Mingi POV
I wake up because I feel someone moving next to me. It's Yeosang. He notices, smiles and waves at me before he sneaks off to the bathroom.
Should I go to sleep again? Nobody else is awake yet. I decide to stay awake and go out into the garden.
I enjoy the first rays of the morning sun for a bit before I check on our laundry. It is dry now but also covered in a thin layer of dust from the dessert. Well it's still cleaner than it was before. I take it the laundry off of the rope, shake it a little to get at least some of the dust off and bring it inside. Seonghwa wakes up too and starts helping me.
Once everyone is awake, washed and dressed, we put our blankets and pillows to the side and eat breakfast with the others. We help Bumjoong with the dishes before he, his girlfriend, Sbosio and Haneul have to go to work.
"Until later, sis. Hope you'll have good day.", San says and hugs his sister.
"Thanks. See you!"
"By the way. It would be nice if you could clean the house until we're back.", Bumjoong says to his younger brother.
"But we need to go to the library."
"You are eight people. It won't take long. Everything you need is under the stairs. See you later!"
Hongjoong sighs.
"He is right it's pretty dusty in here.", Seonghwa comments. The captain looks at him annoyed and walk towards the storage room under the stairs.
Seonghwa, Yeosang, Wooyoung and I clean downstairs while the rest is upstairs. Seonghwa is cleaning the floor while the rest of us are dusting off the furniture. Jongho comes down with two capets in his hand.
"We should shake out the carpets too.", he says.
"Yeosang you can do that.", Seonghwa states.
After a while Wooyoung dramatically lays down on the sofa.
"I have no nerve for this. Why does this house need to be so big?", he whines.
"Were almost done. There are only two shelves left.", I say.
"Yeah you're right. So you won't take very long for you to clean them."
"Hey, don't be lazy. Get up and help me."
Wooyoung pretends to not have heard me and yawns loudly. This little brat! I don't want to clean the shelves alone. I'll just snitch to Seonghwa.
"Hwa, Wooyoung is slacking off. He doesn't want to help me.", I say to the older crewmate who is scrubbing the kitchen floor.
He sighs and goes to Wooyoung in the living room.
"Hey, stop being lazy and help Mingi.", he commands.
"No!"
Seonghwa starts nudging Wooyoung with the back of his broom.
"Ahh, stop it. I will help."
"Good."
Seonghwa goes back to the kitchen.
Wooyoung holds out his hand to me in an expectation to help him get up. I take his hand and he immediately pulls me towards him. He hugs me but then he bites my shoulder.
"Ouch!", I exclaim.
"That's for snitching."
After we are done with cleaning, we go to the marketplace. We buy something to eat that we take with us to library. We have to ask a few people where the library is since we forgot to ask Bumjoong about it. After a bit of searching we finally find it.
We enter through the big wooden door. After walking through a short corridor we reach the reception. It seems like this library is only half the size if the one in Muelstatt but definitely bigger than the one in Vretefokl. It is split between books in Wajasi's language and books in our language. The latter is definitely the smaller section.
"Hello. How can I help you?", the receptionist asks.
"We are searching for information on monks that lived near Coel Wajasi and books about sailing in difficult weather conditions.", the captain says.
"Wait let me see... books about sailing are on the second floor, bookshelf 12. For the monks you should look at bookshelf 21 on this floor."
"Thank you."
We decide to go searching for the book about monks first. We go through the rows of bookshelves, searching for the one that has written 21 on the side of it. We find the bookshelf in left corner. Under the number 21 stands "The history of religion".
"It will take a bit to look through the shelf and find books that might help us.", Joong states.
I focus on the top row. I slowly read through the book titles until I get to a book that is called "The monks of Wajasi.".
"Yeosang can you step aside?", I say then I step forward and stand on the tips of my toes to reach the book.
"What did you find, Mingi?", Jongho asks.
"The monks of Wajasi."
"Oh, that sounds like it could be helpful.", Hongjoong comments.
"I also found, what was it... The his.. tory... of... mou.. monks.", San reads out loud.
"Hmm maybe that can help us."
"It doesn't seem like there's anything more of interest here, let's move on to the sailing books.", Seonghwa states.
We take the two books with us and go upstairs. It takes a few minutes until we find shelf twelve. It's labeled as "Books about sailing". Again we look through the shelf row by row.
"Sailing in different weather conditions. Could that be helpful?", Yunho asks.
"Maybe. It can't hurt to take it with you.", Hongjoong replies.
There is nothing interesting in the row I looked through.
"Exploring the edges of Wolkmaar. A book with sailing tips and adventures by P. Edeen. It also has a chapter about Wajasi. Maybe this Edeen can help us?", Yeosang says with a smile on his face.
"Uh, that sounds promising.", Wooyoung comments.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good one.", Joong adds.
"Look there is a children's book about sailing with lots of colorful pictures.", San exclaims and excitedly shows us the book.
"That's not why were here, Sannie.", I remind him.
"But it's cute."
San pouts and seems offended that no one is interested in the book he found.
"I found another one that might be helpful. How to prepare your ship for extreme weather conditions.", Seonghwa says.
"Very good. Let's look through these ones for now.", Hongjoong utters.
We stroll over to the reading area of the library where we sit down in a quiet spot directly under the window.
We put all of the books on the table and take out the food that we bought earlier. While looking through the books, we quietly eat our lunch.
First we look through "The history of monks". Hongjoong quickly skips to the part that is about Wajasi. We read through it together. It tells how the first temple in Wajasi was founded and how they built an second one later on. The book rambles on about different events that were significant, that only very few people in Wajasi are interested in religion and ends on how they disappeared most likely due to the island having a problem with tornadoes at the time.
"This book was so boring and it didn't even help us. I hope the next one is more interesting.", Wooyoung rambles.
Really? I thought it was interesting.
We move on to "The monks of Wajasi".
The book doesn't have a table of contents, so we slowly flip through the pages and look for something that can help us on our adventure. It starts with the everyday life of the monks. There is also a segment that talks about the clothes. Just as Hongjoong flips the page something cathes my eye.
"Go back, go back! I think I read something interesting.", I exclaims.
Hongjoong goes back to the previous page. I scan the page for the paragraph that stood out to me. There it is! I point with my finger on it and start reading:
"The accessories were different depending on the position of the monk. The monks in higher positions wore a blueish necklace that had a clear stone that sparkled in rainbow colours on it.
This is probably the necklace that Yeosang is wearing."
"Yeah that's interesting but still doesn't help us with the key.", Hongjoong says.
We finally get to a timeline of events that happened to the monks. It's very similar to what the previous book told us but the chapter after it is about the research that the person to find out what happened to the monks.
"I found a diary in the abandoned temple at the southern border of Wajasi. It tells us that they were visited by other monks. The time period is the same as the time of the estimated destruction of the other temple. According to the diary they stayed at the temple for about a year before they, according to the diary, sailed eastwards to build a new temple. This is however just one of the many speculations about the whereabouts of the monks of northern Wajasi."
"So if they really had the key then it might really be in the east now.", Yunho concludes.
"Yeah it might be. But it isn't sure that these monks were the ones from the temple near Coel Wajasi. Plus the key isn't mentioned anywhere.", Jongho argues.
"Well the east is still our best bet. 98% of Wajasi's ruins are already explored and nothing like the key was found. My gut just really tells me that it is there.", the captain explains.
"Then let's see how we can get there.", San say and hands Hongjoong one of the sailing books.
We look through it but don't really find anything. While it tells us how we can prepare our ship for stronger winds it also mentions that these only work up to a certain wind intensity.
The second book "Sailing through different weather conditions" is a little more helpful. It tells us techniques which can help us avoid whirlwinds, but it still doesn't help us with the generally strong winds and the sand that makes it almost impossible to see.
The last book is the one by P. Edeen who as we find out is a cartographer and adventurer. It is surprisingly also only three years old.
We skip to the part that is about Wajasi and start reading. The first pages are about his adventures in the northern and southern parts of Wajasi and not really relevant for us, except for the last few sentences.
"I managed to clear a blocked path to the basement of the southern temple. It seems like no one was here in centuries."
He then lists a few things that he found there.
"Lastly I found a study room with a painted wall. It describes a way into the east. Apparently there are gaps of lighter air streams between the strong winds and whirlwinds but they constantly change. The monks have written down where the gaps will be depending on the month, in which quarter of the month you are in and the wind direction. Though you still have to be a little bit careful with whirlwinds. Unfortunately I couldn't write down everything, only the ones that were relevant for me but if you want to explore the east you can go to the temple and take a look at it yourself.
Two weeks later I started my journey to the east and with the information from the temple successfullly made it through the wind wall, even though I almost got sucked into a whirlwind that was close to the edge of the wind gap."
In the rest of the chapter he decribed how he mapped the area and wants to return for a more in-depth exploration of it. We conclude that we most likely got an copy of the map he made.
"Seems like we will need to visit the second temple.", Yunho asserts.
"That's really far in the south. We will need to prepare ourselves and the ship for it.", Hongjoong says.
"I am surprised that your brother didn't know about the book and it also doesn't seems like a lot of people tried to follow his instructions otherwise people would have heard of it.", Wooyoung utters.
"Maybe the author isn't well known and neither the title nor the summary on the back state that the book contains instructions on how to get into the east.", Yeosang explains.
"Either way we need to get there. Hopefully we will really find this painted wall there.", Jongho states.
Hongjoong writes down everything that we found out in his notebook before we bring back the books to their place. We leave the library. Before we go back to Bumjoong's house, we decide to relax at the oasis for a bit. I sit down and lay my head on Seonghwa's shoulder.
"Tired?", he asks.
"A bit."
"Are you also excited to sail to east and explore an area that very few people have been to?"
I feel my stomach ache at the thought of it. All the dangers that we could run into and not to mention the dangerous way to get there, it makes me feel a bit sick.
"I am nervous. What if we don't make it there? And we don't really know what's on the other side besides that there are a lot of ruins. But we don't know what's in them. What if a ghost attacks us again?"
"Hmm... I mean yes, the unknown is definitely scary but Hongjoong has been doing these things since he is a child. I trust him. I think as long as we stick together we'll be fine, we can all rely on each other.
I'm just trying to enjoy everything. I also have nothing to loose, I already lost everything.
I maybe wouldn't even mind if I died.", he utters though the last sentence is almost a whisper.
"I would mind it a lot."
"Hey, why do you two look so depressed?", Yunho suddenly shouts.
"Come, let's build a sand castle together.", San exclaims.
Wooyoung runs towards us with water in his hands.
"Maybe they just need to be refreshed.", he says and then splashes water in our face.
I laugh and try to shield myself with my arm. Seonghwa doesn't seem to be very amused and chases after the naughty boy.
Yeosang convinces our captain to join us and we end up building a giant sandcastle together. Okay it was actually quite small. After an hour we decide to go because Wooyoung's and Yeosang's eyes start to hurt a little bit.
Back at Bumjoong's house Haneul tells us what did at work today while the brothers, Wooyoung and Seonghwa make dinner.
We decide to eat in the garden today.
"Where you successful in the library today?", Bumjoong asks.
"Yes. It seems like we need to sail southwards next. According to this one book there should be information on how to get past the strong winds in the temple there.", Hongjoong tells.
"Really, I thought they already looked through the temple and didn't find anything interesting."
"The author is an adventurer and found a way into the basement where he found a complex drawing that describes a way to the east. He must have been here only a few years ago. The book was released 3 years ago.", Jongho adds.
"Well, I never heard about it. What is the author's name?"
"P.Edeen."
"Haven't heard of him."
"I do. Met him maybe 5 years ago. He is also a cartographer. He sold a few maps here and also made map for the king. I am not sure what he maped for him. He was a very nice guy. Very educated too. He later returned. Apparently he told a few people that he managed to map a part of the east. Of course no one believed him. Soon after he left the city to go on the next adventure.", Sbosio recalls.
"Well, he doesn't sound like a reliable source."
"It's all that we have and it doesn't hurt to check it out.", Hongjoong says.
"When will you leave then?"
"I don't know yet. Sometime this week."
"Well, we have to go to an excavation in three days. So you should maybe also go then."
"Sure."
We finish our dinner wash the dishes. Play a little bit around in the garden and then go to bed.
I am a bit nervous to leave. It's really nice here. So calm and safe. No one that is trying to attack us and no traps that are trying to kill you. We will see how it goes. I am lowkey hoping that we won't find anything in the temple, so we won't sail into scary unknown territory.