//------------------------------// // Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: Tepid. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -The Volcano (AKA Huoshan), Lower Tier, Streets, Velvet- I personally thought the number of guards that came here in response to Paprika being in the city to be positively ridiculous. Some of them were shivering in horror with every single small movement she made and I don’t think Tinsel was even noticed by any of them despite being clearly visible right on top of her head. Our loving wife ignored the trouble that she could cause just by sneezing right this instant and came over to nuzzle me affectionately. She of course avoided mussing up my wondrously soft and meticulously cared for floof, it was so hard to keep it looking presentable in all the heat around here. At least the city was much cooler and more bearable then being outside of it. I returned the affectionate gesture and was still quite jealous that Paprika was fluffier than I was, but she was a fluffmancer and there was no beating cuddly of that magnitude. Not that I would ever present myself as cuddly, I prefer to be the more sophisticated one. I think all these guards would overreact with extreme measures even if Paprika didn’t sneeze, they were just waiting for a single sudden movement. Not that they’d be able to stop our alpaca from cuddling all of them, but it was the thought of numbers bringing safety that brought them all here in such a large unruly clump to aim weapons at us. All of this made me wonder if they understood discipline, the reindeer were much better about reacting to Paprika than these longma were. Aside from freezing Paprika solid and alive. Paprika then moved onto Arizona who looked ready to fight every longma in our vicinity should anyone make a move against us. I hoped that diplomacy wasn’t dead, because if we had to fight the entirety of the Huoshan Guards… well that would be a few hours of fun at least. I can honestly tell you right now that we were not going to be on the losing end of things if a fight did break out. “I must ask, is all of this fuss over our wife absolutely necessary?” I tilted my head at Tianhuo, while indicating the absurdity of being surrounded by a large amount of longma guards with my right hoof. “No, but the guard still remembers what happened the last time she was here and wasn’t watched like a hawk.” This Tianhuo, who had been recently let free of Paprika, came over to Arizona and I. “The precautions are a bit extreme, but I can understand where they are coming from. I would also like to exclaim something important here… all you idiots left your other posts undefended, we need to heighten security immediately! Move it, I can take it from here and this recent incident was actually my fault! I apologize profusely for causing such a ruckus and the owner of the fireworks and cabbage carts will be compensated for their losses.” The longma gathered around us a bit tighter, but a glare from Tianhuo got most of them moving and a few looked entirely unsure if they should leave her. “Ugh, I can handle the alpaca!” Tianhuo’s mane, tail and back flared with flames as she grew angry. “I know all of you want to prove yourselves, but you could do that better by not leaving our streets entirely defenseless, now move it!” The final few guards then split off while sending Tianhuo worried looks. After they were gone, she turned to us. “I’m sorry about all this, but I will have to make sure your wife doesn’t get into any trouble while she’s here… but first I have to fix the damage that I’ve caused.” She turned to the exploded fireworks shop and stopped from talking to the owner for a second to address us. “The three of you better not leave my sight, I’m going to be your minder while you’re here!” “Oh joy…” Arizona stated sarcastically. “We’re getting a foal sitter.” “Shush Arizona, think of it getting a free guided tour of the city, she may even show us the arena where the Fiery Fights take place. Paprika stay with one of us and don’t wander off!” I caught Paprika slowly meandering towards the pony crying over a burnt out husk of a cabbage cart, she froze and gave me a sad eyed look. “Fine, but just give them a quick hug and come right back, do you understand me? You’re already attracting enough trouble as it is Paprika!” Paprika nodded with a bright grin, she then crouched down and pounced on the pony to bring him into a big hug. Tianhuo was too busy talking with the fireworks shop owner to notice Paprika snuggling someone into submission. Paprika eventually came back looking satisfied with herself that she had managed to raise that poor pony’s mood slightly. This was one of the few times she was successful at cheering someone up without freaking them out. We all decided to ignore the tower of white powder blasting itself into the sky nearby. The incident did seem to breed familiarity somehow, but Tianhuo was too busy here and the other city guards could take care of it. -The Volcano, Upper Tier, Cool Spot Spa, Flotsam- “Hey… big sis… why didn’t anyone bother us when we all got off the ship? You’d think they’d have their airship docks more heavily guarded than that. You know, since we’re really awesome pirates!” I turned a lazy eye to my left to see my little brother relaxing in a hot spring, I was reclining in a cold mud bath that had me feeling wonderful. It was a little too warm around here for me to be bathing in hot water and I didn’t want to be broiled alive. “Well I mean aside from that one guard that slammed into Captain Blackcap, but that was kind of a quick reaction to her being in the city.” “I honestly don’t know Nefer, but maybe they have bigger fish to fry than a pirate ship full of half-baked marauders like us. Also I think the guard hitting Jacky was an accident… like most of the things that happen around her.” I heard him mewl slightly and turned to him. “We’ve honestly been more focused on treasure hunting than actual pirating and you can’t say that we’re exactly the greatest at it.” “I don’t mind, we’ve been to so many interesting places and on so many adventures!” Nefer was right about that, the places we had been too had been wonderful. Now if living with Jacky wasn’t a constant health hazard. Still, we were all good friends and companions. “We’ve seen so much cool stuff big sis, I’ve eaten so much tasty soil and there’s also all those various nutrient rich fluids I’ve gotten into. Even this hot mineral water is delicious, but I don’t think it’s for most plants...” “Nefer, little brother, stop drinking from the hot spring, I don’t think anyone will appreciate you doing that!” Despite his whining, I could see Nefer did indeed stop drinking from the steaming spring. “Just relax and be thankful that we can get away from all the craziness for a while.” I could almost hear an explosion going off in the distance. It sounded like Jacky’s day was going through its usual routine, just another conga line of traumatic events that the Captain will simply walk off. “If you wanted us to be safe and didn’t want us to be surrounded by crazy, then why didn’t you take Jacky’s offer to leave the ship and make a life somewhere else?” There were occasions, not that it happened often enough, that Nefer threw me for a loop. “Despite my complaints and how annoying the crew is… they’re our family and not being with them would have driven me to tears.” He smiled at me and put his paws up on the edge of the hot spring while waggling his trident tail happily. “I still need a break from all that every now and then Nefer, at least we don’t have anything crazy happening around us at the moment.” Nefer was about to say something when a thick mist appeared between our respective spa treatments, then what I could only describe as a Viking Gondola popped out and hit the floor between us roughly. “Ask where we are now, I would not tell you a lie, we’re lost as ever.” The odd golden yellow dragon with the blue tipped tail stated oddly while looking about. There was something very off about her… “At least we seem to be somewhere safe this time!” The loud red dragon yelled, making Nefer flinch and cover his ears. The yak with them hopped out of the boat and looked about, apparently seeing no better options he eventually came over to me. “I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant!” I took one whiff and I’m quite sure my face turned green, he took one step back and the air seemed to clear immediately. I took a few deep gasping breathes as I gave the shield holding yak a look of horror “I am sorry, I will control my smell better. Do you know where we currently are?” “You’re in Huoshan, otherwise more colloquially known as The Volcano by just about everyone except the longma that live here. From what I’ve read up about this place, it’s a one city empire with various small villages in the region.” I really didn’t expect anything weird to happen around us without Jacky being present. “The longma that live here are subordinates to the dragon lands despite owning this small amount of territory, Dragon Lord Torch doesn’t interfere with the people here as long as they can keep the dragon lands from being invaded and or can police the region effectively. I suppose this region would be a fiefdom in that regard.” “Yep, that’s my big sis, she’s really smart!” Darn it Nefer, stop making me blush in front of these strangers. Speaking of, a mare with a large axe hopped out and came over to me to look at my hooves, she pointed at them while giving me a curious look. “Oh, right, I’m a sea pony. I can get around better than any other sea pony on land, but I have the unfortunate problem of being incapable of surviving underwater… as in I will drown because I can’t swim or live underwater.” Now that I considered it, the name Fortitude sounded familiar to me. “I’m Flamberge the Fiercely Flammable and that’s Skelly the Superbly Spirited, don’t know what to call Sweetcakes though. She doesn’t actually have Viking heritage.” Wait, this Flamberge and the other two were Vikings… yeah I could see that. “Well this adventure is already starting off oddly enough, so are you a pirate?” “Yep, big sis Flotsam and I are pirates aboard Captain Blackcap’s ship!” As soon as Nefer announced that both Flamberge and Fortitude froze up a bit. “Let me guess, your captain is a horribly unlucky parrot and she has a griffon as a friend?!” Apparently the dragon knew about our captain, I couldn’t help but wonder what Jacky did to them. “Yep, first mate Gene is awesome!” Nefer declared, making Fortitude and Flamberge chuckle. “Finally, we’ll get to see our brother again!” Flamberge belted out as he went to pick up a spear two blades in the shape of a V at the tip of it. “I’ve been wanting to give this to him for a while now.” Yeah the other spear has seen better days and Gene could use a new, more solid, weapon. “You guys are his brothers, that’s so awesome!” As Nefer held up his paws in excitement, something caught my attention from the corner of my eye and I saw something flopped out of the gondola. “What… is that?” Everyone turned to what I was pointing at, it looked like a conical writhing mass slowly trying to drag itself away. “Darn it, I thought we got rid of all of the tentacles of that eldritch horror!” I didn’t know what to be more horrified by. That eldritch horrors existed and we have yet to run into one with Jacky’s luck, or that Gene’s brothers apparently managed to take one on to some level of success. What followed was a chaotic fight involving a tiny portion of raw terror that wouldn’t stop moving no matter how many time it was crushed by a shield, splattered with an axe or lit ablaze by a flaming sword. It would eventually be killed when a bottle of milk was accidentally spilled on it, apparently the milk was part of the spa service that we paid for. Only we didn’t get our milk and the spa was going to make it up to use for that. -Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Kuril- Ratatoskr hasn’t been back in a while… what was taking him so long to get back to us? I unrolled the map and saw that almost everyone was in the same place, I was relieved that they were still there. Aside from crying myself to sleep after Blade freed Luna and hadn’t come back, the nightmare parasite controlling the princess was quickly defeated by Fluttershy, Pinkie and their friends. I wanted to hear from the others, but I wasn’t. What had happened to Ratatoskr? The only explanation I could think of was that something had happened to our high speed mail delivery squirrel. -The life and times of Ratatoskr, messenger god- Finding Arizona and Velvet. That had been easy and child’s play, especially given that they were mostly traveling on hoof. Finding Jacky and Gene, that had been a little bit harder, but I had managed to do the improbable without Jacky’s curse getting the better of me. As for Fortitude and Flamberge? They were absolutely impossible to find! After tracing their tracks through Soar Way, I found out that they went to Ponyville. My urge to kill the whole world was rising… I arrived in Ponyville only for them to be in Cloudsdale. Go to Cloudsdale, they were now quarter of the way around the world! At this point I’ve already handled the other two letters. Sometime later I almost caught up to them in a distant land, they disappeared into the mists before I could reached them at the river. Again I got delayed by customs and I think a few gods of fortune were screwing me over. As a messenger god, everyone like me would know my frustration when I couldn’t find my targets. It was just one letter, ONE, why was it so hard to get into Minos?!? Hermes, the smug guy, was probably drinking ambrosia this very second. I almost caught up to them in Kirin Valley, ‘almost’ is the keyword. I had been delayed by a number of factors. The biggest problem were other gods, messenger or otherwise, and local bureaucracy, but I had yet to fail my duties to deliver and darn it all I was going to deliver this! By the time I did reach them in Kirin Valley, a Kirin was waving them off and they disappeared into some mist. As you can imagine… I wasn’t happy with this. Then… oh then… let me tell you this next location is one I hated with every fiber of my very godlike being… Nowhere. They ended up in Nowhere, the place better known as Messenger’s Bane! Long story shortened, I hate bureaucracy!