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Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - Ongoing

Fluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) - Ongoing

Love Crafted (Interactive story about an eldritch abomination tentacle-ing things!) - Completed!

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The Agartha Loop (A Magical-Girl drama!) - Volume Two Complete!

Lever Action (A fantasy western with mecha!) - Volume One Complete!

Heart of Dorkness (A wholesome progression fantasy) - Completed!

Dead Tired (A comedy about a Lich in a Wuxia world doing Science!) - Ongoing

Sporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - Ongoing

Past the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!

Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the planet, and then try to fix it) - Completed!

Magical Girl Rending Nightmare (A sequel to Crystal Genocide! Cute girls in a soviet dystopia having a picnic on the roadside) - Volume Two Completed!

Noblebright (A shipcore AI works to avenge humanity) - Completed!

The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist (The Empress of Mars finds love) - Completed!

Pokebun (Broccoli Bunch in the world of Pokemon) - Hiatus

Queen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!

No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - Ongoing

Save Scumming (A time-looping system apocalypse) - Ongoing

Chapter Five Hundred and Eighty-Five - Our Port in a Storm

I don't know when I heard this, but it's been said that the most dangerous part of flying in an airplane is the landing. Of course, the takeoff was dangerous as well, but there was time to abort that. A bad landing was... pretty much always really bad.

The same rule held true for airships, in a way.

We brought the Beaver in towards the docking tower under Clive's careful piloting, and it became immediately apparent that we'd have to fight against the shifting winds to make it to the castle.

It wasn't nearly as bad as in the storm, of course, the winds here in the eye were far softer, but they kept shifting directions seemingly at random, and that made moving deliberately a bit of a fight.

"So, Broc, what're we gonna do once we get there?" Calamity asked as he came over. He was stringing his bow, and had a quiver-full of arrows by his hip already. He clearly thought that this was going to be a fight of some sort.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But hopefully they'll be reasonable?"

"Seems to me like it might be unreasonable to be that hopeful, but what do I know?" Calamity said.

Hmm, maybe he was right? But I think that there was still a good chance that we'd be welcomed... well, if not nicely, then at least cautiously? "Let's just be careful, then," I said. "Everyone! Prepare for landing! I need ropes ready to lash us down and I need everyone ready for trouble!"

I wished we had a little bit more time to prepare.It would've been ideal to land after a light meal, maybe dry off a bit, but as it was, we would just have to land looking like a bunch of wet cats.

Amaryllis darted off to get dressed, and Bastion nodded to me before following her down to the lower decks, probably to go and equip his full suit of armour.

Once they were back, I went down myself and tried to dry off with a towel in my room before equipping as much gear as I thought was reasonable. That meant my breastplate and Weedbane and all the rest of my gear. I hesitated between my captain's hat and my trusty old kettle helm, then decided to keep the captain's hat on. It was better for the task at hand.

Sometimes a captain might need to negotiate and deal with people, right? And that's... probably what I was getting into.

The last thing I did was hook that Black Avatar knife around my neck so that it hung over my breastplate. I wasn't sure if anyone here would recognize it, but... maybe?

I climbed back up to the main deck then glanced over at the castle. It was much closer. Enough so that I could just about see through the slit-like windows and into the castle itself, though it was quite dark in there. No lights. Did that mean that no one was home? Maybe there was enough light to see by at this time of day even with those narrow windows?

A part of me was worried that we were about to walk into a ghostly, abandoned castle. But no, there was that skiff, and those other ships moored against the docker tower. This had to be a place that was still being used, at least a little.

The next few minutes were kind of chaotic as I moved across the deck, helping where I could. We had stowed away a lot of the equipment we needed to dock, so now we had to un-stow it all in a hurry. Fortunately, Clive was at the helm, and he brought us in, deftly navigating the winds.

We unfurled some sail and set the propeller to reverse thrust, slowing us down further just as we came in close to the docking tower.

Steve and Gordon leapt off the side of the Beaver, winged arms stretched wide and rope clenched between their teeth. They landed on the dock with a clatter and soon had our mooring lines lashed around some wooden pillars.

We tugged the ship in from the side and the Beaver gently bumped against the dock.

I ran to the back of the ship and looked up. That three-person skiff was still out there, but it was circling the castle some ways off. It looked like they weren't ready to get too close.

"We're going to have to leave some friends on the Beaver to keep him safe," I said.

"Wise," Amaryllis said. "So who is going to visit the castle, then?"

I chewed on my lower lip. "Um... I'd like to go?"

"That much is obvious," Amaryllis said. "You're our translator. Otherwise I'd insist that you stay on the ship."

"Oh."

"I'm coming," Caprica said.

Somewhat surprisingly, Bastion gave no objection to this, instead saying: "I as well." Maybe he felt that it was better to keep Caprica in the biggest and most well-armed group, or that it would be appropriate for a princess of Sylphfree to attend this ... now that I think about it ... potentially historic moment.

Or perhaps he just felt that Caprica had a right to see her mission through to the end.

I glanced over at my other friends. I didn't want to say no to anyone. And fortunately, it didn't really come to that. "We can't all go," I said. "But once we've cleared the way, we might all be able to explore the castle?"

"Ah, I'd like to go, but maybe later?" Awen said.

"I don't mind waiting a little. I'm certain you can pave the way for us, Broccoli," Desiree replied, he tails flicking behind her.

"Ah, well, shucks, guess I'll stay, then," Calamity said. "If that lil' skiff causes trouble, I can snipe it out of the air. Give them something to worry about."

Well, that made it easy. So, with only three friends to accompany me, I hopped across the gap between the Beaver and the dock, then turned to help Caprica and Amaryllis and Bastion across, only all three of them were pretty well equipped for a short flight. Amaryllis gave me a smug smile as she refused my helping hand.

The Beaver was secured to the top level of a multilevel dock constructed of thick, heavy timbers fastened to the black stone of the castle's tallest tower. There was no door at this level, only a flight of stairs headed down.

I ran my hand along the tower's wall as we trooped down. I didn't know enough about stone to say what kind of stone it was, just that it was deep carbon black with only the faintest sheen.

After descending only one level, Amaryllis stopped us. "Give me a moment," she said.

"Sure? What is it?"

There were two small airships docked at this level. Amaryllis detoured over to them, squinting at their hulls. "I see. Look, the name is there. No registry information, no flags. But that's normal enough. This one's a Pyrowalkian ship, I'm sure of it. That one over there, however. I think that's an older Snowland design. It's older than any of us." She looked at Bastion. "Most of us."

Bastion blinked slowly, and I felt a bit bad for him, catching strays like that.

"So, what does that mean?" I asked.

"I'd usually point out that any group that can keep multiple ships afloat, even smaller ones, must be of means. It's expensive. But this group in particular has a flying castle floating in a nearly-impenetrable storm, so I don't think the usual measures of wealth apply here."

I giggled. She wasn't wrong. "Let's find the entrance?"

That was relatively easy. The lower sections of the dock had a sort of wooden palisade wall that blocked the wind and hid a large entrance door into the tower itself. The door was heavy wood, with a few thick iron bands across it, but after fiddling with the handle, it opened with a creak.

"They didn't lock the door," I said. I wasn't sure if we could just enter, but there wasn't exactly a knocker, or a 'pull this cord to let us know you're here' sign or anything.

The interior of the tower was a narrow, dark space, but there was a desk to one side and a thin slit of a window with some old glass over it that let in a bit of light. I itched to let loose some Cleaning magic, to wash the place up, but I held back.

We found a spiraling staircase at the back and started down in single-file, with Bastion and Caprica at the lead.

The stairs went down for a while, but eventually led into a small room with some shelving to one side and a few cupboards. They were filled with very normal ship stuff. Ropes, pulleys, a few well-worn tools. There was another door too.

Bastion pushed it open and we stepped out into what was obviously some little side corridor, not a space meant for guests, but more like a passage at the back or something. At least, that's the impression I got. No paintings on the walls, and the only light came from a sconce hanging from the ceiling with a few glowing crystals left within that splashed a pale blue light across the room.

At the end of the corridor was another door, this one far wider with a higher ceiling and with armoured statues every few metres in their own little alcoves. Paintings did hang off of these walls, of people of different races and species, staring off into the middle distance.

I wanted to pause and examine them, but my attention was pulled towards an approaching sound. The clunking of metal on stone.

A figure in black plate rounded the corner, then came to stand in the middle of the passage. They slowly pulled a long sword out of a scabbard. It was black, like the knife, only as long as I was tall.

"You trespass," the man said, voice muffled by his full helm. "Explain yourselves."

***

A note from RavensDagger

Chappy! <3