Sooner than she wished, Iris was put back to work. While the morning air was still crisp and cool and the sun still lingered over the horizon, she was drafted to check and retie knots across the front-most mast of the ship. It was an easy enough job, as the sails were furled closed and tied stationary while the current of the river and the half open sails of the main mast did the work of moving the ship.
She paused when the sails of the main mast were abruptly furled closed, and a fresh breeze washed over her. At first she looked towards the mast with curiosity, but quickly followed the gazes and pointing fingers of crew members on the deck below. Across the ship, heads turned one after the other towards something beyond the bow. Iris blipped to the other side of some ropes for a better view, and soon saw the cause of the commotion.
The ship was rounding a bend, and on the shores of the river up ahead, rows of gigantic statues were coming into view. There were six on either side of the river, in alternate colors of black and white marble. They were roughly the shape of humans, but their features were crude and basic. They wore no clothes, and had no obscene parts to speak of, but each wielded large silver shields and tall spears. As the ship grew nearer, it became clear that the shoulders of the giants were approximately level with the main deck of the ship, meaning they were of extremely impressive size.
Then some of the statues moved. Three from either side stepped down into the waters, moving in slow, methodical motions. They stabbed their spears into the riverbed, and hung their shields atop them, continuing to walk into the river even as they did so. Most of their bodies were quickly submerged beneath the water, and despite currents strong enough to carry the Gaping Maw they moved as if the water exerted negligible force on them.
As the giants converged near the center of the river, only their heads and shoulders now visible above the water, the Shark Titan took the helm. He steered the meandering ship down the very center of the lake, clearly aiming for the space between the giants. Iris slowly swiveled her head as they sailed past the first of the giants, wholly mesmerized and refusing to take her eyes off of it. Its face looked like an unfinished statue, with flat features and straight edges. Within what appeared to be crude carvings of eye sockets were silver orbs with black marble centers.
As the bow of the ship passed the furthest giants, they all abruptly converged on the hull and twisted to face forwards. The ship creaked and lurched as it suddenly rose higher. Iris blipped down to the deck and nearly threw herself overboard as she leaned over the railing for a better view. Far below, the giants were lifting the ship and raising it onto their shoulders. Water washed off the hull and poured back into the river as the giants wrapped their arms under the ship to support its weight.
The giants began to walk, carrying the ship forward as they slowly angled towards the southern shore and the grasslands beyond. The crew got to work tying down the various moving parts of the ship as if preparing to dock, and Iris was soon drafted to join them. As she worked, she stole as many glances as possible down at the moving statues that carried the ship, hoping they weren't going to drop it.
Based on the commands shouted by the first mate and the boatswain, and the general demeanor of the crew, Iris could tell that this was an expected occurrence -- otherwise they would have no doubt engaged in battle by now. The giants soon neared the shore, and the ship began to rise higher and higher as the giants slowly climbed out of the water and onto land. Without pause or hesitation, they continued on across the grasslands.
When Iris finished her work, her heart skipped a beat as she remembered the hole in the bottom of the ship. It hadn't been a problem before now, as the only portion of the ship it could flood was the hydra's chamber, which was already filled with water. Now that the ship itself was out of the water, however, that meant the hole would cause the hydra's chamber to drain. She blipped to the port side railing and looked down over the side, searching for a torrent of water jetting from the hull. What she saw instead was a giant's hand placed over the hole, holding back the water within seemingly with ease.
She sighed and smiled to herself, acknowledging that it would have been pretty weird if she were the only one to consider that problem. She had, after all, told anyone who would listen about the damage she had witnessed the mermaids inflict to the hull. Surely the captain must have anticipated it, and further anticipated that the giants would think to plug the hole when they lifted the ship.
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The next hour was surprisingly boring. Though the novelty of being atop a giant ship which itself was atop the shoulders of stone giants and being carried across beautiful meadows showed no signs of wearing off, in practice it wasn't all that different from sailing. The biggest change, other than the scenery, was that there wasn't much for the crew to do without the need to actually sail the ship. Instead, many gathered on the deck to savor the view and stare over the railing at the giants below. Most crew members that Iris had come to recognize as long time veterans of the Gaping Maw seemed disinterested, however, and in the absence of work to do they made their way below deck.
Iris eventually grew tired of staring out at grass and flowers, and blipped down to the dangling anchor on the port side of the bow. It was something she had always wanted to try, but had been too afraid to over open water of the powerful river. Now was her chance -- worst case scenario if she fell was that she would blip safely to the ground, with the help of her momentum-absorbing walking stick if necessary, and ask a giant for help getting back up. They seemed friendly, after all.
The maneuver to get down to the anchor was only slightly risky, involving a leap off the maintenance platform she often sat on, a short free fall, and a carefully placed blip onto the anchor itself. The anchor was attached to an enormous chain of which only a few links were visible before it disappeared into a hole rimmed with iron. Based on the height from the main deck, Iris guessed that the chain was coiled on the third deck, somewhere behind the infirmary. That made sense, as it accommodated for unexplained space between the infirmary and the bow, and lined up with the anchor wheel on the main deck.
She settled into a somewhat comfortable position on one of the anchor's hooks, and briefly enjoyed the expanded view the vantage point gave her of the plains and the giants. After a moment, she reached for her bag, but before she could reach into it a tentacle came out of the void and offered her the book she had been reading most recently. She smiled at Abby and took the book, giving an appreciative nod.
After a while of reading her book, she noticed the giants -- and by extension the ship -- were about to crest a steep hill. She eagerly looked up from her book, wondering what new sights awaited her. She wasn't disappointed, as the first thing she saw appeared to be the peak of a mountain. As they summited the hill, the whole mountain slowly came into view.
It was strangely out of place, isolated in the vast expanse of grassy hills in all directions was the monolith of a mountain made of brilliant white marble. In fact -- she realized as she squinted -- it wasn't actually a mountain, at least not a natural one. It seemed to have been built of giant marble slabs, many of which were weathered and worn smooth at the corners, but many still appeared new and freshly cut from the ground.
Long, wide dirt paths extended out from the mountain in four directions, cutting their way across the grasslands and splintering off into smaller paths in the distance. Along these paths walked giants of various sizes, all quite impossible to gauge at such a distance. All she could be sure of was that they were all huge, but some towered over others as if they were giants among giants.
Surrounding the mountain and spaced between the paths were towering obelisks of black marble, she counted at least a dozen before she gave up. They were built of tall blocks stacked side-by-side and atop of each other, decreasing in thickness near the peaks of the towers.
The giants carrying the ship soon met up with one of the large dirt paths, and followed it towards the artificial mountain. Soon the ship was passing by the obelisks, they were so tall that they soared above the main mast even while the ship rested on the shoulders of giants.
The sheer scale of what Iris was witnessing dizzied her. The Gaping Maw was already the single largest object she had ever seen, even bigger than all but a few buildings she had come across in her life. The redwoods of the Great Forest were the largest trees she had ever seen, and having sailed across a lake so large it felt like an ocean still baffled her mind. Now, even all those felt small compared to what she witnessed with her own eyes. She looked down at the path below, it looked not unlike an ordinary footpath one might expect to develop after years of travel, but perhaps her whole valley could have fit within its edges. Her home -- even the largest buildings of her village -- would have been like small rocks beneath the feet of these giants.
Something moved in her chest -- and then she puked. There had been just enough warning for her to lean forward and miss her dangling legs, and thankfully the nearest giant was too far behind to get hit with any splatter. She groaned as she accepted a handkerchief from a waiting tentacle and wiped her mouth.
"I think I should go inside," Iris said, still groaning.
Affirmative tones emanated from the bag.