The Vasty Deep and a Golden Coin [Completed]

[Yukki Kazuto]

I stepped out of the gate leading to the Endless Dunes and into the Nexus. It looked as empty as ever, with a few primes going in and out of the Coruscant and Camelot gates, and what looked like a prime or two at the fountain that I had been reborn at. Not really caring for the world around me, I began my walk across the Nexus towards the gate of the Vasty Deep. Not seeing anybody that struck me as important, I stepped into the Vasty Deep, unsure of my current plan.

When I stepped into the Deep, I had been expecting something very opposite of what the Dunes were like. I stepped into a world with a calm blue sky, fresh air, and with moderate temperatures as opposed to the constantly scorching heat of the Dunes. I was pleasantly surprised by the city I saw around me that I began to wander through.

I saw many people selling different items at seemingly high prices, obviously meant for sale to tourists. I watched what seemed to be a parade for a moment, before losing interest from not actually knowing any people or groups in the parade. As I wandered, I saw a strange man, a beggar most likely, go from person to person, trying to trade a coin for some food. He was pushed off by most people, and even when he went to a market, it seemed the natives pushed him off for some reason.

I summoned a burger and walked up to the man. He saw the food in my hand, and began frantically begging for it. He offered me the coin, which appeared to be of a decent size, and of gold, or a gold like metal. I gave him the burger, and he pushed the coin into my hand, before disappearing into the crowd. I placed the coin in my jacket pocket, and continued to explore the town. I took note of the heavy imperial presence, both in standard uniforms, and in navy uniforms.

I wandered into a park, and sat on a bench, enjoying the air. It had been a long time since I had just been able to stop and rest, to enjoy what was around me, without having to worry about running from cops, people out to kill me, or other thieves. As I sat and listened to the birds chirp, I pulled out the coin in my pocket and began to investigate it.

It appeared to be solid gold, and was decent size. It felt a little heavy for it’s size, not at all like gold coins i had dealt with in the past, but I pushed it off as a result of being in the omniverse. It was of simple design, with only a small imprinted line a centimeter or so away from the circumference, circling the coin on both sides. It was very smooth, as if it had been fastened into a coin by someone who cared much about the result of his craft, with no nicks or scratches that I could see.

I picked up a rock and hit it against the coin, listening for a vibration. It gave off a solid vibration, with no echoing sound, and not changing midway as if it was made of two substances. For all intents and purposes, it seemed like a perfectly good, solid gold coin. So, one thing bothered me about it. Why had the local merchants, who were so quick to take money from other people without a second’s thought, keep far away from this particular coin? I shrugged it off. What was their loss had turned into my gain.

I put the coin back and began thinking about what I should do now. After a small moments thought, I decided to go see the ocean, and maybe take a dip in it. I got up off the bench, and began working my way to the ocean.

[Yukki Kazuto]

I walked on the beach and took in the smell of the salty sea air. I looked into the glimmering blue ocean, looking for any signs of life. A few fish and underwater plants were found but not too awful many. I felt part of me wanting to go for a swim. I put my jacket and shoes down in the sand, and began walking into the ocean.

After walking in a few feet, about four or five, The ground turned from a slight decline into a sharp downward slope. A dove under the water, and began swimming around the, following the slope down, looking for shells and other items. For some reason, I felt an overwhelming need to swim as far down as possible. I swam further down.

Ten feet. Twenty feet. Thirty feet. At this point, the rational part of my brain was telling me to swim up, go for air, get out of the water, anything to stop me from drowning. Yet another part of me was screaming at me to go down, to go further down and never go back. Forty feet. At fifty feet, the pressure became unbearable. My vision began going black around the edges. My pants got caught on some vines and I watched the pocket tear. I saw a glimmer of gold before passing out in the water.

I regained consciousness on the beach. I turned on my side and began coughing up seawater, trying to get the foul liquid out of my lungs. After a minute or so, I had gotten most of the water out of my system, and I turned to see the people standing over me. One man who was wearing a red shirt and shorts, both with a white cross on them, stood the closest. “Is it all out?” he asked me, but his deep voice echoed through my head, and I felt a sharp pain pass through my head, but it stopped immediately.

I nodded, and he breathed a sigh, presumably of relief. “I watched you go in, and was curious. Not many people stroll up, take off clothes, and immediately jump into the water. When you didn’t come up, I was worried. I’m honestly amazed that you’re alive. You were so deep, and you were dead on the beach for several minutes before you became responsive and started breathing again.” He said this all in a rush, as if the adrenaline from saving me from drowning was still going through his system and it was still affecting him.

I moved to sit up, and he grabbed under my arm and began to pull me up. A stormtrooper that had been helping keep the prying crowd away from my unconscious, and occasionally dead, body, grabbed under my other arm. Together they pulled me onto my feet. Once I was sturdy enough to stand by myself, they handed me my clothes and took me to a bathroom where I could change.

I summoned a new pair of black cargo shorts, and broke my jacket down into omnillium. I summoned a belt holster for my pistol, and placed my weapon in it. I summoned a new white t-shirt for myself, and broke my wet red one down to replace the omnilium used. When I emerged, the man who had saved me was gone, and the stormtrooper who had led me down to the room stopped me. “Have you ever considered joining the Imperial Navy? If you can go fifty or so feet under water, fall unconscious, die on a beach, and still be fine enough to walk, they could use you in dealing with the pirates that plague this verse.” I stated what my original intention for joining the verse had been, and he pointed me in the direction of where I could sign up. I thanked him and turned to walk away.

He stopped me as I turned. “Oh, I almost forgot. We found this with your belongings on the beach. Figured you might want it back.” In his hand he held the gold coin that I had seen fall out of a pocket that i didn’t place it in while underwater.

I carefully took it out of his hand. “You said you found this with my stuff on the beach? Not underwater or floating in the ocean?” He restated what he already said about where it was found. “Is there a library somewhere that I can use for research?”

“Yes, there’s one nearby, with several older documents for studying. I thought you wanted to join the navy though, not do research?” He told me.

“I do plan to join the Navy. But first I need to do something. Please, show me to this library.” We began walking down the street to a rather large building that was built using an archaic style, but not one that I recognized. The stormtrooper led me in, and brought me to the section of research tomes. I thanked him, and asked that he leave me alone. When he did, I pulled out the coin.

There was something wrong with this coin. First everyone ignores it, a man desperately gets rid of it for a measly burger well below it’s worth. Then, when I leave it on the beach in my jacket, it ends up in my jeans pocket underwater. I had a near death experience because of something taking over my mind and forcing me to swim to my death, and mere luck kept me from dying. Then it isn’t lost underwater and gets found on the beach where my stuff was.

I was beginning to think this coin was cursed. I had already seen proof that I was not going to be able to get rid of it. I began searching through the tomes around me, trying to see if I could find anything on the coin. I summoned a sandwich for myself and a bottle of cream soda.

I was in for a long night.

Word count / Total word count
1131 / 1863
Quest Stipulations
Come into possession of the coin. Yes
Be compelled to drown yourself. Yes
Try to remove yourself of it.  Fail.  Yes
Investigate.  Current
Figure out a way to rid yourself of the coin No

[Yukki Kazuto]

I rested my head against the table. Three empty cream soda bottles fell onto their sides and rolled off of the table. A half eaten ham and cheese sandwich with pickles and mayonnaise sat on plate next to me, the plate resting on several large tomes, all of which I had already read. It had been almost twelve hours since I had started investigating the coin. So far, all I had found out was that it was a type of coin usually used by pirates on the seas of the vasty deep.

It was commonly kept as treasure in the ship's cargo hold, or in the pirates base of operations. It was never used as a currency, explaining the local merchants not accepting it from the man who had originally given it to me. I was vaguely curious why the coin had latched onto me, and hadn’t returned to the man who had given it to me. I could find no instances of a curse that draws people to the sea and drowns them, and I could find no record of a significant increase in drownings or missing persons, which would have led to an origin of the curse.

The conclusion that I came to was that the coin must have once been in the treasure collection of a pirate in the Vasty Deep. Either the one of the pirates cursed it, or one of the pirates enemies has cursed it. If a pirate had cursed it, it would explain why it was a pirate’s coin, and why it was in a populous area trying to find victims. If one of the pirate’s enemies had cursed it, it was likely in an attempt to get rid of the pirates by having them drown one by one until they didn’t have enough people to operate the ships.


Either way, I could night find out anything else about this coin from these books. I couldn’t find anything about the curse itself, how it got there, or how I would break it. At about the five hour mark, I had taken a vendetta against the coin, and tried several ways to destroy it.

I had broken it into omnillium, I had locked it in a box and thrown it in the ocean, I had summoned a bucket of lava and dunked it into it, I had shot it, I had thrown it from the roof, I had beat it with a hammer, I had attacked it with a saw, I had dunked it in acid, I had tied it to a balloon filled with helium and watched it fly away, I had placed it in a block of wet cement and watched it harden. A few minutes after each of these attempts, I found the coin back in my pocket, looking as if I had never touched it in the first place.

I was beginning to give up. Every so often I had to stop my work to fight the urge to go swim in the ocean. With every instance, it became harder to ignore it, and it took less time for the voice to come back, and begin urging me to take a casual dip once again. I slammed my head against the desk. Maybe the easiest way to get rid of it was just to pass it on to somebody else.

I decided against it. I wanted to make sure this coin couldn’t claim any more victims for the deep. I had to figure out a way to remove the curse. I changed my focus of study from the coin itself, to curses. I also began looking around the dataverse on my phone, as well as in the tomes that I was surrounded by.

Word count / Total word count
693 / 2556
Quest Stipulations
Come into possession of the coin. Yes
Be compelled to drown yourself. Yes
Try to remove yourself of it.  Fail.  Yes
Investigate.  Current
Figure out a way to rid yourself of the coin No

[Yukki Kazuto]

I threw the coin at the wall in frustration, not the least surprised when it managed to bounce off of it perfectly and land on the table next to me. It was impossible to get rid of this coin. I was beginning to think it was going to get to the point where I wouldn’t be able to resist its influence any longer, and it would kill me. Drowning was not a fun way to go, or so I had been led to believe. From my own experience, once you passed out from the pressure, it was mostly peaceful.

Not saying that I want to drown, even though part of me is constantly being called to the ocean for a swim. I had found out a little bit about some of the pirates that used to be in this area, all the info on the current ones are locked away by imperial forces. None of the pirates that used to be in the area that we have record of had the ability to curse objects in such a manner as this, and I didn’t believe that it was created by Imperial forces, though the idea wasn’t completely dismissed.

No, most likely it was created either with the Omniverse itself, or it had been randomly created sometime during the early years of the Omniverse, and had been claiming victims slowly since it had been originally found. For some reason though, nobody seemed to know anything about this coin in particular.

Wait a minute… I knew of at least one person who knew about the coin. Why hadn’t I thought to hunt him down and ask him before? I’d spent almost a full twenty four hour cycle investigating this coin, and hadn’t thought about asking the person who I originally acquired the coin from.

I walked through Costa de Sol, and worked my way back to the marketplace where I had originally found the man who gave me the coin. After about half an hour of looking, I found him crawled up in a ball under a cardboard box in a side alley. I drew my pistol, and held it at the ready in my right hand.

I tapped him on the shoulder, and when he didn’t respond, I began pushing on him harder and harder. When he finally woke up, he was in a haze, but that cleared right up when he saw the gun in my hand. I flashed the coin at him, and he seemed to know  exactly what I was here for. “I was wondering when you would find me. I’m amazed to see you still alive. Most people couldn’t survive the first few hours.”

“How do I make it stop? And why can’t I get rid of it?” I asked angrily. The man just gave a small chuckle.

“You can’t make it stop. You don’t have the power to. The only way to get rid of it is to destroy it completely, and there’s only one method to destroy it completely.” He said this in a haze, as if he knew he wasn’t telling me something.

“How. Do I. Destroy it?” He only shook his head, muttering how i’ll never do it. I quickly weighed my options, and shot him in in his upper leg. I didn’t have time to deal with someone who was going to be uncooperative. I didn’t have long to sit here now however, imperial forces would be here within a minute.

He cried out in extreme pain, and began grabbing at his leg. “If it claims a victim and isn’t found again after that, it’ll be satisfied. But it only sticks to humanoid primes.” He went back to screaming in pain.

I turned invisible, and began slowly walking away from the location, being careful to get out of the way of people, advancing Stormtroopers, and some woman with giant gauntlets approaching the scene. After almost half an hour of being careful to not hit anyone, I sat down back in the library, became visible, and collapsed from exhaustion. Staying invisible for that long had almost caused me to pass out, and I wasn’t willing to sleep on the street again.

Word Count / Total Word Count
817 / 3373
Quest Stipulations
Come into possession of the coin. Yes
Be compelled to drown. Yes
Try to remove yourself of it. Fail. Yes
Investigate. Yes
Figure out a way to rid yourself of the coin. No

[Yukki Kazuto]

I woke up, lying on the streets of Costa de Sol. I guess the librarian didn’t like that I was asleep in the library, and the stormtroopers or someone else threw me out on the street. As I stood up, still groggy from a rough sleep, I immediately felt a headache rip through my head. The coin was already screaming at me to come and swim in the sea. I decided, probably against my better judgement, I’m gonna give in to it.

I summoned a set of scuba gear, and put it on in a public bathroom stall. Note to self, never do that again. That place was disgusting. With the coin still screaming at me, I wasn’t surprised to find it jump from my shorts pocket, to create a pocket on my diving gear and put itself inside it. I wandered out of the changing room, and out into the sea. Once I was in the water, I let the coin take over.

The first thing I felt was mental bliss, finally I had stopped fighting the coin. I watched from my own eyes, but it felt as if I was watching a movie in virtual reality as opposed to actually doing the actions myself. I would have thought i was in a dream, if I couldn’t feel the cold from the water as I dove deeper and deeper.

The two tanks I had summoned each had three hours of oxygen in them. Assuming nothing went wrong, and I hadn’t messed up when I summoned them, I had six hours that I could be underwater. My goggles fit snugly on my face, and allowed no water into my eyes. They didn’t fog, and they didn’t pinch my nose, which was a giant plus in my case.


Two hours passed, during which my body moved on it’s own, with the spirit that possessed the coin in full control. At this point, we were between a hundred and fifty to almost two hundred feet below the ocean surface. We had been swimming along the ocean floor for some time now, as if the coin was looking for something. I occasionally moved my eyes to see how much air I had left, to know if I had to take control and swim back to the surface.

After another hour or so, I saw what looked like a giant mass appear in the distance. Once I was closer, I saw that it was a sunken ship, and had been underwater for at least a year. I felt myself speed up, as if the coin knew that this is where it wanted to go. I swam through the wreckage, as if looking for something. In many different levels, I saw corpses of pirates, all lying in heaps on the ground.

In the captain's quarters at the rear of the ship, I saw a skeleton lying in the corner, with it’s arms surrounding a chest of some kind. Upon getting closer to the chest, I felt the coin in my pocket start to vibrate, as if it wanted out of my pocket. It stopped it’s control over me, and I took it out of the pocket. Holding it in my hand, I opened the chest that was in the pirates hands. Inside was a pile of gold coins, but they only came up to about three fourths of the chest.

Knowing that the captain was likely to grab a full chest to protect bad enough to curse, I came to the conclusion that there were multiple coins out in the world that were cursed. I placed the coin on top of the pile of coins, and felt the spirit leave my presence completely. I closed the chest lid, and silently wished the pirate the best of luck getting the rest of his coins back. I glanced at how much air I had left, and began to panic when I saw that I only had an hour and a half left.

I began swimming furiously for the surface, the shade of darkness painfully slowly becoming lighter. As my air ran out, I took one last breath, and held it for as long as I could. I broke the surface right as I began to see stars. Ripping off my mask, I gasped in a deep breath of air. Keeping myself afloat, I focused the next several minutes on regulating my breathing. Once it was back at a normal rate, and I wasn’t seeing things any longer, I began to look around me.

Around me I saw miles and miles of ocean. There was one island off in the distance, but easily a mile and a half away or more. I thought about the pros and cons of summoning a boat to ride on. On the one hand, it would make getting to the island really easy. On the other hand, I couldn’t summon and swim at the same time. I felt my face drop into a frown. I was going to have to swim all the way there.

My muscles were already screaming at me in pain from the swimming I had been doing while in possession of the coin, even if while the coin was in control I didn’t feel it. I began swimming towards the island, trying my best to ignore my limbs screaming at me in pain. I had no plan about what to do once I reached the island. I didn’t even know if it was inhabited or not. But being on land was unquestionably better than hanging out in the cold water.

Word Count / Total Word Count
1045 / 4418
Quest Stipulations
Come into possession of the coin: Yes
Be compelled to drown: Yes
Try to remove yourself of it. Fail: Yes
Investigate: Yes
Find a way to rid yourself of the coin: Yes

[Yukki Kazuto]

A little over an hour passed until I found myself lying on the warm sands of an island beach. The warm sun beating down on me, slowly drying the scuba suit I was still wearing. I had dumped my empty tanks in the water about a quarter of the way into my swim. I wasn’t going to carry them the entire way, are you kidding me? I laid with my back against the sand, staring up into the deep blue sky, the sun’s warm rays hitting my face.

The sun sat in the sky off to my right, and slowly moved downwards. Assuming the sun still sets in the west in the omniverse, my feet were pointing to the south. I laid in peace, enjoying the feeling of not having a voice in my head, trying to force me to swim. It was oddly refreshing, realizing that I had taken the privacy of my mind for granted. I felt myself fall off to sleep.

I woke up hours later, the night sky glittered with stars. A full moon sitting high in the sky. I sat up slowly, brushing sand off of my legs and chest. The moonlight gave an illuminated glow to the area around me, but not enough light for me to find out where I was and what was around me. Feeling slightly more refreshed from my little nap, I focused on summoning a flashlight. The multicolored glowing ball in my hands was bright to look at until I got used to it, and by the time I had gotten used to it, a small hand flashlight sat in my hand.

Using my new flashlight, I began to explore the island I was on. The entire island was made out of sand, with only three palm trees making a triangle in the middle of the island. Approaching these trees, my eyes seemed to see a figure standing in the middle of them. As I got closer, it became more apparent that this was a spirit, and was not a figment of my imagination. The spirit held up a hand when I reached within five feet of it.

“Stop where you are.” The spirit’s voice was raspy and dry. It lowered it’s hand, and turned to face me proper. He stood at just below my height, but the hat he wore brought it up to my height. His face was covered in wrinkles, and his eyes were empty black holes. He had a beard that came down to his chest, and was about as neat as one would expect from a pirate. He had six flintlock pistols strapped to his chest, and a sword strapped to his left leg.

His entire body glowed a light blue, similar to the color of the top parts of the sea. However, he seemed to be only about half real, his body only half visible, and me being able to see through his body and see the tree behind him.

“You have returned my coin to me, and for that, I am grateful.” I stood in silence, not sure I wanted to be associated with a ghost, or even if this ghost was real. I had never seen one before, and I had almost drowned like three times in the last two days. Maybe my brain was running low on oxygen or something.

He seemed to ignore my silence, and continued on talking without missing a beat. “You’ll find that your civilization is to the north. I shall use my power to give you safe waters in your journey home. Goodbye friend” He smiled at me, and slowly faded from existence. I stood still, watching the area where he had been for a few moments, before turning towards the north. I walked to the edge of the ocean, and felt the cool water clash against the scuba gear I was still wearing. Figuring there was no point in wasting the outfit, I kept it on, and summoned a small jetski in the water.

Similar to the motorcycle I had summoned, the jetski was mostly black, but this time with purple highlights on the edges. I thought it was strange that it had suddenly turned purple, as I had always envisioned just a black object, and found that it came with red highlights. I wondered if anything had caused that change, or if it was just a style difference. Either way, I disregarded it, as the information was important to me at the time.

I climbed on my jetski, and began traveling to the north. Relying on the spirit to bring me calm waters, I rode over the waves, always trying to make sure I didn’t turn in a particular direction. I rode into the darkness, turning my lights on once I was sure I wasn’t going to get beached by a sandbar from the island. I caught myself thinking more about the change in highlights. I tried to clear it from my mind, but then changed my mind about it. You know what, why not think about it? If my swim time told me anything, it was a long way back to Costa de Sol.

Word Count / Total Word Count
869 / 5287
Quest Stipulations
Come into possession of the coin: Yes
Be compelled to drown: Yes
Try to remove yourself of it. Fail: Yes
Investigate: Yes
Find a way to rid yourself of the coin: Yes

Quest Completed, although it's a unique quest and Vision/Frisk beat me to actually finishing it. Congrats to them however, I enjoyed the way they did it. I shall move on without claiming a quest bonus.