//------------------------------// // Chapter fifty seven, Where we’re going: To the volcano. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -The Volcano, Upper Tier Square, Jacky- I took the key of the longma, even if I really wanted that cursed Dragon Burst Gem of Huoshan. I couldn’t endanger the world for my greed. The only reason I had it in the first place to give it away, was because Gene wanted that to be what he took. Huoshan laughed and said he’s seen weirder couples than us. That bloodstone was presented to me as a marriage proposal and then it gets taken by Teatime. Gene promised me that we would get it back, it was the principle of the matter when one stole from pirates, more importantly that he would see to it that it gets back in my talons personally. We may have to do some pirating, but I was okay with it as the target was definitely acceptable. We were all milling about in the upper tier’s square while Dragon Lord Torch talked with his daughter, he was a fretting parent and a mountain sized one at that. One did not interrupt a dragon that large. I had to give it to Dispel, Shocking and Teatime, they all had varying levels of competence and two of them succeeded in getting what they wanted. Shocking might have succeeded with what he wanted anyway with all the fighting he got to do in the coliseum. Said place was going to be rebuilt last and as a sign that Huoshan’s lower tier was restored to its former, not highly melted and burned down by lava, glory. “I still can’t believe we let that jerk get away without at least some comeuppance.” Arizona grunted out and I just smiled. “Say Tianhuo, could you get the longma to bring me the golem I had Velvet freeze solid? Also I’m going to need the same kind of oil you used on the middle tier walls to hold off the shadow horde.” I was getting a lot of curious looks. “In the current absence of my Captain and given that I am coming into my own as a captain personally, I would like to say that we are all undoubtedly owed a petty kitty response. Teatime should be far enough away now that he can’t blame us for what happens when we so graciously return one of his golems to him right? Oh and Ollie, be prepared to levitate the golem into the air and do what I tell you.” “Jacky what are you planning?” Gene asked while tilting his head in a lazy emotionless manner. “I know what I’m planning, but you need to plan a pirate raid on a particular airship later… provided that we can find it and its head start is suddenly massively delayed due to technical problems.” The golem was brought to me and Velvet came along with it, which was perfect. “Tell me Oleander, is the golem still connected to the parts retrieval system thing of Teatime’s airship?” “Yes… it’s not part of the rune structure that was used on the city and I’ve recently finished safely disabling all of said runes with Fred’s help.” What Ollie wasn’t saying is that she was keeping the slab that the master rune was still inscribed upon, not that many things other than a unicorn would be able to utilize it for something else anyway. “I can already tell where this is going and I approve wholeheartedly.” “Yes, it is quite dastardly idea of the lovely parrot here, BUT SHE DOES HAPPEN TO BE A PIRATE SO IT’S A MOOT POINT TO DISCUSS THE MORALITY OF SUCH AN ACTION.” When Fred was onboard with something, you knew it was a mean thing to do. We were still going to do it though, I had figured something like Teatime escaping would happen and had planned for this accordingly. After the Caves of Intrigue, he needed a bit of disproportionate karmic retribution. -The Grand Time, Teatime- “All I got out of this adventure is bloodstone, but it is still quite a valid treasure.” I placed the bloodstone on a velvet pillow, yes everything went splendidly considering. I got to test my machines, I got some treasure and the repairs to my airship would be relatively fast once I fixed a few of my clockwork pony golems from all the parts currently flooding the entirety of the automated repair bay. Most of all, the best thing about all this, I got one over on that parrot once more. We were destined to be rivals and she was always going to be one step behind my villainous ways, oh I’m sure she’ll remember and rue the day she ever crossed my path. Sure the plot failed as soon as Lord Torch came to the city, but my airship came out of this perfectly fine and only in need of a moderate amount of repairs for things that weren’t integral to its operations. It held off all those longma quite admirably and my wired wyverns were exceptionally resilient to damage. The set up and coordination for all my wyvern golems to go off at the same time took me so long to figure out, a wonderful puzzle that was to set them all up to activate at a given time. Still, none of this was of any negative consequence to me and I got away without injury. -The Volcano, Upper Tier Square, Jacky- “Break it in half.” I watched as Arizona grinned maliciously as she snapped the golem’s spine with her bare hooves, a surrounding number of longma and Tianhuo were also smiling when the golem dissappeared. Let’s see, a golem full of cannon powder, Huoshan highly flammable sticky oil, a very unique local brand of highly explosive firecracker tempura flakes and a few preparations for a time delayed detonation. We might even be able to see the results of it below the horizon from here. A small mushroom cloud could vaguely be seen in the distance, it brought a few tears of happiness to my eyes. Then a brick wall hit the ground behind me and slowly toppled on top of me, actually bringing real tears to my eyes. “Premeditated assault, all of you saw that!” Velvet immediately called out as she pointed at The Wall now smashing me into the stone street. The Wall quickly leaped up and fell in the opposite direction, then it did so again and then continued to do that as quickly as it could away from me. It soon became apparent that the wall might not have meant to fall on me, but how was it going to say otherwise when it didn’t have a mouth, eyes or anything a normal living being would require? Also it was doing its form of running from the scene of the crime and that implicitly made it guilty of at least something. The longma still fit for duty should be able to easily catch a brick wall after all they’ve been through. I needed Sweetcakes help to be able to stand up again. -A forest to the far northeast of Huoshan- The large metal oval suddenly exploded in the middle and split entirely in half and the two halves fell into the forest when the balloon eventually popped after catching fire from the explosion. It would take Teatime a while to fix the damage done to his airship, it wouldn’t help that the piles of pony golem parts had been scattered over a wide area in the explosion. -The Volcano, Paprika- I watched as pretty foxy with the several tails helped Jacky get back up in a timely manner, said fox was giving Jacky a slightly dirty look. “Look there’s no fixing what isn’t broke, just fix what is.” She told the fox, said fox sighed audibly with despair and continued to work over Jacky’s injuries. “I can handle the rest.” I turned to Arizona and Velvet and gave them pleading eyes. “Paprika wants to snuggle us Velvet, she’s actually asking for permission this time as this might muss up your floof.” Yep, Arizona was correct, I did want to hug them. I was happy they were alright despite the shadow horde leak being worse than the one at Haven’s Patch, things didn’t turn out so badly because of the location the leak happened at. The longma were really brightly lit and the shadows couldn’t have chosen a worst place to invade aside from the unicorns of light. I didn’t mind hugging shadows monsters, but they couldn’t seem to understand love or friendship. “Fine… I’ll take some sugar.” I grappled both Arizona and Velvet to myself and started to kiss and cuddle them into the ground. -Flotsam- The La Perm's are a strange family, speaking of… “Where’s Nefer, did Skelly get my little brother out of Teatime’s Airship?” That thing had been pretty well armored, my shots were spot on and I had barely damaged the armor. Gene looked away and seemed to be a little shy about it. “Is my brother okay or not?!” I was concerned about our favorite plant cat. “He’s… okay… enough.” That was rather dodgy Gene, look me in the eyes and tell me to my face. Did my brother lose one of his tail splits? “This concerns me as well, what happened Gene?” As Jacky grew slightly more aggressive by the second at Gene’s silence, she eventually barked out an order that Gene was unlikely to ignore. Jacky was after all his girlfriend and could make his life pretty horrible if he didn’t answer. “Out with it!” Gene made his way over to Jacky and whispered at the side of her head, his beak tickling her down. “He’s where?! That’s… ew… okay, you seriously don’t want to know Flotsam, but according to Gene he’ll be fine. He isn’t hurt, but he is at the hospital with Skelly.” Okay, now Jacky was being cagey about Nefer. Why would he be in the hospital if he’s perfectly fine? I narrowed my eyes at the two and slapped my tail against the stone pavement. “Look it’s going to be bit of a thing, so we’re going to get it taken care of swiftly and you’re better off not knowing.” Yeah, Jacky wouldn’t lie to me without a good reason, so she’s telling the truth. Nefer has likely gotten himself into an awkward situation again, as if the thing with the prostitutes at Saddle Sore Shores wasn’t weird or awkward enough. What could be worse than that? “Look, if you really want to know, then ask Nefer about it afterwards.” Oh, I’m going to, if my brother has been traumatized by his time on Teatime’s ship then I’m joining the boarding party when we go after this Dragon Burst Gem of Huoshan. “So where are you going to next, aside from going after Teatime’s airship, brother!?” Flamberge was loud and obnoxious, but I could see why he was called fiercely flammable. After coming back with Dragon Lord Torch, and my goodness that guy was huge, he set himself on fire at least five or more times throughout the fighting to the end. “We might head back to Turtle Toga to pick up some maps to random cursed treasures that might be fun to collect.” It wasn’t wrong of Gene to think we’d continue treasure hunting. It was fun visiting so many strange and wonderful places, now if only The Volcano hadn’t been so hot. “Where do you think you’ll end up?” “Don’t know, we’re definitely sure to be somewhere where we’re needed!” Oh right, Flamberge’s group has the magic boat that takes them constantly on adventures to wherever they need to be at a given time. That it appeared in the spa before all this says they needed to be here for the whole mess we just went through. “Well we have no idea where we’re going to go either, my mother was the one who has or had the key of the lambkin. Don’t honestly know where she went and we don’t have any clues, but we absolutely need it.” Arizona turned to Pom and her menagerie of many mutts that were snuggled up against her. “Also don’t know how we’re going to support these guys while we’re traveling around, goodness knows Paprika will try to keep us all fed and happy.” Paprika nodded as she pressed her face into Velvet’s so called ‘floof’. From the way Arizona tells it, you mess with Velvet’s ‘floof’ at your own peril and it seems Paprika didn’t care what the peril was when she loves her 'notably' violent wives. “If you can think of where you’re going from here, then we can give you a ride.” Offered Jacky, if she were a jerk of a pirate then she would be asking for money to ferry her friends around. “So long as Pom can keeping her canine companions under control, this offer is only good for a one-way trip to wherever.” “If we just had a clue as to where Minnesota Magnolia Arid went.” Velvet slapped Paprika across the face and the alpaca just smiled at her. “Did someone say clue, I believe I can help with that!” With a blast of smoke… nothing appeared, then a weird brown pony with his butt where his head should be and his head where his tail should be ran up to us. It was a hard to look at. “Ah, confusion god Veles, STILL AS CONFUSED AS EVER I SEE.” Fred caused a number of reactions. Ollie just glanced at Fred, Arizona and Velvet just let out groans of frustration and both Jacky and Gene just sighed audibly. “I’m not the one that is confused, everyone else is confused and just doesn’t know it yet! Also nice job with the golem, you really knocked the wind out the Timework’s sails. Also is there a cow around here?” Everyone pointed at Arizona. “Preferably one that doesn’t have udders so tiny that you’d need a microscope to find them, I’m talking about good clean dairy producing products here!” “I’m… not going to take offense to that.” Funny, I thought Arizona would blow up in anger at that. I think I can understand why this Veles guy is called a confusion god, because I’m certainly confused. “See, the land bound sea pony that can drown in a bathtub gets it!” He pointed to me with one of his rear legs while speaking still out of the flapping butt cheeks at the top of his neck. “Anyway my riddle is this, a rolling rock may gather no moss, but here cows do.” “Moss Cow.” Arizona stated flatly. “No, no, no, that’s not how you do this at all, you were supposed to ask for more clues and I’d lead you on a merry Snipe hunt until you find out that you need to speak to a pony named Sunburst there.” His right rear leg thrust papers into Arizona’s hooves. “You’re ruining my script, here see for yourself!” “It says you are likely to be hit by a meteorite over and over again.” Arizona stated dully. “No… wait… this one part says you’ll be playing a kazoo while drinking vodka and slumming it with Quetzalcoatl. Also I don’t think a Snipe would appreciate us hunting it.” “Fine, see if I hate you for this!” The flapping butt cheeks with the tail hanging between them stated. “Can I at least get a hug for… AGHH… she’s getting too strong, why are the gods of love and death are letting her live?!” That poor god, Paprika was upon him in seconds.