Henry's Diary (Part 2)

January 7:

The worst thing happened. Just as Sean's jinxing mouth had said, we were truly trapped!

On the third day of the voyage through the ice domain, the floating ice ahead grew more and more numerous and tightly packed. Whenever we encountered a large floe, we could only carefully steer around it. Our speed was practically crawling, and if things continued like this, going around might actually have been more efficient.

But even that crawling pace became a luxury today. After one night, at some unknown point, the sea around our ship had frozen over. Looking ahead and behind, there was nothing but an endless Ice Field. The ship was trapped in place.

I had the crew try all sorts of methods to escape, including chopping through the ice and blasting it, but none of them worked. Clearly, human means were no longer enough to get the ship off this frozen surface.

Having never made a long voyage before, I started to panic. I asked Sean what we should do next. He said the only way to escape now was to wait for the weather to warm and the solid ice to melt.

I asked, "Will the ice definitely melt?"

Sean said it might not. He also told me what might happen if it did not melt. If we were lucky, the ice would keep growing thicker, and if it could lift the ship up, then the ship would be able to move again. But if we were unlucky and the ship was crushed beneath the ice, it would eventually be broken apart, and they would lose any chance of survival.

I had considered having someone drag a lifeboat back for help, but the Silver Knight would not wait for us where it was. It had been ordered to