Roseluck looked out across the waters as she steered the ship around a small pillar of rock that was covered in starfish. She narrowed her eyes as the breeze blew her mane out of her face.
They had left five hours ago. Spike was on the center mast, being lookout. Coco was swabbing the deck, and Dinky was loading the ballistae, shoving the giant arrows into the giant crossbows, mounted on the deck. And Amethyst was throwing up. For the tenth time that hour.
Roseluck shook her head, feeling bad for the mare. She thought she had saw some anti-sea sickness medicine in the storage room...
Either way Roseluck's thoughts turned away from that as she swerved out of the way of a small barrier island, only several pony length's wide and long. Everypony fell sideways, even Roseluck. She quickly recovered and put her hooves on the wheel, making the ship steady again.
They sailed on for several minutes in silence. Amethyst Star threw up again. Roseluck couldn't help it and shouted down to the mare about the medicine. Amethyst quickly retreated below decks to procure it.
Amethyst Star reemerged from the belly of the ship, looking a bit better. Dinky scurried to one side of the ship, pushing several barrels of ballistae ammo upright that had fallen during the swerve.
Amethyst looked down at the map. If she was correct, they were right on some weird squiggly line that was labeled "Skolopendra."
Roseluck dismissed it and kept on sailing. Several minutes later Spike began to scream. Roseluck snapped into attention. She tried to look at where he was pointing, but couldn't see the object of his distress. But it was to late as the massive monster Spike would later dub "Shrimpzilla" attacked, rocking the ship.
===
Dinky screamed as the giant monster sprouted tentacles from its nose that began to wrap around the ship. One wrapped around Coco, and she was pulled off deck, being swung in the air. Meanwhile Roseluck fought for control of the ship, manning the wheel, while Amethyst pulled out her bow in her aura and fired arrows that bounced harmlessly of the monster's shelled back.
Spike jumped from the top of the mast and flung out his swords, cutting the tentacle around Coco. They both fell to the deck, Coco pulling out her lance and swinging at the invading tentacles, chopping them to pieces.
Dinky got a hold of herself and cocked the ballista in front of her while pulling her sword out of its sheath at her side and chopping off a third of a tentacle.
She fired the ballista, the large arrow hitting a vulnerable spot in the monster's armored back. Blood dripped from the wound, but the monster tore the ballista arrow from its hide and chucked it into the ocean and fought back while blood freely flowed off its back.
A forest of tentacles surrounded her as she chopped them away, but for every one she hacked off, three more would zoom from the monster's snout. She turned to see Spike held in the monster's nose hairs while Coco desperately hacked at the tentacles surrounding Spike while fighting ones advancing on her.
While Dinky was distracted, tentacles zoomed forward and wrapped around her. She cut them away, but more came. She couldn't fight them any longer as black spots started to cloud her vision. The monster had a tentacle wrapped around her neck, gradually squeezing harder. She was about to black out when it dropped her, arrows protruding from her fleshy bonds. She smiled at Amethyst, who had freed her, before returning to the battle, hacking away at the tentacles.
Suddenly Coco freed Spike, who landed on his right arm with a sickening crunch. Then Coco got a hold to the ballista closest to her and fired, puncturing the creature's shell. More blood erupted from the wound.
But as the creature struggled to pull out the ballista arrow, an even larger shape was swimming towards them. They watched as a giant green sea serpent burst from the water, biting off half off the dying skolopandra. This was not going to be a good day.
===
Coco sighed in relief as she collapsed on to the deck. The sea serpent's body was half submerged, sinking. It had been easy to kill, one ballista shot through its fat neck, and it died. But the thing was so fast that it took over ten shots to finally kill the thing.
Amethyst and Dinky were helping Spike get up. They had already fixed a cast on his broken arm. Coco just thought how cute Dinky and Spike were. She shook her head, sighing again, before heading with everyone except Roseluck, to the storage.
They were grabbing some fruits and gemstones for Spike when Coco tripped over a crate marked "Important!"
She dragged it on deck to where everyone was already eating. When they saw it, though, they all gathered around to see what was inside. Even Roseluck jumped down from the wheel. She said that they were in open sea for the next hour, so they should be fine. Should be.
But anyways, Coco cracked open the crate. Inside was a note and some weird, long, tubular bronze thing. They all gathered around as Coco read the note:
Dear the Five,
We forgot to give you one important thing to help you on this quest. The bronze object is actually something you put on a unicorn's horn. When a unicorn pus any amount of magic into it, it will show the user where the assigned objects are located on a map. This one has been programmed to search for the parts of the weapon, and will show up on the map I gave you.
Have a Nice Day!
From,
Celestia
Yes. Coco thought. It has been a wonderful day. NOT.
Anyways, Amethyst picked up the contraption that she dubbed "the Finder" and put it on her horn. She then flowed her magic into it. We watched as Roseluck fetched the map. There were around fifteen gears all over the map. The nearest one was on a small island with a picture of a unicorn a fire next to it. It had a label, but the ending was smudged out. It said "Unicorn Ca--------"
"Maybe they are castaways! I bet we can trade them for it!" Oh, how wrong she was.
===
They arrived at the small island in an hour. Amethyst looked out across the waters to the beach of the island. Even with the medicine, she still felt a bit sick, and was happy to be going on land.
Roseluck went off first, the others trailing behind her. They sat down and ate some food before getting up to head farther into the island. Suddenly a white unicorn stallion stepped out of the bushes, His smile was contagious, and Amethyst could feel her cheeks twitching. He was definitely handsome. Amethyst felt her cheeks warm up and her heart beat faster as she looked at the muscular stallion. His mane was pure gold color, and so were his eyes. They stood out against his white coat. His mane and tail were cut short and shaggy, and his cutie mark was a single bar of gold.
He walked over to them and said "Hi, I'm Gold Shine. Please don't be afraid. Come with me, please." The handsome stallion trotted away into the foliage.
Spike seemed the only one not to be convinced. He said" Are we sure the map said Castaways? Could it be.."
But Spike stopped when he saw Dinky looking longingly after the stallion. He puffed out his chest and looked like he had something to prove. They all then trotted after him. Spike still seemed to have his doubts. And he did rightly so. Because they were heading into a trap.