Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Four, DLC: Diving, Legends and Casts.

-Sekhet-

“Kuril is our current mayor.” I knew she wasn’t or that nobody had claimed to be mayor of this dot in the world, so I decided to do it in Kuril’s stead. I’m sure she won’t mind, it’s not like the zebras were going to stick around forever, they looked like they were well traveled. ”I’m here as her advisor to make sure Airship Mauled stays running smoothly, before you ask no I don’t want any leadership roles beyond what I have already.”

“Seriously?” Fresh Start asked as she came back carrying a tray of refreshments and gave me a dubious look.

“Would you rather it be Priest Jade?” My flat delivery had Fresh giving me a thoughtful look. “She’s crazy and everyone knows it.”

“Good point, Kuril is definitely going to continue being our mayor for the foreseeable future.” Now that someone had agreed with me, even if it was the serf, I was quite sure things would proceed apace.

The zebras probably didn’t know me by name or title. They likely didn’t know exactly what I was about as a goddess. Even with my nemes being a big hint as to where I’m from, it was sometimes better to not be well known. It would be bad for Kuril’s business if everyone ran away because of me despite how good the food was.

-Jade-

I had so far managed to avoid alarming anyone, despite the fact that I had taken an hour to test some new casts and sustains. I was just lucky that I had everything I could possibly need. In a straight up fight with any of these griffons I’d be in serious trouble as they had numbers, muscle and… no I wouldn’t say that brains are a thing with them so scratch that last one.

I was moving slowly and looking through the eyeholes inside a barrel, I wanted to get the hat that I dyed pink and turn it a more fitting green color. This would require that I cause a distraction and get into the captains chamber if he didn’t just throw the hat overboard. Better yet, I’ll steal all the hats that aren’t pink and then Captain Gash will have to wear it!

I needed some fresh clothing after this, but I can get that on Turtle Toga. There has to be at least one tailor that catered to all kinds of weirdoes in the town. I can steal or gamble for the money necessary for clean clothes, I probably wouldn’t even be asked where I got my money from.

Something hit the barrel and I barely held it in place.

“Blasted… who put this barrel here?!” Growling a bit, the griffon seemed to be thinking about what to do. “Nothing for, I’ll take care of it later. I’ve got other things to do.”

That was a close one, I didn’t want to spend any of my casts yet until I was up on deck or at least up another flight of steps. Limited resources and all that.

I carefully walked my barrel up the steps. Stopping at the top, I slowly turned the barrel left and right, coast was clear and I couldn’t hear anyone nearby. I moved up the next flight of stairs carefully and stopped in a corner. Up the stairs from here is the deck and in the opposite direction was Captain Gash’s cabin.

I could have gone up to the deck, but I was going for the captain’s door. If he wasn’t up on deck, I could figure out a way to disable him before he causes any trouble. I moved away from my sneaking barrel and touched the door, I started a cast and the door disintegrated. I moved to the other side and reversed the cast.

It seems the captain was on deck, which was good for me as I now had free reign of his room. Where would I put my hats if I were a captain? I’ll just check the treasure chest, I needed a map of Turtle Toga’s position in comparison to the rest of the world and maybe some cash for the road. Who would arrest me for stealing from pirates or thieves?

I checked the captain’s personal chest and since it was locked, I used a cast to make it disappear and reversed the cast in a different spot. This spilled the chests contents all over the floor.

Unless it was protected from magic, locks couldn’t stop me now!

Not like they could have stopped me or mom before, even if I couldn’t have reversed a cast. I could still have made a door or locked chest disappear without cast reversal, but I’d have to use the resulting magical spell on something if I hadn’t learned to stop casts. This way was much stealthier, given that people won’t notice a lot of missing things and I had Philomena and Fizzle to thank for this.

Without Fizzle being healthy, relatively of course, then I would have never found out that casts could even be reversed. Said knowledge of reversal wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Philomena.

Looting done, now for my daring and epic explosive exit where I start falling with style!

-

I stomped out onto deck into the midday sun looking particularly proud of myself and with a swagger that none could match, I had found out what the hats still in Captain Gash’s room did when used as a cast. It was a time limited charisma buff, one that works with whatever you wanted to do too!

Why Captain Gash had three spare hats I’ll never know, his only spare remaining was the pink one. I was wearing one right now and the other one that hadn’t been pink had been used in a cast. I was going to destroy the hat Captain Gash was wearing as I made my escape.

I just tromped on by Captain Gash at the wheel and down the stairs with my tail flicking back and forth, I was smiling merrily as I made my way towards the gangplank with everyone staring at me.

Yes, I was enjoying all the attention! A likely side effect of the hat cast.

Be prepared pirates, because this was going to be one trick you didn’t want to miss from the Great and Powerful Jaded! Also its revenge time, someone here ate a portion of my dried apricots.

“Lass, I don’t know how you escaped my brig, but you better go back there if you don’t want be keelhauled.” Don’t worry Captain Gash, that won’t happen as I have something more fun planned.

“Mew.” I said smugly as I reached into my pack. I hid my griffon feather cast, I would probably be using two for this, and then I pulled out my first magical alchemy concoction.

I had figured out how to learn what the effects of a cast would be without actually doing it, I was going to show mom when I got back to her. She’ll be so proud that our art is that much safer now! Darn it, the charisma was getting to me, better do this now before they charge me with those swords.

“Mew-mew-mew mew mew~! Mew-mew-mew mew mew~! Mew-mew-mew-mew-MEW~!” I pulled my hand out of the pack and raised the cylindrical candle into the air while singing the jar of dirt ditty in cat and waved it around. Only the ditty would be more like ‘I’ve got a can-dle~, I’ve got a can-dle~, and guess what it’ll do’~! The griffons just gave me flat looks as I kicked and stepped onto the gangplank. My smug smile met their disbelieving faces. “Mew?”

“A candle lass? You must be dumber than I thought if you think that will be a threat to my crew!” I raised my brow delicately at Captain Gash. “Now come along quietly and I promise you that you will survive to be enslaved, despite my crew attempting to kill you.”

The candle exploded into what looked like a small constantly exploding firework in my left hand, it was my form of disagreement to the assumption that I was an idiot. I actually tested this before I planned my escape thank you very much.

The griffons who thought they were sneakily moving towards me suddenly stopped and backed well away from the shifting explosion in my hand with wide eyes. My right hand stealthily picked an arrow out of my pack, I also cast with it and held that behind my back.

I gave them all a bright, friendly… completely devious, misbegotten and quite an evil looking grin! It was the best look I could have ever had on my face while looking at the balloon holding this ship aloft.

All the griffons including Captain Gash started shaking their head no rapidly, I just nodded yes slowly with a broad happy looking cat smile on my face as I started bouncing on the gangplank. I’m pretty sure they were too distracted to notice I was falling slower and jumping much higher than I normally could with each bounce.

Once I got a high enough bounce I tossed the explosive cast straight at the balloon. While the griffons were distracted with that, a beam of energy exited my right hand and it ripped through Captain Gash’s hat. Petty kitty goal reached and achievement acquired!

I spun around in mid-air while closing my eyes and bounced off the gangplank as I high as I could go. I smiled as I felt the explosion push me forward and down at an angle.

After a second I spread my arms wide, opened my eyes and started to glide through the blue sky above the sea towards the only piece of land that I could see for miles of ocean.

I could vaguely see a busy looking town built on the landmass in the distance, which was my destination. I hoped I could reach it, as I had a natural inclination to fear sea monsters and a strong respect for the dangers that the ocean represented.

I left a falling pirate ship full of blinded and sneezing griffons in my wake, now heading towards the giant turtle shaped island.

My first magical alchemy combination was a success and technically the arrow was its own combination, so make that two magical alchemy combinations! I would need this knowledge to help Fizzle later. Combining a bunch of regeneration related ingredients together would seriously help her, a phoenix feather would even prevent any bad side effects from sticking.

All I had to do now, was coast through the air and maybe cast with another griffon feather. A griffon feathers cast was short lived.

“You’ll not be getting away that easily lass!” I looked over my shoulder at the swooping Captain Gash, he looked angry with me. I can’t understand why that would be, I did the most pirate thing imaginable and sacked some loot from his treasure chest and practically scuttled his ship.

Doesn’t he like pirates that do a good job? Some captain he is.

I reached into my pack and pulled out another beloved Chaos Candle. I didn’t want to use another so soon, but I had three flying griffons breathing down my tail and I’m not exactly maneuverable like this. This is why I had a backup plan in case there were some that had avoided the sneezing flash bomb.

Did you know I also found out that a cast can be sustained, but only if enough ingredients are used? This is why turned about in the air and held out another prepared candle and then did a cast sustain. As you can imagine I can’t use another sustain while doing this and given that I have to keep the cast going, I can hardly do any other casts while doing this too.

A jet of flame erupted from the end of the candle sending me rocketing out of the path of Good ol’ Captain Gash who went through the smoke trail left by the candle and started sneezing wildly. The other two griffons avoided the exhaust cloud I was leaving behind.

“Mew!” I called out mockingly as Gash had troubles flying and sneezing at the same time. I saw that one of the two remaining griffons rolled and swooped at my side.

I quickly angled the jet upwards and increased the rate at which the candle was burning away, he ended up with a face full of candle smoke and sneezing like his captain. I was getting much closer to the ocean, that only left me with about half a candle left that was getting harder to hold onto as I eased up on the burn rate.

The last griffon screeched angrily at me while shaking his fist, but he chose to go help his captain and friend. I smiled, as I was… falling much faster! I really needed a griffon feather before I hit the water!

I burned the rest of the candle immediately to slow my descent towards the ocean and quickly pulled out a griffon feather and started using it as my magical sustain. I didn’t want to waste more supplies than I needed to, the griffon pirates had obviously given up on me.

I didn’t know how many feet above the water I was, but I kicked off the air and my downward momentum stopped immediately and then I hit the water with a soft splash. I just did a classic long fall trick with the double jump that the griffon feather provided me.

The Isle of Turtle Toga was a few miles away in the distance. Time to use my knowledge of legends to see if they were true and if they were, I could get a ride.

“Shoo-be-doo shoo-shoo-be-doo~!” I called out loudly while treading water. And… nothing... seriously? After all that cool stuff I just did, this is where I get stuck? Maybe they hadn’t heard me. “Shoo-be-doo shoo-shoo-be-doo~!”

I waited a few minutes, still treading water and my limbs were getting a bit tired. Sure I wouldn’t drown, but I was afraid I’d be facing deep sea monsters if I didn’t get help soon.

A large shadow appeared beneath me and I hoped it wasn’t a predator, especially not a whale shark. I don’t like sharks in general at all, the shadow shot up underneath me and I closed my eyes.

My chest was slightly above the water now, I slowly opened one of my eyes and saw that I was being lifted up by a large sea turtle.

There was an equally big turtle right next to it too and with a small baby turtle on its back that had a piece of waterproof parchment in its mouth. The baby turtle held out the parchment to me, the turtle it was sitting on top of made a friendly noise.

I tentatively took the parchment and read what was on it… then my expression grew quite flat.

“Dear person who signaled SOS, we cannot come to save you from distress right now. Please accept these helpful sea turtles instead, we are sorry for the inconvenience. Sincerely Life Guardian, Seaquestria Turtle Toga Outpost.”

“Can you get me to over there please?” I stowed the message away and was looking to the sea turtle I was resting on.

It smiled and nodded and started to swim, I was upset that the sea ponies weren't giving me a song and dance number.

Oh, I just had an awful idea!

Sea turtles mate, sea turtles...

Author's Note:

(New Knowledge!)

Combinations- You've used magical alchemy before, but have you ever thought of what you'd get when you mixed things together?

Cast Sustain- Sustaining a cast stretches the burn of the items used for casting, requires a combination to be used.

(New Magical Alchemy Ingredients!)

12. Griffon Feather.

Cast: Feather Falling (Limited air terrain support buff). Lowers gravity’s effect on an individual for a minute.

Sustain: Double Jump (Continuous Mobility buff). Can jump off the air one time after leaving a solid surface.

Self-sustain: None.

13. Fish (or any) Oil.

Cast: Ignition (Multipurpose offensive and support spell). Ignites itself and anything around it except the user.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

14. Candle Wax.

Cast: Slow Down (Supportive debuff spell). Stiffens a target, can have a wide area of effect for reduced effectiveness.

Sustain: Heat resistance (Limited continuous defensive buff). Does not stop heat damage entirely and candle takes heat damage in place of the user.

Self-Sustain: None.

15. Pepper.

Cast: Sneezing cloud (Limited continuous Defensive spell). Wide range spell that doesn’t affect the user, causes continuous sneezing on contact and doesn’t necessarily need to be breathed to take effect.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

16. Tricorne.

Cast: Charisma boost (Limited status buff). Gives one the ability to walk around with confidence.

Side-effect: May instill need for showboating in user.

Sustain: ???.

Self-Sustain: ???.

(New Magical Alchemy Combinations!)

Combination 1: Candle Wax + Oil (any) + Pepper = Chaos Candle. Candle hollowed out and filled with the other two ingredients mixed together equals devastating results.

Cast: Sneezing flash bomb (Offensive one use spell). Blinding, sinus wrecking and volatile magical cast.

Sustain Cast: Weak jet propulsion device (Limited air terrain support buff), Flamethrower (Limited offensive spell). Doing this will slowly destroy the candle and chemicals used in it. Exhaust fumes has a lesser effect of casting with pepper.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

Combination 2: Feather + stick + arrowhead (material any) = arrow. Arrow + poison = special status ailment added to casting effect based on poison used. Pukwudgie Poison (Paralysis for a few hours).

Cast: Arcing Arrow Beam (Offensive spell). Fires a beam that is effected by gravity as if it were an arrow, it can only damage one target and that’s the first thing it touches. If it grazes a wall and then hits you, it will do nothing to you.

Sustain Cast: Spray of multiple weaker beam shots.

Sustain: None.

Self-Sustain: None.

---

Okay, the Magical Alchemy List is going to be quite complicated with time. Would having it as seperate chapter be illegal if it's an intrinsic part of the story?

Also because you might have had expectations, the thing below is probably the one I should have used at the top of the authors note.

Comments

[ThatBadGuy]

Chapter 28 and I have already run out of cat puns. But don't worry! For I have plan M!
i1.wp.com/bestlifeonline.com/content/uploads/2018/06/cat-meme-88-1024x1024.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&ssl=1

[Draskos]

9428849
Out of cat puns already? Thats quite the Cat-astrophy.

[Shadowshame]

9428849
Wash those Memes out of your meowth especially if you can't torrocat

[jimerjam]

Sea turtles mate, sea turtles...

i.imgflip.com/1n8e5t.jpg

[HF Fury]

Wow... I should got the references, I owned both of the original Rocket Knight Adventures.