(Angie’s View)

“What just happened?” Dairen asked; he was assisted by his two skeletons that cluck their teeth as if they were scolding him. 

“I think we got attacked?” Mike blurted out. “Or maybe the engines blew up?”

Dairen tilted his head, unsure why Mike blurted out the engines blew up, but such a thought was likely. Something to shake the whole ship could be many reasons, including the wind.

“Come on,” said Mike. They rushed through the winding hallways, heading towards the helm.

The pitter-patter of hurried feet of crew members and Players alike were running around in half panic and in a hurry. Even when Angie, trailing a bit behind, tried asking, they were instantly ignored by the passing crew members as they didn’t have time to talk.

Angie was roughly pushed to the side by one of the running officers, leaving her a bit bruised and battered. Mike helped her out. Some even drive through the group as if they weren’t there, making Dairen shove back.

They finally made it to the helm, where the door opened. They were flabbergasted at the chaos inside, making every one of them unsure who or what to do or say.

“Captain!” A man ran over in hysteria. “We got pirates!”

“What?!” Captain Gilmore slammed his fist on his chair, “How did we miss them?” He was angry at their incompetence.

“Our scanning system hasn’t been fixed yet, sir.”

“How could you forget something that important?”

“I…” The man bowed his head ashamed at his forgetfulness. His demeanor quickly changed, becoming straighter as he looked at Captain Gilmore. “It is my fault, sir. I’ll make sure to get it fixed as soon as possible.”

Captain Gilmore snorted, but he didn’t say anything against it. “Recall the footage for me.”

The man nodded, he looked down on his wrist, pressing a few buttons. A holographic window appeared before him.

At first, Captain Gilmore couldn’t see anything but a black spot off in the distance. The dot became bigger and bigger. Eventually, Gilmore could see the ship more clearly. It was a large airship, entirely in black. Their long oblong shape looked close to a sword. On the very helm was a large harpoon embedded in the front.

On its side painted in red and orange was a skull with the name Red Thunder. Intricate spots of red lights that were embedded in the very ship lit up, causing it to give a menacing glow.

“The Red Thunder.” Captain Glimore hissed underneath his breath.

It was a known fact that they were one of the most infamous pirates in the sky. Their unnatural ability to persuade the clouds to turn into a dangerous thunderstorm every time it engaged in an aerial battle.

Many ships had fallen into their hands. Most never came back and were sunk to the bottom of the very sea or eradicated. Their infamous name was nothing to scuffle at as it was a terrifying force to remember.

“Get the ship ready! We are going to have to fend them off!” Captain Gilmore shouted in a hurry.

“Yes, sir!” A man brought his hand up to his side and saluted him. Quickly, he yelled, ushering the others to work faster. “Get the canon’s ready!”

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Keyboards and knobs were diligently pressed hectic as they opened up the canons that were put away to come back out again.

The enemy airship flew straight toward the Rocs and sent out a shockwave of magical energy pulse.

“Shields!” Captain Glimore screeched, slamming his fist on his chair.

With a screech, the Rocs broke formations, reeling back from getting destroyed. It barely missed, burnt a few feathers black, but that didn’t stop the magical beam. Not even a second later, the beam hit a magical barrier that slammed against their very wall.

Angie was flabbergasted in what she was seeing as she didn’t expect to see pirates appearing out of nowhere. She thought it would have been a regular ride that took them from point A to B, but that wasn’t the case.

Was this another part of the dungeon raid? Yes, that was what she believed.

The question was now what she can do to assist.

Both Mike and Dairen were in a rush to grab a seat as they buckled themselves in. Mike gazed up and saw Angie still standing there with her jaws gaping.

“Angie!” Mike shouted in a hurry. “Find and belt yourself!”

Angie snapped out of her daze, she ran towards the seat next to Mike. Her hands quickly grabbed the seat belt to strap herself in.

But before she could click the belt together, the airship jostled. Throwing her partially out.

Mike frantically reached over, grabbing the back of her shirt. With a vicious pull, he put her back into the seat, which allowed her to seat belt.

“That was way too close for you.” Mike mildly chuckled as he had seen a few of the other Players rush in getting thrown to the side and hit the very wall.

Loud red blaring sounds resounded throughout the ship, warning everyone to get strapped in as the flight was becoming a lot more chaotic than before.

Even Angie was glad that she wasn’t a second too late as she felt the ship tip to the right. Her back pushed against the seat, her hand grabbed the belt as she tightly held on.

“What is going on?!” Captain Gilmore shouted.

“Sir, it seems we are being hacked!”The navigator had said in alarm.

“By who?!”

“I don’t know, sir.” They searched viciously, but so far, everything checked out fine. They didn’t understand what was going on.

Just as quickly as the red alarms blared off with warning, the signs suddenly stopped, leaving them with an eerie silence.

“What now?” Captain Gilmore had said with concern as he leaned forward on his seat, looking at them for an answer.

“I think it’s gone, sir.”

With a relief, Captain Gilmore flopped back, but before he got too comfortable, the airship yanked hard to the right, dodging away from colliding into the airship.

Angie's head snapped to the side, and her lip cut against the belt. She felt dizzy. Eventually, the airship settled down just enough for her to reorient herself again.

“I hope we won’t get blown out of the sky.” Mike turned pale; he, too, was holding on for his dear life. “I don’t like being stuck like this and unable to handle my own faith.”

“Let’s just hope that whoever is driving, this knows what they are doing.” Dairen dryly stated.

“We still need to help Snow.” Angie squeaked, she felt her stomach make a few loops. The ship rocked back and forth.

“I think it would be best that she stays inside wherever she is now, taking her out could be more detrimental than helpful,” said Dairen. He was already looking through a digital computer that was on the side of the wall. “I found the blueprints of the ship.”

Both Angie and Mike gaped, wondering when he took the initiative to look into the ship’s database.

“She’s definitely in a safe space for now.” Dairen was paying attention to all the information and absorbed it quickly in his mind. “Instead, we should be worrying about what to do next.”

“You sure?” Mike asked he was surprised that Dairen didn’t take the initiative to go and save her first.

“Yea, right now, we need to escape or win against the pirate ship. Think about it. If Snow’s the main force powering the ship and we take her out, what do you think will happen next?”

Mike opened his mouth to speak, but he quickly closed it. Realizing what Dairen was implying. The moment Snow was pulled out, everything in the ship would possibly shut down, and they would fall out from the very sky.

None of them wanted that, especially when they needed to get out of this rough predicament and get to the flying castle.

“Exactly.” Dairen took their silence as an understanding. “We can pull her out when we are about to land. This should give us enough time to get in and out as quickly as possible.”

“You got a plan?”

Dairen shook his head no. “Not enough data and timing. I’ll think of something when we get closer to the time.”

“Okay.” Mike grinned. “I’ll be expecting something wild from you.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad.”

“Right, tell it to that last circumstance where we almost got blown up from you riding on the monster’s back.”

“That was an accident.” Dairen hissed.

“Sure, it was.” Mike shrugged his shoulders, not believing him.

“Anyways, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get into a hand on hand battle with the pirates.” Dairen had said, which caught both of their attention.

“What do you mean? Did they dock yet?”

“No, but they're about too.” Dairen motioned his head towards the screen where they saw the live footage of what was going on outside.

Both ships were in a flurry of a wild dance to outmaneuver one another until finally, the smaller-scaled pirate ship was close enough to send multiple bolts of wires into the side of the airship itself.

Another blaring sound of alarm resounded throughout the ship.

“We got invaders from the Pirates, get ready to wipe them out!” Captain Gilmore screeched angrily.

“See,” Dairen said with a smile, but just before he could say anymore. He focused back onto the very screen of the ship map. Words flitted across the digital display that Dairen was looking at. His eyes became wide as all three of them got a message.

Dungeon Dive no.3: The Dungeon in the Sky Quest

Destroy the three mages on the pirate ship to disable the weather system.

Mission Level: B

Failure of Quest: Death of all passengers

Time Limit: until the pirate ship disengages or the pirates ships gets taken over

Rewards: The orb of thunder