-Floating Continent, Jacky-
“So aside from the cursed cape, do you suppose there’s any treasure?” Looking to Flotsam, I tried to give her a reassuring smile.
“There might be. This is our first adventure as a crew and I think things are going pretty well.” This place was really beautiful, I can see why it’s called ‘The Garden’. Not that the giant vegetables, flowers and insects were the main reason for the name.
“You were almost crushed by a large beetle five minutes ago.” Flotsam muttered out loud as she continued to slowly slither after us, slithering was the best approximation for what she was doing and her tail loudly slapped against the ground with almost every forward motion made. “Also should we really be leaving the ship behind by itself?”
“It’ll be fine, that ship continues to survive me and that’s honestly the most impressive thing that it does.” I wasn’t worried about parking The Ardent Survivor where it was currently and leaving it unattended. “Just remember that we parked somewhere along the western side of the island.”
-Approximately five minutes after leaving, The Ardent Survivor-
All was quiet. The daylight shone down on the humble airship that sat in the grass.
An ant crawled up to the ship and stopped to stare at it. Eventually, the curious ant ran its feelers over the ship and thought that the ship might have somehow insulted its horribly fat mother.
The large ant pulled its feelers back and clacked its mandibles angrily at the ships side, then it leapt at the side of the ship flattening itself painfully against the wood. It then fell on its back and also chipped off a bit of one of its mandibles in the altercation.
The ant wailed as it flailed its legs helplessly at the sky, for its completely immobile opponent was far too powerful!
Apparently The Ardent Survivor was a merciful thing and didn’t take the ant in its clearly weakened state. When the ant recovered enough to stand up, it stared at the ship in awe.
The ant then ran its feelers over the ships side again, it felt that the immobile object had a point… its mother was in fact horribly fat.
Eventually the ant wandered off… only to come back with multiple ants several hours later.
Once the ants surrounded the ship, they all started bowing to it and clacking their mandibles in praise of the most powerful unmoving object in existence!
They didn’t seem to care that it talked about their mothers eating problems a lot whenever they studied it with their antenna.
-Nefer-
“Everyone stop for a second… I smell something yummy!” Everyone turned to look at me as I charged forward towards a mound of fertile dark brown soil, I scooped up some in my paw and threw it in my mouth. The taste of this soil was heavenly! “This is the best tasting soil ever!”
“Should we really be letting him eat dirt?” Sammy asked of Captain Blackcap.
“Nefer is part plant, we all know he can survive on water and sunlight alone.” Yep, Jacky knew all my best skills inside and out! “Eating apparently good soil wouldn’t actually be all that strange for him and it’s not like it’ll hurt him. That and he really seems to like it. Do you want us to scoop up some for later Nefer?”
“Would you really do that for me?!” I was excited, I’d have some of the best tasting soil around. I bet all the other plant cats, if they actually existed, would be incredibly jealous that I got to taste floating continent soil right at the source! “Oh, can I get a nice pot too?”
“Seems like Nefer likes the idea.” As he spoke, Mr. Eric moved over to scoop up some dirt into a pocket on the pack he was carrying. I mewled happily while rubbing up against him. “Okay Nefer, that’s enough of that. I get it, you’re happy. Which direction does the map say we need to go in?”
I pulled away from Mr. Eric and waited for Captain Blackcap to lead us to the treasure, she was brave and adventurous! Even when she was about to be hit by that large butterfly.
“Oof… can someone please get this oversized butterfly off me?” The butterfly seemed to really like Captain Blackcap for some reason, it was running its proboscis all over her. “It’s not hurting me, but it still weighs quite a bit and its affection is kind of freaking me out!”
“Shoo, go away, get off of her.” Mr. Eric barely raised his voice, but it was loud and stern enough enough to get the butterfly to crawl off of Jacky and fly off.
We soon continued on our way towards where that cape of windy farts could be. I wondered how useful it was, it sounded weird.
-Flotsam-
“Don’t look now Jacky, but your abhorrent admirer is following us.” I turned around to see the butterfly duck behind a large flowers stalk and peeked its big bug eyes out slightly. When it noticed us watching it, it went back into hiding and wiggled it’s antenna in our direction.
“Ignore it, I’d be wary of the more dangerous giant bugs around here following us.” Jacky looked around at the large plant stalks we were walking among and then back down at her map and compass held in her right talons.
“So a cape that is always blasting wind at you in the direction of the nearest threat, how useful could that be?” I wouldn’t mind some actual treasure, but Jacky did get her maps from the discount map shop. Still, the map lead to a really interesting place at least.
“Depends, does it insistently push you towards the biggest local threat in a way that you can’t handle? The cape must not have been very great, given its probably just sitting out in the open on this island somewhere.” After sending me a somewhat somber look, Jacky added. “If it’s a cursed artifact like I think it is, there’s bound to be something very lethal or highly wrong with it. It could still be useful if given the right leverage. Although I don’t think Cloudy Vision’s maps always lead to cursed artifacts…. because my bow certainly isn’t cursed and it is something my sister made incredibly special just for me.”
I would have to ask what Jacky meant later when in reference to the bow she always had on her, she clung onto that thing with an absurdly passionate manner. Given it was made by her sister, it was clearly very important to her.
Blinking when I saw a patch of regular trees move slightly, I knew there was a problem with that. Said problem with that, was that it seems there weren’t any normal trees around here at all.
Giant vegetables, giant insects and oddly average sized somewhat short grass, but actual normal trees? Nope, that wasn’t a thing here.
“Jacky what do you call a small moving copse of trees?” I tried to think of what the creature or creatures could be.
“I don’t know, I’m still trying to work out the name of what a ten foot pole eating blob monster is.” What was Jacky talking about?
“You’re still on that?” Gene muttered audibly as he looked to where I was keeping my eyes on. “Also those are not a trees, it is simply a bunch of tree sized walking stick bugs.”
“Yes, I am, now that you mention it! I can’t help it if no one will tell me the name of the thing that looks like a gelatin dessert made from stuff you’d find in a swamp.” Jacky continued looking at her compass as we passed through a field of small green leafy mountains, they looked like cabbages. “It’s rare enough that I only saw it once and that’s about as many times anyone ever sees it without having a viable ten foot pole apparently. If that’s the only thing it’ll eat, then I have to wonder how they are still around in this day and age.”
“Wait, the blob monster you described survives on ingesting only ten foot poles? Weird.” All things considered, despite how horribly sore my tail was getting from wiggling the rear half of my body, this was kind of a nice and peaceful place.
Very scenic were the view around here up on a hill, the air was fresh and I didn’t see any danger around us. The only thing that was paying us any attention is the large butterfly with the bright green and yellow colors. I had no idea why it was still following us around and pretending to hide where it thought we couldn’t see it when we looked back for it.
“How are you feeling Flotsam, are you getting tired? We can stop for a rest.” I know Jacky was asking in concern, but I felt like it was an insult. I was about to bite into her and then thought better of it.
“I’m fine.” I might not be able to move like an actual snake, but I was doing well enough that I didn’t need to stop.
“Okay then.” It almost seemed like Jacky didn’t believe me, but we continued on to an open field where we saw two large horned bugs fighting each other.
One was a rhinoceros beetle was ramming its face against a unicorn beetle, we decided to not go anywhere near the two while they were fighting each other so viciously like that. The rhino beetle had a tough horn and its mass was working for it, but the unicorn beetle defended itself with fiery explosions of light from a magical horn.
-Jacky-
The slowest among us was Flotsam, but she had a logical reason for being as slow as she was. Her body wasn’t made for moving around on land and she was forcing herself to do so.
At least Sammy seemed to like the bright colorful surroundings, this led me to wonder what a giant fruit from here would taste like. There were giant vegetables here and I’m quite sure there were likely fruit as well even without seeing any fruit trees yet.
Nefer was happy to have a pocket full of that rich looking soil, I’m sure we could always grab more for him on the way out and maybe grow some small fruit trees on our ship using some of that soil. If it was good enough for the giant vegetables, it would probably be good enough for regular plants.
This place is supposed to be moderately dangerous, but I wasn’t seeing it. Aside from the giant insects that seemed to ignore us as long as we continued to ignore them.
Gene had been quiet and particularly alert to our surroundings, he wasn’t letting his guard down. I was grateful that at least one of us could clearly stay concentrated and on the lookout for anything amiss.
I felt something pounce on me, sending my face straight into some mud. The thing started to tickle me, I yelped and giggling until the ticklish sensation went away when Gene body checked that crazy butterfly off of me and glared at it. The butterfly was properly spooked by Gene’s glare. It flew back into hiding and stalking us.
“Why do you suppose that butterfly likes Jacky so much?” Good question Sammy, I was beginning to fear hearing the flap of a butterflies… wait a moment...
“Quick question, do you know that age old story of a butterfly flapping its wings?” Not that I wasn’t curious about the storm going on underneath the continent, but that butterfly seemed a little too attracted to me. After wiping the mud off of my face, we continued onwards while avoiding a large white web by a good distance. “How much worse would it be if a butterfly that large flapped its wings around me?”
“If it could cause a hurricane up here… then it would get as bad as the constant storm that seems to keep this continent aloft.” Gene looked rather uneasy when he said that. “Whatever we do, we do not want this continent falling out of the sky.”
“I know for certain I wouldn’t want that to happen!” I clutched at myself and shivered violently. “Can you imagine how many places around the world would be devastated by a landmass this large hitting the ocean? Tidal waves would wipe out a lot of coastal towns, including the friendly little place where my sister was raised.”
“Where was your sister raised?” Huh… I didn’t think Flotsam would show any interest in us.
“Palicoast, which I think was shortened from Pal Calico Coast. Abyssinian town, nice place where the cats are friendly if not exactly entirely exciting in their daily lives.” I missed my sister and going on adventures without her felt like a hole was missing in our party that was going through a jungle of giant flowers and vegetables. “It’s a good place to relax, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I can see why my sister wanted to move to Equestria, she didn’t have much of a life brewing there. She couldn’t take the boring lifestyle of being a simple fisher cat or a sea side cook, though her wanting to become a charming rogue is still a little odd to me.”
“Will we meet your sister someday?” Yes, when we could find a way to bring her back to our sides Nefer. I’d love to introduce someone like you to her. I wondered how she’d act upon meeting a trident tailed plant cat like Nefer for the first time.
“Sure thing!” We were cresting a hill when I saw something quite odd, given it was at our size and not supersized like the general flora and fauna around us. “It seems we might be needing your ability to read things rather soon Nefer.”
The flying insects, bees, ladybugs, wasps, blow flies, moths and others like that which generally stayed high in the air weren’t a problem. The more dangerous ground based insects we avoided fairly well as we got closer to the grooved columns leading up to a temple like structure in the distance.
“Think this is the place 'The Cape Of Ill Winds' is at?” Flotsam looked up at the pillars and the path leading up to the temple.
There was a wide open area in front of the temple with a ton of pillars spread out all over the place, some of them were even broken and toppled and others were covered with large vines that had equally large grape bunches.
I consulted my map… distance, direction, yeah this seems like a good place to start looking. I mean when you have ‘us’ sized ruins sitting around, then it was obvious that something interesting could be found here.
“Possibly.” I answered evenly as we made our way forward. Only to have that darned butterfly jump out from behind the pillar in front of me and frantically whined as it bodily pressed me into another pillar. “Get off already! Ugh, what is with you?!”
We marched into the wide open space full of pillars set a good distance apart from each other as if on a grid system.
Halfway into the pillars, a loud roar sounded out and something leapt off the top of the temple. It slammed into the ground and the shockwave it made sent us scattering.
We were facing...
The Bombardier Beetle!