The next day, the crew got word from First Mate Meredith that they would be departing Gellorn Keep the following morning. Many of the pirates spent the last day questing in the mines, eager to get as much fighting in as they could before once more being sequestered to the ship for the remainder of the long journey ahead.
Iris and her party joined them and enjoyed the opportunity to join a hunting party that brought down a particularly large and troublesome cave centipede. Iris much preferred seeing beasts before eating them, and in this case found it very unpleasant to discover what last night's dinner looked like when still alive. She had to get create her own opportunities to contribute to the fight, but with ample use of her blip ability she was able to deliver a few slashing blows to the creature and gain a modest amount of experience from the encounter. As part of the reward for slaying the beast, the gargoyles offered the meat from the creature to the crew, and even taught Autumn and Adan how to best harvest it.
IRIS ORION
Hero Rank, Level 12
Experience Points: 9788 / 11,340
Progress to next level: 86.31%
After the centipede hunt, many pirates moved on to whatever quest the gargoyles had for them next, as there was no shortage of stuff to kill in the depths and the gargoyles were more than willing to capitalize on the rare opportunity to hire so many powerful threadbearers for the task. Iris and her party, however, retired early and returned to camp, where they began to pack their things into the bottomless bag.
In the early evening, they returned to the workshop which housed the Gaping Maw. The repairs were all but finished, with only a few gargoyles remaining aboard to conduct final checks on the mechanisms in the mechanical deck. The pieces of the hull which had been removed were now back in place, the maw at the bow had been repaired and was now holding itself shut properly again, and the only signs of damage sustained during the battle with the mermaids were freshly installed railings and planks yet to be weathered by travel.
Though the climb up the ladders to return the ship was quite unpleasant for Autumn, she did eventually make it. As Iris leaned on the railing of the main deck waiting her to climb the final rungs, she gazed out across the impossibly oversized workshop before her. She marveled at how quickly her mind had grown accustomed to the truly reality bending scale of Gellorn Keep, and wondered if the rest of the world might feel small to her now.
The gargoyle society had proven to be quite charming, and though she still had many questions about the nature of the giants, she wasn't exactly begging to repeat the long and arduous trek through the mountain to see more. In less than a day's time, Gellorn would become yet another place she glimpsed but left behind too soon. There was a strange sadness about it, like a nostalgia for a place she barely knew, and soon it would be just another place described in her journal. She found solace in the thought that, at least this time, there weren't any painful goodbyes to be made.
They spent the night aboard the ship in half empty crew quarters, as the rest of the crew had elected to instead spend the final night in the cavern and rush to pack up and return to the ship in the morning before it departed. None of the pirates who slept in the hammocks immediately surrounding her own were aboard that night, so Iris tied some string around a small chunk of glow stone she had picked up in the mines and hung it from a nail that happened to be sticking out of the wood above her hammock. It wasn't overly bright, but she trusted that it would ward off the nightmare. She wasn't quite sure what she would do for the following nights, assuming that her neighbors wouldn't take "it keeps the bad dreams away" as an excuse for making them sleep in the light.
The following morning, the rest of the crew filled the ship. Morale was high, though many of them were exhausted from a late night adventuring in the mines and early morning spent packing and hauling their things back to the ship. Autumn had breakfast waiting for them, she had dipped into her supply of various eggs purchased from Giantrock City to make dozens upon dozens of what she called "everything omelets," explaining that the "everything" referred to both spices and the types of eggs mixed together to make them.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The time to leave came in the early afternoon, and Killup was one of the last of the crew to return to the ship. Much of his family followed him all the way to the platform beside the ship, and he hugged each of them one by one. A few of the youngsters actually left their place in line after hugging him to rush to the end in hopes of getting another one.
Meredith made her rounds through the nearby chambers to issue a final call for returning crew, and followed up behind a few disgruntled and hungover pirates who she angrily ushered aboard the ship. Then the giants entered and pulled away the platforms on either side of the ship, crouched below it and hoisted it up onto their shoulders as they had done before.
They carried the ship through the halls of the mountain until they reached the bathhouse where the hydra was being held, there they paused a healthy distance from the water and awaited instructions.
"So," the first mate said as she stepped up beside the captain at the bow, "what's this mystery plan of yours to get the hydra back into the ship?"
The captain was silent as he looked out at the water with his hands clasped behind his back.
Meredith sighed, "you don't have a plan, do you?"
"I was hoping one would come to me," he admitted.
Meredith placed a hand on her face and rubbed her eyes, "perhaps the giants can help?"
The captain thought about it for a moment, and then leaned over the railing to shout at the giants holding the ship, "do you boys think you can wrestle that hydra while I wrap some chains around it?"
The two giants at the front leaned their heads forward to peer at each other around the bow, and then one of them looked up at the captain, "the Monuments instructed us to help however we are needed."
The captain laughed, "Grand! Set as down in the shallow side, then, and get in there!"
The giants did as he requested, walking down steps into the shallow end and delicately lowering the Gaping Maw into the waters. Though it was much more shallow than the deep end, it was still plenty deep to accommodate the enormous size of the ship. The shadow of the hydra was soon approaching, however the giants wasted no time in stepping in front of the ship to intercept it.
Three heads shot out of the water in rapid succession and struck out at the giants, but their razor teeth merely glanced off the polish marble bodies. The giants moved with surprising swiftness to wrap their massive hands around the necks of the hydra, forcing each of them into tight headlocks while the hydra's unseen body thrashed about beneath the surface, creating great waves that sloshed water over the edges of the pool.
The Shark Titan called for the crew to open the maw, and leapt from the bow. The maw soon crashed into the water with an immense splash, adding to the tumultuous waves. Much of the crew watched from the deck as the captain grabbed hold of a massive chain from the open maw and darted through the water to entangle the beast. As he did so, the chamber at the bottom of the hull filled with water, and the height of the ship decreased as it sunk lower and lower into the pool.
Though it put up a strong fight, and the heads momentarily escaped their captors on more than one occasion, the captain had soon applied three separate chains to the creature's body, firmly binding it. After recapturing the loose heads, the giants held them in place as the chains began to retract and slowly pull the creature into the belly of the ship. The heads viciously lashed out when the giants released them at the last possible moment, but their attacks were in vein as they were soon pulled too far into the far to strike at anything but the inner hull.
After the hydra was recaptured, the maw was pulled closed, the captain jetted out of the water and landed with a splash on the deck, and the nonplussed giants once against hoisted the ship onto their shoulders to continue the journey out of the mountain.
"That actually worked well," the captain remarked to Meredith, "why didn't you think to ask for their help when catching Gerald?"
"Why didn't you, captain?" she asked with a critical glance.
"Hmm," he wondered for a moment with an unhappy expression, and then walked off.
The trip across the grasslands was as beautiful and wondrous as last time, and Iris found that the novelty still hadn't outstayed its welcome. She watched from the quarterdeck for a while as the mountain grew distant until it finally disappeared over the crest of a hill. Then she returned to her new favorite spot on the anchor, where she sat and enjoyed the view on the journey back to the river. She found the scale of things to hardly be disorienting at all anymore, so long as she avoided thoughts about how small her village would be if it were on the ground below the stomping giants.
Sooner than she wished, the giants reached the river. She blipped back onto the deck as the giants stepped into the river and finally returned the ship to water. The current wasted no time in carrying the ship forward the moment the giants released it, and the sails soon unfurled to gather even more speed as the Gaping Maw sailed towards its next adventure.