Ridgeline
Halfway through our journey to Canter Basin and the lake beyond, we caught a second tailwind. I had mixed feelings about that, since it meant we would arrive nearly an hour before sunset, though I wouldn’t need to push the engines as hard. Granted, I was fairly sure the Blossom could easily do three-quarters even with the scoring on her hull, but I wasn’t going to take any more chances.
What I hadn’t been ready for was the Waystone suddenly coming to life when we were about ten miles out of Canter Basin. It started to emit a soft blue light. Minuette’s smile became a full-fledged grin again and she began to bounce in excitement. She took it as a sign.
I had to do the same, because the more I thought about the situation, the more I started to wonder if Even Keel had really given us a functioning treasure map. If that were true, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had known. And if he had known, why had he done it? Despite his claims to being rich—and he was absurdly rich—why would anyone turn down a chance at a six-hundred-year-old treasure trove? It didn’t make any sense.
But it wasn’t going to make any more sense tonight.
Per my promise, I swung wide of the town of Canter Basin, a small tourist and resort town with a single Skydock. Instead of heading in, I navigated our way along the western ridge of Canter Basin Lake. All the while, the Waystone, now sitting firmly in Minuette’s lap, got a little brighter. I tried to ignore the thing.
Despite my doubts, I still didn’t actually believe any of this craziness.
The Cloudshark had been a myth, nothing more. Yes, Admiral Fairweather had chased plenty of air pirates, but the Cloudshark was supposed to operate out of the frigid—and supposedly cursed—lands that would one day become the Crystal Empire. The legends said that their unicorn captain—Captain Diamond Facet—was the last survivor of a noble race of pioneers, with a 'coat like gemstones.' Obviously, part of the lost legends of the crystal ponies.
Then again, the legends also said he ate diamonds for breakfast and had once courted a young dragonness. Oh, and he had three windigos as pets which he used to freeze his prey before he struck. There was the griffon first mate and two diamond dog enforcers. Not to mention the fact that his ship could fly without an envelope, despite the fact that levitation crystals and the like hadn’t been developed until the 8th Century.
The whole thing was just one silly bedtime story.
But even I couldn’t just ignore the griffon’s words.
Minuette? She wanted to believe. And I couldn’t find it in myself to take that away from her. Something about her enthusiasm gave her a glow I didn’t have the heart to douse. So, knowing full well I was on a fool’s errand, I continued on, the Waystone glowing ever brighter and Minuette bouncing ever higher.
I’d helped her imbue her conjured magnifying glass with a version of Spellsinger’s Sight, allowing her to see through the entire hull of the ship as it wasn’t there. She kept moving it in every direction, scanning the trees in a jerky, almost nervous manner as if she didn’t want to miss a single inch of the mountainside.
I brought the ship a little lower for her and idly kept my eyes open. We were running on turbines and levitation crystals, so I’d retracted the sails again to make things easier to see. My eyes scanned the various kinds of pine trees, outcroppings of rock, and the occasional creek, but nothing jumped out as a definite sign of buried treasure.
Why was I doing this again?
“Anything yet?” Minuette whined as she checked directly below us with her conjured looking glass.
Right. That’s why.
“Not a thing,” I replied smoothly, shifting the Blossom to port to avoid some taller trees on a rise. “Come on, Minuette, it’s been a long day.”
“Nope!” she chirped. “We keep going until we run out of sun or run out of mountainside.”
“We’ll probably run out of both at the same time,” I muttered. “I’m not seeing a way we can...”
I paused and squinted ahead.
Minuette’s head jerked up just in time to see the anchor beacon flash again.
I brought the Blossom a little higher and blinked a few times as I recognized the silhouette.
“What in Equestria is a Nimble-Dancer 14X doing out here?” I muttered to myself, staring at the airship currently floating solely on levitation crystals a few hundred feet off the mountainside.
In the light of the setting sun, I managed to catch the name printed across the bow in elegant letters: To Dream in Colour. With the Trottingham spelling of ‘color.’
“Wait… I saw that ship when we left Vanhoover…” I muttered to myself, though I hadn’t taken the time to give it more than a passing glance when we were casting off.
The ship was at least double the size of the Blossom, with sleek silver lines, two masts, and an entire aft castle. The airship had to be at least four decks, with a large wraparound bridge at the top. Unlike the Blossom’s narrow portholes, most of the decks had large glass panes that revealed an opulent interior. I couldn’t see details, but I could see reflections of gold, silver, and chrome. Her stabilizing fins were retracted, but both of them had a bright golden sheen. I knew how much that model of fin cost. Each was a quarter of the price of the Blossom itself.
I eased down on the throttle to let momentum carry us closer, though not close enough to worry anyone. I also made sure our running lights were on, even though there was still easily enough sunlight to spot us. The last thing I wanted was for them to think we were trying to sneak up on them. Ponies this rich tended to get jumpy.
“Wow,” Minuette whispered. “That’s one heck of a ship…”
I nodded dumbly just as we got close enough to make out three figures on the ship.
On the main deck, a cream-colored unicorn mare was pacing back and forth before two other ponies, a smaller gray-maned unicorn—barely more than a filly—and an orange pegasus with a dark mane. She looked to be yelling at them as we approached, but then she froze.
Somehow, her eyes locked onto mine through the forward shield, though we were at least a couple hundred yards away. She shouted something, then I caught her horn lighting up a bright magenta.
A moment later, the lights aboard the To Dream in Colour blazed white, then red, then white again. It was an old airship signal for ‘do not approach, operations in progress.’ And while I didn’t see any operations, whoever this was seemed like she had an attitude. I could see that even from here, so I veered the Blossom well clear, while both Minuette and I watched them slide by.
The pegasus waved cheerfully at us. The filly just stared like she was nothing more than a ponyquin. And the mare just glowered at us as if she were trying to burn a hole in our hull.
Then, we finally passed the other ship and left them behind.
“Okay, that was…” Minuette said slowly.
“Weird,” I said flatly, shivering slightly.
“Weird’s a good word,” Minuette said with a nod. “In fact, I...”
I didn’t realize she had paused. I kept thinking of the look that mare had given us. It looked like a challenge. One I didn’t really appreciate. I had half a mind to turn us around and demand to know what her problem was. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more—
“Moony!” Minuette hissed. “Directly ahead!”
My eyes snapped up from my annoyance with the other mare to see where Minuette was pointing. We’d moved around a bend in the mountainside and were now out of sight of the Colour by a large outcropping of rock.
What lay beyond that was what had Minuette so excited.
It also made my heart stop in my chest. I gaped.
There, on the side of the mountain, was a small copse of trees that seemed far shorter than the trees that surrounded it. In fact, as we got closer, I realized there were other trees amidst the new ones, but they were ancient… and broken.
“No way,” I muttered as the sun continued to slip further down the horizon.
Minuette had her magnifying glass floating in front of her. She’d somehow adjusted it to act as a telescope. I couldn’t see whatever she was seeing, but she was bouncing up and down faster than ever.
“Moony…” she whispered. “That might be what we’re looking for!”
And that when the first of the evening winds came down the mountain and shoved us hard to port. Minuette squeaked in surprise while I swore and tried to get the Blossom back under control. But with a cracked stabilizer fin, it was far harder than it should have been. Oddly, the Blossom listed to starboard even as I fought the rudder. Swearing, I flipped a few switches and turned up the crystal core’s output, then shunted it all to the starboard levitation crystals.
Minuette was holding onto her seat for dear life as I clutched the yoke, but even that wasn’t enough. I swore again and snapped open the mainsail, then the jib. Both billowed to full immediately and the Blossom jerked again, spinning slightly on her horizontal axis. I had to use the turbines to get her to slow down.
By the time I had her back under my control, we were a good half-mile from the spot we’d just been in. I dropped us to a measly four hundred feet where we hopefully wouldn’t catch as much of the wind.
“What was that?” Minuette cried, staring at me.
“I told you, the weather out here is wild!” I spat, annoyed at myself for being unprepared. “They probably have a pegasus or two handling weather for the town itself, but not for the whole lake. We’re talking over thirty square miles of lake and forest, Minuette!”
I looked out through the forward screen as another gust pushed us back from the ridge. I got an odd sense of satisfaction when I spotted the lights of what had to be the To Dream in Colour moving off back toward the town of Canter Basin.
“But… but it could be right there, Moony!” Minuette cried, pointing back at the spot where we’d seen the younger pine trees. “Right there! And there’s another airship out here! For all we know, they could be looking too!”
“If they were looking, they wouldn’t have stopped at that random spot,” I said. “The only thing I saw beneath them was an ancient rockslide.”
“See? They might!” Minuette said. “We can’t know!”
I turned to look her square in the eye. “No, we can’t know. But what I do know is that if I try to get through that wind tonight with a cracked stabilizer fin, that fin will probably shatter. If that happens, we’re at the mercy of the winds for most of our navigation.”
“But, we have those turbines…” she protested, flailing her hooves a little.
“Turbines are only good for flat-out forward momentum. If you want to land anywhere near that spot, Minuette, I need to be able to get this ship in just the right spot to prevent her from banging into the rocks!”
She deflated and blew a raspberry, crossing her hooves over her chest.
“Look,” I said, trying to find a way to salvage the moment. “I’ll mark this down on our maps. Let’s get to town, find out what it’ll take to fix the Blossom. Once that happens, we can plan our next move, okay? Even that other ship is heading back in. Worst case scenario, we can hike out here tomorrow and investigate. It’ll take probably half the day, but we can do it.”
Minuette pout vanished, only to be replaced by a look of suspicion. “You’d be willing to do that with me, tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” I sighed and looked down to the deck. “It’s my fault the fin is cracked, otherwise we could handle that wind.”
Minuette reached out and patted me on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Moony. That’s behind us. Anyway, I like your idea. You’re right. The last thing we need is to scuff up the Blossom more.”
I looked back up to see her smiling again. Just that was enough to lift my spirits a little.
“Let’s head back to town,” she said. “We’ll go with your plan.”
“Thank you,” I said honestly. “I promise we’ll get there as soon as we can, okay?”
“I’m going to hold you to that!” she said in a sing-song voice, though there was a hint of steel there too. She was serious.
That’s okay. I didn’t mind.
Ooooh, I've been waiting for this moment! And for those who played Highway Blossoms, you probably have been too. Though for what specifically, I won't say. Not yet, at least. Wait for it. Wait for it...
...seriously, it's so hard to wait for it. Ask Alexander Hamilton. Or Aaron Burr. 
If you come across any errors, please let me know by PM!
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Interesting. Was the Cloudshark not an airship, but an airplane?
10702644
Powered by Windigos!
Blossom sails to the caldera.
Travelers find another already there.
A rival? A fellow? A foe?
A new lead on the old treasure.
How will our wanderers fare.
Hmmm, so the treasure hunt is going to turn into a race, is it? To Dream in Colour sounds like a hard foe to best, if it has power to back up its size. Things have taken a turn for the complicated, haven't they?
But I'm willing to wait for it... (wait for it wait for it)
10702872
Nahhh... my stories are always simple and easy for everyone involved. No drama or problems of any kind. Whatsoever.
It might be a race... but you still gotta know where the finish line is.
And it's not like they'd have ever developed levitation crystals in the Crystal Empire. That would be silly!
And a new wrinkle in another airship present for reasons unknown. Most intriguing. We'll have to see where this goes from here.
I like where this is going. The game is afoot.
And there's our (partly) antagonistic trio. Was just wondering when they'd finally show up.
Hmm... I feel like this moment's missing something.
Wait!
There we go.
Very interested to see if the crew of the Colour are characters we've seen before.
Also, there should be a joke in here somewhere about if you are the captain of a ship looking for treasure that Moonie needs a big hat.