Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter fifty two, All in All: Pirates.

-The next day, early morning, Temple of Dark Flames, Entrance, Jacky-

Arizona, her wives and three acquaintances were going to save the world while apparently searching for clues about what happened to Arizona’s mother. If they asked for help, then I would certainly be willing to lend them a lift.

I’m sure Fortitude and Flamberge’s new friends would help with that too if asked, they seemed to be doing well for themselves with getting lost in strange places where they were most needed.

Honestly Skelly was both weird and adorable at the same time, her disposition was pretty good for her living conditions. I wouldn’t be able to fathom having to live like she does.

Sweetcakes was more of the odd one out of the Viking’s group and she didn’t exactly hide the fact that she was interested in Flamberge. I at least thought Sweetcakes proactive stance against those GODLESS agents was somewhat nice, even if it did lead to huge problems and tons of property damage.

On the other talon, that fox should never be left to her own devices! Her little fire bomb tactic did very little damage overall to the surrounding area and was at least a decently planned ambush. The only thing we learned from it is that GODLESS agents are both highly resilient and resourceful, which was something that we kind of already knew.

I am so glad that we all weren’t paying for the damage that Teatime had caused, I was going to be more wary of that stallion the next time we saw each other. Like I wasn’t already wary of him after the whole Saddle Arabia ballroom beast blitz thing.

We were doing something else today other than worrying about what GODLESS was doing here, it would be in the interest of helping Arizona’s group. I have Flamberge looking into Clockwork’s airship, Tianhuo also had a few Huoshan Guards watching it carefully as well. Not that it would help when we knew Teatime could teleport past the guards and Flamberge.

My crew and I were going be performing our favorite and most dangerous pirate past time, treasure hunting. I really wanted that Dragon Burst Gem, I absolutely knew what I’d use that cursed thing for. I also wouldn’t be leaving The Volcano without giving the key of the longma over to Arizona, Velvet and their fluffy snuggle obsessed wife Paprika.

I still thought Arizona and Velvet being happily married was a bit odd and tried to get it out of my head.

So the crew and I were between the palace and the upper tier on a small out of the way path that you have to absolutely be looking for to find. The entrance wasn’t exactly extravagant for a large indent in the volcanic mountains side, but it was carved out of solid stone. There were some carefully preserved scribbles around the walls next to the staircase leading down into the depths.

There weren’t any people here and Tianhuo stopped us at the entrance once we got there.

“This is the temple you’re looking for, but it’s not going to be easy to get inside, groups have tried before and they always came back with various serious injuries.” Tianhuo stood next to the entrance. “Even worse, nobody could get to the key of our people or even explain coherently what went on in there. It was originally placed in here to protect it from theft… it worked a little too well and we can’t get at it ourselves. Digging into The Volcano from any other angle to get at what is inside isn’t a good idea as we don’t want to accidentally destroy the things in there.”

“Why didn’t they just follow the instructions?” We turned to Nefer who was looking at the weird scrawling on the walls.

“Because nobody can remember how to… wait… are you seriously telling me that he can actually read that?” Had to give Tianhuo credit, she didn’t raise her voice at all. She was still surprised to hear that Nefer could read it.

“Nefer, aside from being a really good horticulturist for fairly obvious reasons, is also innately good at cryptography and can possibly read any language ever written.” Turning to our cabin cat, I had to give him the go ahead. “Okay Nefer, what are the instructions? Oh and don’t read us the whole history of the place, paraphrase where needed and skip everything that sounds boring or unimportant.”

“Okay, but there’s not really history on this one! Enter the temple without any light… reflect on what you see when it comes into sight… into the heart of darkness you will fall, if you don’t know what is going on at all.” It was always interesting to watch Nefer do this. “To take from this temple those entering must first be warriors by taking part in a fiery fight, one that doesn’t matter whether you win or lose as long as you are completely honorable with how you use your own might. Remember this one thing, if what you seek is indeed here. No matter how dangerous things get, you are your own worst enemy in what you fear. So what are your thoughts Captain Blackcap?”

“Let’s try going in, we might have to come back later though.” I had my suspicions as to what some of that meant, but the most important takeaway here is that Tianhuo couldn’t enter unless she could put out her mane and tail. “Tianhuo will have to wait here.”

“I do not like this, but I will wait for you to back come out.” Tianhuo took up a place next to the staircase as my crew went past her and started down them. “If you can come out without injury, then that would be better than most. Someone had to be dragged out with a broken spine... by someone else who was a gibbering emotional wreck because of whatever happened in there. Both ‘were’ fairly brave individuals.”

That was something ominous to hear.

“Hold up, grab a limb and hold on to one another as we make our way down.” I took a grip of Gene’s left claw, Flotsam’s left hoof grabbed his tail and her right hoof gripped Nefer’s front left paw.

We proceeded down the staircase into the darkness together and left the light from the entrance behind, I wonder what made this place so dangerous? I had a lot of bad luck this morning and I’ve been slightly ill lately, but I think I’m good enough for a little adventure to see what we’re dealing with here.

We continued deeper and deeper, the staircase didn’t seem to end. So when will we come to the part where we’ll reflect on what we see, it is way too dark in…

I blinked the spots out of my eyes as a blinding light died down and we were in a room with three mirrors and four doors. Looking behind me, I didn’t see a staircase. There was just an archway filled with solid stone. The four doors were simple in their construction given that they were all wooden plank doors, the most basic of nailed together bits of wood.

What just happened to us? All I know was that I was standing in the middle of this room all of the sudden.

“Nobody move!” I snapped my order out immediately. “Flotsam do you remember when we let go of each other? Gene do you remember hitting the floor and taking several steps away to end up where you are? Nefer anything you can read around here?”

“No Jacky, I don’t remember stepping onto the floor… where is the light for this room coming from exactly?” Good question Gene, the room is lit and yet there is no light source. He was off to the left and a bit forward of me.

“I would never let go of Nefer’s paw on purpose, but something has obviously separated us without us knowing how it did so Jacky.” Flotsam was on my right and the same distance forward that Gene was. She looked as confused as I felt right now, she shivered and wrapped her hooves around her shoulders. “I’m a little freaked out that I can’t remember how I ended up here.”

“I don’t see anything that could be a legible form of writing captain!” Nefer reported from directly behind me between me and that sealed off archway, he was looking at the walls and all the strange markings on them. “There’s no language to them as far as I can tell, if there was it would complete gibberish.”

I had to keep in mind what Nefer read before we entered. So we should reflect on what we see? Was that figurative, metaphorical or philosophical? The room was simple, it had three tall mirrors that one could see their entire bodies in.

I looked behind me at the archway, but didn’t move from my position.

There was a mirror above the archway… curious. The three doors were equal distances apart as were the doors between each one. The archway we ‘presumably’ came through, was the only doorway without a wooden door, but had a mirror above it. So that was where a fourth tall mirror should be.

“Something about this isn’t right.” We’ll fall to darkness, if we don’t figure out what is going on or how we ended up standing apart from one another like this. I’m taking that literally, figure it out or at least figure something out about all this and you’ll be allowed to escape.

“Is it a hunch?” Gene asked calmly. I can tell from the way his wings were shifting, he was actually getting quite antsy. He was good at reacting swiftly, but he had no idea what he was going to react to and he reached for his new spear that his brother got for him.

“No, but I may be forming one soon enough. Okay, everyone choose a door, but don’t go towards it just yet.” I pointed to the door to my front and left. “I’m choose the one nearest to Gene.”

“The door to the left of that.” Gene called, we turned to Flotsam and Nefer.

“Door closest to me.” Flotsam announced which was the door to the forward and right.

“I guess I get the last one.” Nefer looked to his door curiously.

“Okay everyone, approach you’re door slowly. We’re opening them all at the same time.” I turned slightly to the left, Gene turned around, Flotsam turned to the right and Nefer, like Gene, turned around to point towards his door.

We all moved to our respective doors and I held up a talon.

“Open them and look inside quickly, then close them!” I opened my door and looked inside… okay I can see where fear came into play.

Inside my door I saw the Ardent Survivor split in half and a pile of familiar looking unmoving bodies. I slammed the door shut and started to hyperventilate a bit.

“I saw our ship split in half, what did everyone else see?” I had to ask to be sure of my suspicions. One suspicion confirmed was that any longma with a flaming mane and tail would not be able to get at the treasure inside this temple.

“A forest… and a few other things I don’t want to talk about Captain Blackcap.” Nefer looked shaken up and possibly traumatized. “Let’s say it involves fire… a lot of fire…”

“Sirens and the ocean creating hands to try and drag me into it, all of them beckoning for me to come for a swim…” Okay, that seemed pretty good so far Flotsam and exactly what I was beginning to suspect about this place.

“… I’m not going to tell you what I saw, but if it ever happens I will avenge you to the best of my abilities.” Gene must have seen something that was just that bad. “Do your suspicions about this place have something to do with a rather specific nightmarish Ogre’s and Oubliettes scenario Jaded came up with?”

“If what I think is true about this place, then yes, I believe we are in a My Little Enemies type situation.” My words made Gene visibly flinch as he knew exactly what I meant. “My sister wasn’t clearly imaginative enough to fully flesh out the horror of this kind of situation, I just didn’t think we’d ever actually experience or be caught in one.”

“Caught in what?” Flotsam started to move closer to the center of the room while staring at the door she opened, Nefer joined her and pressed himself into her while shivering.

“As disturbing as the thought may seem, this place isn’t real and we’re all still on the stairs.” Gene explained in a much friendlier manner than I would have put it, places like this were made of pure nightmare fuel. Scary campfire stories couldn’t even begin to match the levels of horror that these places could unleash on the unsuspecting. “How do we get out of this captain?”

“We’re going to go back the way we came of course and we’ll leave this place in peace! If it’s intelligent enough to know that we’re aware of it and want to go back, then it should let us. Gather up like we did going down the stairs, close your eyes and I’ll get us out of this.” We all gathered together in the same manner we had been going down the stairs. I slowly started to lead us back the way we came with my eyes closed, eventually I blinked my eyes open and saw the light at the top of the stairs. One we were at the top I finally let out a breath of relief. “It… let us go.”

“What let you go, you’ve only been in there for about three minutes.” Tianhuo said as we came out of the entrance. “I’m surprised to see you are all okay though, considering how many people spent hours in there.”

“How do we know we’re not still inside it Jacky?” Gene hissed at me.

“By not letting paranoia of its existence get to us.” I whispered back to him.

“What was ‘it’ exactly? Because whatever it is, it scared Nefer pretty badly.” Grunted Sammy as she pulled a cowering Nefer close to her chest, the cat hugged her for all he was worth. “This My Little Enemy situation thing, explain it better!”

“This place, the temple, it is a living magical lotus eater. A place that warps reality around itself with illusions and I’m surprised that it let us go so easily.” Because intelligent magical lotus eaters were not something I wanted to mess with, my luck was bad enough as is and I wasn’t nearly that stupid. “The best description of how dangerous the temple is, is to think of a place that can kill you with but a thought if it really wanted to and it can mess with your perception regardless of how aware you are. Even a god could be fooled by a place like this if it was given a decent chance.”

“So now what?” Tianhuo looked a little shaken at the idea of what we just walked into and then out of in short order.

“How soon are the Fiery Fights going to take place?” It was important that I enter that competition.

Win or lose I would fight, because The Volcano might actually be intelligent and I felt like it was watching us even now.

Author's Note:

All in All is basically a setup chapter.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

That is a very nasty place to get stuck with, as theres only a couple ways of telling when its actually finished with you, that involve surviving and escaping as in how does it respond to extreme excessive application of force from outside trying to erase it?

[The Scarlett Mare]

Ooohhhh
So excited!

[Herald of Opera]

I get the feeling Teatime is going to win that one what with his golems being unaffected by that particular trap. His other meatshields are the sort to react to fear with violence, so that's another point in his favor...