"Good morning, once again," Gerardo cheerfully greeted as Maple and Starlight emerged atop the airship's deck. After a pause, he added, "You look flustered."
"Only a little," Maple huffed, unable to shake her frown. "I'm not a scientist and I don't know how it's 'supposed' to be done, but something about that was far too unprofessional for me."
Gerardo tipped his head, standing near the railing. "About what, now?"
"...Never mind."
By the amount of light filtering in from near the top of the warehouse, Maple judged it was before midday and definitely not raining. She sighed, staring around the metal rafters and distant walls, the ship's deck solid beneath her. If she was this stressed at the start of the day, it was not a good sign... especially given how long the previous two had been. She forced herself to smile, knowing she'd need it.
"I'm ready when the two of you are," Gerardo said, shuffling proudly. "Though, should we discuss where we're going? I've been informed on some vague details of your perilous escape, but don't quite have the full picture."
Maple sighed again, trying as hard as she could to relax. "There's a pony in Gnarlbough I visited yesterday. I promised her I'd come back, and I want to keep that promise. I... think when you meet her, you'll see why."
"Ahhh..." Gerardo nodded. "Faron's mysterious request. Come to think of it, I recall him mentioning this graveyard place as well. Admirable of you to see a petty favor through to completion despite your own danger. I take it you know the way?"
"Back to Gnarlbough, for sure." Maple flicked her tail, starting toward the boarding ramp. "It's just a short forest road that should be an easy walk. Her house in particular... I'll recognize it when I see it, but I still have the instructions. You might have to fly to find it."
"Easier done than said." Gerardo snapped his talons. "In that case, let's get going before any potential evacuation operations ensnare us or get in our way..."
"Hey, wait up!"
Shinespark's voice from the stairwell stopped them in their tracks, and they turned to see the perky unicorn standing in the doorway. "I've got something for you before you go. Here, take this."
Her aura levitated a familiar package containing a very old, unwelcome book towards Starlight, who frowned in recognition. "Where did you get that?"
Shinespark stopped, blinking in confusion. "You lent it to me last night, remember? Right before we... Oh. Right. I guess you wouldn't remember." She shrank slightly, ears folding. "I didn't steal it, I promise!"
Starlight stared back at the book. "I don't care why you have it, you can keep it. It's really boring!"
At that, Shinespark looked offended. "Boring!? This is priceless! I couldn't..." She trailed off, seeing the looks Maple and Gerardo were giving her and Starlight in turn. "What?"
"Wherever did you come by a priceless tome?" Gerardo asked, squinting. He reached a tentative talon for the book. "If I may..."
"I found it in the mountains," Starlight grumbled. "In a cave. There was a really old camp from another explorer. I read that dumb thing for a whole week while I was sick and it was raining, and I really don't care if I never see it again!"
"Starlight..." Shinespark chided. "This is an original journal of Sosa the explorer, the pony who discovered the Ironridge crater and its unique climate and went on to found the city! It's not boring!"
Starlight stuck her tongue out. "Yeah? You try having a cold and being miserable in a cave with no one to talk to and no magic and nothing to do but read that dumb book over and over again for a week! It's stupid!"
"How much is it worth?" Maple asked, stepping forward. "I doubt we're short on money, but if this is really an important artifact..." She blinked. "Starlight, why didn't you show us this?"
"I told you," Starlight huffed, "because it's boring and you probably would have made a big deal about it just like you are now! I don't want to remember that week!"
"I'd be very interested in perusing it, as an explorer myself," Gerardo offered. "If you truly wish to part ways with such a treasure..."
"Actually, if Starlight wants to get rid of it that badly, I'm going to leave it here," Shinespark replied. "It would fit pretty well with the other stuff in this ship's library, and why not stock a one-of-a-kind airship with one-of-a-kind books?" She shrugged. "It fits! And you can come back and read it any time you like."
Maple's eyes lit with curiosity. Starlight scowled. Gerardo looked like he'd just discovered a chest of buried gold.
"I stayed up late reading it last night," Shinespark remarked as she floated it back toward her, eyes glittering. "It's fascinating. It's not just more material, there are things in here we never knew before. And I've read all of Sosa's works, so you can imagine what this is like to me."
"New, you say?" Gerardo lifted an eyebrow, then grinned. "Well, all the more impetus to finish this mission quickly so I can retire to a good evening of ancient history!"
"For example..." Shinespark's voice dropped low, whispering conspiratorially. "An interesting fact that's common knowledge to geology and cartography buffs is that Ironridge is located at the exact midpoint of the capitals of Yakyakistan and the Griffon Empire. It's one of those crazy coincidences that are bound to happen when you live in a world as physically huge as ours." Her voice went even lower. "But this book has a line that implies Sosa already knew that before he discovered the city. It was written during his journey, and he said his goal was to find the midpoint. He thought there might have been something here, enough to go on a massive expedition just to see! Isn't that amazing?"
She gave a foalish squee. "I mean, given what Sosa was like, it didn't take much to send him on an expedition. But still! I just... I wish I could keep reading this instead of having to deal with so many political things, and keeping ponies safe... but I have to, because nobody else can. Anyway. Thanks for giving me this book, Starlight. I'll see you three later... hopefully when this is all over."
With that, Shinespark trotted back down the stairs, an unshakable spring in her step.
"Ahh..." Gerardo beamed. "It's always a pleasure to meet another with a passion for adventuring, even if it is the history of it. Now I want to read that book too. Though, I imagine young Starlight would appreciate it if we chose not to discuss it around her? It sounds as if her experience was quite unenviable..."
"Yes," Starlight grunted.
"Then let's get going," Maple breathed, feeling slightly rejuvenated by Shinespark's enthusiasm, if not all the way. "I want to get this day over and done with so I can go home, see my friends and sleep for a week."
"Oh! One more thing!" It was Shinespark again.
"Yes...?" Gerardo asked, looking over his shoulder.
"We're about to send out the ferry to Riverfall one last time," Shinespark explained, waving a hoof. "It... won't be coming back, at least until this is over. If nothing's happened in three days, that is. My mom's the one who will be going. She'll warn Arambai, so they can take whatever precautions they can think of, and then stay there where it's safe. She'll probably also see your friends. Is there any message you want me to have her pass along to them?" She folded her ears. "I know you've been missing them, so..."
Maple smiled. "Tell them I miss them and will be back as soon as I can, and that I'm safe and have learned so much and that Ironridge is both everything and nothing like we thought it would be. And tell them to start thinking now of what they want me to cook when I get back, because we're going to have a long get-together so I can tell them everything that happened... and maybe freak out just a little about all the things that have happened to me. Could you tell them that?"
"Got it." Shinespark tapped her head, then glanced back at Maple. "Also, you're a chef?"
"Mhmm." Maple nodded, thinking of the exotic breakfast spread that had been prepared below. "Is that something you do, too?"
Shinespark blushed ferociously. "Uhhm... Y-You mean the food we had this morning? No, that was Gigavolt. I'm good at a lot of things, but you really don't want to see me in a kitchen."
Maple gulped, suddenly very interested in seeing Shinespark in a kitchen. "Well, I'll take your word for it."
"Yeah." Shinespark grinned, ears still flat. "Anyway, that's the last thing I wanted, for real this time. Now stay safe out there, and if you get in trouble, Gunga will be in Gnarlbough for at least a few hours overseeing the evacuation. Good luck!"
"I bid the same to you." Gerardo gave a noble salute, and led the way down the boarding ramp.
The forest road leading from the warehouse to Gnarlbough was awash in mud, more than half of the available surface covered in standing water and every bit of visible ground ready to sink below the surface at the slightest application of pressure. Gerardo hovered, safely avoiding the morass, but Maple had no choice but to walk.
Starlight allowed herself to be carried on Gerardo's back, partially reducing the weight her adoptive mother had to carry... but Maple had somewhat foolishly insisted on picking up a spare chunk of concrete on their way out, replenishing the ballast she had lost when fighting Selma two days prior. As a result, the mud sucked at her legs, frequently reaching all the way up to her belly fur. She was immensely grateful she wasn't wearing saddlebags.
The bright sun shone overhead as she squelched through the mottled shade of the trees, walking carefully to avoid any sudden pitfalls. Its rays taunted her, gleaming in a mostly-cloudless sky, warm and shimmering yet far too late to spare her from her plight.
"At the very least," Maple gasped, freeing a hoof from a particularly clingy patch of mud, "this is... fairly cool..." She grunted, nearly slipping. "This day is going to be hot, I can tell. In fact, it is hot! Just walking across the concrete by the warehouse, I could tell..." Glancing upward, she grinned slyly. "Maybe you should join me down here in the mud, Gerardo."
"I think I'll pass," Gerardo panted, his face already sweat-soaked from the heat despite the shade of the trees. "I believe I can see why the Stone District is considered a higher class of living space than here, however. The high mountain breezes sound very appealing at this time..."
"I wonder if it's like this all the time, down here," Maple muttered, realizing she had hit a dead end of deeper puddles and taking a step backwards. "When it's not raining, that is. It would make sense how they grow so much fruit. I bet fruit loves a climate like this. Maybe I almost miss the rain..."
"It's the rain's fault you're stuck in the mud, though," Starlight protested, staring worriedly over the side of Gerardo's back. "What if you slip and can't get out?"
"That's why I'm being very careful." Maple trudged further, finding a compacted bit of slightly more solid ground and putting a solid inch between her belly fur and the water. "And we hardly have other options, aside from just not going at all. And in the worst case, your horn is fresh and you can pull me out."
Starlight frowned.
"Really, though..." Gerardo waved a talon. "It's easy to see why the threat of flood is so severe. I initially assumed that as the river flows east and we are quite far west of the point where the reservoir water would enter the stream, damage would be limited to downstream... but this entire region is so flat, it can't even drain itself from a regular rainfall. Shinespark mentioned a natural choke downstream that would slow the water's draining and force it to back up to the west, but even without that, the splash from everything emptying at once would put this entire roadway underwater..." He flinched. "Well, more underwater than it already is."
"You can say that again," Maple muttered, rubbing off a leaf that had plastered itself against one of her legs. "In the meantime, I'll just stay down here, nice and cool, while you flap around in the heat... Maybe we could even use a mountain flood, if it meant this place cooling off!"
Eventually, the tree canopy widened and parted, the roadway sloping back up to Gnarlbough. The combination of gained height and broad sunlight swiftly dried the road, allowing Maple to climb out of the muddy pit... and almost instantly become dried and entombed, perfectly in line with her predictions.
"Ugh..." she panted, walking stiffly, dried mud cracking all along her forelegs as they entered the city. "I changed my mind. Walking through the mud was not worth it. Not unless I can... get a bath..."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow at the mud lake behind them, opting not to comment.
"Or just a way to get this mud off," Maple complained, shaking a hoof to little effect. "Because I'm starting to sweat under this, and that doesn't feel nice at all." Experimentally, she rubbed a hoof along the grass of a house hill. It didn't have much of an effect.
Frustrated, she rubbed harder, then threw her entire body against the grass, slithering at it and trying to free herself of cracked and peeling flakes of mud. "Argh..." she hissed, sprawling. "This is... starting to itch... really bad..."
Gerardo frowned, landing next to her. "You don't suppose the water could have held some type of natural toxin, do you? Something to... make coats itchy?"
"Yes!" Maple growled, writhing against the hillside. "It's called mud! And having it dried against your coat when it's hot out and you're sweating and..."
Starlight was about to light her horn and search for a way to help when an unfortunately familiar voice interrupted from the top of the house hill. "Hey, it's you guys!"
It was Howe.
"Welcome back, my true comrades!" the pegasus proclaimed, standing nobly with wings outstretched. "It does the Howenator's heart good to see everyone together in one piece!" He trailed off, grinning, eyeing Maple with wings spread. "Also, I don't know how to put this politely, but... whatever you're doing to that house is really turning me on."
Maple stopped thrashing to glare up at him. "I'm covered in dried mud and it itches badly!"
"...Oh." Howe's wings drooped.
"Erm... Good morning, Howe..." Gerardo approached hesitantly. "Might I inquire as to what you're doing here?"
Howe shrugged. "It was the strangest experience! Lo, there we were, three brave explorers prepared to enter a haunted graveyard to take refuge from a blinding rainstorm! Yet no sooner had I pierced the accursed walls to the heart of that dark shrine when I blacked out, with no memory of the events that followed. I... woke up with a headache in an alley behind a bar in Meadowrise, the next town over to the west. I don't suppose luck treated you any more ladylike than me?"
"...Something like that." Gerardo blinked, sensibly reluctant to share secrets. "I take it you're going to insist on accompanying us once again?"
"Oh, please!" Howe folded a wing across his chest. "Anything less would be a slight against my pegasus honor!" He winced. "Which has been known to have been slighted from time to time, but that's neither here nor there. But fear not, friends. The Howenator has reasons both material and of principle to lend you his aid."
Maple stood up, cringing against the feel of the mud but reluctant to continue trying to scrape it off in front of Howe. At least it blended in well with her dusty-brown coat. "As long as you're reasonable about it and give me space when I need it."
"I would do nothing less," Howe solemnly proclaimed, emphasizing every single word.
"And no questions about things we don't want to explain?" Maple lifted an eyebrow, standing uncomfortably against the heat.
Howe grinned. "Secrets to keep, have you? So exciting! I shall interfere only as far as your trust extends!"
"...All right, then..." Hesitantly, Maple accepted, squaring her shoulders and facing the road. "We're going back to White Chocolate's. If you remember where that is, lead the way."