-Nagrahbah Palace, Jacky-
“Thanks for helping me get all that oil out of my feathers Amira.” Honestly would have been a lot harder if I had to do that myself, I walked back into the ballroom as I was asked to do. “I would like to thank the guards for getting me out from under that chandelier without nearly dropping it on me or tilting it into me ever so slightly to hurt me. Can I also request that you stop hanging such large and extravagant pieces of architectural death above people’s heads? While beautiful, I was nervous about it the entire time I was dancing and expected exactly what happened with it. So I’m quite vindicated in my paranoia about having heavy objects, precisely like the one that almost fell on me, hanging above my head on a singular chain.”
“You are quite welcome my friend, your feathers are quite luxuriant and nice even if your body has been weathered against many things.” Amira was still pleasant and friendly despite the theft. The thing going on between her and Savannah didn’t seem to change much, even with the news that Amira was a well-known and beloved delegate. As for the Saddle Arabian guard named Scarlet? Yeah, not nearly as pleasant as she could be for someone who clearly had job security and plenty of it. “Even with the increased security, we have various injured guards that were attacked by at least three other mystifying meticulously made mechanical monsters. There have, thankfully, been no reports of severe casualty.”
“About as much good news as we’re getting from this whole debacle Amira.” She turned a look towards me. “What I want to know is… who let this pirate through with both a knife and sword?!”
“To be fair to us ma’am, we actually knew about the knife even if we didn’t know about the sword.” The Saddle Arabian guard looked to me curiously. “Don’t honestly see how we could have known about that, where were you even keeping it?”
“Better question, why didn’t you confiscate the knife when you knew she had one on her?” It sounded like Scarlet was a very angry mare, judging by how her tone shifted. “If you don’t have a good excuse, then I will find a way to make the coming days quite miserable for you.”
“Ma’am, every mare that entered the ballroom was armed with a knife, I’m sure they could have all defended themselves properly if they had to. Also there are rules that every mare and or female of any species is allowed a small concealed weapon of some kind in the palace, but they can’t try to get anything bigger in and nobody except for her has done so. Only knife sized weapons are allowed, projectile weapons and larger blades are illegal.” The guard was receiving a completely flat look from Scarlet. “Had those machines went after anyone else other than the parrot, they would then be well within their rights to have said weapons if the guards could not protect them from getting hurt.”
“Did you at least magically check to see if the any of the knives in question were poisoned?” Once the guard nodded to Scarlet’s question, she then made a statement. “At least I know for certain that Princess Amira is probably one of the few that didn’t enter the ballroom armed.”
“Well… actually…” Reaching under her dress, Amira pulled out a kris. Savannah cooed as she moved over to her and looked over the gleaming wavy blade. “I knew there would be trouble and even informed you as such by increasing security, so I brought Mister Stabby McKillington just in case I needed it. I never get to use this for anything other than self-defense training that all delegates know, it tends to make most people back off at the sight of it.”
“Wait a moment… did she just say you were a princess?” Savannah questioned while wrapping her right arm around Amira’s neck and was tousling her mane.
“Low end, not really nearly as important as my diplomatic job as a trusted Saddle Arabian delegate.” Amira nuzzled her face into Savannah’s side making her giggle.
“Well that’s flabbergasting on a number of levels...” Scarlet turned her stony gaze back on me. “Can we get back to how you hid the sword from us? That seems like something that’s quite illegal.”
“I did something like this.” I picked up my saber from where I dropped it when the chandelier crashed to the floor. The sheath was slightly damaged, but the blade was perfectly fine for use.
I sheathed the sword immediately after picking the sheath up. I made the motion in putting it behind my back and letting it go. When I did, the sword fell to the ground and clattered slightly before coming to a rest.
“Um… hold on… something’s not right here.” I tried several more times to put it behind my back and it didn’t work.
“Maybe you should show them your party cannon?” At Gene’s suggestion I nodded.
I reached to my left and then wheeled my cannon out from behind me, making all the guards and Scarlet jump back, freeze up and then stare at it with fear.
“What in the… where were you keeping that?!” Scarlet seemed shocked that I had a party cannon and was pointing at it with her armored hoof with fear. The cannon was not actually currently loaded with anything other than instant streamers ammunition, it was to either tangle up or capture Teatime Clockwork when needed. “Before you say anything, yes, I know what I just saw you do. I just don’t think my mind could actually fully comprehend what that was.”
I put the party cannon back where I pulled it from, wherever that was. That action received even more shocked looks. I then tried to do the same with my sword and failed again.
“Why isn’t it working?” I muttered as I looked at the saber.
“Remember when we thought it might be a party cannon thing?” Gene made me raise my brow delicately at him in a questioning gaze. “Jacky, which way is the opening to the cannon currently pointing? This might literally be a party cannon doing its thing.”
I blinked, it just couldn’t be that simple… could it? I picked up the sheathed saber in my left talons and then put it behind my back to the left instead of the right and let go, it disappeared and I didn’t hear it clattering to the ground.
“Huh… neat.” I muttered as I started to repeatedly pull the sheathed sword from out of nowhere and put it back there. “I have got to remember that that’s a thing so I don’t forget that I have that capability.”
“Well that’s fairly concerning for many reasons, especially where security is involved.” Stated Scarlet while putting her hoof to her head and looking a bit queasy. “Please, could you stop doing that? It’s giving me a migraine trying to figure it out.”
“Sorry.” I didn’t pull the sword back out, but now I understood that putting the cannon away worked on other objects provided I put them in the general direction of the cannon’s barrel behind me.
“Okay I’m going to have to arrest you for bringing a weapon illegally into the ballroom.” Scarlet finally said after taking a long draw out deep breath.
“What weapon did I bring in illegally?” A smile crossed my beak as I realized the loophole in the law immediately, Jade would be proud. “The guards already searched me and knew about my knife.”
I actually still had plausible deniability, this is despite showing them that I could hide something on myself. Even if they were to strip all my clothing off, I’d still have complete access to my weapons.
My weapons were concealed in such a way that nobody else could grab or even find them on my person. They couldn’t actually force me to produce the weapon for them and they couldn’t make me show a weapon that I didn’t have as it could have only been in their imaginations. They can't even successfully plant a weapon on me.
“Oh… so we are going to go there are we?” Scarlet muttered angrily.
-Fifteen minutes later-
“Produce the weapon damn it, we know you have it and it is illegal!” Scarlet screamed at me completely red faced with anger.
“Say Amira, can I sue this guard for racial profiling if she keeps this up?” I asked sweetly, Amira had garnered a bright grin on her face. The guards around Scarlet started to snicker audibly when they realized that they couldn’t force me produce the saber and it was the hard evidence they absolutely needed. “I’m clearly innocent of any crime and there’s no evidence that I ever committed one is there?”
“You better not answer that Princess Amira!” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her anger was answer enough, I didn’t want to make her any angrier than she already was.
I’m sure Scarlet would figure it out eventually though.
-The Ardent Survivor, Gene-
“That went surprisingly well.” At least I thought so, Scarlet couldn’t detain Jacky for any reason unless she could actually find a way to produce the illegal evidence in question. Said evidence couldn’t be touched. “Do you think Nefer is okay? We did kind of leave him alone with a drunk Belfry for a while.”
If Jacky took her saber out now. They couldn’t say for sure that she had it in the ballroom as that would set a bad precedent for law and order around here. They have to catch her with it in the ballroom, the fact that they didn’t think to take it from her before she could conceal it was just too bad for them.
“He better be.” Flotsam muttered as she slowly followed us with her book bookmarked and dragging one of the machines monsters with her. Flotsam popped another slice of banana peel in her mouth, chewed and swallowed while turning a bit green. “I hope that’s the last one… please get me onto the ship before I have to eat another one, I beg of you!”
Flotsam had the right to whine as she had agreed to drag the golem back to our ship. Jacky wanted one to study for a bit, she’s actually pretty curious about Clockwork’s creations despite the fact that they were sent after her with lethal intent.
“Well I had a lot of fun during my sleepover with Amira.” Savannah certainly deserved our slightly dubious looks. “So the ship at least looks clear of that chemical fog, but I don’t see the butterfly.”
“I’ll get the gangplank.” I flew up and lowed it for the rest of our crew, Flotsam quickly carried the one beast machine Jacky wanted quickly into storage before her ability ran out.
While Flotsam was doing that, I eyed the trees that were a lot bigger and more fruit bearing than I last remembered them being, I shook my head and turned back to Jacky and Savannah. After I checked out the two fairly small trees, then looked to Nefer lying between them with his back to us.
Looking at him closer, he seemed perfectly fine under the hot sun. He was sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to disturb him.
“Well he looks okay to me, where’s Belfry though?” Yeah, that was actually something to be clearly worried about Jacky.
“I’m sure our giant butterfly is somewhere on the ship, hopefully he’s actually sober by now.” I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that, because Jacky was now glaring at me.
“Yes, he should be. I’m still trying to figure out your punishment Gene.” Jacky wouldn’t do anything too horrible to punish me would she?
I mean I shouldn’t have given Belfry that cup of wine, but the experiment just had to be done to find out if I can drink the wine with Jacky safely later on. I did not know giant butterflies were lightweights and now we do know. We would never know when we’d have to force a giant butterfly to drink alcohol and now we knew for certain what would happen if we did need to do so.
My life has become so strange when I was trying to justify getting a butterfly drunk in my head, not that I’m unhappy about how life is going so far.
“Aside from that… what do we do now Jacky?” I had to ask, since we knew that Teatime had one of the keys now. Apparently said key was a dark jewel on an ancient sultan’s turban in a display at the palace.
I didn’t think Daring could stop both Ahuizotl and Dr. Caballeron if they were working in two places at the same time. Jacky was also reluctant to talk to or even make contact with Daring given she was the last one who was with Jade, there was obviously a bit of a grudge against the pegasus.
So what were we going to do now? The big question here.
We could go back to looking for the lamp with the genie. I don’t think that was happening when Teatime tried to kill or maul Jacky, plus there was the fact that he was with GODLESS. This set our captain on a course to spite him out of a burning need for some revenge. It really didn’t help that he targeted her outright as some kind of rival, I’m not even sure Teatime actually knew Jacky’s name.
“Surveillance, we have a griffon mask or two onboard that we can use to spy on the city for any suspicious activity from a good distance in the air, I don’t think Teatime or the others have left yet.” Thanks to Jacky’s luck, we probably wouldn’t be able to do this any other way than keeping a sharp eye out from a distance. “At least I haven’t seen any airships flying out of Nagrabah recently and I know Teatime can pilot airships given I accidentally destroyed one.”
“Sounds about as good as doing anything else right now; we don’t exactly have any leads on the lamp we're after.” I considered something for a moment. “The lamp we’re looking for wouldn’t be found in the Wondrous Cave, Ballad Din already got to the genie there and eventually set it free.”
I did some light reading from Flotsam’s book, if everything in the book had a hint of truth then all the tales were likely factual in some given way. ‘The Caves of Intrigue’ were mentioned in there and from what Amira told us, they would unleash ‘interesting times’ upon the city. The lamp might unfortunately be in those caves.
“Huh… oh hey... Captain! I found out that Belfry can make some really good fertilizer.” Nefer woke up slowly and looked quite playful, his split tail was immediately pointing at his fruit trees that were quite bountiful by appearance. “Do you want some fruit Captain Blackcap?”
“No, but you’re doing a good job Nefer, keep it up.” Jacky bent down and rubbed Nefer's ears, she might actually be really good with children if it weren’t for her curse. “Now where did you put all those chemicals, scales and other stuff?”
“In a spare storage bag that had nothing in it Captain!” Nefer was soon purring happily when Flotsam came up to give him a cuddle. "Hey big sis, how was the palace?"
"It was nice, Nefer." Answered Flotsam.