioâ before. Her mind raced with countless questions and half-formed ideas, none of which she could fully sort out.
She gave George a look, signaling him to continue. She wanted to hear everything that had happened on the giant ship first before trying to piece together the full picture.
George nodded. âAfter leaving the captainâs cabin, we immediately went to the bridge. Everything there was in perfect conditionâthe instrument panels were lit, the radar and radio were all functioning. However, the radio could only receive messages from the Mary Jane; it couldnât connect to the outside world. A crew member checked the engine parameters and said the shipâs propulsion system appeared fully operational, so the Golden Anchor was entirely capable of normal navigationâŚâ
âCrewman Donnie found the voyage recorder. It showed that after leaving the port of Yanifly State, the ship had followed the ocean current southwest, passed Guadalupe Island, and then stopped on the way to the Lane Islands. The recorderâs log ended there. Donnie dismantled the device to check it, and he said it was working perfectly. But this still doesnât explain why a massive cruise ship, which should have been somewhere in the Pacific, appeared here, all the way in the Atlantic.â
Perhaps worried that Everly wouldnât understand, the captain brought over a nautical chart and pointed out the route for her.
âLook,â the captain said, pointing on the chart, âweâre here, and the Lane Islands are over there. A whole continent lies between the two. Under normal circumstances, the Golden Anchor shouldnât have been able to appear on the East Coast. Thereâs another thing I canât wrap my head around: thirteen years ago, on the shipâs maiden voyage, its planned route was southwest, passing through the Lane Islands and continuing onward, heading straight for the Tuvalu IslandsâŚâ He gestured as he spoke.
âIf the voyage recorder didnât make a mistake, the ship never went off course. But after the Golden Anchor disappeared, Carnival Company sent out countless search boats, scouring the surrounding watersâand they still couldnât find it. Itâs so strange⌠truly bizarre!â
Just like the captain, the eight explorers on the massive cruise ship were haunted by one baffling mystery after another, their spines tingling with unease.
Because the atmosphere aboard the ship was so eerie and the mental strain so great, they had hurried their exploration. They roughly checked every accessible area, confirmed the ship was completely empty, and quickly left.
What happened next was exactly as Everly had heard: one crew member accidentally fell into the sea while evacuating and was bitten on the leg by some kind of monstrous fish.
The ship had a doctor, so the crew member was taken to the infirmary and treated promptly. The doctor, experienced and skilled, cleaned and stitched the wound, then administered antibiotics and a tetanus antitoxin.
Given the crew memberâs physical condition, he should have recovered quicklyâmaybe a slight fever, then fully healed.
But the next morning, when the doctor pulled back the curtain to check on him, she witnessed a scene that made her blood run cold.
The crew member, Dali, had transformed into a monster.
In just one night, this crew memberâknown for his excellent reputation and well-liked among the shipâs staffâhad transformed from a human into a complete, unrecognizable monster.
âThis is actually the main reason I brought you here, Miss Everly,â the captain said, his voice strained. âIâve heard that some witches are highly skilled at concocting potions with unusual effects. Perhaps you can help us⌠help turn Crewman Dali back to his original form.â
With that, he led Everly into the infirmary next door.
Pulling back the partition around the bed, Everly saw a creature that defied description.
Its entire body was covered in a slightly yellowed, translucent slime, dripping wet and soaking the bed beneath it. Under the slime was a twisted, elongated body, somewhat like a worm with legs, yet also resembling some kind of octopus.
There was no doubt it was alive. The elongated creature writhed smoothly across the bed, opening and closing its lips, making tiny bubbling sounds, a distorted âah⌠ahâŚâ
At the head, the faint outline of a human skull remainedâbut the cranial bones were either shattered or dissolved. The crew memberâs head had been stretched into a long, rounded shape, almost like cream squeezed from a piping bag.
Even the facial features had been distorted along with it. The eyes were slanted, narrow slits pointing upward, each containing a round, fish-like eyeball that stared at everyone at the bedside with a cold, eerie gaze.
Those eyes alone were unsettling, and when paired with the completely deformed nose and a mouth lined with jagged teeth pointing outward, the scene was already horrifying enough to make oneâs spine tingle.
And yet, as if that werenât enough, there was still a more nauseating, stomach-churning sight further downâŚ
Below the neck, Daliâs body had completely transformed into some kind of mollusk-like creature. His torso twisted unnaturally 180 degrees, sprawled on the bed in a horrifying and grotesque posture. His arms hung limply over the bed rails, gradually elongating from the wrists into slender, tentacle-like appendages lined with suction cups, coiling and clinging to the metal bars.
The further the transformation went, the more extreme it became. By the time it reached the lower half of his body, Dali could no longer even wear pants. His legs had fully turned into a dozen or more long tentacles, each tipped with hooked, sharp teeth.
The air was thick with an unbearable stench of decay and blood. The visual impact was overwhelming, and it was clearly the first time George and the others had ever seen Dali like this.
George was the first to lose his composure. Covering his mouth, he bolted toward the bathroom. Not long after, the sound of retching and gagging could be heard from inside.
ââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââ
Authorâs Note:
Some sources of inspiration for this dungeon:
The movie Event Horizon
The legend of the ghost ship Mary Celeste
The movie Ghost Ship
Other inspirations will be revealed laterâno spoilers for now.