The Golden Lantern

The Golden Lantern is the pride of the small fleet of four canal boats that venture across the silent snow white ghostlands of the Old Cold Canal on Talviridin in the service of the agents of the Stability Council. It is the largest and most luxurious of them all, although all the boats are well maintained, warm and comfortable, as they must be to travel safely on this bleak and otherwise deserted canal on a deserted world.

Power Generation

The Golden Lantern is powered by three large and long flat bed batteries which sit at the bottom of the hull, beneath the cargo hold, in a triple water sealed housing. The batteries can be charged at each end of the run, but they must hold enough power for the entire 1417 km journey in between. Lanterns and a wood stove are independently powered by oil and wood respectively and provide the lighting and heating which is required at all times, since Talviridin is a Twilight Realm and the Old Cold Canal lives up to its name. An oil fired range in the forward galley also serves for cooking and provides heating for the bow area.

Propulsion

A directed cavitation engine is hooked up to the batteries and generates a silent stream of propulsive bubbles to propel the boat through the dark, still waters of the canal. There is sufficient energy to break thin layers of ice which is necessary since parts of the canal can sometimes freeze but fortunately this has never yet hardened into anything thick enough to jeopardise the progress of the boat. This is, however, something of a worry for crew and passengers. Being stranded for too long on the Old Cold Canal would likely be a death sentence and although one of the other barges in the Stability Council's small fleet might be able to effect a rescue, it would not be quick.

Weapons & Armament

The crew carry light personal weapons as a matter of routine because no one is quite certain of the subtle dangers that Talviridin may present, although there have been no reports of overt attacks. That doesn't seem to be how the planet behaves. But there have been glimpses of things in the deep woods and even hints of dark shapes swimming in the canal waters. And people who have strayed too far from the boat have occasionally disappeared. Although Talviridin is considered safer than most archetypes , those who need to travel through it are wise to take care and are strongly advised to stay on the boat until they reach their destination. Of course, the agents who use this route as passangers are also usually armed.

Communication Tools & Systems

There is a radio on the bow deck but signals are often patchy. Theoretically communication with Hawside and Splinter is possible but it only seems to work about half the time. Stability Council scientists are not clear why but the magnetic and electrical fields around the planet behave eratically and that is certainly part of the problem.

Nickname

Old Golden

Manufacturer

The Stability Council

Owning Organization

The Stability Council

Current location

Talviridin

Rarity

The flagship of a small fleet of four vessels all with design variations.

Width

3.5 metres

Length

22 metres

Speed

12 km per hour maximum

Complement / Crew

2 crew

Cargo & Passenger Capacity

Up to 8 passengers and 2 tonnes of cargo

Golden Lantern Design Diagram by DMFW with draw.io

The Golden Lantern - Stern Lounge by DMFW with Leonardo AI

I got lucky when I got the order to travel to the Island Realms. It was my first time on the Old Cold Canal and the next scheduled boat was the Golden Lantern. They call her "Old Golden" and they cluck and coo about her in the service because she's something a bit special. The other boats are perfectly fine, I gather, but Old Golden was a vanity project for the yard owner where she was commissioned and built and everything about her smacks of confident security with a cosy luxurious interior.
They'd assigned me a partner for this field trip, a certain young lady whose name I had better not reveal for operational and other reasons, so for the purposes of this account let's call her Ms X. Not exactly an original code name but it isn't normally my job to make up code names. Code names are normally given to me by other people.
It takes the best part of five standard days for the Golden Lantern to travel from Hawside to Shatter but days on Talviridin aren't exactly standard because not only is it a Ghost World it also belongs to the geometry of the Twilight Realms. That means it never gets lighter than an early winter evening and is often much darker. And cold of course. Sometimes very cold.
There were five of us on this particular trip, somewhat fewer than the boat's capacity. Two were crew, as ever, and the other was an engineer sent out to survey Bale Step Lock. It didn't take me long to see everything the Golden Lantern offered. At the back (or the stern as I should be calling it) was the stern lounge, a communal area for passengers to congregate on comfortable bench seats surrounding a wood stove. When lit, it gave off a cheery glow and made the space nice and cosy. Pipework behind the stove channelled heated air and smoke below the deck to reclaim as much energy as possible for the boat before the cooling smoke was ejected into darkness outside.
There was a shower room further forward with a small sink and toilet and a second sink and toilet opposite it. Then came the passenger cabins, just four of them but with storage space for clothes and just enough room for two to sleep together in each one. I realised quickly that the Golden Lantern could only take its full complement of eight passengers if they had no objection to sharing the very intimate sleeping spaces in the four available berths. The crew slept below deck in private spaces accessed by hatches at both ends of the boat. Here they could, if necessary, get to the giant batteries that lined the bottom of the hull, check on the water and oil tanks that were plumbed in to the upper decks and access two small storage areas with room for a limited amount of cargo and some food reserves.
At the front (or the bow as I learned to call it) was a galley with a grand oil fired range that warmed the room, a sink and food cupboards and an expansive dining table. We usually ate there but sometimes might take our meals in the rear lounge.
Talviridin is an eerie world. I suppose all Ghost Worlds are but this was the first I had seen. As far as anyone knew there was no intelligent life on it anymore, save only the handful of Stability Council staff at Hawside and Shatter and whoever was travelling the Old Cold Canal between them. Where had the civilization of the builders of the canal gone? Why did they build it? How did the dimensional gates get here? All unanswered questions.
At first I enjoyed the slightly spooky sensation of standing at the bow, watching the snow laden trees glide endlessly by and speculating on what had happened at Talviridin. But after a while the melancholy became a little oppressive. I was bored of cards and despite all the heating it was cold in the cabins.
"That's because they really are designed for two bodies to warm those splendid fur lined sleeping bags," Ms X observed when I complained. "We should try it. I get cold too."
It was an offer I couldn't refuse. I'm sure she'd sensed the mutual attraction between us, but since I knew she had another partner in the service I hadn't been pressing for anything. I must admit that she was right though. It was a lot warmer in the bed with the body heat of two and I slept much better. And we passed the time in other ways of course, which since I am a gentleman I am not at liberty to discuss in detail. Suffice to say that when we left the Golden Lantern, we were considerably better acquainted than we had been at the start.
I remember her well still, although time and death have taken her from me as they have taken so many of my former comrades. And I will always remember that voyage of endless darkness through an abandoned snowy world in the cosy belly of the Golden Lantern, whilst just outside the windows, shifting shadows and a hint of something sinister on the icy wind made me shiver, as though all the long lost ghosts of Talviridin were trying to warn me of something. But what exactly they could have told me that would have made any difference, I still do not know...

— Agent Cantor : "Memoirs of a Stability Council Agent"