//------------------------------//
// Quit While You're Ahead 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Felicity and Slipstream panted, having wrestled the regalia and the griffon-shaped figurine on which it hung back to the pillar of light from the broken roof in the galley. Immaculate as ever, the clothing seemed to shine softly in the light, as if its threads bent the rays slightly to draw more attention to itself.

"Whew," Felicity breathed, wiping a wing across her brow. "Treasure, you've done us proud. I fear we'll need to carry it back piece by piece, or perhaps with Harshwater's help..."

"Do you still want to look for more?" Slipstream tilted her head, feeling her fur plastered against itself. "We've got more than enough to carry back if we leave now..."

Felicity hummed in thought. "Mmm... I am a little tired, but I'd rather not." She picked at her fur, in poor condition from her crawls across the ground. "Better to get this all over with at once."

"Right..." Slipstream nodded. "So, the only way left is downstairs?"

Felicity squared her shoulders, heading for the door to the hallway again. "I believe that to be the case. If this really was a merchant ship, there's likely to be a large hold down there, with a possibility of more things plunderers missed."

Slipstream followed along. When Felicity tried the stairs, the first board immediately broke under her hoof, no one having installed vertical slats to support the horizontals. She scowled at it disdainfully, having caught herself and prepared for the fall.

"Well..." Slipstream surveyed the dark staircase, descending to a shadowy landing and then switching back. "There's no room to fly down..."

"Grab ahold," Felicity sighed, taking the pegasus in a wing and stepping into a wall. Moments of swimming later, they emerged from the darkness at the foot of the stairs in a pitch-black interior... and Slipstream immediately felt rotting wood beneath her hooves.

"Oh, I don't like the feel of this," Felicity sighed, rocking a watery floorboard beneath her. "Seems the ship is resting on the ground, here, but in a very non-waterproof manner."

Slipstream took a step, and the next board outright bent beneath her with a soggy groan. "That's not good at all," she agreed, pulling back and bumping into Felicity in the dark. "I don't like this. How much can you see?"

"A little bit." Felicity bit her lip. "There's a lot down here. Covered things, crates... Looks like some have fallen a short distance through the floor on their own weight. And let me feel..." She ran the edge of a hoof expertly over the wet floorboards. "There are some faint scratches here, though I'm guessing they were made long before the boards were this wet. Likely a few years, but not when the ship was quite still running."

"How much do you think they'd dry if we came back another day?" Slipstream asked.

Felicity felt the floor again. "Very little. Though we could at least bring a light..."

"Time to go back?" Slipstream tilted her head.

"No, we're getting through this," Felicity assured. "I have a feeling anything of value down here is likely either rusted or ruined, but it's faintly brighter up towards the prow of the ship. The direction we weren't able to go because the door was caved in. And if the floor won't support us... this is how it is done."

She stepped cautiously forward... then stomped harder. The floor immediately cracked beneath her hoof, a waterlogged section dropping several inches and hitting the ground. Felicity waited, then lowered her hoof, the wood now sitting solidly on the ground below.

"What are you doing?" Slipstream asked, following along behind.

"Grab on again, darling," Felicity said, standing carefully in her hole. "I'm skipping all of this and being clever."

Slipstream clung to her, and Felicity dipped them again into the shadows... this time swimming along the floor of the valley, mud and long-dead grass decaying in the ship's shadow. Slipstream held her breath, unable to tell just how tight of an enclosure they were passing through, but her lungs had almost begun to burn when Felicity surfaced in another hole, poking into the ship where a shattered support pillar had brought the floor down. The roof also had a hole, and though the ceiling above that was intact, somewhere in the next room up was an exposed window.

"Feeling like flying up there?" Slipstream asked, craning her neck.

"Doesn't seem like it's the best idea. But there is another staircase." Felicity pointed slightly further down the ship.

Slipstream took a step, and found the floor here to be drier and slightly sturdier than the waterlogged boards from before. She paced lightly, keeping her hooves spread and her weight even, and Felicity resorted to crawling again behind her, not trusting her heavier weight when the boards were already groaning. "I am so going to need a bath after this..."

The next staircase was the same build as the first. "Hug the wall," Felicity advised, "since that's where the braces are. And tread lightly. I'm not sure I can carry you up a wall while swimming, so you'll have to get this on your own."

Slipstream felt a step wobble beneath her, but Felicity's advice was sound. "If we're not looking for treasure in the hold, what even are we looking for?"

"At this point, just trying to map the place out and decide if there's anything we need to bring to finish exploring!" Felicity stared up the staircase, just enough light present to reflect in her slitted eyes.

"Right..." Slipstream rounded the landing and started up the second flight, another step cracking ominously but the whole thing holding together.

This room was reasonably well-lit, courtesy of two square windows on either side. It was in about as bad of shape as the captain's room, with a collapsed wall and a blocked exit that was likely the other side of the door in the galley. A sizable hole had been torn in half the floor, and the corners were heaped with mound after mound of black powder. Three wheeled, cylindrical apparatuses sat scattered around the floor that Slipstream slowly recognized as cannons.

"Oh wow," she said, stepping carefully over to one of the fallen guns, touching it with a hoof.

"Slipstream, freeze!" Felicity's voice called out behind her, stricken with urgency. Slipstream almost whirled... but did what Felicity said, keeping her neck and legs stiff and not moving a muscle. What was wrong?

Behind her, Felicity sniffed, standing at the top of the staircase. "That is a lot of gunpowder," she whispered. "There are scoops taken out of it. From some point after this ship went down... No matter. Darling?" Her tone suddenly became buttery and sweet. "Is there any chance you're either not wearing horseshoes, or have ones that don't happen to be metal?"

Slipstream folded her ears. "Youuu say it like it matters a whole lot..."

"Hypothetically, darling!"

"Maybe?"

Felicity swallowed. "Darling, you are going to stay there and not twitch a hair for fear of igniting these explosives and vaporizing us faster than that Crystal ever could hope to. Fortunately, I wear padded ones, which may have soaked up a lot of water and should be slightly safe. I'm just coming to get you..."

"Why do you wear padded horseshoes?" Slipstream asked, finding nothing else to fixate on besides the fact that she was apparently surrounded by explosives.

"For the times when silence is a virtue," Felicity simply replied. "Now I'll just... I don't know, find some way to carry you to a window and we'll leave, since I suddenly don't feel like exploring anymore..."

Slipstream didn't question whether the gunpowder was actually that unstable. "Can you really carry me? Is that even necessary?"

"I likely can't, but we'll cross that bridge when we-"

The floor cracked sharply beneath her.

Between the shattered support pillar below, the already-considerable hole in the floor, and the weight of Felicity, Slipstream, and the cannon all close together, the wood began to bend. Felicity gasped and stepped back, but there was now a hairline fracture running through the boards, and they were making noise that wasn't abating. Slipstream's wings trembled, and she swallowed. "Felicity, I think I'm moving..."

"Yes, yes, just... ah... don't fly," Felicity quickly urged. "It will stir up all this powder and wreak havoc on my lungs. We just-"

The floor snapped again, and Slipstream jolted. "I'm going to fall!"

"Alright then, I'll just circle around this way, and..." Felicity moved more quickly than she would have liked, fueled by desperation, and paid the price as a chunk of wood completely separate from Slipstream's yet adjacent from the pit broke off, dropping her like a rock. "Aaah!"

"Felicity!" Slipstream started to reach a hoof, but that was all her section of the floor could handle as well. It gave like a ramp, sliding her down and dropping her harshly, breaking a few more boards when she landed.

The cannon teetered on the edge, and then it fell, too.

Both mares were squarely in the way of the falling gun and any more of the ceiling it was about to take with it. Acting on panicked instinct, Slipstream lunged for Felicity, tearing part of her skin on a freshly-broken board but managing to grab on tightly. With instants to spare, Felicity dove into the darkness, taking Slipstream along as the cannon and a sizable chunk of ceiling clattered down atop them.

Felicity stayed under as long as their lungs would allow. When they surfaced, the air was so heavy with dust Slipstream immediately started coughing. "Fly," Felicity rasped, spreading her wings. "Window..."

Slipstream soared, using the last dregs of her breath to try to boost Felicity as well. They both made it halfway through the nearest window frame, jagged and broken and looking less like it had been damaged in the crash and more like something big had tried to force its way through it. But their wings caught as they tried to exit together, landing them with their heads outside and their barrels hung on the jagged frame.

Felicity coughed violently, grabbing the wall with her hooves to steady herself, and Slipstream did too. Eventually, they hauled themselves further out, landing on their backs on a shadowed hillside and staring up at the sky.

"I've changed my mind," Felicity wheezed, eyes streaming. "Ohhh it'll take a few hours before I think I can fly back. We're taking that regalia and are done..."

Slipstream hammered her chest, coughing. "Ow, I cut myself... I guess we discovered their payload that they wanted to crash into the fortress. Can I get you up to our hill?"

Felicity didn't object, and once Slipstream had gotten her breath back and stopped coughing, she got the bigger mare onto her back and made it through the swampy ground surrounding the airship hull. Back at their landmark hill, Starlight was still diligently at work, about a third of the mound completely bald. The filly saw them coming, standing and looking down with concern.

"We're fine... sort of? We're alive!" Slipstream called up.

Felicity just clung to her. "Ooooogh..."