Airship Mauled

by Darkonshadows

Chapter Sixty Two, The Hail Maries: Hurl.

-A few days later Airship Mauled, The Witch’s Fare, Daring Do-

“Well now, I didn’t think that some of your adventures could be so particularly pleasant Daring.” The grinning witch said as we sat down. Kuril received a slightly angry glare from me. “I think everything turned out nicely, now if only we knew what ‘The Leg of the True bakers’ meant.”

“Yeah, pleasant, that’s the word for it. Can we do something about the alpaca that followed us back and is currently on mine?” A young alpaca just out of her cria stage was currently snuggled against my back, her orange fur shined brightly in the light of the room and her blue eyes were looking about curiously. The little limpet refused to let go of me. “She’s kind of clingy.”

“She’s not hurting anyone, if she’s here then none of the other alpacas really mind her being here. I mean it’s kind of hard to miss a bright neon orange alpaca leaving the area to follow us home.” Kuril smiled as the alpaca nodded to her and gave her a friendly wave from my back. “In any case we’ll look out for her and we’ll have Rata deliver a letter to them to pick her up if they feel like it.”

“Back to the subject at hoof if you will…” Fizzle says slowly and with purpose as she stared at the crystal, and the ring clasped the around it, in her hoof. “The leg of true bakers… I have an idea of who to ask about this.”

“Before you ask me, I’ve got nothing.” Sekhet stated from her plate of fried fish. She caught the fish, then Kuril seasoned and fried it to some form of relative perfection. I’m kind of jealous that the goddess could eat whatever she wanted without it having a drastic effect on her figure.

“It’s not you Sekhet, I think we take this to the most renowned baker in the land… well as I know them to be in any case.” Despite Fizzle speaking calmly, I was curious as to where she was going with this. “We’re going to Ponyville, but first I need a day to relax at home from nearly being smothered to death by cria.”

“We were only gone for about five minutes, we didn’t know that our body was supporting the main mass of them!” A slightly upset Maries exclaimed.

“It would have been an adorable way to die though.” At least Kuril seemed to be in good spirits.

Based on what Fizzle said, I can narrow down the options to just one pony. Would Pinkie Pie really know anything though?

-A day later, Ponyville, Sugarcube Corner, Fizzle-

At least mom didn’t think I’d be in too much danger here. I admit nearly being eaten by sea monsters must have been a bit hard for mom to swallow, but I had handled it fairly well. I wasn’t a little filly anymore, but mom… actually I appreciated the fact that she was worried about me.

“Oh, hey Fizzle! Did you know Twilight’s coronation is coming up and that Celestia and Luna are stepping down as rulers?” Well Pinkie looked as bouncy as she usually is.

“No, I thought they were going to join an international spy ring.” I stated sarcastically.

“I don’t think they’ll get much work from SMILE in Silver Shoals, maybe they’re building a dispatch base there? Kind of like how Cheese Sandwich randomly chose to build his gag factory around…” Rolling my eyes at Pinkie going off track and blathering on, I slowly brought my attention back to her with a stern look on my face. “Which is a really silly place to put it, so it makes sense that it was...”

“Pinkie!” Shouting at Pinkie worked fairly often and she stopped to look at me.

“Yes?” She asked in a friendly tone.

“We came here to ask if you if you know anything about something called ‘The leg of true bakers’.” Letting out a sad grunt as I watched Pinkie go into a thinkers pose, I was beginning to wonder if this was a pointless endeavor. I nuzzled into Maries as they wrapped an affectionate paw around my neck. “If you’re not too busy trying to help us Pinkie… I’d like a fruity delight variety cupcake, two raspberry tiger tail doughnuts and a cinnamon roll platter loaded with cream cheese. If you can swing it, add a copious amount of cottage cheese to the cinnamon rolls as well.”

“I’ll have three banana nut muffins.” Daring Do seemed to be going light with her order.

“Did I hear muffins?” A blonde pegasus mare with grey fur asked, seven bubbles marked her each of her flanks.

“Oh, can we each have one cousin Daring?” A second blonde pegasus mare with grey fur came along that looked nearly identical to the first one, her flanks had rolls of bubble wrap on them.

“That’s why I ordered three in the first place Ditzy… also Derpy isn’t related to us even if you two are hard to tell apart sometimes.” Daring seemed to be lamenting her bits by the way she sagged.

“I’ll be right back with your order guys!” Pinkie zipped off.

After paying for our snacks, Pinkie sat down with us and looked rather thoughtful. At least we’d have a nice time eating our snacks.

“Leg of the true bakers… leg of the true bakers… Oh, I know!” Pinkie slapped her two hooves down on the table. “Do you know what a baker’s leg is supposed to be?”

“No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell us anyway.” Why did we come here again?

“It’s hollow!” Pinkie shouted while throwing her hooves up in the air.

“Hollow?” Maria asked through a mouthful of cinnamon roll caked in cottage cheese, while Mara was gnawing at another cinnamon roll and Marie was slowly gnawing down a raspberry tiger tail doughnut.

“Well of course silly!” Pinkie stated as if that answered everything. “Anyone who truly loves baking would have a hollow leg and never tire of pastries, pies and other assorted goodies! Oh, I fit that description perfectly! Am I what you’re looking for? It sounds like a fun riddle if I’ve ever heard one!”

“No, and I think we need a location as an answer Pinkie.” We could find a hollow that fits the description, how many hollows were there in Equestria? If Pinkie were on the right track then there’s Sire’s hollow, hollow shades… I think I’ve heard of a place called Hope’s hollow, but it wasn’t nearby… none of the other ones I was thinking of sounded quite right either. “It’s the location to something we happen to need to finish up Daring’s most recent adventure and will likely lead into the next one, otherwise she won’t be able to finish her most recent book. Aside from that, I’m assisting in this endeavor for personal reasons.”

Said reasons were GODLESS was involved and were still relatively active outside of Equestrian borders. I didn’t want them to get their hooves on this artifact and we were the ones that were closest to knowing where it even was and one clue was stopping us from finding out where it is. Also there were other suspicions I had about the End of Immortality taking so long to find, based on the ridiculous goose chase involved therein that Daring has been on for the last few years while doing all the other things that she does.

“Well that’s going to upset Rainbow Dash, she really supports Daring Do a lot!” Pinkie commented idly as she munched a cupcake.

“I don’t like upsetting my fans, but this situation is far more important than upsetting my fans!” Daring rubbed at her left shoulder and looked to the table with a slightly haunted look in her eyes, she really wanted to do this. It was not only that she was trying to make things right for what happened with Jade, but to also stop GODLESS from ultimately getting their way. I kind of blamed her quite a bit for these last few years, even knowing she was hit with a powerful poison that nearly got her killed. I hadn’t exactly said anything, but I’m fairly certain Daring knows exactly why I look at her the way that I do. “Even if upsetting my fans is something I’ve done quite recently, most ponies tend to forget all the horrible things that Ahuizotl has done in the name of his job. His cruelty was rather unnecessary and I still don’t want anyone to ever get hurt on my watch again. I hope Ahuizotl is going to be a bit nicer to deal with or at least far more congenial from now on. All I am trying to do is the right thing, but the ones I still need to make reparations too are asking for a complete miracle.”

Daring looked at me and Maries, we represented Airship Mauled to her. I moved around Maries and calmly put a hoof on Daring’s shoulder. I didn’t hate her, she just couldn’t stop the incident that led to her wanting to work alone as often as possible. It was Rainbow Dash that got her back into things, though the recent mixed results of her stories seemed to have shaken her quite a bit.

“Wait a minute, I actually know where you need to go!” Giving Pinkie a flat look and a raised brow, I would like to hear of the place we’re possibly heading to if her idea has any merit. “You won’t like it very much…”

“Perhaps you should tell me first, before I decide if it’s something that I won’t like.” Who knows, we might not be going somewhere too bad.

“Well… have you ever heard of Dimondia?” Okay, Pinkie had it right, I immediately hated where this was going.

“Diamond dogs?” I asked.

“Yep, but Dimondia is not where you’re heading. There’s a place called Legate’s Hollow… it’s been around since before the three tribes showed up and settled the area. You know, before Luna went crazy and basically destroyed the earth ponies’ settlement which made the Ever Free Forest take its place, then eventually led to earth ponies asking Celestia about creating Ponyville.” Yes, that was the general history of Ponyville, but now Pinkie had our attentions completely on her. “Legate’s Hollow is where the diamond dog ambassador is said to reside when he’s not visiting Equestrian soil. It’s this cozy little diamond dog settlement, its underground and everything!”

“So how do we get there and is there any help you can provide to make this trip go a little more smoothly than Maries, Daring and I just beating intelligence into the dumbest of diamond dogs until we find what we want?” Though I liked Doctor Bones well enough, diamond dogs had a few stereotypes about them and they often lived up to at least one of them on a regular basis.

“I know who would be of big help, but you’d need to get her and her boyfriend to agree to help.” Pinkie leaned in close to me and whispered. “I’ll help you out with convincing her and she’s sure to go with you, I mean diamond dogs do have some really nice geological features and I know she’s been meaning to do research into them.”

-A day or two later, heading to Legate’s Hollow, Maries-

Maud Pie was always… interesting. She seemed so dull and emotionless if you didn’t know what to look for, she wasn’t outwardly expressive at the very least. Mud Briar was a stallion who loved wood or sticks like Maud enjoyed rocks, they were rather well matched pair and understood one another on several levels. Both were intelligent and they loved one another implicitly.

Same as what we had with our Fizzy honestly, a loving relationship built on trust and an ability to enjoy the other’s company. In our case we worked together to enjoy Fizzle and she works hard to try and enjoy having each of us separately and altogether.

“I’m sure this will be an interesting experience.” Maud stated blandly.

“Technically, it’ll be interesting given that I’ve never actually met Diamond Dogs before. This should expose me to a new culture quite sufficiently.” Mud Briar followed up the statement in stoic demeanor comparable to Maud’s flat demeanor. “I’ve also never met or talked to a chimera either, I'm going to learn quite a bit from this. We already know that like us, they live underground.”

“I wouldn’t live anywhere else, also Boulder likes our home being Ponyville adjacent and his friend Tom.” Maud answered as she held up what I had to assume was an average looking rock, I wouldn’t know as Maud was the geologist with a ‘Rocktorate’ here and is a doctor in the subject. Useful considering we were going to be underground for the next several days. “We’ll help you find what you’re looking for, Pinkie was insistent that you’d need our help. She... may have gone a little overboard with describing the seriousness of the situation.”

“There’s this group called GODLESS that is out to either destroy or detain all the gods, what we’re after is called ‘The End of Immortality’. From there it isn’t exactly hard to figure out why we’re here to find the third piece of the puzzled that leads directly to it.” Fizzle explained to Maud and Mud Briar. “Our clue was ‘The leg of the true bakers’, so we’re banking on whatever we’re looking for to be in Leg’s Hollow. Given Pinkie said that true bakers would have a hollow leg for their favorite snacks.”

“Seems logical.” Muttered the mild mannered Maud.

“I agree, but I have to ask, what if this object in question isn’t there?” Good question Mud, we’ll know the answer once we’re done exploring Leg’s Hollow.

“Then we go back to the clue, this is the best chance we have to finding the object that fits with these two.” Fizzle held up the crystal and the ring around it, Maud scrutinized it for a bit.

“Very strange.” Looking to Maud, she noticed our stares and extrapolated on what she thought was strange as she pointed out the crystal and the ring the four branches were locked into. “A long pointed crystal with four branches that fit into a cupping ring. The crystal itself is… currently unidentifiable to me and is apparently manufactured magically in origin. The ring it’s fitted into is a different story though. Some bits of the metal in the ring is electrum, the other bits are specifically made for magical conduction via a mix of mythril and admantite. Mythril used for increased magical conductivity and the adamantite is used for its natural structural integrity where the electrum fails, when given some magic… it would be really hard to break this thing. I know how to do that. The effort to make this look incredibly unassuming is intriguing, especially when it has a minor amount of boron nitride in its make. The same kind of stuff that diamonds are made of. I wonder how they made this, the process would have taken many years alone just to do this much to get these elements to work together like they do.”

“That… was really informative.” It wasn’t only Fizzle that looked surprised, we were quite surprised it had some adamantite in it.

“Yes, but artifacts are not entirely in my area of expertise… which is rocks.” Stated the ever bland Maud.

Author's Note:

Maud and Mud have joined the party, diamond dogs can be friendly...

Daring Do has been quiet on that last part.

Note: Since I'm not counting the addendum, I have not actually yet hit a million words. I will hit a million words... at the start of the next chapter actually.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Maud vs Diamond Dogs?.. Its going to be The Mary Whitehouse experience all over again.

Pinkie got there eventually, or she called up the chapter to read ahead?

For magically or otherwise forming a thumb sized crystal can take as little as a year with known technologies. At the beginning of 2019. New audio 3D holograms in late 2019 enables consideration of accurate blending of materials. I think the russian Liquid Crystal minerals are two examples a few mm on a side, and theres one other mineral thats similar size that has some very intresting and strange properties. Nothing as rare as Astatine though?