//------------------------------// // Chapter Sixty Three, The Convergence: Assemble. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Morning, Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Kuril- I carefully squeezed two drops out of the dripper into the small cauldron and watched as the fluids changed to purple, I frowned slightly. Slowly the fluid started to turn a bright cherry red and I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. Yes, I had just made strawberry flavored healing potions that would work as advertised! Though broken bones would have to be set before ingesting, the efficacy is otherwise maximized to the best I could possibly get it to be. I started to slowly scoop up multiple vials, I had about twenty three in all. I was about ready to head out, Zebrica was pretty dangerous and I wanted to make sure I was moderately well prepared with numerous salves, tinctures and possible cures for the various odd maladies that might pop up before we arrived. I had quite a few instant wall vials, temporary small animal transformation vials for defensive purposes and I was slowly making my way up to figuring out how to get the instant stone shelter potion to work. I walked into the main room of the restaurant and looked to see Fizzle levitating three oranges with her face sweating slightly. She slowly moved one of the oranges over to the bowl and let go of it. The other oranges almost immediately exploded covering her in citrus. “Are you having better luck with preparations mom?” Fizzle stated as she dripped with the remains of the oranges splattered all over her face. I quickly made my way over to wipe her down after getting a dampened towel from the kitchen. “Oh I’m pretty much done, I just need to pack my spare robes and load my staff with a potion.” One of the interesting things the alpacas did to the strange staff from the Eerie Eel Eye was make it capable of storing a potion. If I swung the staff with the head of it unlocked, then it would fling the potion a pretty good distance. I hadn’t trained with slinging some wood that was shaped like a potion vial, it was a little difficult to hit anything with accuracy beyond twenty feet. So it was most likely useful for a surprise up close tactic. “How’s Maries preparing for this trip?” I asked as I rubbed some of the splattered chunks out of Fizzle’s mane. “They’re working out, Marie is practicing swapping between Mara and Maria when they split up. She really doesn’t like being alone by herself.” From what Fizzle said, when given a little freedom from their sisters, I’m sure both Mara and Maria like a little privacy once in a while. Marie was the odd one out in never wanting to be separate from one them them because she really didn’t like becoming cold blooded. “I believe Mara is working over a sand bag with clawless paw swipes. Maria is practicing her fire breathing and I think she took one of your ‘infamous’ delayed instant wall potions to practice her butting. Also Marie is able to lift Maria off the ground with her body when they are paired up without Mara, Mara weighs too much to do the same thing though. It’s fairly fascinating to watch them split and combine. So long as they don’t stay apart for too long, I won’t have much to worry about when it comes to them.” “So that’s why my stock is one short… what is Daring currently up to?” I hadn’t seen her around the town today. “She’s returning the peg leg to Leg Ate Hollow, she’s a pretty quick flyer when her wings aren’t broken.” Fizzle answered as I went to get another towel to wipe her down with. “Blade is juggling knives and seemed to be practicing her throwing skills with a used dart board that nobody needed, her special talent for edged weapons or cutlery hasn’t suffered in the slightest from the memory loss.” “I really like that Blade grew her mane out, it looks nice. Though I’m quite sure she likes it shorter, she’s keeping it long for me.” Gives me something to brush in the morning, I did brush her tail as well and our moments together were rather sweet and intimate. “So what’s Sekhet doing, you said she was called by the map too?” I was a bit sad that Fizzle mostly takes care of hers own hygiene these days, but I understood she was a full grown mare. I was almost missing the feeling of being a mother, but little Gavin helped out on that front. The precocious little guy loves his Grandma Kuril, Aunt Fizzy and Doggy Bones. Savannah and Brenda would take care of Gavin, also Savannah immediately started dropping hints that she was interested the second she saw Brenda and they were beginning to hit it off from what I last saw. A Diamond Dog and an Abyssinian… that’s going to be a little odd if Savannah actually gets things rolling. Fresh Start would make a good provisional mayor while I was gone, again. Professor Permanganate thankfully supplied me with the phosphorescent chemicals I needed for my ever glow potions, so I could light up any area if things get too dark since we’re heading into the jungle underbrush of Zebrica. He also gave me a book on plants in the Zebrican wilderness that were both useful and dangerous to read about on the way. Our local library was being filled out fairly well thanks to the Diamond Dog construction crew that took up residence here, it also looked like a crashed airship… everything in this town does honestly aside from Sekhet’s pyramid home that doubles as a landmark for visitors. “Yeah, she was.” Answered Fizzle once she was mostly cleaned up, she still needed to take a bath. She started heading for the stairs to likely cleanse herself and gather the stuff she’d be taking on this trip. “She believes that this trip might involve her sister Bastet.” “I wonder what Bastet is like.” If we met her then I’m sure she’s just as interesting an individual as her sister Sekhet continues to be. What was Fluttershy doing to prepare for this trip? We did tell her we were boarding at Airship Mauled and disembarking to head south at Cow-ro or we also stop by the pony town of Somnambula to see Somnambula herself. We were heading to foreign lands where we might meet a number of zebra that were as friendly as Zecora was. Though not all of them were bound to be friendly, I liked to think that Zebra culture was just as nice until I’m otherwise proved wrong. I’ve certainly gotten the hang of crazy pony culture what with Ponyville being worse than us in the sanity department. -Flying back from Leg Ate Hollow, Daring Do- I can’t believe it, I passed by that area multiple times when it comes to visiting Mare-akech or following all the clues and its location is in southern ancient anugypt? I’ve had problem with sphinxes before, but this time I wasn’t going to run into too much issues as I was traveling with one. I was still flabbergasted that it was as close as that, we could practically drop in at Cow-ro or Somnambula to make our way there. Awesome adventures were my thing and this search for ‘The End of Immortality’ has been a pretty big one. I even marked it down in my journal as one of the world’s longest treasure hunts, a treasure hunt requiring a world record of visiting fifty seven almost disparate locations where the clues would always lead to another one. I would be making it up to Kuril and solving one of my biggest mysteries as to what the artifact is, what it obviously does and everything. I was so excited, this wasn’t going to be one of my slow granny digs! The traps, the architecture, the danger, it’s going to be practically everything lived for! Plus all this will make my next book rather highly interesting as I won’t be anywhere near Ahuizotl and I won’t be running into Caballeron if he’s turned over a leaf like he said he would try to do. Instead I might run into some new villains to write about like that Clockwork guy from GODLESS, I’ve seen him several times and the guy was a real piece of work. At least he didn’t beat me to the Staff of Sacanas, that’s what Fizzle did and I’ve never been happier that something so dangerous is in the right hooves after she took down the Storm King. I might actually be able to tie up all of my loose ends with this one. -Airship Mauled, Grubber’s Gastronomical Goods, Grubber- I sat back munching my way through a warm and creamy chimi-cheesy-cherry-chonga, the business of helping others and selling baked goods was actually beginning to pick up as we traveled around. At least the Abyssinians could forgive us, though I doubt they ever forgot a slight done to them. It was nice not to be hated by most of the world now and running a mobile baking industry was an interesting idea of mine. I mean I did have access to a lot of airships that were going completely unused and good friendly workers in the Storm Creatures that were tough enough to not take any smack talk from anybody. Plus pirates wouldn’t want to hit our airships with highly armed crews that transported only cargo for making really tasty baked goods. I was on my way to making a baked goods empire, freshly made and warm right off of the airship into your lovely homes. Why yes, we do due deliveries, just try to keep it under thirty pounds worth of goods per carry out or else we’ll have to charge more for services or you could carry it yourself at a far cheaper cost. We’d simply get Fizzle where she needed to be and we’d buy some fruit to support Airship Mauled’s economy, win-win all around and we can do some selling at wherever they end up disembarking us from. Make some new customers and spread my love of baked goods to the world without being a cruel tyrant. This was my life and I loved it better than where it previously was! -Airship Mauled, Fluttershy- “Oh, I hope Angel can keeps things under control for Dr. Fauna…” I was a bit nervous, but I was needed by my friends and I wasn’t going to let them down. My bunny might actually be getting a little more mature now, I’m so proud of Angel! The carnivores couldn’t survive on meat substitutes forever, but it could do passably for a while and I made sure that my sanctuary was well stocked and that Dr. Fauna could handle things while I was gone. Fish was a good substitute meat. I’ve always wanted to see the exotic animals of Zebrica. Oh I bet they are all so cute and cuddly creatures, I’ll make so many new friends! Hopefully things don’t get too dangerous. “Hey Grubber.” I waved to him as I landed on the deck and started drop off my bags. “Hey Flutters, we’re still loading up supplies.” Grubber was a rather friendly hedgehog. “We’ll be ready to leave around noon.” Sure he was a little mean spirited before, but he wasn’t really that much of a bad guy to begin with and I think things have turned out quite nicely for him from what Pinkie tells me. -Canterlot City, Flamberge- Travel on had us stuck here for a little while, but we’ve done about all we could do. Maybe it’ll take us back to Equestria this time? Having to use my flaming sword with my mouth for a few years was quite annoying. “So we’ve been all around this world and frankly I’m unimpressed... at least Viking culture back home didn’t die out.” Suddenly someone spoke up and it wasn’t Fortitude or a haiku from Sweetcakes. “Did you just talk?” A purple furred dog asked. “Yes, that is generally what happens when a dog barks. That’s usually how they speak.” I was making it a point to differentiate myself from the average dog I looked to be. That’s why I always wore my sheathed sword on my back. “We’re interdimensional travelers and we’re on our way back to our world hopping boat. We’re as lost as we usually are, but I can’t say the adventures have ever been boring.” “So you’re from Equestria?” The dog asked as a number of girls played around a twenty or so feet away on a picnic blanket. “I am Fortitude the Fantastically Fragrant, I happened to be a mighty yak before this! Also yes, we are being mostly stuck on this world for a few years, we are having a great time with adventures involving many a magical artifact from Equestria.” Fortitude smiled to the dog. Skelly looked a little bored here. “Don’t sniff him, you’ll regret it for the rest of your short life.” I let out a belch of flames. “Probably shouldn’t have drank that soda, it gives me flaming burps. Anyway, we’re coming off an grand adventure involving a bank robbery, the wrong license plate, a cheese wheel, these three weird girls that proclaim themselves to be sirens and a crooked police officer that led up to us finding a magical artifact from our home in Equestria.” “So you’re a dragon like my counterpart, what is it with dragons turning into dogs when they come here? I mean I’d expect iguanas, chameleons, a komodo or at least a pterodactyl out of it, but no, dragons are apparently dogs in this world and our world is relatively boring without magic. My name’s Spike by the way.” Spike introduced himself jovially. “Oh and those girls were likely sirens, just ignore them or befriend them. So what does the artifact you have do exactly?” “It’s called the Sieve Precarious and it opens up a hole into the chaos dimension. It’s not safe for anyone to have and we recently rescued a bunch of people from this world’s chaos realm.” Fortitude really didn’t like the Sieve Precarious and I learned have learned to loathe its existence, it was just unfortunate that we couldn’t figure out how to destroy it. Kind of wished I knew magical alchemy as a cast would certainly make sure it didn’t open up any more holes. “Don’t honestly know how it got into this world, but we’re making sure it’s sealed tightly in cement again and is contained to Tartarus and back the next time we’re in Equestria.” “Save this world we do, magical dangers not new, we truly miss home.” Sweetcakes said pleasantly as she bowed her head to Spike. “We might get home with Travel On this time, one is never knowing… like last few times we've crossed dimensions.” Fortitude said with a grin. “Ugh, don’t remind me, we were all slime monsters in that one dimension. I’d take the dimension where we were eldritch creatures any day!” The tentacles weren’t horrible that time as they were mine, but frankly I would never want to go back there or the slime monster dimension where everything was trying to kill us. “I miss being a dragon.” “Yet you can still breathe fire when my counterpart couldn’t?” Spike asked in a curious tone. “I have enough magic that my fire breath carries over no matter what dimension we’re in.” I explained and Spike nodded in understanding.