Flight of the Brightsmile

Old Man Crask
0.5 Rests since the last incidentoldman.png
And so our brave and decisive hero, having successfully been revived by the power of orc spit and gumption, happily traveled forth with them to pilot a very foreshadowing airship. Where he would go on to happily live amongst the orcs as a ferocious and fearless airship captain ruled with a poop-stained wooden cane. To go and find the quest for the mighty hot dog.

Govrak panicked as Crask came alive with eccentric babblings. Behind him, Brarzur pointed and roared over the sound of Crask's foreshadowing. "It zany to the max! Kill it!"

Govrak held Crask at arm's length in a chokehold, and roared while preparing to impale him with his own poop-stained cane. "Kobera...!"
Then the ceiling collapsed.

It was all like:
This
and then
that

And finally, after the dust cleared, all that remained was the rubble, Grovrak's arms, Crask, his stick, and...some bird creature, just in the recently revealed cell over by him. What also followed were orcs that were defined by the following:

-fair-skinned human orc with dark hair, definitely the leader of this Warband of orcs
-Smaller human orc with curly blond hair, loud screamer, certified engineer
-Geometrically shaped one-eyed golden orc, who does not seem to share the same first letter and occupation

With the information in tow, Crask plucked his cane from one of the orc's hands and used the other to wipe out the poop stains. before prying that arm off as well, giving a small salute to his former captor and dusting off his clothes before turning to the new Warband.

"Ahh, such a shame really, they weren't really that great of receptionists, but they did make for great coat hangers... You will be missed. I'll be sure to send my regards to your orc wives when I see them...AHH! You fine folk came in just in time. I have tw-THREE new spots for receptionists that just opened up! And you people look like the perfect fit for the job, all we'd need to do, is scale this cliffside, and finish these fine orcfolk's job of taking me to that 'Hangar orc' area, with no further roof collapses!"

He points to Ashval Corvus.

"You there, sworn enemy of my species. Let us set aside our differences for a moment, and fly me up this cliff. In return for your promise, I promise to give your cell a right thrashing until the bars pry open, for the better of me, and my newly hired receptionists for the new path to be paved to victory!"
 
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The posting order had gone out the window. It had been pinned to the wall earlier that morning, denoting specific posting schedules for the orc jailers working this cell block. Now the entire sheet of parchment had fluttered out through the hole Entei made.

The question of how Caelcrust, Entei and Eolanthe survived their fall was an important one.




...





...





Moving on... Caelcrust picked himself up, while letting Eolanthe roll down the rubble pile they had accumulated. He noted, briefly, that her sword rolled down the pile after her. That cursed sword, from the lady who died horribly back on the Brightsmile - the lady who screamed with her final breath that it was probably a terrible idea to take that cursed sword along, on account of the curses.

It was things like this that made Caelcrust disparage Eolanthe. This was highly irresponsible behaviour.

Caelcrust forgot all about the sword as he stepped over the girl and descended the rubble pile, making a few cracking sounds that were either bones, armour, or hitherto unannounced attributes.

Speaking of...

The CAPTAIN looked up through the hole they had fallen through, and squinted his single eye. The ledge above them no longer had any sign of Zazzy, Vess or Jet. Perhaps in the end... the one thing they were NOT immune to was ballistae. They had learned the same painful lesson as Caelcrust's grandmother.

Several orcs, including the cheeky artillerists who wanted their bone-trophies, were converging on the impact site and picking through the rubble. It would not be long before they realized they had also caused collateral damage in the prison block below the ledge.

He turned, and was about to present a masterful plan of action for Entei and Eolanthe to follow, when he caught sight of two feathery, anthropomorphic weird creature things standing around the corpses of the orc jailers. Caelcrust narrowed his eye. Cave Seagulls. It didn't take them long to come looking for scraps. One of them was even screeching about secretaries, which was a known seagull behaviour.

"Go on now. Git," he said, without an accent, then repeated, "Git. Go on now." He had heard farmers say these words once, in order to banish seagulls from his engine intake. He hoped it would work now.

He also summoned a golden image of a loaf of bread above Crask and Ashval, before proceeding to move the bread just out of their reach.

With luck, he could tame the disgusting creatures and use them to distract the orcs.
 
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The impact had taken the wind out of Entei and it was a while before he could breathe normal again. Pushing away some rubble he checked that all his limbs were working. All the trouble he had gone through to survive and one fall could have put an end to that adventurous journey. He blinked the dust away and looked up while the captain shooed away something and saw the empty ledge above. Somehow he'd survived more successfully than the warriors from before... he didn't like what odds that gave him especially since he was too weak to grow more magical mushrooms at the moment. Dear gods, had he fallen so low as to become at level with the street hooligans who dabbled into recreational fungi? Perish the thought Entei, he told himself. The old pride clinging tight though his ragged, scorched, and now dusty robes fought against it.

Familiar unwelcoming and violence promising voices brought him back to focus, "clearly we have failed at stealth, we must hurry away from this mess." He coughed as rubble threw up dust after each of his fumbling steps.

How did they survive the fall didn't matter to Entei, not with everything that was suddenly happening all at once. Panic was slowly creeping up, making Entei forget to check on the child, barely noticing the bird man, or the job offer from the bloodied wolf man. What would my wife do? He asked himself, "Captain there's no point in shooing things away when we should be the ones getting out! In haste! Ah, this might be of use," he snatched the severed orc arm from the old man and searched through the nearby cells for whatever else he could take. He found a near empty potato sack and pushed the orc arm in, keeping his own hand inside. A foul smell seeped through the sack fibers and Entei removed his hand from inside to lift the sack high, "compost!"
 
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Eolanthe climbed unsteadily to her feet. She shook her head to clear away the dizziness, refusing to moan or whine or otherwise express displeasure at the aches and pains she felt all over. A certain towering alien cyclops would certainly give her grief if she did, and why offer him the pleasure?

Still, she wasn't dead, like the spectral orcs now floating free of their partially-buried and mangled corpses, so there was that. For a moment, her eyes followed them as they drifted about in apparent confusion. There was a certain...beauty in death that others apparently couldn't see, much less appreciate.

The orc-spirits noticed her attention and drifted toward her with a kind of lost hopefulness flickering in their auras.

"Go on. Git!" she said, unintentionally in unison with Caelcrust, waving a hand to shoo them away. "Koberax is in the lava isn't he, and the lava is that way," she said, pointing. "Or maybe that way. But I am going as far away from the lava as I can, and if you have any ideas on haunting someone, he is the one responsible for your present state, not I," Eolanthe said, pointing at Caelcrust.

She carefully picked her way up the rubble pile a little so she could retrieve her sword. Where are Vess and Zazzy? she thought. And the panthers? The members of her party she could see at the moment weren't making a great deal of sense. Caelcrust was...projecting the image of a golden loaf of bread over the two beings she had not met, one of whom was saying something about, of all things, hiring receptionists.

Mr. Entei shoved an orc's severed arm into a sack and said "Compost!" Eolanthe was no expert on gardening, but she was pretty sure that orc flesh did not qualify. At least, she was sure that she would never want to eat anything that had grown in such "compost!" On the other hand, he was a gentleman, so she supposed she could forgive him a bit of eccentricity.

That left the other new being, a tall Corvus sapiens who was trapped in an orcish prison cell. "Hello," she said, examining the cell door. The lock and one of the hinges was broken, but the door was held fast by the partially-collapsed roof. She tried pulling and pushing at the door, then ramming it with a shoulder, but that only created a future bruise to add to her collection. "Ow!"

Eolanthe sighed. Reluctantly, she decided that she would need to ask for help. Caelcrust was obviously not an option, even if he might be the one best suited to the task of manhandling things. The peculiar receptionist-hiring wolf-man seemed rather barmy, and in poor physical shape besides. That left Mr. Entei. "A bit of help please?" she said to him.
 
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Flight of the Brightsmile - Ashval Corvus

Interesting Circumstances

The hustle of movement and others caught Ashval's attention, and he peered at the people with his beady black eyes and clipped his beak together. The man whom the orcs liked considerably more than he began squawking at Ashval about help, yet he implied that his feathery wings would indeed hoist them both up the cliff, which he regretted to inform the coot that was an impossible feat. In the scrummaging of his inital artifact hunting, he damaged the flight feathers on one of his arms. The orc ordeal didn't make it any better, and thus he was flightless until someone fixed his wing.
"Well, I can do anything I set my mind to do. Perhaps you could free me first, and then I'll help you." Ashval didn't particularly know how to help when his wing was damaged, but he didn't need to tell the man that right away. He had barely spoken to the older man when a weird creature dared to ask him to shoo. The arrogance of this robotic thing annoyed the bird, and he flapped his wings indignantly at it.
"Bread doesn't suit me; it hurts my stomach. Aye, an artifact usually does the trick. However, I could help you if you get me out of here. " He cawed at the people; he extended his excellent wing and flapped it against the destroyed door. That is when he noticed a woman of small stature or was it a child thing? Ashval couldn't remember if he saw one like this. She seemed nice enough, the only one to try and get the door open for him. He decided he would be her friend.
"Lil one, aye. Good work thus far! Heave and a 'ho, and the door will go!" He sang as he eyeballed the last man the girl was asking for help. He did seem to be burly enough to do the trick. Perhaps he could also be friends; as for the others, he would judge them all with artifacts when the time came.

 
Old Man Crask was examining himself.

What this meant, for the people who might have become his friends, could not yet be discerned.

But he was examining himself, and that was that.

Caelcrust left the golden bread loaf in place above the nonresponsive character, where it floated like a warning symbol, denoting interruption of service. He then headed over to the partially-smashed-but-not-quite-smashed-enough door of Ashval's adjacent cell. Here, the intrepid Entei and the odious Eolanthe were getting busy with the wiggling and jiggling.

Caelcrust, as captain, supervised the procedure.

"You are not a cat predator," he told Ashval. "You therefore cannot stop volcanoes. Do the orcs keep you for another reason?"

Vaguely Caucasian sounds were coming from the floor below them, as a contingent of orc guards chanted "Hyup! Hyup! Hyup!" while jogging up the prison block stairs. Likely some of them had finished investigating the ledge where Jet, Vesk and Zazzy got cataploded, and were now trying to mop up survivors.

While waiting for the cave seagull to respond to his question, and for Entei and Eolanthe to respond to his leadership, Caelcrust leaned over and picked up a plot point that had fluttered from the crushed body of one of the orc jailers. It was a crumpled note, with Caucasian writing on it (serifs and exaggerated triangles, denoting sexual arrogance).

"Do not kill Wolfy dog-face furry Hot Dog cultist. Needed to pilot ship." quoth the note.

Caelcrust blinked his single eye at it, then blinked again at Crask, who was still examining himself.

"Hmm... perhaps they have a ship."

And that was all that happened, since everyone (including Caelcrust) was very busy right now.
 
The door finally gave a shrill cry on Entei's fifth struggle to pry it open. "Careful young lady," he said to Eloanthe as the door moved open. He too moved back, weary wary of the prisoner, but also, out of habitual good manners of stepping aside to let another pass. It was ungentlemanly to stare, but he had finally gotten a good look at the newly liberated. A small sense of relief threatened to bubble up as he looked back to the others: the old man wolf, the Captain, and finally the child, made for a survival crew in need of the extra man-bird power.

Entei himself felt the fatigue clawing at him, but surely, he was not the only one. Only Caelcrust seemed to be able to maintain such cheerful spirits, what with making art out of light. Entei could only tighten his grip around the bag of compost as the orc chants grew louder. "Any clues as to where this ship could be?" he asked focusing his sights again on scouring the area. A closer inspection of what first appeared to be a desk revealed the torture instruments of a very practical culture. No engravings or flair. No signatures or signs of authorship. However, some were quite ingeniously recycled material. All function and longevity. It was this observational focus that allowed Entei to ignore the not-too-dried entrails that covered them. "I highly doubt we will find many clues here," he picked up a bigger sack with a shoulder strap and stuffed the compost bag in.

"Next building's not too far down," he lied, "perhaps we can make the jump to its roof and avoid the orcs below." Hanging from a hook on the wall he found a stash of dried meets and decided it looked safe enough to take the risk. At the rate he was surviving, he'd soon dehydrate or drop from exhaustion. Dysentery, while more embarrassing, would bring death just the same. Out of politeness, he extended the stash towards the others without expecting them to partake, while devouring a piece of dried meet himself. Entei had never regretted his well trained and sophisticated palate as much as he now did.
 
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Flight of the Brightsmile - Ashval Corvus

Train Ride to the Promise Land

Ashval took the opportunity to remove himself from his cage and bow before his rescuers. The older gentleman had brought out the food, and he knew that his last meal was a long time ago. He squawked and snatched up the meat, almost snipping at the man's fingers in the process. He chuckled in embarrassment and composed himself.
"Aye, the cells have held me for too long. They want me' treasure, and I can't have that." He shook his feathery head and examined the room closely. There were no artifacts to be had here. He needed to see if he could venture back to the room with the magma stone; perhaps it was still where he left it before the Orcs descended upon him? He sighed and tried to rally his new companions towards the only exit.
"We should be leaving; treasure awaits us! I can't say how long I've laid to waste in these cells, but perhaps my vessel is still waiting on the river adjacent to the great volcanic mountain? We could check after we retrieve my artifact!" He flapped his wing hands up and down excitedly; hopefully, they would follow his lead. He directed his last comment at the automaton of sorts.
"What say you for me to join?" He chirped and pleaded for his rightful spot with the company.

 
Well, this was awkward.

Caelcrust stood there, holding the crumpled note which indicated some kind of ship that the orcs possessed, then blinked his single eye at Ashval when he mentioned he also had a vessel docked on the river adjacent to the volcano.

Two ships.

Just when fate had conspired to show them the way, this Deux-Ex-Vas-Navale-Flumen-Prope-Ignivomus had thrown everything into disarray. It was the kind of redundancy that cost as many lives as editorial jobs. Not to mention, Entei was making up lies about the validity of parkour.

Eolanthe would likely have had an equally deviant plan, which only stood to highlight her malice and treachery, had Caelcrust not stepped in front of her just now.

The CAPTAIN took a schplurky* of jerky from Entei, folded it up in the crumpled note, and dropped it into the coffee pot he carried inside his robe. Then he folded his arms under said robe, and scowled at everyone.

"So... the plan is to jump the roof to the next building, then follow this cave seagull to some treasure that awaits us, but which we can't have, because he doesn't like to share, then find a ship that is not the ship previously mentioned in the note which the furry hot dog cultist is capable of piloting. All while ignoring the fact that said furry hot dog cultist is now catatonic."

He waved a hand in front of Crask's bloodshot eyes, and got a little drool on his palm while doing so.

"HYUP! HYUP! HYUP!" chanted the approaching orcs.

"Did I miss anything?" Caelcrust asked everyone.

"HYUP! HYUP! HYUP!" chanted the approaching orcs.

Caelcrust turned to Eolanthe. "Do you also have a ship? And perhaps a plan to use the sewers? This way, if only one of us escapes, the others will not be able to reveal where the survivor is going. The orc torture will be fruitless. Like all things orcish."

"HYUP! HYUP! HYUP!" chanted the approaching orcs. One carried a punnet of blueberries in his backpack, but Caelcrust could not possibly have known that.



*a unit of jerky measurement, used in naval ceremonies
 
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1634780340112.png"No thank you," Eolanthe said. Though she should have been famished, nothing about her adventures from the crash of the Brightsmile on had been the least bit conducive to the development of a healthy appetite. And for all I know, that Orc jerky could be Orc jerky! she thought, repressing a shudder. Or perhaps even worse, made from some other sort of person.

The gore-encrusted torture instruments Entei had noticed certainly weren't helping in matters of appetite, which Eolanthe decided was for the best. She was just about to respond to Entei's proposed plan, when Caelcrust bulled his way in front of her, shoving her into the table of torture instruments. Most of them were too small or too specialized for their malign purposes to be of potential use.

The towering alien gave a summary of their predicament, without even including any fun words. Disappointing.

"HYUP! HYUP! HYUP!" chanted the approaching orcs.

So how do we get out of here? Eolanthe thought. We've already fallen through one roof--

"Do you also have a ship? And perhaps a plan to use the sewers?" Caelcrust asked, looking down at her with that baleful eye of his.

"If I had a ship, we would not have flown anywhere near any erupting volcanoes, and I would presently be soaking in a bubble-bath enjoying a splendid view of a cloudless sky. Unfortunately, the ship I was on crashed for some reason.
"But yes, the sewers," she said. "That way we can escape in silence, and the sewers will lead to the river." It did not occur to her that an Orcish architect might have different ideas on where a sewer system ought to lead to. It did occur to her that the sewers here were sure to be maximally disgusting. That was something (she hoped) could be endured by means of a sufficiently stiff upper lip. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop while being pursued by chanting Orcs, on the other hand, did not seem like a good fit for her skill and ability set.

And furthermore: if the sewer tunnels were as small as seemed likely, the others would have to stoop, but Caelcrust most of all, and with his voluminous flowing robes and cloak, he would be the one most inconvenienced. And best of all, if things went badly, she could turn about and say that it was his idea!

"HYUP! HYUP! HYUP!" chanted the approaching orcs.

"Mr. Entei, perhaps you might want to take that?" she said, pointing to a wrought-iron prod among the torture implements. It was a bit larger than a fireplace poker, and with a sharper point. "We may need to break into or out of something, and it might also serve you as a weapon."

Now to find a way to access the sewers... Using the faint light of her magic sword (cursed sword, but there was no time to worry about that now), she followed the shallow drainage trench in the floor to the torture chamber's disposal room--and a grated drain that was too small for any of them to fit into. She sighed with frustration. They'd have to...dispose of...bodies, wouldn't they? she thought, looking around the claustrophobic circular room for--there! Bolted onto the wall, a heavy iron door.

With a grunt of effort, it creaked open, revealing a chute going down into blackness below. Of course the smell that came up from within made her stomach churn, but there was a gurgle of what she hoped was mostly water, the flow of which would guide them unerringly toward the river. A moment of gladness that she had not tried any of Mr. Entei's jerky, for she was sure it would not have stayed in her stomach.

I have a baaaad feeling about this, she thought. Almost as bad as her estimated chances of being able to bound across the rooftops without falling short and plummeting to the streets below.

"HYUP! HYUP! HYUP!" chanted the approaching orcs.
 
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Like a humanoid-sized drainage chute hidden behind a previously-unseen iron door in an orc torture chamber, Caelcrust was annoyed. He narrowed his single eye at Eolanthe.

"You know, that was probably used to dispose of dead bod--."

With Caucasian gusto, the orcs breached the prison cell all at once, like cabbages falling from a cart. Imagine it. A cart, with lots of cabbages. Big cabbages. Then all at once, they tumble. And swing scimitars at you.

In haiku form, it would be...

Violent orc cabbages
Spilling through the jail cell door
Their scimitars drawn.


Most of the brassica harrassicas collided with Old Man Crask. The catatonic hot dog enthusiast was lost under the avalanche, and most of the orcs started squabbling over how best to restrain him. A few stragglers (or whatever the opposite of stragglers are, since they were the ones going forward) began swinging clubs at Entei and his Cave Seagull friend.

"UBHURWURBARLURB!" shouted Caelcrust, temporarily slipping into octotongue due to the stress of the situation. He surged across the room, knocking over the table of torture implements, and promptly shoved Eolanthe face-first into the chute. The girl went squiding (squealing + sliding) all the way to the agnostic soup of the sewers.

Meanwhile, Caelcrust turned and looked to the other two. Luckily, there was now a bunch of torture implements on the floor, and the orcs were worried about stepping on them. This had bought them all precious seconds, and the Captain knew such a purchase came with no warranty.

"Ubhawurbalarb!" He ejaculated while gesticulating at the escapeamachute.

He didn't wait for either of them to respond. Crask was getting dragged out into the corridor in chains, and Entei and Birdperson would be next if they didn't act with the same child-shoving efficiency that their Captain had demonstrated.

Caelcrust turned and pitched into the chute, scowding (scowling + sliding) all the way down to where the chute opened out into a square chamber of filth (including Eolanthe).

WHUPLOOSH!

Also, this guy was there (male gender assigned by author), trying to eat the little girl.

LUm00go.jpg
 
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Flight of the Brightsmile - Ashval Corvus

A Stinky Circumstance

Ashval disliked this turn of events, as going down into the depths of the sewers was not on his list of things to do. However, the orcs were quickly upon them when the only option was to go feet first into the shoot; hopefully, his feathers wouldn't get too soaked. With a loud caw, the birdman shoved his lanky body down the opening and landed with a splash at the bottom with everyone else. He squawked in protest as filthy water lapped at his garments.
"Oh my, what a terrible odor..." He snipped his beak and hoisted himself off the ground, and looked around. The stench of the leftovers of Orc feasts wafted around his nose as he spotted a creature with the ugliest of mugs. It seemed to want to taste the little girl, and Ashval would not let that happen. Out of all the artifacts he kept with him, perhaps his orb of illumination could blind the beast! Ashval reached into his pouch of artifacts and rifted around in there for his sphere. It only took but a moment for him to find it and hoist it out of the bag, aiming it at the monster.
"Come any closer; an' ye' shall be blinded by brilliance!" He called to the thing, gauging whether or not it would approach them. He looked at his comrades and raised a fluffy eyebrow.
"What shall we do with this?" He kept one eye trained on the thing and another on the company.


 

And so...


...it came closer.
 
1638013346392.pngEolanthe came up sputtering, scrambling to get away from the opening of the chute before Caelcrust or whoever else he might shove through came down on her. My sword! she thought, searching for any hint of its glow under the grayish, too-viscous "water" she could only catch hints of in the pale light of bioluminescent fungi (or perhaps sessile polyp creatures; it wasn't easy to tell which) that clung to the walls of the chamber.

There! she thought, spotting a hint of the weapon's shimmering light through languorously rippling water. She gingerly reached into the water to fish for it, careful to avoid cutting herself should her hands find the blade.

Something cold and slick brushed against her wrist with a questing touch. The water in front of her welled up, then flowed down the hideous bulk of a shambling monstrosity with too many eyes, too many mantis-like forelimbs, too many tentacles, and way too many teeth.

Eolanthe shrieked, grasping for the sword with more urgency now. WHUPLOOSH! Caelcrust hit the water, but there was no time to berate him for yet another abysmal executive decision, as a tentacle wrapped around her legs, tightened, and pulled her feet out from under her. She splashed down into the water a second time, flailing for the sword.

One of her hands brushed against its swirling basket hilt but failed to get a grip. Holding her breath to keep out splashing water, she reached again, caught it, fumbled, caught it again, and finally managed to grab the hilt. Ripples and wakes arced around her as more writhing tentacles closed in.

Another splash echoed in the chamber. A comment about the stench (which was quite terrible, but presently the least of Eolanthe's worries), then: "Come any closer and ye shall be blinded by brilliance!" The tall raven-person was holding a brightly-glowing sphere, aiming to drive off the creature. With the beast temporarily distracted, Eolanthe was able to sit up, sword in hand, and start stabbing at the water between her feet and the monster until the blade hit something firm yet rubbery. The tentacle unwound from her feet long enough for her to pull away and scramble to a wobbly stance.

Now facing three potential opponents instead of just one, the aquatic horror paused, then cautiously advanced on the party. "What shall we do with this?" the Corvid asked.

"Kill it!" Eolanthe hissed, unsure if that was the sword talking (for she could feel a kind of warm eagerness coming to her hands through the grip) or the fact that she'd had just about enough of disgusting substances and mortal danger on this adventure thus far. Either way, the beast would make a more than worthy recipient for as much stabby rage as she could muster. Still, the rational part of her mind held her back; the creature had quite a bit of reach with its tentacles and chitinous pincers, and she was the one it most wanted to feast upon.
 
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SOMETHING WAS HAPPENING!

...elsewhere.

rFrRKmh.jpg

"Oh, the caucasity!"

"OH, THE CAUCASITY!"

Chief Goltragga had just finished leading the other engineers in an impromptu prayer session when their worksite was hijacked. "HYUP! HYUP! HYUP!" said the hijackers, rather rudely, while filing into their half-built control room. Most took up positions, as orcs often do, while the remainder deposited two men on the poop deck.

"We bring Wolfy dog-face furry Hot Dog cultist," declared Jurdek, the prison warden, as if it had perhaps eluded anyone not reading this sentence that there was indeed a Wolfy dog-face furry Hot Dog cultist now bleeding on the poop deck. He also poked said cultist with his foot (the warden's foot, not Crask's), and was rewarded with a ponderous groan.

Chief Goltragga checked Old Man Crask over, using his foot (Crask's foot, not the chief's - he was just that high-level). "Hmm... teeth still intact?"

Jurdek quick-huddled with his prison guards, decided a game plan, then turned back to the chief. "Yup. Still has teeth."

Chief Goltragga grunted. "Good. Can't operate teeth-based navigation helm without." He turned and nodded to a team of engineers who were working around something vaguely resembling a dentist's penis pump. Some of them gave a thumbs-up. The kind of thumbs-up you give your boss when unit-testing of a dentist's penis pump is satisfactory.

The prison warden puffed out his chest. "Also bring inventor of Disgrontificator Rifle." He nudged Crask with his foot, and the old man promptly slid away in a bloody wipe transition, revealing the second prisoner on the poop deck, who had been sandwiched between said old man and said poop deck prior to this sentence being typed.


Entei was... there. But in a very respectful way. He looked cool. Everyone admired him in that moment, and there was nothing at all demeaning in his thereness. In fact, several of the female orc engineers on the bridge commented to one another about how utterly respectful his presence was. Although Entei had been brought here against his will, there couldn't possibly be any offense in the matter. In fact, his hijackers would later be commended in their year-end reviews for the exceedingly professional way in which they hijacked the character.

Chief Goltragga grunted a second time, "Already checked ship's gront count. Acceptable levels."

Several engineers jumped to their feet behind the chief, preparing to inform him that the Disgrontifcator Rifle didn't actually remove gronts but rather was an essential component in the doubling of grontific levels, for which the ship was suffering a serious (some might say CATACLYSMIC) deficiency. But they knew the chief didn't stand for that kind of malarkey. So instead they muttered and scratched their heads with their wrenches.


Warden Jurdek glanced down at Entei and his perfectly-respectable collection of bruises and broken bones. "Might be good for repairs. Knows way around machines. Can calibrate things."

"Excuse me..." declared a voice from off-screen. The orcs looked over at the mysterious and shadowy figure who then stepped out from behind a screen (a viewscreen, which was hitherto off). "But we don't need to calibrate a gods-damned thing."

The enigma-wrapped-in-a-mystery approached and stood beside the chief, blinking his sparkling blue eyes. "...my calculations are perfect!"


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Unlike our attentive readers, none of the orcs assembled in that construction hangar knew who this guy was. Nor did they have any inkling that he had just said the thing. You know.... the THING he said in that previous scene where we encountered him. They couldn't possibly grapple with the gravity of this reveal. It was shocking. It raised many questions. It would have set the internet on fire, had this man time-traveled forward to the point in time where Eolanthe invented it.


Limbo cracked his knuckles and looked down at the two prisoners, then back at Chief Goltragga. "We can use them. Both of them. It won't impact the timeline."

"OH, THE CAUCASITY!" murmured the crew as they got back to work.
 
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The horrible sewer-dwelling lord of filth and lies had run out of patience. He had given everyone plenty of time, but now the consequences were well out of his tentacles.

The beast surged forward, tearing into Ashval, slamming and dunking him between the seven dimensions of the sewer space. The air and stank-water swirled with blood and feathers.

Eolanthe hacked and stabbed and screamed, but it was to no avail. Well, partial avail. The avail in her case was how she availed herself of continued survival by being a much smaller snack than the bird-person.

Finally, Ashval's glowy sphere thing went off in his hand, and performed its poorly-elaborated function. There was a great burst of light that bursted lightly throughout the sewer tunnel, sending Caelcrust stumbling.

When it cleared, Eolanthe found herself standing with her sword in the bloody, bubbling waters where feathers floated.

All was dark...

All was quiet...

All was for the strict intention of spacing out the images in this post...

Yes, still quiet...

Still dark...

Not a creature stirring...

Not even a cat predator...



Then something 98% similar to this happened:

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Eolanthe turned and screamed as the sewer-beast's shadow fell over her. And then...

*tink* / *clunk* / *whubhabawhur*

There was only one sound effect. But it's very hard to describe the sound of a floating coffee pot nudging softly against your leg. So three choices are hereby provided.

Regardless of which sound effect it was, the fact remained that a floating coffee pot was currently nudging softly against her leg. Eolnathe looked down. So did the beast, in a moment of mid-infanticidal hesitation.

Eolanthe then peered down the sewer tunnel, to where Caelcrust was hiding in an outlet pipe. He gave Eolanthe the thumbs-up then pointed to the bobbing coffee pot.

And within the pot... a face was starting to form. A cakey, reassuring, delicious, drinkable face.
 
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"OH, THE CAUCASITY!" roared Chief Goltragga, as he ripped a shelf from the wall. A bar shelf, in this case. The orcs had built it so the bridge crew could still enjoy Mocktail Mondays while far from home.

But the chief currently had the bitterness and loathing of a thousand mocktails coursing through his veins. Hefting the giant wall unit, he slammed it down - once, twice, thrice, fource, fice, sice, eice, nice - into the unconscious body of Entei. The aristocrat was shattered and splattered under the fury of the assault, then buried, for the second time that day, under a bar shelf.

Having performed this very showy and Caucasian murder, the chief pointed at the other engineers on the bridge. "Koberax curse you all! You fail. You fail big!"

The engineers trembled. They were stood around Old Man Crask, who they had installed in the helmsman's chair. The furry hotdog cultist was also dead, but not from any mocktail-related malice. Instead, his mouth was frozen in a permanent smile with a huge and weird dental device inside. The teeth-based navigational helm had malfunctioned, and now various wires, gears and pistons were sprouting out of Crask's eyes, nose and ears.

It was like he had tried to eat a cyberpunk puffer fish, and lost.

Nearby, Warden Jurdek stepped away quietly from Entei's spreading blood pool. "Not make sense. We follow Koberax prophecy. See volcano erupt. Feed volcano. Put cat predators in volcano. Then use survivors to power ship."

Behind him, the enigmatic and mysterious time traveler known as Limbo was blubbering over a console. "This shouldn't be happening! There's supposed to be a ship in this timeline. An operational ship! One that escapes the eruption! Why can't I fix this!"

Chief Goltragga turned and pointed at Limbo. "Tricksy time traveler. You lie. Not sent by Koberax."

Limbo lunged to his feet, yelling, "Yes I was! Mr Koberax personally dispatched me on this mission! The agency was..."

Warden Jurdek reached for his blade, knowing it was probably time to kill this humie before he used time travel concepts to patch up the narrative. "Time traveler is false angel. Not even green."

Limbo snarled at the warden. "Everything was going fine!" Then he pointed to the corpses of Entei and Crask. "These were the only survivors, yes? The others were killed by the catapult, right?"

Warden Jurdek paused, mid-blade-unsheathing.

"Er..."
 
The warden swallowed. "....well...."

Then the wall next to him exploded. It wasn't designed to do that. Not in the slightest. But Eolanthe had never had much respect for convention. The girl came tearing through the bulkhead, wreathed in a nimbus that was highly nimbussy, and beneath her the metal panels crumpled and crushed the warden against the floor. His blood pool joined up with Entei's blood pool, and created a forensic nightmare.

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The engineers stood with their mouths hung open (as did Crask, but only because he had died that way). Then they reached for their weapons, only to flinch as Eolanthe roared at them. The girl was levitating off the ground, and her eyes were bloodshot with the rage of coffee - good coffee - the kind of coffee that sleeps with your uncle.

She came at them in a blur, swinging a sword that seemed just as cursed and Judeo-Christian as her. The engineers howled and flailed as they were butchered on the navigation deck. They had no chance against her. They even tried fighting her all at the same time, rather than taking turns like traditional henchmen. Some of them had crossbows and attempted to fire them from a safe distance rather than running straight at her with a loaded weapon. But no matter how many henchman rules they broke, it was all to no avail. Eolanthe sent them all to Caucasian Orc Hell.

Finally, Chief Goltragga roared and drew his axe, holding it above his head as he charged into battle.

"KOBERAAAAAAAAAAX!"

What followed was the greatest duel between an Orc Berserker Chief and a Bio-Reprogrammed AI-Infested Ghost Whisperer that Limbo had ever witnessed. And Limbo had witnessed quite a few of those. There was a whole department at the agency dedicated to trend-analysis of historical engagements between Orcs and Possessed Girls. He had served there for a semester, and come to understand the deep, deep, sexual symbology of the trope.

Blood, sparks and nimbussy ejaculations crisscrossed the bridge. When Limbo finally lifted his head from behind his console, he was greeted with the sight of Chief Goltragga staggering backwards, choking on blood. The girl was levitating in a halo before him, and her sword was... skewered in the chief.

Goltragga made one futile effort to grip the hilt... before scowling, and murmuring. "... father's... sword?" Then he died as he had lived: dropping needless plot hooks that would never be fulfilled. He hit the deck, and roared no more.

Limbo stood while peering around at the bloody aftermath. Then his eyes lifted to Eolanthe. "It's you... it was always you... You're meant to captain the ship!"

"No she's not," said a voice from outside.

Caelcrust climbed in through the hole that Eolanthe had punched in the bridge wall. Behind him was a scene of further mayhem - the hangar aflood with sewer water where more orcs floated in bloody, sword-badgered heaps. The CAPTAIN stepped over the remains of Entei and the warden, then dusted down his robe while looking around at Crask, Goltragga and the dead engineers.

"This could have been a bonding experience."

Limbo pointed an accusing finger at Caelcrust. "You killed the engineers! We need them to make the ship operational!"

Caelcrust picked up a Boston shaker and poured himself a mocktail. "With an old Mark IV dentanav helm interface? Unlikely."

Eolanthe screamed then floated to the pilot's chair, wrenching Crask's corpse out of it. Then she sat in the throne and rested one hand on the cursed sword impaling the orc chief. The teeth-based navigational helm ejected itself from Crask's skull and inserted itself into Eolanthe's.

The weird angelic AI began to interface with the orc ship as the helm device spread her jaw open, revealing a glowing, celestial grin.

A bright smile, as it were.

"See? They're not very practical." Caelcust poured the mocktail over his neck-holes, finding the twist of lime remarkably fresh and flavourful, thanks to the time traveler's proximity.

Limbo stalked over to the child while glaring at Caelcrust. "I had everything under control! I was supposed to stop the Cthulhu cultist, then save your ship. And if that went wrong, we had the backup timeline, with the orc-built vessel. But THIS..." He prodded Eolanthe. "...THIS is not in any of the timelines! You've ruined everything! You're a terrible capt--"

Eolanthe lunged forward and seized Limbo by the throat. The time traveler screamed as he was pulled into the chair with the girl, and her bright smile began to feast - teeth, gears, pistons and nimbusses chowing down on Limbo's flesh. More blood and entrails splattered around the bridge, and after a few seconds Limbo's headless corpse slid to the ground next to Crask's and the chief's.

Caelcrust slow-blinked while reaching for another mocktail.

"....Riya....?"

Eolanthe remained in the pilot's seat, smiling and blood-splattered. She twirled her sword as she grinned, and as a voice that was not her own buzzed inside her throat. "New destination acquired, Crusty. I'm plotting the course now."

"...Riya... where are we going?"

The ship came to life, and the engines fired. There was about to be a second eruption around the Zangheri Mountain.

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TO BE CONTINUED...