October 13th, Year 021 Angels Descent
It had been a couple of days since they had claimed complete control over the prison and had, in the tradition of their master, palmed off the responsibilities onto others. These others, who were very foolishly happy with their new positions, were at the front gate to the prison to see the pair off.
“I will miss you, my forever love!!” Stonefist shouted towards Yuu, who in response flipped him off. Stonefist affectionately caught the flung insult and held it to his heart. His few months with Yuu had transformed a hardened criminal both in the physical and metaphysical sense into soft clay.
“Be sure to give one to your lover for all of us, deary,” Matron added as she waved towards Alex. In his time within the prison walls, Alex had maintained three things. His unwillingness to allow innocent people to be hurt. His faithfulness to his soulmate and his inability to cook.
During one such occasion, where Alex hosted a BBQ for the prison, they nearly had to evacuate the entire facility as he had mistaken mustard gas for the condiment. The incident still haunted the nightmares of many people; as has previously been stated, at some point or another, Alex in the future will have an imperial seal placed on him to prevent him from cooking as his cooking was more chemical warfare banned by numerous international treaties.
“I will keep everything on the straight and narrow,” Yellow Beard said as he glanced at a number of the guards who had failed to escape through the main gate thanks to the help of the MMM organisation.
The MMM organisation is a famous military mercenary company that consists entirely of mimes. They hold extraordinary powers where them shooting finger guns at you like a cool dude; actually hits you. They had been hired to maintain a perimeter building a substantial invisible wall around the gate to prevent any escape attempts.
Believe me, when I say that you have not felt fear till one dark cloud night, you see a number of mimes walking out of an alleyway, silently snapping their fingers in unison. Of course, this is a story limited to the western side of the prison.
“So your son on the way, Beardy?” Alex asked as he looked around. Yellow beard, in response, nodded.
“He said he had to drop off some ballast, but he would be here,” Yellow Beard reassured the pair, only to look up into the sky as a tear, in reality, began to form.
Tears, in reality, take many forms. Some look tear-drop shaped due to the nature of the written language. Others look more like cracks but were made by tearing the fabric of reality. These tears usually take a divine being to repair them that or a shampoo that leaves no more tears.
The crack itself radiated a greenish, purplish, blueish, reddish, every other colourish hue. As it grew in size, so did the intensity of the light it let out. Without warning for anyone not looking up, a loud warhorn was blown. The kind of horn ships used when travelling through the fog to let other ships know they are there and very much appreciate you not being where they were.
With the horn noise, the tear opened up into just a plain hole in reality, and a sloop burst out of it. Despite being a sailing vessel, the sloop had no sails to speak of. Instead, it had a quartet of fins at the front and rear of the vessel's hull. Every so often, these fins would flap as if it were a fish swimming through the air.
The second the rear of the ship cleared the hole, it closed up, leaving the air looking like it had never even been broken ap[art in the first place. Everyone barring a pair of loonies who knew more than they let on, looked on with awe.
The Lucid Treasure was one of the Dark Continents' greatest treasures. It was said to have been the first unified project of the first generation of Sinful Lords under the leadership of Lord Hades. A ship that could sail the sky as easily as it could the ocean.
The problem with the ship was much like a very fancy car that a man buys in his later years. It spends more time parked up on display than actually being used. Things with great history are loathed, not to be used for any reason.
It is why many royal families maintain the same crown and throne through hundreds if not thousands of generations. Because if they even thought of getting a new one, the old ones would throw a fit and cause a little civil war to teach the royals proper manners.
It is, for this reason, the Lucid Treasure stole itself out of its display dock. The Ship then flew around the world, going on a sightseeing tour and enjoying everything it had been denied. It eventually fell into the hands of a young pirate who became its first captain.
I say, pirate. I more meant he was a cleaner who had the misfortune of being on the ship when it stole itself. As, at the time, the ship's sentience was unknown, he was sadly labelled the thief. It then became a tradition that the crew's captain be decided by the ship, which very much never needed a plank for undesirable passengers to walk when gravity could manage it with a few shifted floorboards.
Regardless of its backstory, the duo now saw their ride to the northern port city of Port Carrion. A lovely little fishing city that you could definitely smell before you would ever see it.
“You, my passengers?” A young human asked as he leant over the edge of the ship.
“That we are,” Yuu replied as her eyes visibly gleamed at the chance to examine a masterpiece of every school of engineering, some that had yet to even be invented. In response, the ship seemed to almost shudder under her gaze.
“Please don’t ogle Lucy… She gets very self-conscious when people look at her,” the young captain warned.
“She doesn’t like being looked at? She’s a flying ship.”
“That she is, but your friend there looks like she is undressing her hull plating… you wouldn’t do that with a woman now. Why do it with this lovely lady?”
“Understandable,” Alex replied with a nod as he brought down a karate chop onto Yuu’s head.
“Enough ogling; we need to board.”
“Awh… but I want to know about her material matrices,” Yuu whined as a rope ladder was lowered.
“We can ask the ship nicely; if she says no, you can’t force her,” Alex warned.
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“Ok,” Yuu replied, looking particularly disappointed, similar to a child being told we have ice cream at home when finding out a chain restaurant's ice cream machine, by some grace of the gods, isn’t broken.
Climbing up the lowered rope ladder, the pair arrived on the main deck to see several sailors moving around about their work. As previously mentioned, this ship had no sails, so there was no need to pull on ropes and pulleys. But there is still a lot to do, especially with a temperamental ship that flies.
“So I’m taking you to Port Carrion?” the captain asked.
“That you are, we have organised a trip with the Arca Tribe to take us to the Grand Granary,” Alex replied. The Young Captain grimaced deeply.
“You are sailing with the Arca Tribe?” He asked incredulously.
The Arca Tribe were famous for being wild and crazy even by this world's standards. They were ardent followers of no religion as they had declared war on all of the divine realm. Mainly because they wanted to die in glorious battle, and what is more glorious than dying to a god?
Unfortunately, these glorious deaths often elevated them to Valhalla, where they had to spend a lot of time with their killers. Awkward times were often had. Especially as many of their members actually ascended to divinity in their own rights.
It is also worthy of note that only the Northern Pantheon is actually fond of the Arca Tribe, mostly because they are what you get if you merge MMA with religion.
With their deals all set, the ship sailed along its way while Alex and Yuu were forced to sit behind a very kindly marked line. The line itself was made of some kind of crystal that even our clever duo couldn’t identify. Most likely because, much like the situation with Alex and the elf, this may have been a point where they learnt the knowledge they were accessing thanks to the booze of knowledge.
“Captain, may I ask why we have to stay behind the line?” Alex asked.
“You can; the entire ship's decking is a mana conductor. The ship also has ancient runes for defence carved along its hull that is powered by this decking. Should you step out onto this part of the ship…”
“Don’t worry, me and Alex have the biggest manastores on the continent!!” Yuu bragged, flexing her arms for some reason.
“That is precisely the problem, miss… if you two step onto the decking while the array is activated, we would all be forced to give mana to your standards. This ship was designed with sinful lords in mind, after all. So sit in the array free zone and don’t force my men to manaout.”
“Gotcha!” Yuu replied, giving a hearty salute as Alex took out a deck of cards for them to play a few rounds.
They didn’t have to wait long, though, to experience some entertainment as a large black form began to move through the clouds as the ship moved.
“Cap’n there be the black dragon!!” One of the sailors shouted.
“The Black Dragon?!!! Bastard took me leg, and I will have my revenge!!!”
“But Cap’n you have both your legs?” The confused sailor pointed out. The young captain shook his head to rid himself of the call of Ahab syndrome and ordered the array to be activated.
All at once, from the prow to the bow, the ship became enveloped in a bubble of rainbow light. As it shone like the northern lights circling the ship, all the sailors unified their voices in a sea shanty to focus their mana simultaneously. The Black Dragon seeing this new shiny meal flew in for an attack only to be repelled by the array, its feet being burnt and somehow becoming blacker.
“She canne hold cap’n!!!” the sailor shouted.
“Don’t tell me what she can’t do!!”
“Can we help?” Alex offered.
“No, stay where you are!!” The Dragon came back in, this time launching a ball of black lightning that struck the array. It crackled around the bubble. But Alex and Yuu noticed a few of the sailors had collapsed unconscious.
“Crap, this bastard is tough!!! Man, the harpoons!!!” The captain shouted as the men ran to now growing harpoon launchers.
It is worth noting this is not a figurative statement. Much like watching a timelapse, seeing a flower grow from a bud, the decking grew several harpoon launches along its decking, ready to defend itself against the dragon. Firing a volley of diamond-tipped harpoons at the dragon, it roared in pain and retreated into the clouds.
“I think we got-mnhmhmh,” quite rightly, the sailor who was speaking was roughly tackled and had his mouth muffled.
It is a known fact that Fate loves to wait for someone to make a statement like ‘I think we got him’ or ‘I am two days from retirement’ for her to exact mischief and prove these statements wrong.
“We don’t mind helping,” Yuu offered.
“I said stay put!!!” the Captain reiterated as he searched through the clouds.
Unbeknownst to them, they had succeeded in injuring the wing of the Dragon enough to leave it unable to fly. Falling as all things that lose the ability to fly mid-flight tend to do, the Dragon, without knowing it, was about to become acquainted with the floor. Thankfully there was a carriage there to break his fall.
As with all coins, this situation had two sides, and it was unlucky for the occupants of the carriage, which consisted of Warden Jedd and the Slaver, whom aided his escape. Warden Jedd himself had just finished saying to the slaver, ‘Whew, guess we got away safely’, at the very moment before impact. Fate does love her dramatic irony.
With the threat eliminated without the need for the overpowered and reckless pair to intervene, the trip proceeded normally without any further issues, as it is a known fact amongst masters of adventurers that more than one random encounter per journey is rather dull and time consuming.
Arriving in the waters over Port Carrion, they could see now why it had such a name. The city itself was bloodred, not because of the stones used or a trick of the light. The city was quite literally painted with the blood of their catches. One of which was being hauled ashore.
Looking over the edge of the Lucid Treasure, Alex and Yuu could see the carcass of a sea leviathan. A sea monster the size of a small town that could flood a region with its blood. This was Port Carrion’s primary source of income. Selling vast quantities of meat to the nation at large. An essential job considering the number of purely carnivorous races that inhabited the land.
“Ah, there they are,” Alex said, gesturing to a collection of longships of the Arca Tribe that were waiting for their arrival.
“Ok, Lucy, see those dingey buckets. We need to let our passengers board them,” the Captain said soothingly as he stroked a railing up to one of the upper decks.
In response, the Lucid Treasure began to dive down towards the collection of longships. The wind rushed through the everything of everyone onboard of the ship's upper decks, one even flying slightly above it.
All at once, the ship turned back up, and everyone felt the compression force of inertia compressing them, only for the decking to move out of the way of Alex and Yuu’s feet, letting them continue their descent towards the water near the ships.
As they fell, the pair couldn’t help but admire the ship as it sailed back into the sky. The thing was a magnificent masterpiece of workmanship. The thing had even somehow calculated the exact force that would ensure Alex and Yuu would only end up bruised from her dive bombing run. The pair both individually resolved they would one day build their own flying ship.
Swimming up to the long boats that had a number of round shields along their hull, they felt rough hands drag them on board.
“You, my passengers?!” A gruff man who looked more Viking than even Vikings asked.
“Yes, we need you to take us to the Grand Granary,” Alex replied.
“Ah, good,” the Viking man replied with a nod that shook loose a few bones from his beard.
“How about you become our subordinates?” Yuu asked.
“Hah, we will work for the coin, but we will only ever pledge ourselves to people mad enough to challenge gods outright… Tell yah what prove you can do that while we row our way to the west, and I might consider it!”