It had been nearly thirteen hours since the race began and was nearing early evening. This was typically when most people got what little sleep they could before the Ouroborus at the midway point. The class relaxed while the adults busied themselves with preparing the ship for the next obstacle.
“Well now… what are you playing?” A smarmy voice asked as he landed on the deck with a click of his heels. The class didn’t even respond to Dorian's arrival this time. He had shown up several times throughout the race to taunt or praise them—usually a mix of both.
“Card game,” Bea replied as she slapped a four of clubs down.
“Looks interesting…” Dorian muttered as he sat down to watch them play.
“Don’t you have a crew of your own to bother?” Daisy asked, annoyed.
“Oh yes, I do, but they are nearing the Ouroboros. We’ve received word it's far crazier this year, so I thought to give my favourite rivals a heads up.”
“Well, your warning has been given,” Maxwell bluntly replied as he slapped down a four of hearts and claimed the pile.
“Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh, how interesting. Tell me, werewolf, is your bite as bad as your bark?” Dorian immediately swept backwards away from Maxwell’s half-hearted swing.
“Well… guess I’ll be off,” Dorian muttered as he opened his umbrella, only to stop when he spotted Alex.
“Where’d you get that umbrella?”
“This ole thing?” Dorian asked, gesturing to the umbrella as he closed it. “Confiscated it from a criminal.”
“A criminal?” Yuu repeated as she snuck up to get a closer look at the device. The pair had become increasingly agitated after first seeing Dorian with the umbrella. Not because the man was a threat but because they wanted his flying umbrella for themselves.
“Yes, right evil bastard name Marty Pippin… ever heard of him?” the pair shook their heads.
“Wouldn’t think so; he used to work in childcare. There was never a bad word said about him. They always used to say Marty Pippins is a miracle worker.”
“He didn’t do anything to the children, did he?” Alex asked as tension began to fill the air around him.
“Oh, he did, he often had a troublesome time, so he gave the children medicine and a spoonful of sugar.”
“That doesn’t sound that bad,” Kline observed as he slapped down a jack of diamonds.
“Well, medicine was his word for powerful hallucinogens, and the sugar was sedatives. He’d give these not only to the children but to the families. They would spend days at a time, tripping into fantastical worlds, all while his team would rob the families blind by stuffing all their valuables into a pocket dimension carpet bag.”
“That bastard!” Alex snarled.
“A sentiment I agree with. He tried to peddle his tricks at one of my childrens homes. So I enacted justice, Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh,” Dorian broke out into an evil-sounding cackle.
“When we were done with him, he promised he would give up his life of crime and gave me his artificer umbrella and carpet bag.”
“How can you be sure he did give up?” Daisy asked the obvious question.
“Let me put it this way. No sane person would hire him to work for them. Bit hard to work when your insides are outsides,” he once more evilly cackled, and for the first time, it felt fitting.
“Can I see the umbrella?” Alex asked as Senior and Mel began to close off Dorian's escape routes.
“No, but tell you what, let's have a wager.”
“A wager?” Yuu echoed.
“Yes, If I win this entire race, I get your ship here.”
“I suppose if we win, we get the umbrella?” Mel asked, her eyes literally shining bright lights at the sight of the device in his hands.
“Tell you what, you don’t even need to win. You just need to beat my crew. Come even one spot above us, and you can have the umbrella.”
“DEAL!!!” Senior shouted as he took a surprised Dorian’s hand in his own.
“Now off you go; we got a race to win!!” Mel said as she picked Dorian up, spun around in a circle, and launched the man into the sky. Mid-arc, he opened his umbrella and flew off into the distance.
“OK, ALL HANDS ON DECK!!!!” Senior roared. “WE ARE GOING WITHOUT REST, WE WILL BEAT THAT MAN!!!!” The class all saluted and dropped their game of cards to fire out more water sails that Yuu had made using the surprisingly durable pie tins Tasha had hidden throughout the ship.
“Choppy water ahead!!” Alex called out. Looking into the display he had set up, they could see an island jutting out of the northern bank of the river. This was obviously what they called the serpent's head isle.
“The Ouroboros is ahead, everyone; put on your safety harnesses!!” Mel called out.
During the past few hours, the class had a few friendly encounters with the more casual racers. A few of which told them in far clearer terms what to expect. The Ouroboros was a whirlpool caused by the swirling currents when they impacted the serpent's head. The main thing these other racers had told them was that anyone not tied to their ships would drown.
Tying themselves to their positions, they braced as the Trouser Surprise began to rock and shake violently. Lucky for them, the water sails held strong. A necessity for this part as without enough speed, they would be destroyed.
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The ship pushed on through the increasingly violent current only to begin to go in a circle around a single area of the river. They had been caught in the whirlpool and were being pulled down.
“SIR, WHAT DO WE DO?!!!” Kline screamed out in terror.
“STAY THE COURSE!!!” Senior answered the question as he looked at the mad pair of teachers who were cackling from their spot at the front of the ship. The two had insisted on being the first to experience this part. Even when they drew lots, they won out. Well, Kline won one of the spots but gave it to Yuu.
The ship started to go faster and faster in a circle as it came closer and closer to the core of the whirlpool. Eventually, the Trouser Surprise began to twist and turn as it began spinning broadside around the whirlpool as the water sails got sucked into the middle.
With one final scream from the class, the ship was pulled under the water. Moving under the surface were countless serpentine-looking waterspouts. The Trouser Surprise currently found itself within one of the larger ones.
“This is an underwater highway?!!!” Maxwell cried out. This was another natural phenomenon he had read about in the same book. This one was a case where currents became so strong that they created an air pocket tunnel through the water. That the walls moved with such speed that they never even had a chance to fall.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!” “Wooooooooooo!!!!”
The class now could see that they weren’t immediately going to drown and just looked at the pair at the ship's prow. They had heard they were crazy. They had even seen some hints of the madness they shared. But it was only now, in the face of what they thought was certain death, that they could fully see how unhinged they were.
“Look, another ship!!!” Mel shouted, pointing out to another serpentine spout that was corkscrewing around. In the middle was the gnome ship that had taken a spherical shape as it tumbled through the Ouroboros.
Looking around them, they could see other tunnels also had ships. Some they didn’t recognise, and others they did. In the tunnel directly beneath them was a sloop they recognised well. Even through the choppy water being broken beneath their hull, they could make out Dorian twirling his umbrella.
“Is that the Speedo guy?” Bea asked, pointing to a tunnel where they could see the Swimming Paul, who was still swimming strong. Right next to him, imitating his current breaststroke was Angrathond. It seemed the two had taken the same tunnel, and Paul was kind enough to teach the dragon how to swim.
“Ok, we need to get the toys out, kids!” Senior shouted as he opened a hatch into the main body of the Trouser Surprise and took out a siege ballista.
“Weapons?” Kline asked, audibly gulping.
“Remember, combat is allowed after the halfway point. The second we are out of this current, we will be in a warzone,” Senior replied with a grin as he pulled the drawstring back.
“Can we launch magic attacks at the others?” Daisy asked, hoping to get more practice with the rapid-fire method Gorm had taught her.
“Anything goes, even going onto your rivals' ships to fight with cutlass. It’s not unheard of for ships to change owners midrace,” Mel explained as she attached a repeating crossbow to the ship's rear.
“We finally gonna get a fight?!” Tasha asked as she started shadowboxing.
“I got the new spear, I guess,” Kline added.
As they readied the weapons for the second half of the race, a loud explosion blew out as one of the serpentine spouts collapsed. The only evidence a ship had been there was the scrap wood and a growing stain of red.
“What’s that?!!!” Gunter shouted, looking towards the explosion as a shadowy figure behind the spout began to manouver towards another spout. This time it was one with what was clearly the Neveau Artistes ship.
A spiralling black tendril began to wrap its way around the spout, but before it could crush it, a black splotch launched from the ship into the water around it. A loud screeching echoed throughout the spout the class were in as the large figure retreated, albeit temporarily.
“Horrors of the deep,” Mel gasped as she watched the figure now turning towards the Trouser Surprise.
“Alex… is that?” Yuu began before trailing off.
“I think it is,” Alex muttered as he stepped up to the helm to face the monster.
“Kids, Gunters’ folks… don’t do anything. Leave this to Yuu and me,” Alex declared as Yuu stepped up beside him.
“Are we going to see sir fight an elder god?” Tasha asked, her eyes gleaming.
“Looks like it,” Bea agreed as they stood there and watched.
“FLUFFY, YOU HAVE GROWN SO MUCH!!!!” Alex shouted towards the creature.
“REMEMBER ME, IT’S AUNTY YUU?!!!” Yuu added. In response, the coiling mass of tentacles and eyes that they could now see began to wriggle.
“SIR, PLEASE DON’T ANTAGONISE IT!!!” Kline begged. As he shouted this plea, another roiling mass of eyes and tentacles approached from the opposite side of the spout.
“We’re done for!!!” Kline cried out as he hugged his spear and began to shake. As the class braced for their end to come, they were left wanting. To their surprise, the first horror that approached them coiled around the spout and attacked the other horror. Both shadowing figures tumbled away into the depths of the Jormunganda, colliding with another ship in a different spout.
“She has grown so much,” Alex said wistfully as he returned to the deck.
“Sir, what was that?” Daisy demanded.
“That was fluffy.”
“That doesn’t answer anything!!! Tell us what that was?!!!”
“One of my familiars. She used to be a rat… but she has grown so much!!!” The class looked at Alex with a shared bout of exasperation.
“That… that was a rat?” Daisy repeated before deciding to give up. Her teacher was someone who had common sense wash over him like water off a duck.
“LIGHT AHEAD!!!” Mel shouted. Looking forwards, they could all see what looked like a glass window facing the sky above.
“Tie yourselves to your spots!!!” Yuu shouted as they all rushed back to their spots. Tying the ropes with no time to spare as they broke out of the surface of the water and were launched through the sky.
Looking around as their ship soared, they could see massive fireballs and explosions start to appear around them. The combat had already begun as the ships started launching their attacks. Looking ahead, they could see Dorian’s Tophat-Trick had already landed and was pulling further ahead.
“FIRE THE GRAPPLE SHOTS!!!” Mel shouted, to which Yuu and Maxwell were the first to respond. They both ran up to a different ballista and fired shots. Immediately shooting out, the bolts landed, clean through the hulls of the Artistes’ ship and the ship of a crew that looked more like pirates.
“You sure about this?!!” Daisy asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Senior replied with an ear-to-ear grin as the ship finally began to descend to the water. Immediately followed by the two ships they had nailed that hadn’t finished their jump were suddenly being pulled down with them at awkward angles.
“Upside to a metal ship, we displace more mass!!!” Mel cackled as she held the helm tightly between her eight hands.
Landing with a heavy crash into the water, the class watched on as the two ships they had nailed were slammed into the river on their sides. The pirate-like crew’s ship immediately shattered, while the Artistes ship had, with the last minute edition of a canvas painting, righted itself.
Now they were back in the current of the river; the ship lurched forwards again, gaining speed once more. Looking around them, a lot of competitors were already out after having rough landings.
Behind them, they could see Swimming Paul and Angrathond were still taking it easy. With Angrathond now trying backwards crawl, much to his attendants' panic. As they watched this out of the Ouroborus, flying like a cannonball was a wooden sphere the class recognised to be the Gnome Depot’s ship.
A second before the sphere crashed into the water, it separated into two halves, both of which landed softly and caught the current. Now with two separate cores, both teams utilised their spare parts, and now, to the class's surprise, there were two ships identical in every way.
“Which one is the real ship of though?” Alex lamented as he looked out in wonder at the speed at which the gnomes could build their ships.
As he pondered this philosophical quandary, a massive explosion boomed behind them as one of the eldritch monsters from the Ouroborus burst through the surface. Not a single racer failed to look toward the now-dead creature.
As questions of ‘How?’ and ‘Who?’ began to fill people's heads, they could see a figure moving smoothly along the river's surface. It was an old man in a colourful shirt with plant patterns, a pair of cargo shorts and combat boots.
Weirdest still, he seemed to be gliding only on his heels. As he passed a small ship, he fired a pump action repeating crossbow and blew the ship to smithereens. Everyone looked on at this lunatic in stunned silence as he climbed onto one of the gnome ships shouting about ‘Finding his wee men at last!’.
As the competitors prepared for an all-out battle, another explosion rocked the river as two final ships burst from the Ouroboros. Sir Bearington's ship appeared currently in a fierce battle with a ship that had more hulls and rot than even ancient vessels. Standing on the deck were what were clearly skeletons.
“Wow, looks like we are in for a treat this year, folks. The rarely seen Never-Finishers. A crew of undead who are doomed to do this race till they win have just joined us!!!” the announcer's voice echoed out from above each racer. It was now the most dangerous part of the race had truly begun.