Case Twenty-Two, Chapter Four: Benny Brigantine's Statement
“Here they are,” Angela declared, pulling the film canister out of the drawer with the gravitas of a mare carrying a venomous serpent.
The basement of the Portsbeak Historical Society was a cluttered menagerie of exhibits that required further care, shelves groaning beneath the weight of books and binders stuffed with papers, desks piled high with paperwork, and file cabinets that appeared to have been organized by a schizophrenic. The film projector was set up in one of the few clear areas, aimed at a white screen on the wall.
Angela paused and glared at her two guests. “I warn you one last time,” she urged. “What happened to the Merry Celestia is not something that you can ever forget.”
“That’s the idea,” Autumn Blaze replied.
“I know what I’m doing,” Daring Do stated calmly.
Angela shook her head. “For your own sakes, I hope you are,” she said gravely, unspooling the film and reeling it into the projector.
Autumn Blaze snapped off the lights with a flicker of her horn as the projector buzzed to life, a flickering light beaming onto the white sheet. Angela clicked the button to advance a frame.
A blurry yellow and blue image appeared before them. “Hold on, let me adjust the focus,” Angela said, twisting the dial on the lens.
After a moment, the image became clear: a page from the ship’s log, the faded writing only barely legible against the mold-eaten pages.
“I have some special filters that might help,” Angela said, opening up a nearby box and pulling out a collection of projector lenses. She placed a pale citrus filter over the projector lens, casting the image in an orange tint that made the writing slightly more legible.
“‘Twelfth of the Moon of Rain, 1872…’” Daring read aloud. “That’s no good.”
“I’ll skip ahead to the voyage,” Angela said gravely, clicking the projector forward several frames.
Finally, she stopped and nodded. “Fifteenth of the Moon of Frost, 1872,” she reported. “The day of the voyage.”
Daring frowned. “Back it up a couple of pages,” she said. “Maybe something happened before the ship left port.”
“Right,” Angela nodded, going back two frames.
“‘Twelfth of the Moon of Frost. Port,’” Daring read out loud. “‘Double-checked cargo of denatured alcohol and ensured we have sufficient supplies. A stranger came to the docks today, looking for the next ship to Equestria. He seemed anxious about something: insisted he had to get to Canterlot as soon as possible. First mate was suspicious, but the stallion was willing to pay upfront and we need the coin. We’ll still be in Vanhoover within a month; this changes nothing.’”
“This captain…what was his name?” Autumn checked Daring’s Sunken Treasures and Ships book, which was set on a nearby table, and opened to the chapter on the Merry Celestia. “Benny Brigantine…clearly never heard of tempting fate.”
Daring let out a thoughtful hum and nodded for Angela to click to the next page.
Fifteenth of the Moon of Frost, 1872. 6:13 AM. Leaving port for Vanhoover. Cargo and passenger secured, crew in high spirits. Second mate seemed worried about something; said that he had a bad feeling about this.
12:02 PM. 42°47’ N 60°01’ W. Heading due east. Wind from the east slowing us slightly. Passenger is remaining in his cabin except for meals, doesn’t speak to the others much. Still expected to be in Vanhoover on schedule.
Daring frowned in thought. “You got a map of the Lunar Bay somewhere?” she asked Angela. “As small a scale as you can get it.”
The curator frowned and started rummaging through a stack of loose papers and maps. “I think I’ve got one here somewhere…”
“Aha!” Autumn’s horn lit up crimson and she telekinetically plucked a collection of charts of the Lunar Bay from the midst of the pile. She flipped through them and then held one up that showed the region between Portsbeak and Vanhoover. “That work?”
“Perfect. Tack it up here,” Daring said, pulling out an unused bulletin board and grabbing a nearby box of tacks.
Autumn and Daring tacked the chart up onto the board and Daring grabbed another tack. “Forty-two degrees, forty-seven minutes north…sixty degrees, one minute west…” she murmured, hovering her hoof over the chart for a few moments before placing the tack on the correct spot. She used a sticky note to label the tack “11/15 1201.”
“Hmm,” Daring mused. “Do you have weather almanacs for the Bay?” she asked.
“Going all the way back to 1790,” Angela replied.
“Autumn, go upstairs and grab the almanac for 1872,” Daring instructed. “And see if you can find anything else on the Celestia or the Gloria. Details on the ship’s design, crew, passenger lists, anything.”
“Aye-aye!” Autumn chirped with a salute before hurrying upstairs. Angela followed her up, shaking her head.
Daring took the remote and clicked forward to the next page.
5:32 PM. 41°12’ N, 58°33’ W, proceeding east. Sundown was at 5:12 PM. Progress slowed by unexpected southern wind. Weather should clear by tomorrow.
Sixteenth of the Moon of Frost. 6:33 AM. 40°55’ N, 58°32’ W, proceeding east. Several members of the crew appeared to have had trouble sleeping last night; grumbling of nightmares and odd noises. I won’t tell them, but something woke me up at three this morning; had a terrifying feeling that something was in the room watching me, but it passed.
12:10 PM. 40°23’ N, 58°31’ W, proceeding east. Some of the crew are whispering about the passenger, wondering where he’s from and why he was so eager to get to Canterlot. Oak said that he thought our passenger might be hexed; told him to stow that talk immediately. The last thing I need is rumors spreading around.
“Hmm,” Daring murmured, placing more tacks on the chart to mark the ship’s progress.
“We’re back!” Autumn declared, reentering the room with a stack of books held aloft next to her. “I got the weather almanac, port reports for Portsbeak, and the Speranza Gloria’s ship log from 1872, some shipping information, and some books on local legends from around that time. Might be useful.”
“Nice job, Autumn,” Daring said, claiming a nearby table as her own and spreading out the almanac and other books on it. She immediately went to the port reports and fanned through them until she got to the Moon of Frost.
“Fifteen, fifteen…” she muttered, dragging a hoof across the pages. “Here it is. ‘Merry Celestia, cargo of denatured alcohol. Captain, Benny Brigantine…’” She scowled. “Damn. Doesn’t mention the passenger.”
“Maybe they didn’t know about it. So, what have you been reading?” Autumn asked, taking a seat in a swivel chair and spinning around.
“I think the tale of the Merry Celestia is about to get to the good part,” Daring said, clicking to the next frame and ignoring Angela’s frustrated scoff.
The next few pages detailed the ship’s journey through the bay; nothing out of the ordinary was reported save for continuing bad dreams and general unease from the crew and unusual wind and weather patterns that sought to slow them down and push them off course. Daring continued to mark the ship’s progress with tacks.
“Yeah, I totally see why you didn’t want anypony to read this,” Autumn stated as Daring placed another tack on the board. “Bad dreams and ship’s coordinates are terrifying.”
“Just wait,” Angela muttered darkly as Daring went to the next page.
Eighteenth of the Moon of Frost, 7:33 AM. 38°34’ N, 57°33’ W, proceeding southeast. Heavy wind from the south and unexpected dense fog bank rolling in. Carpenter mentioned that he heard whispering in the bilge when he went down to check for leaks. The crew’s whispering is getting louder and it’s getting harder to quash the rumors. The passenger’s hiding in the cabin as much as possible; I can’t tell the crew this, but it is starting to worry me.
9:27 AM. Entered the fog bank; can barely see the sun anymore. I heard voices in the bilge, too, but there was no one there. I think the crew is getting to me.
2:54 PM. Got out of the fog bank, but now the second mate is gone. The last time we all saw him was at lunch; no one’s seen him since. We’ve searched the entire ship top to bottom; his cabin is as he left it and both of the lifeboats are accounted for. The entire crew is on edge now; half of them are saying that they saw faces glaring at them in the fog.
Did he jump overboard? Why would Astrolabe do that? He wasn’t suicidal, as far as I know, and aside from some strange dreams, this voyage is completely normal. I need to have a talk with the crew to quash these rumors before they get out of hoof.
“Ah,” Autumn admitted as Daring put another tack on the chart and added a label reading Fog. “I think I’m starting to see the problem.”
Nineteenth of the Moon of Frost, 7:21 AM. 40°9’ N, 58°2’ W, proceeding south-southeast. Must’ve gotten turned around in the fog. Got the crew on full sail getting us back on track. Slept badly last night; I dreamed that I saw Astrolabe leading me out onto the deck. He looked at me and said ‘We shouldn’t be here’ and jumped overboard. I turned and saw the passenger staring at me from the stern and calmly jumped over as well, sinking into the sea. Dreamed that something was laughing and snarling at me. Watch told me he heard the second mate calling to him last night.
We shouldn’t have taken that passenger on.
Did I write that?
Daring put another tack on the map with a frown. “Wow, they got really turned around in that fog,” she said, noting the wide distance between the last two tacks.
8:51 AM. Heard a horrible scream from the deck. Came out to find that Bowline had fallen from the rigging and was laying on the deck, three legs broken. He was babbling about “eyes in the sky” and “they are hungry and they’ve seen us.” The surgeon took him below deck and gave him some ether to knock him out and splinted him up as best as he could, but he’s not optimistic. From what the other crew told me, Bowline was working up on the mainsail when he suddenly started screaming and pointing up at the sky before he fell. Nopony else saw what he was looking at.
When I was talking to the surgeon, I saw the passenger watching from down the hall, but he went back into his cabin when he saw me looking. I saw something sticking out of the pocket of his cloak: some kind of amulet chain. I thought about talking to him, but--
Here there were several lines that were heavily scratched out, then it continued on the next page.
Superstitious nonsense. Accidents and paranoia, that’s all. Nothing’s going on that can’t be explained naturally. Nothing is going on. I will not have any more talk of that.
6:55 PM. 38°55’ N, 56°49’ W, proceeding southeast. Bowline died in his sleep. Surgeon can’t figure out how; assumes that there were some internal injuries he couldn’t treat. We’ll be burying him tomorrow.
Voices in my head. Can hear them if I listen. Coming from below. Laughing at me.
“An amulet?” Autumn mused, grabbing a book entitled Unsolved Mysteries of the Griffish Isles. “Why does that sound familiar…?”
Something tickled at the back of Daring Do’s mind, but she refocused on the ship’s log, continuing to post tack marks as the captain marked their continuing progress through the Lunar Bay, detailing the solemn burial of the dead crewpony, then the sudden psychosis and suicide of the first mate.
“Okay, I will admit, that’s kinda spooky,” Autumn admitted, her eyes rereading the section on the first mate attacking the surgeon and jumping overboard.
Daring skipped to the next page and frowned when she found that the page was badly tattered, the writing even more faded here than before. Entire sections were blotted out and scratched over, completely illegible.
6:04 AM. Surgeon…carvings all over room…carpenter…with his saw. Blood everywhere…
…just floating with the wind now. Crew…I’m sitting in the second mate’s cabin…that ivory pipe of his…still full of tobacco…Astrolabe to just walk back in like nothing’s wrong…hear…passenger…laughing, pleading, crying…
Stop laughing at me. Stop laughing at me. STOP LAUGHING AT ME STOP LAUGHING AT ME STOP LAUGHING AT ME
“Okay…all aboard the crazy train,” Autumn said with a slightly nervous chuckle.
Daring pondered the map, double-checking the last tack mark. “If they were just floating…need more clues.” She clicked to the next page.
12:10 PM. 37°14’ N…ing southeast…more crew vanished…talking. Another fog…need to stop this.
Gathered remaining crew…enger howled and laughed…id he’d hidden it on the ship…laughing, his guts in my hooves…hold for damn amulet…smashed open barr…no sign. Left body in cabin…still hear him…heading south to get out of fog…
“Ouch,” Daring winced. She clicked over to the next page and blinked to see the entire page was covered with oversized scrawls.
HIS FACE HIS FACE HIS FACE WAS IN THE FOG AND IT LOOKED AT ME AND LAUGHED AND THE GODS ALL LAUGHED AND ASTROLABE WAS SCREAMING
“Don’t think we’re gonna get any clues out of that,” Daring said, quickly clicking to the next page.
Twenty-fourth…5°22’...where he put that damn amulet. Crew turned out…still nothing…
Lightning from clear sky…mainsail irreparable…
Twenty-fifth…gathered the remaining three…holed below waterline…watched Celestia go down…sighted island with mountain to southwest…head there…
Crew gone. All alone.
Silence…stars wrong…
Astrolabe floated by…calling me…
I want to go home.
All the remaining pages were completely blank.
“That’s it?” Autumn asked, her face slightly paler than normal.
“That’s it,” Angela nodded. “You happy now?”
“No, because now we don’t know where the ship went down,” Autumn said.
“No, but we can narrow it down,” Daring replied, turning back to the chart. “Autumn, where’s that log from the Gloria?”
“Uh…here,” Autumn said, taking out another leatherbound book.
The entries for the Moon of Cold were easy to find: the edges of the pages were well-worn from the number of hooves that had flipped directly to the pages in question. Daring flipped all the way to the Fourth of the Moon of Cold and read.
3:12 PM. 30°36’ N, 52°39’ W, proceeding west. Lookout spotted a lone lifeboat adrift in the water to starboard. Name painted on the side was “Merry Celestia.” Lifeboat was abandoned save for a tattered logbook.
Beneath was a section that was heavily scratched out, then a single, hastily scrawled line beneath it:
I tried to throw it overboard, but it wouldn’t let me. If I can’t destroy it, then I’ll keep it hidden. No one must know.
Daring placed a blue tack at the given coordinates and stepped back to ponder. “So, after they sank the ship, they headed southwest for an island with a mountain…” she said out loud, studying the chart and opening the weather and ocean almanacs. “If the lifeboat was drifting for a few days, then following the currents and the winds…” She took out a pencil and started drawing lines along the chart, muttering to herself as she calculated and recalculated.
“Aha,” she declared a moment later, tapping a set of small isles in the northern Bay. “The Isles of Ice. So the ship went down somewhere in that direction…”
She clicked back to the last few pages of the log, trying to decipher the coordinates, comparing notes with the almanacs. Autumn watched over her shoulder, offering suggestions where she could; Angela watched in dark silence.
“Okay,” Daring frowned, drawing a small circle in the chart. “It went down…somewhere around there, I think.”
“That’s still a lot of area to cover,” Autumn pointed out.
“Well, we’ll have to find it somehow,” Daring replied. “Caballeron’s probably ahead of us by now.” She paused for a moment, then turned to Autumn. “You have any idea what he’s looking for?”
"Not sure yet," Autumn mused, taking up the book of local legends. "Hey, mind if I borrow this for a while? I promise to bring it back!"
"If you think it'll help," Angela replied with a shrug.
"Thank you!" Autumn chirped, hugging the book to her chest.
Her sentence was punctuated by the growling of her stomach, prompting an embarrassed chuckle. "Break for lunch?" she asked Daring.
"I think we've learned all we can here," Daring agreed. "Thanks for the help, Angela."
"Don't thank me yet," Angela replied darkly as the duo existed. She remained in the basement, staring at the projected image of Captain Brigantine's last word on the screen.
"We might have enough to narrow down the search area," Daring said to the other three later, frowning at her notes and charts. "But we still don't know what exactly they were carrying."
Phillip glanced around from the table at the cafe where they had all met up for a late lunch. There were only a few other ponies taking advantage of the cozy cafe’s warmth and coffee, both of which were provided by an antique wood stove set behind the counter, manned by a kindly blue hippogriff matron. The other customers were all engrossed in their own business, chatting over scones or pondering crossword puzzles.
"Whatever it is, it can't be good if Caballeron wants it," he said.
"Agreed," Daring replied. "So what were you two up to all morning?"
"We managed to narrow down where their car came from," Strider replied. "Turns out it was a rental car from a town a few hours up north, Saddleshire. Biff and Withers rented the car a couple of days before the theft, but they already returned it this morning."
"Saddleshire police are trying to find them," Phillip said, taking a bite out of his sandwich and chewing thoughtfully. "But it's a pretty big town."
"Hold on..." Autumn Blaze said, opening the book of legends that she'd borrowed from the Historical Society. "Saddleshire, Saddleshire..."
The faint connection that Daring Do had made earlier finally clicked, followed by a thrill of terror. "Oh, no."
"What is it?" Phillip asked.
"Here it is," Autumn said, showing Daring a page from the book. One glance at the illustration was enough to confirm Daring's suspicions.
"The Alicorn Amulet," she said, spinning the book around so that the stallions could see. She pointed at the sketch at the top: a black angular amulet with a blood-red ruby set in the center. Decorations resembling a pony's wings and the silhouette of a horned pony's head were set around the amulet; the single eye in the head glared up at them as if judging their worth.
"No one's sure who made it or when, but the stories say that it was around when Faust was young," Daring said. "Apparently, whoever wore it was the Old Gods' 'champion' or something. The Amulet granted greatly enhanced magical power, strength, speed, healing, the works. All for the low, low price of your sanity and giving you an insatiable bloodlust."
Strider whistled. "Little wonder Sombra would want it."
"Too right," Phillip nodded. “You sure that the passenger was carrying it?” he asked.
“Caballeron--is it ‘cah-bah-lair-on’ or ‘cah-bah-yehr-on?’” Autumn mused. “Anyway, ‘Cabayerron’s’ thugs were in Saddleshire before they came here, right?”
“Right,” Phillip nodded.
“Well, not far from Saddleshire is Maredale Green,” Autumn explained, pulling out a local map. She tapped the village of Saddleshire, a mere day’s travel from Portsbeak, then moved her hoof to a great patch of brown to the north of Saddleshire.
“A hundred years ago, Maredale Green was a thriving village,” Daring explained. “Then all of a sudden, the entire place just died. The land became infertile, a plague hit, storms and floods…the entire population was killed and no one’s lived there since the late 1870s.”
“Right around the same time as the Merry Celestia,” Strider observed.
“Which makes me think that the legend of the curse might just be real,” Daring said.
She glanced around to make sure that nopony else was listening in, then leaned in and lowered her voice.
“According to rumors and hearsay, the trouble all started when the wearer of the Alicorn Amulet, the last ‘champion,’ was killed by the villagers of Maredale Green in his sleep around 1870. And that’s when the land became infertile and the plagues and storms hit.”
“And you think it was a curse after the champion was killed?” Strider asked.
“Seems to be,” Daring replied. “The passenger on the Celestia was eager to get to Canterlot: I’d bet that he was trying to bring the amulet to the Princesses to see if they could help.”
“And we know how that turned out,” Autumn cut in with a little shiver. "So what's the plan now?"
"Local police here and in Saddleshire will still look for Biff and Withers," Phillip grunted. "Don't expect them to find them easily."
“Which means that we should go on the offensive,” Daring said.
“You’re going to say that we should go looking for the Celestia and find the amulet before they do,” Phillip grumbled.
“It’s what they’re going to do,” Daring Do pointed out. “If Autumn and I could figure it out in the span of a few hours, they probably have a huge head start on us. Any of you three scuba certified?”
“I am,” Strider nodded.
“Went diving at the Barrier Reef as a kid,” Phillip said. “Haven’t been diving in years, though.”
“It’s just like riding a bike,” Daring said encouragingly, then turned to Autumn.
“Uh…” Autumn rubbed the back of her mane. “I’m an okay swimmer, but I’m…not that great with deep water. I don't like not being able to see the bottom. Sorry.”
“No worries,” Phillip said, patting her shoulder.
“We’ll need to find a boat that can get us out there,” Daring said, unfurling the sea chart and frowning at the circular area where their ghost ship had gone down. “Preferably something with a sonar. And high-end diving gear, rope, lamps…”
“And let me guess,” Strider sighed. “I’m the one who’s going to be paying for most of it.”
“You are the one that has Princess Celestia writing his checks,” Daring smirked.
Strider rolled his eyes. “This is gonna be fun to explain to my SAC.”
Caballeron looked up from the ship’s log at the sound of rapidly approaching hoofsteps. “Withers, mi amigo. I have the feeling you’re about to tell me something bad,” he commented as the blind stallion hustled into the work room.
“The cops in Saddleshire are snooping around, boss,” Withers panted, adjusting his sunglasses and wiping his forehead. “They know about the rental car. Daring and that snoop husband are behind it."
Caballeron let out a thoughtful hum, glancing from the tattered yellowed pages to his pad of notes to the extensively marked chart of the Lunar Bay on the easel next to him.
His eyes then went out the window. Dangling from a crane was a dark blue speedboat; some of his henchponies were busily loading scuba gear, diving equipment, and other necessary tools into the boat, filling the fuel tanks. Biff was standing in the back of the boat, working through a checklist of materials. He doffed his fedora and wiped sweat off his brow, mulling over his task as he looked out over the edge of their cloud house headquarters at the setting sun sinking beneath the Lunar Bay.
“It’s safe to assume that those two will also be looking for the wreck,” he mused out loud. “So…we’ll just have to find it first.”
“Or take it from them,” Withers added.
Caballeron grinned. “I always liked the way you think, mi amigo.”
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I think this is my favorite chapter so far. And yes, it has everything to do with the creepy journal entries.
It took until the note at the end of this to get the Mary Celeste - Merry Celestia pun...
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I suppose it's not immediately obvious.
Originally, the Merry Celestia was going to be discovered floating and seemingly abandoned, just like the Mary Celeste, but that didn't work out the way I wanted it to, so I changed it to the captain deliberately sinking it.
Nice! Creepy journal entries and an adventure at sea. Looking forward to what happens next.
That was awesome
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Thank you! I hope that the upcoming chapters are appropriately creepy!