Despite the calm, however, there was an air of increased alertness amongst the others in the crew, their demeanor wasn’t as relaxed as it had been. They spent less time below deck, except for Lucas who spent more, and I noticed that Elma had brought up literal weapons from somewhere. A heavy, rust colored but still sleek machete that was either new or very well cared for sat on a rack next to the door below decks.

“We aren’t watching for anything in particular, but we’re getting deeper in the ocean.” First Mate told me, “This is going to be the longest stretch of our journey, maybe a month of sailing, and the deeper we go the stranger things can get.”

“You keep saying that. ‘Things get stranger deeper in’.”

“Because its true. It doesn’t stop getting weirder.”

“That’s fair, I suppose.” I said, and then, “The Water Folk live out here.”

“Sure. They’ve got a few settlements. But in all my time sailing I’ve only had a serious problem with the Water Folk once. I’m not worried about them as much as other things that might be lurking out here.”

Eventually we left the starry water behind, and things came to a semblance of normalcy, at least until Putrice.

Putrice was, apparently, a continent that existed in the Ocean. Our first sign of it was a rancid smell, like a festering wound. When I first stepped onto the deck I nearly gagged. Hawthorn, as usual, Melody and First Mate were there, looking grim.

“No wonder we didn’t see any Water Folk.” First Mate said, “Nothing to catch with Putrice on the surface.”

“Hey, Sam.” Melody said, as I held my shirt to my face. “I can see you’re appreciating Putrice’s delicate aroma wafting our way..”

“Putrice? I know that name. You’ve talked about it before, I think.”

“Ha! Your remember that?” Melody grinned at me. “When we were in Super Walmart I mentioned that it’s where Hawthrown and First Mate caught the blood fever Dengue.

“Oh. Good. And we’re coming up on it, are we? I think I’ll just stay below decks for a few days.”

“We aren’t going to land on Putrice.” First Mate said, “Not if we can help it.”

“Though to be fair sometimes we can’t.”

“You seem surprised it's here. Is it not usually?” Maybe it wasn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised at this point.

“No, it’s always here, but sometimes it’s underwater. When it is, that's fine, not much bother except for Mushdrakes, but when it comes up all the things on it that need water to live die and rot, and when things rot on Putrice, they rot. Hence the smell. It must have surfaced recently, or we would have heard about it in Adler’s Grave.”

“And I’m guessing that so long as we stay away from the shore it’ll all be fine and it's a tiny island so we’ll sail past it quickly.” I said,

Melody barked a rough laugh and walked away.

“You do have a sense of humor, Sam.”

Putrice wasn’t a tiny island. The smell grew worse and worse, until I finally saw it. It wasn’t an island. It was a continent, a rank, blasted continent. I couldn’t see it well from where we were, but odd, fuzzy looking pillars rose from the brown and grey landscape. The water around the ship was occasionally suffused with what seemed to be brown plant matter that had partially liquified.

On the second day, when Putrice ran off and on to the horizon ahead and behind us on the starboard side, the entire crew was gathered in the Bridge by First Mate.

I’d never been in the bridge before, so I couldn’t stop myself from scanning the room that First Mate commanded us all from.

At first glance it looked like the bridge of any other ship. There were a trio of cushy chairs facing the wide front window, an array of buttons and knobs spread out before whoever might occupy them. The floor was a thin green carpet pulled over metal, and there was a small coffee machine on a table near the door. But then you noticed the weird. There was an upside down gramophone on the ceiling except it didn’t have any place for a disc to play, just a bunch of USB ports. The chairs had straps and looked like you could trap a madman in them, keeping his arms and legs bound, his head strapped down so he couldn’t bite or spit, and some of the buttons on the dashboard were huge and made of wood, and on the one closest to me someone had, in permanent marker and a large, childish hand, written ‘Snail Drop’.

“Selimy says that we’ve for a storm coming up on us. Fast.”

“What’ll the sky be dropping on us? Something shitty if you’ve brought us all up here.” Elma said,

“Just good ol’ snow.” She said. I almost objected that it was at least 90 degrees out here, but realized that who, honestly, cared? Certainly not the Ocean, or whatever passed for the laws of physics around here. “But it’ll be a blizzard.”

Selimy, the crew member I saw the least, as she was almost always on the bridge during the voyage, was nodding her head and didn’t stop when First Mate finished talking. She just kept bobbing her greasy head like a dipping bird.

“The winds will be strong.” First Mate said,

“11 on the Beaufort scale!” Selimy sang.

“70 miles and hour wind.” First Mate said, probably for my benefit, as I was the only ones whose face didn’t tighten when Selimy said that. Well, except for Thatch, of course.

“And you’re happy about that, why?” I asked Selimy?

She turned her face to me and stared at me without her eyes in that weird way she had.

“I’m just in a good mood.” She shrugged, “Sometimes it happens.”

“So---” First Mate began.

“So we’re setting ashore!” Hawthorn said, “Wow. Great. It’s not like we learned our lesson last time, when you and I were bleeding from every orifice, First Mate.”

“I’m not risking the crew to a storm like this. No way, no how. It’s gonna hurt, but it's not going to last long. We’re getting everyone on land and then we’ll do what we need to do. The ice should help with the rot. Maybe. I’m no rot expert, but don’t things decompose slower in the cold?”

Nobody was fond of the idea of stopping on Putrice, but First Mate had made her decision. I didn’t like it either, but I couldn’t say I was surprised. A hellish rot scape that everyone was scared to go to? Of course we’d be heading there. Why wouldn’t we be? I had already thought myself jaded, but this trip was proving I had a lot more crystalizing to do.

The smell only got worse as we approached land. Thatch had begun handing out Respirators and snow gear. I put on the bulky, bright red cold weather gear, ‘Just in case you fall over board we can spot you real easy’ Elma had told me, and I immediately began to sweat. And though I could see the dark storm on the horizon now, it was still at least 97 degrees. If the storm didn’t come soon we’d all be in danger of heat stroke.

I put the respirator on when I got my first good look at Putrice. The pillars I’d seen were made of stone, but were covered in some sort of long leafed vegetation that was now losing the fight against gravity and turning grey. The ground, what was once sea floor, evidently, was dead. There had been plant life there, too, but it had sunk into what looked like clinging, thick grey mud. Even through the respirator I could taste the stink on the air.

“Putrice, in all its rotting glory.” Hawthorn said. He didn’t sound happy.

There was a sloppy grinding sound, as all the boat suddenly hit the shore. The mud parted before us, but we were grinding against something beneath it.

“That can’t be good for the boat.” I said,

“The Befuddled is a ship,” Thatch corrected me, staring over the side at the mud flowing around the boat. Breaking the surface of the mud caused more foulness to erupt up the side of the boat, and I had to remind myself it would be a bad idea to puke inside this face mask. “And It’s not, but it can take it.”

“How is it going to get farther up the---” And then all of a sudden I felt my apprehension, my fear, bleed away.

“I see.” I said. It only lasted a few minutes, we made it a short way onto the ground in Putrice, the mud apparently deep enough that the Befuddled didn’t simply tip over. I noticed with a bland, clear logic that we were setting ashore behind some sort of low hill. Perhaps that would protect us from the worst of the winds.

When the emotion machine was turned off, First Mate called out the rest of us.

“Everyone on the deck! We’re buckling down before the storm hits! It’s gonna get cold, so be ready! I don’t know if this is the precursor of a cold snap or if it’s just an aberrant storm, so don’t take off your gear! If anyone wants to watch the show from the bridge, your more than welcome to join me, but when it passes we need to drop down, assess any damage done, then get the fuck out of here as fast as possible.”

Elma decided to head into the kitchen, Quiver retreated into the hold, while Lucas didn’t want to leave his precious engines during a dangerous time like this. Selimy yawned, did a few stretches, and then headed for bed. So it was just me, Melody, First Mate and Thatch on the Bridge when the storm hit.

And hit it did.

I thought someone was screaming, at first, when the wind started whistling past us. Bursts of white snow exploded into my range of vision, and the temperature dropped suddenly, what I assumed were the heaters of the Befuddled gave a rattling ‘cough’ as they came online and began trying to pump warm air into the rapidly freezing bridge. Soon enough I could no longer see the polluted shoreline of Putrice. It was a complete and utter white out. The ship creaked but didn’t move, despite the wind. I shoved my hands into my pockets, my eyes going wider as I tried to peer into the snow. I approached the window of the bridge. I could barely see the deck. And then, suddenly, something smashed into it.

Like a stone dropped from on high, a long, spindly creature landed on the deck of the ship. It was big, my size, perhaps a little larger. It had eight legs and a double segmented body. It’s carapace was blue, and might have been clear had I been able to get a closer look, not that I wanted that. It was… a spider made from ice. It wasn’t quite anatomically correct. It had no eyes and it was far too blocky, geometric, with straight lines and edges, to be a natural creature, but there was no way you call it anything else. Coming from its rear end was some sort of web, woven into a crystalline parachute. It was caught in the wind, trying frantically to blow away, but the spider things claws had dug into the metal of the ship and I could hear the sound of tearing metal as it clung to it against the wind. It looked around itself, its movements predatory, but it apparently saw nothing and didn’t care to search further, because it let go a moment later and was sucked back into the air by its parachute and the wind of the storm.

“Elementals.” First Mate said, her eyes glassy as she stared out the window. “Damn am I glad we aren’t in the water right now.”

It wasn’t the only one. I saw the shapes of more spider things being pulled along by the wind, high above us, or uncomfortably close to the ship on their crystalline spiderweb parachutes, blowing past us like comets. It was… eerie. The roar of the wind drowned out all sound but was so all pervading that my mind filtered it out into what felt almost like silence, so the spiders flew past the ship in what was, to me, utter quiet.

After an hour, and then two, and then three, the wind finally began to fade. The snow began to fall on the ship rather than pelt it, and our vision cleared to see a thick sheet of snow covering the rot of Putrice. It was almost pretty, now. Everything covered in snow was pretty.

“Well. That took longer than I’d been hoping, but it’s done now.” First Mate said, looking out into our newfound winter wonderland. "That said, I think we might be in trouble."