Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty one, Welcome to The Volcano: Temperate.

-Ardent Survivor, Jacky-

“So what are we looking for this time…. love.” The flat delivery of the word did not make me love Gene any less, I knew that it was just his personality that made him sound so bored. “Would you prefer Captain?”

“Either Gene, but that’s not exactly important right now! We’re after the ‘Dragon Burst Gem’ this time, it’s a ‘technically’ cursed item. It’s a jewel that basically acts as a magical flamethrower.” I unrolled the map to this one and we were heading towards ‘The Volcano’ this very moment, Saddle Sore Shores had turned out well enough I think. “The supposedly cursed side of it is that it has a tendency to explode randomly in the middle of using its power, so it’s not entirely controllable and is said to have grievously harmed just about everyone who has used it. Also those explosions can hurt anything biological, this includes things that are naturally heat proof like dragons.”

“I’m never going to live what happened down…” Poor Sammy, a lot of embarrassing thing happened to her in her home town. To be fair, a lot of embarrassing things happened to me too!

“Look at it this way big sis, you’re parents really like me!” Nefer, our naïve cabin boy, was understating the facts. Flotsams parents really liked his adorable nature and welcomed him into the family pretty easily, also her mother was a completely awesome sea pony pirate.

“I don’t know what you’re griping about Flotsam your mother and father were really nice.” Savannah grinned brightly as she filed her claws.

“You tried to sleep with my parents Savannah!” Yep, Sammy was still angry with our resident Abyssinian.

“Hey, they had up to date medical files and they are both adults that could consent to such actions!” Not helping yourself on the issue there Savannah. I even bet she was about to dig herself deeper. “It’s not like it would have made me your aunt.”

“Can I say how cool your mother is again Flotsam?” I just caused Flotsam to groan loudly from the deck in front of me and slap a finned hoof over her face.

“Just kill me now… also can we never talk about my parents ever again?” Flotsam slightly lifted her finned hoof off her face. “Speaking of, never talk to or ever go near my parents again Savannah!”

“No promises, but I will try to contain myself. You see its things like being a prude that hurts the happiness we can all spread to each other… so long as we have been medically checked for just about anything under the sun before anything can happen.” Admittedly Savannah’s proclivities could be a little bit worrying at time, just like Nefer can fall into situations where his innocence could possibly be ruined in an instance.

It’s still quite staggering that that has yet to happen to Nefer despite leaving him in a number of deadly and safety compromising situations. We really shouldn’t keep leaving him to his own devices like that.

“Okay everyone, we’re coming in for a landing in the middle tier city dock. Hopefully they’ll let us disembark and won’t worry about the fact that we’ll honestly tell them we’re pirates.” We’ve done a few truly pirate things, but nobody really had a bounty on us… at least not yet anyway. “Don’t do anything to attract attention to yourselves, like I’ll be doing constantly. Watch out for any signs of GODLESS activity like what we stopped in Saddle Sore Shores and try to listen around for information on where the temple we’re looking for is. Also you each have your fair share of cash on hoof, hand, claw, talon or whatever you call your manipulating limbs at any given moment.”

“My tail is an awesome manipulating limb!” Said Nefer cheerfully. I walked over to him a rubbed his head making the trident tailed cat purr and mewl happily. “Stop that captain, its ruining my pirate image.”

There was little image to keep hold of for Nefer as he enjoyed the attention no matter how much he tries to deny it. The only pirate thing about him was that he was wearing a green skull cap with his signature of a cat scratching a tree on it, along with my jolly roger as a background.

My crew bought themselves some personalized skull caps while we were having so much ‘fun’ in Saddle Sore Shores.

Wearing a nice purple cap with a banana shaped cannon on it donating her increasing ability with long range projectiles was Flotsam, she kind of surpassed me on that last outing. Even her mother was shocked that she had such impressive aim and made a trick shot with a cannon that even I couldn’t do.

I chalked it up to Flotsam always straddling the cannons when she aims them, it lead to some incredibly accurate shots.

Flotsam would eventually forgive us for numerous troubles we caused in Saddle Sore Shores. Most of them could be attributed to my existence, but not all of them and she knew it. I did offer Sammy the opening to leave the ship with Nefer, she chose to stay onboard with us and we’re still friends even if she isn’t currently happy with Savannah.

Savannah had a skull cap with a big pink heart on it, she was giving me a bright cheery grin. Yeah, not touching that, but she does make herself useful on a number of occasions just with her quick wits and agility alone. I already had a decent idea as to what she would be getting up to while we were here, I would rather not know.

Gene, my sweet, beloved first mate, he wore a brown skull cap with a classic Viking helmet imprinted on it. Viking helmets don’t normally have horns unless you add them as an aesthetic choice. He took charge whenever I was indisposed by the many ‘accidents’ that may occur around me and was always dependable.

“So do whatever shopping you feel like and excuse me while I go cause problems for everyone else with my natural bad luck.” It wasn’t long after I said that that I landed the ship, took exactly three steps away from it and was blindsided by longma slamming into me in an out of control manner that sent us both falling and flailing like crazy towards the lower tier of the massive city.

I estimated that I had a thirty seconds to figure out how to survive a sudden drop and somehow keep the longma from getting hurt in the process.

I could let the longma get hurt, it was… her… she was female… it was her fault that she flew into me. Maybe the fault of my luck that something might have gone wrong with her flaming wings in my general vicinity. Like usual, it was always a complete toss-up as to whether it was my luck or an outside context problem that caused this incident.

“Hey, names Jacky, sorry we had to meet like this and you’re about to have a really horrible day knowing my luck.” I looked over my shoulder at the ground slowly rushing up to meet us as the longma tried to keep us aloft. “I apologize in advance for all the strange happenings that will soon befall you.”

“I am Tianhuo, charmed, now if you will stop struggling and let me free my wings of fire from our entangled state, then I can save us both from injury.” You could try Tianhuo, many greater people than you have tried to prevent me from getting hurt and they have all failed eventually. “I apologize for hitting you honored guest to our city, but I have heard word that an incredibly dangerous nuisance has returned to bother the citizens I am sworn to protect as the head of the Huoshan Guard.”

We were almost righted and instead of slamming into the harsh ground we instead hit something fluffy. Bouncing off said fluffy thing, we then split apart on two different arcs leading to what I would assume to be demeaning and painful situations for the both of us.

Tianhuo tried to stop, but she slammed through the window of a nearby fireworks shop. That was bad when your wings, mane and tail were comprised of both heat and fire.

I on the other claw ended slamming into a… cabbage cart.

“My cousins said it would happen someday, but I didn’t believe them.” The pony running the stand said blandly. “Well it’s a tradition of the family to say it when it happens, so… my cabbages.”

“That was the dullest reaction to something ‘accidentally’ breaking and ruining an entire cart load of painstakingly grown produce that I’ve ever heard!” I shouted as I sat up and pointed at the pony.

“Yeah, but I didn’t grow those cabbages though. If my cabbage cart over there were destroyed, then I’d actually have something to be more worried about. The ones you just took out were imported by others of my family. It was no big loss really and some of them even seem salvageable, this happens a lot so we’ve learned how to salvage cabbages fairly easily.” Suddenly the sounds of fireworks could be heard going off down the street where I saw a confused looking alpaca smile brightly at all the pretty explosions, floating next her head was an adorable creature with shiny eyes. Several of the larger rockets that flew out of the fireworks shop actually all slammed down on and blew up the cabbage cart the pony had indicated to me, his eyes flew wide open as every cabbage from that cart was now on fire. “Oh no, MY ACTUAL CABBAGES!”

I decided to make a hasty retreat before I got accused of causing this mess, also to avoid the wild rockets that seemed to be blowing up at my heels and randomly steering themselves towards me.

-Gene-

I pulled the griffon mask away from my eyes and shrugged, just the usual stuff that happens to Jacky on a general basis. Though being randomly assaulted by fireworks was a new one, I’m adding it to the list of things Jacky has run afoul of.

Also I’m marking that down as another two cabbage carts as part of my ongoing conspiracy theory about situations being geared towards destroying cabbages specifically.

“Eh, Jacky will be fine.” Though I was quite worried about her, she’s had worse days and would be fine on her own. I loved that parrot more than I can usually express with my gentle touches. She’s been feeling a bit under the weather lately, but she looked mostly okay to me. Maybe I was worrying too much. “You heard her, we can go about doing whatever we want while Belfry watches the ship. I’ll be looking up information in the nearest bar, might even start something La Perm style.”

A huge explosion and wall of what looked like baking soda shoots high up into the air, enough so to be visible from the third tier of the city. Okay, maybe I wasn’t exactly worrying about Jacky nearly enough.

“I’ll chaperone Nefer, but if it gets too hot we’re going to return to the ship early. I can already feel my fluffy scales dehydrating as we speak.” With that Flotsam disembarked with her little brother Nefer to do who knows what, they’ll likely find some fun things to do.

“You know me Gene, if I can find people that are willing to go through a quick medical checkup and are entirely willing to…” Giving Savannah a flat look, I just shook my head and motioned for her to get a move on. “Okay, I promise I won’t actively cause problems! It’s all in good fun really, I’ll even keep an eye out for Flotsam and Nefer while I’m out and about. If you need any help with gathering information, I’ll gladly collaborate with you what I find out on my own. The Wild Savannah is going to peace out for a while and I’ll eat some scenery while I’m at it!”

“You’re an adult, it should be implicitly implied that you won’t cause issues.” I just received a broad grin from ‘Savannah, The Wild’ as she sauntered off, all while waving back at me lazily and sashaying away. She never made promises unless she intended to keep them, so that was a little less worrying.

I can now see where Jacky is coming from when she said Jaded and Kuril really spoiled us on Abyssinians, there were the exception and not entirely the norm. Not like you could judge an entire race by the actions of a few of its weirder members.

“Belfry, I leave the Ardent Survivor to you.” The giant butterfly saluted me with a leg and made some squealing noises. He was wearing an orange skull cap with yellow flowers with a cute looking butterfly imprinted on it. Despite the silly cap with our captain’s logo on it, he could still be quite intimidating once he got going.

I walked down the gangway and then hung up a sign that simply said ‘Beware of giant butterfly, we’re absolutely serious about this and you have been warned of the consequences if this sign is unheeded’.

Nobody could ever take such a sign seriously unless they met Belfry personally, but it still couldn’t hurt to put it up.

I spread my wings and took off. I needed to find where the nearest bar was so I could get a general feel of this city.

-Paprika-

What just happened? I thought I saw someone familiar! Upon approaching the blackened and burnt store front with Tinsel making curious noises from my head, I could see the green scaled sooty friend that once wanted to play with me nonstop!

I liked Tianhuo, given she’s been one of the best friends that I’ve ever had. I knew she lived here, but I didn’t think I’d be seeing her this soon and we just arrived not too long ago.

“You…” Tianhuo said as she took a step before falling down on her face, I calmly trotted up to her and gave her a nice friendly hug and nuzzled her neck affectionately. She really looked like she needed it after all those explosions. “Why…. did you… come back here?”

“Paprika Paca La Perm, what did you do!” Hearing Velvet’s angry tone, I meekly grinned and held out my friend to introduce her to my wives. I gestured out at the flaming snake pony as being my friend.

“I will be honest, she didn’t cause this mess… but I still wish to know what she is doing here!” It seems like Tianhuo was getting back her strength quickly and she seemed slightly angry.

Maybe Tianhuo could play together with Arizona for a bit to calm down? I’m sure they’d be really great friends once they got started! I also thought Tianhuo needed a better hug and cuddled her some more.

“Yeah, don’t worry about her, we’ll keep Paprika contained and she won’t cause problems.” Arizona came over and looked at the longma I was holding. “She's our wife and is affectionate like that... does this count for a honeymoon?”

“Not on your life Arizona!” Velvet yelled at her and then she calmly turned to the longma I held. “Paprika, be a dear and let the poor longma go. I’m Velvet, this is Arizona and we’re the Paca La Perm herd. How much trouble did Paprika cause you previously?”

Author's Note:

The rolling stone gathers no moss... which is probably why its so hard to roll uphill.

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

I decided to make a hasty retreat before I got accused of causing this mess...

I mean, those accusations would technically be accurate, just not in a way they could ever prove.

[Booster Spice]

Nice of the gang to drop in. Ready fried Cabbages.

[The Scarlett Mare]

“My cousins said it would happen someday, but I didn’t believe them.” The pony running the stand said blandly. “Well it’s a tradition of the family to say it when it happens, so… my cabbages.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA YES! HAHAHAHAHA

[The Scarlett Mare]

Also I’m marking that down as another two cabbage carts as part of my ongoing conspiracy theory about situations being geared towards destroying cabbages specifically.

That's a nice perspective

[jimerjam]

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