It had been a long journey for the three flyers, as they kept clear of the smaller islands and well south of the shattered rocks where the drow lurked. The two pegasus mares were out in front, Set Sail leading with Cloud Cutter close behind. Trailing behind was Reef Skimmer, the larger hippogriff pulling the two-pony wooden cart on his own. In the back of the modest conveyance sat Summer Scribe, with nothing to do but check her notes and watch the slowly drifting clouds.
A few curious birds paced them for a while as they passed the aerial cliffs, but other than that there was no sign of another creature. Ahead, their destination appeared as an impossible twisting ribbon of water, suspended in mid-air, connecting four major islands and weaving through or brushing past several smaller islets. Slowly it grew larger until at last, nearly two hours since leaving the Harmony, the impossible waterway filled the sky in front of them.
The blue and brown Set Sail tried not to let her lack of endurance show, but all those weeks of keeping close to the ship and only flying up to the balloon and back had taken their toll. She stubbornly flew on, determined not to be the one to drag them down, distracting herself from the impinging soreness by worrying about the future, and thinking on what her grandfather told her about fights.
Cloud Cutter continued onward, occasionally glancing back at Summer; she admired the unicorn's courage, coming this far without wings. The little mare seemed unfazed by the prospect of a long fall down into the clouds below so far away that they almost faded into the blue of the sky. It was easy to fly ahead of her, for though she didn’t tire, she didn’t feel very energetic either. Just cruising along, not really feeling like doing anything else, or doing anything for that matter, unless someone here wanted her to.
The highest and most distant island appeared as a great massing of grey rock, capped with flecks of white, from which the river emerged in rushing rapids. Winding past a few small rocks, one sporting a protrusion that definitely looked artificial, the water made its way down to a much larger, flatter island, where it broke up into a myriad of small streams winding through a broad swamp, ringed by woodland. A scattering of structures nestled in the trees at the edge of the marsh, though the details were hard to see at this distance. The water gathered back together to exit the marsh in a slower, lazier section that wended its way to the third island, flanked by oxbow lakes that like their parent hung impossibly in the air.
The third landmass was as large as the second but split into two levels, prominent cliffs dividing the forest and creating a series of dramatic waterfalls as the river made its way from an upper pool to a lower one. A tight group of large buildings could be seen in the upper regions, while the lower sported a scattering of ponds and odd unidentifiable structures, hard to see under a kind of misty haze that covered a wide roughly circular area. Finally the river made its way down, past a few more secondary islands to end at the fouth major massing, dominated by a central lake. This final island was ringed by waterfalls where the river ended its journey by plunging into the void, the water turning to spray and disappearing entirely a hundred metres or so below the edge.
The remains of what had clearly been a castle could be seen in the jungle bordering the lake, broken towers anchoring tumbled-down walls ringing a relatively intact central keep, while a few isolated huts could be seen in the rest of the swamp and on islands in the central lake.
Despite the relaxed pace, Reef Skimmer's wing muscles were starting to cramp from the exertion, and the cart's weight felt like it was slowly but steadily increasing. Panting through wide-open beak, he struggled to pull ahead and close the gap with the pegasi. "Where.... to... Captain?" he shouted.
"Okay, first order of business is to find a landing point!” Set Sail calls back over her spread brown fletched wings, eager to be done with this flight, “Preferably somewhere secluded and out of sight!”
Summer Scribe barely heard; she was gaping at the floating, forking, weaving, defying gravity rivers. 'How interesting!' she thought, 'I mean, the islands themselves float somehow, but these aren't even pretending to have any kind of physical coherency or gravity defying mineral in them! What kind of magic could cause this?' As far as she could tell from her squinting, it didn't seem like the water really came from anywhere. Was it a closed circuit, or was it condensing from the air somehow? "Fascinating..." She twirled her quill in absent thought and squinted again before calling out "I think I can see structures, too. Plenty of them!"
"Very... well... but... which island... do we... start with?" Reef panted back. All except the mountain had visible structures, and for all they knew that had buildings as well, hidden from their current position. He had no idea which the ponies would find most enticing.
Set Sail scanned around the nearest, lowest island, declaring, “That looks like a castle! With all that jungle around it’s gotta be abandoned, but there might be jungle creatures living in there! You think we should give it a shot?”
Summer Scribe gave it a few seconds thought, then nodded. "Yeah, that should be good! It'll give at least makeshift shelter and maybe even grazing in the courtyard." 'As for the carnivores amongst us,' she thought, 'they usually sort themselves out!'
Cloud Cutter descended without a word, but Set Sail for the first time let her go ahead, drifting back towards Reef Skimmer. The sailmare was breathing hard, but she still wanted to help out the doctor, who'd pulled Summer and their supplies all the way from the ship. Pulling alongside the cart, she realised there was no way to fit into the hitch; the hippogriff was centred between the shafts and in any case his huge wings precluded fitting a pegasus alongside. Instead she went to the rear, hooking her forehooves over the back panel and taking some of the burden.
There was that vague feel of being connected to the vehicle, that meant that her own wing magic was helping to lighten it. Sensing the change behind him, the hippogriff looked back over his shoulder, his beaked face as inscrutable as ever to Set Sail. “You... doing alright?” she asked, a bit breathlessly, tired wings straining to push the cart forward towards the castle.
Reef Skimmer appreciated the Captain's choice of destination: as the lowest point, it would be the least strenuous to reach. "I was... starting to think... of this cart... as my personal nemesis" he said "...but perhaps... it just wants... to be my personal... trainer. In any... case... my thanks... for the... assistance." Soon they were close enough to just stretch out their wings and glide the rest.
The three flyers, plus one passenger, drifted down towards the bottom island, all alert for any sign of life. Waterfowl were present in abundance, along with larger four-legged shapes moving in the trees; from the pointed snouts, most likely pigs. Scaled, fishy bipeds were nowhere to be seen, but there was some of the clutter and detritus of sapient inhabitants; trails wound through the marshy jungle adorned with marker posts and the occasional wooden bridge or jetty, drums and boxes lay scattered on the shoreline, a discarded fishing net here, the remnants of a cooking fire there.
The jungle grew right up to the castle ruins, vines crawling up the walls and slowly pulling down the stone, but the courtyard inside was relatively clear. "One will do one's best, but... best brace yourself, Summer." Reef aimed for a cleft in the curtain wall and glanced at Set Sail; she nodded back and they came down to land in front of the keep, the cart pushing noisily into the long grass and coming to a rapid stop.
"Got it, bracing!" Summer Scribe tucked her head down and body low, making a curled shape, hooves pushing hard against the jostling as the cart stops. As soon as the immediate danger passed, she hopped down and streeetched her legs! "Whew! That was a long trip. I hope we find a better travel solution than 'cart' soon; I'm sure you agree, Reef!" She chuckled at the hippogriff, as she looked around, just basking in being on land again for the moment, but that ruined castle soon got her attention...
Cloud Cutter was already down and standing in the courtyard. Once the cart had settled to a stop, she trotted up to it, ignoring Summer to stick her nose into the piled up supplies, lifting a canteen of water up by its neck strap and hurrying over to the two hardest hit fliers. Not sure whether she needed to say it or not, she sloshed the water canteen suggestively before them.
"Ah, the soul of courtesy, embodied as a pegasus." Reef remarked, grabbing the canteen in a claw. He took a quick swig, before looking guiltily at Set Sail and thrusting the container over to her. "Apologies, Captain first?" She waved him off with a hoof, uncomfortable with the idea of special privileges just for being the notional leader.
At one point, the castle was some combination of serious fortification and symbol of authority, with a few crenelations still visible, the fallen lumps of gargoyles under the grass in the courtyard and the weathered remains of what were once complex carvings all around the main gate. That must have been many centuries ago though. Now the rusted remnants of a portcullis made a last stand against the encroaching jungle, looking like they might crumble to dust with one good kick. The door to the keep looked in somewhat better shape, the wood almost fossilised.
Summer Scribe's attention was glued on the fortifications. "Now this is cool. Biggest native structure I've seen yet!" She beamed, tail flicking from side to side as she paced around the keep, studying every detail. "Looks centuries old, too. No sign of a town around it. I wonder what geopolitical plays it was a part of!"
“Yeah it is... cool. Not well defended of course, but it kept the jungle back,” Set Sail said, stretching like a cat to work her wings out, if cats had wings that is. “How about we rest here for a bit, then we can start searching around for those gill men?” Her eyes fell on Cloud Cutter a moment, before turning away in an unsettled quiet, while the curiously serene Cloud Cutter herself frowned and stared at her hooves.
"Gill men, right." Summer Scribe realised that she couldn't just distract herself with archaeology indefinitely, and looked around. "Hmm... they're meant to be behind a forcefield, right?" She looked into the distance, spotting something shimmery on the next island upriver. "So probably on that landmass over there. Course, they could be all over the place if they venture over their own island chain."
Reef Skimmer sat down heavily, flattening another patch of long grass under his rump. Nodding to Summer, he confirmed: "Miss Barrow... Arrow... the drow that is... said that the gill-men hid in the 'force field' when the pirates came to raid them. Which implied that they don't live under it all the time. One does wonder why; if it's so safe, must be some drawback... or perhaps a cultural factor?"
Summer Scribe nodded in agreement to Reef. "Right, makes sense; maybe it feels stuffy under there. I mean, if you have all this island space to work with, you'd want to use it all, right? And it might not be self-sufficient in the dome itself, and so on. It's basically the same reason why you build castles: they're your line of defence." she said, gesturing at the ruins.
“This castle sure didn’t succeed as a line of defence,” Cloud Cutter remarked, looking around at the shattered stone: ancient, preserved evidence of the castle’s fall. “I wonder what destroyed it.”
Summer Scribe nodded again. "I am curious, but it'd take a while to figure out, and we have more pressing matters." They couldn't just indulge her curiosity; she felt dutiful now that there was an actual goal besides 'look at ruins'.
"We might never know, after all this time." Reef said, looking around as if more interested in the vines than the walls underneath. "Unless you have a spell for that, of course." Reef said, looking at Summer Scribe and cocking his head.
Summer chuckled at Reef's suggestion; he had a very high opinion of unicorn magic, it seemed. "Well, there's spells that enhance fine details so you can better make out engravings and faded writing and stuff, and I can do that just fine. But I don't have any serious past-scrying or truth-determining magic..." She chuckled: "If I did, I'd probably be on top of the world! Anyways..."
Having drunk his fill from the canteen, Reef stowed in back in the cart. He'd managed to get out of bringing his wing blades, suggesting that they should avoid scaring the natives and also they could ill-afford extra weight. Meanwhile Set Sail was busy testing the tall grass for edibility, head buried in it as she nosed around. It had a sharp, unique tang to it that would probably make it a trendy side dish at an overpriced Canterlot restaurant. Edible albeit an acquired taste.
As she chewed on the grass, the pegasus spotted movement through the rusted portcullis... something was out there, something pony-sized and curious with two beady eyes, large curling horns and a flat pink snout that nosed through a gap in the bushes. Hunkering down in the grass, Set Sail scurried backwards until she bumped into Reef Skimmer. “There’s a pig!” she hissed to him urgently, staring through the obscuring, odd tasting fronds, “What do we do? There’s a pig!”
Summer Scribe perked up as she saw Set Sail's panicked look. "Hang on, I'll handle this, as the Lead Diplomat." She trotted forward, cleared her throat and locked gazes with the pig's beady eyes!
"Greetings! We are ponies, from Equestria, here on a scientific mission of exploration and discovery, and we come in peace, hoping to make friends wherever possible!" ...Squint. "I don't think the pig can understand us." Eardroop. Well, it was worth a shot, she thought.
It did look like a tasty bit of meat, Reef thought; not that the ponies would appreciate the sentiment but perhaps Grenelda would be cheered up by the prospect of fresh bacon. "Oh, I don't think it can get through that gate, just curious I suppose." he said. "Rather ordinary compared to the plant life, which is to say, it's bright green, but other than it could be a South Equestrian wild hog."
Summer Scribe gave a kind of nervous chuckle, trying to deflect from her error. It didn't really matter, right? "Yeah! I guess we should leave it be, right?"
“Well, yeah, but...” Set Sail said, standing up in the grass sheepishly, still looking the pig’s way, “He can’t get in, that’s okay then. I just thought he was gonna attack.”
The pig replied with a string of grunts and snorts. It pressed forward against the portcullis, making it creak and then crack as a sizable lump of metal, more rust than iron, broke off. The scrap clonked the pig on the neck, causing it to squeal loudly and run off into the jungle. Birds started cawing and several took flight at the commotion.
Set Sail squeaked in fear at that, flapping up into the air. The pig retreated though, so she ended up just hovering there, wings gently buoying her up, feeling very silly.
Summer Scribe watched with interest and rising concern as the pig began to infiltrate the castle grounds... only to pause and snicker-giggle at the slapstick that follows. "Oh dear, I hope he'll be OK." Clearly this was not the impenetrable fortress they might have been led to believe!
Reef Skimmer beak-gaped at the retreating pig, before spotting Set Sail's nervous take-off and frowning. "Are you all right up there Captain?"
The blue and brown pegasus let out a long breath, descending to the ground saying, “Just a little... jumpy. I just don’t want us to get attacked by pirates, or worse, or stuck in a griffon trap, or... y'know.”
Summer Scribe wiped her brow with a hoof as she watched Set Sail descend. "I think we'll be relatively OK here? Like, this is Gill-Man occupied, and they presumably have to deal with raids a lot, yet they're still standing strong. So as long as no airships suddenly descend on us, we should be fine..."
Cloud Cutter was still sitting a little way back from the group, her gaze slowly roaming around their surroundings. "It's all right Set Sail. If it had gotten in, I would have... stopped it." She looked down, as if guilty, but then her glowing white eyes settled on Summer Scribe. "So, where shall we attempt first contact with the fish creatures?" she asked neutrally.
The unicorn tilted her head. "That's a good question. We don't have a confirmed location except the forcefield dome, and they might only go there during attacks. We could search for them across the island chain; there were buildings scattered all over, but they might be as abandoned as this one seems to be? Maybe we should just head for the nearest cluster and hope there's someone to say hi? We should look distinctive enough that we don't pattern match as a typical threat."
“The troll was not afraid of us, though perhaps he should have been,” Cloud Cutter said thoughtfully, still looking at Summer Scribe. “So there’s no reason to think the gill-men would cut our heads off or anything. Would you like me to do some aerial scouting, before we head off again? I think I saw some places which may have been their home.”
Summer Scribe smiled at the suggestion: "Sure thing; would you like to check around the island with the forcefield? I think I saw some bigger buildings on the upper part: perhaps they're still inhabited?"
Nodding once, Cloud Cutter took off, casually making her way up into the air. Apparently immune to the fatigue experienced by the rest of the team, the purple pegasus gained speed quickly and was soon out over the lake. There were a few huts down there, on the far shore, and... yes, there was a blue biped, covered in shining scales and adorned with translucent fins, just sitting by the lakeside, watching the water.
Passing over that possibility for now, she flapped harder and rose higher, ascending towards the next major island upriver. Spread out before her was a gently sloping woodland perhaps three kilometres across, dominated by the shimmering dome of the 'force field', like an impossibly huge soap bubble.
Such a thing was hardly unprecedented in Equestria; particularly powerful unicorns could cover whole towns in such fields, albeit for a few most days before becoming exhausted. Within the dome is a sprawling collection of pools, buildings, paved areas, and... aqueducts, painted in bright colours? The shifting optical distortion makes it impossible to distinguish motion, but no fishy bipeds or indeed creatures of any kind are apparent. The bubble of magic was interrupted at only one point; a rounded structure, possibly a gate, on the side facing the river.
Having peered into the bubble as best she could without risking landing on it, Cloud Cutter continued her ascent, up the face of the cliffs to the higher part of the island. Here there was a tight group of rectangular buildings, surrounded by lesser sheds and a jumble of mysterious cylinders and pipes, the complex bounded by substantial stone walls. As with the castle: time, weather and vegetation were doing their best to overtake the structure, but with much less success; yes there were many missing tiles and grass sprouting through the tiles, but someone was clearly cutting back the branches and clearing away the vines. Again though no sign of motion with or habitation. Indeed as the pegasus continued her flight up to the top edge of the island, she flew over the crumbling remains of a village in no better shape than the ruins back on Blissful Pastures, the expedition's first find.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Cloud Cutter said upon returning to the castle, with an ironic tilt in her ear. With her glowing white eyes, nopony could see them rolling. “Gill-men have gills. So they are all by the water,” she explained as Reef, Summer and Set Sail gather around, “We won’t find any inland here. But what’s interesting is they definitely live here, and there are more ancient ruins all about, that the gill men don’t seem to have anything to do with."
"The force field was... well, it looked like a... a water park." she continued. "With slides even! I couldn’t see very clearly through the dome, which is large enough that trying to maintain it would kill the average unicorn in short order. I don’t know what the source of the magic could be sustaining it, but there appeared to be... some sort of entrance. That might be how the gill-men get in.”
The purple pegasus looked off the way she came saying, “There are some tall cliffs that I passed, and another sort of castle beyond them, bigger than this one, also in ruins. It didn’t look entirely abandoned though.” Report complete, she stood there silently, having nothing more to relate.
Reef Skimmer looks up from preening his secondaries to listen to Cloud Cutter's report. "You're putting us to shame, my dear, flying around like a Wonderbolt while we all laze about in here!" he says jovially, hoping to cheer up the pegasus. When that doesn't get a response he looks from Summer to Set Sail, asking "So... over to the water then?"
"Sure, it sounds like we have a few gillmen to talk to on this island." Summer said. "Why don't we start local and get a feel for the mood around here? If it seems fine to head straight to the force field after that, we can." The unicorn peered out through the rusty portcullis. "So is there a path, or... you know I'd love to get a better view first?" she smiled at Reef Skimmer.
Happy to oblige, as Summer on her own was a lot lighter than the cart, the hippogriff lifted into a hover and carefully grabbed the little unicorn's shoulders with his claws. With a few flaps he rose to the top of the ruined battlements, depositing Summer on an intact section before landing alongside. Dislodged by the sudden weight, a few pebbles clattered down into the courtyard below, but otherwise the structure seemed solid.
Set Sail and Cloud Cutter hovered just behind, giving four creatures a good view of the nearby lake. The castle was set on a low hill rising out of the swamp; it looks like perhaps 15 minutes trot to the nearest shore. A cluster of rough wooden buildings could be made out a bit further around the lake, perhaps another half hour away, but with all the weeping willows and other vegetation it was hard to pick out any details.
Summer Scribe peered out from the ruined castle walls, spying a few gillmen fishing on the shore of the lake. "Yeah, there they are! Let's go!"
"Jolly good then. Can just glide down there or... would you prefer to trot?" The hippogriff glanced over his shoulder. "One supposes the cart will be safe enough here."
Summer considered the proposal, but felt a bit bad about making Reef Skimmer have to carry her again, after such a gruelling flight! "How about we let your wings rest and trot over?" She nodded; it would be a nice change of pace anyway, after all that time in the air.
Set Sail looked at the hippogriff easily holding up the little unicorn in his claws, with those broad glorious wings. "We should approach them by land, don't you think?" she asked thoughtfully, "Wouldn't want them to think we were swooping down on them like a— uh like a fish eating..."
Reef looked at Summer sceptically, then dubiously at the steaming swamp down below, but his expression softened when he hears Set Sail's concern. "Ah, good point, Captain." The griff looked at the glinting waters of the lake itself - he wouldn't mind a quick dip to cool off, perhaps later - then sighs. "Very well then." And with that he took off, grabbed Summer again and glided down to the only open space near the castle walls; the remains of the causeway leading to the front gate, a short stretch of weed-choked cobbles in the final stages of disintegrating under the assault of encroaching tree roots.
Set Sail gave a grateful sigh and followed after, hoping she wouldn't keep sticking her hoof in her mouth like that around him. For her part, Summer Scribe stretched a bit after being dropped off by Reef, ready to have a pleasant walk through a nice new environment! A whole new island chain, no doubt there would be wonderous sights to see!