"What the hell, Captain!!” The enraged giant royal frilled dragon head barked as it wedged itself in the hatch to the ship’s bridge aggressively getting closer to the Norwegian captain. "I am unclear what you mean, Herre Drage." The cargo liner captain remorsefully pleaded. "Have we not done everything you and your friends have asked?" "The BLOOD, Captain!" The dragon roared back with spittle ejecting from his mouth in wrath. "The blood?" The captain asked getting more nervous. "I do not know what you mean? What blood?" "The DRAGON'S BLOOOOOOODDD!" Dragon spittle mixed with foul fish breath covered the captain's face. "I-I-I-I don't know what you are talking about. Nosmo? Is that what I heard your name is?" "Don't patronize me, you piece of hangdog turd! I am Nosmo the Great and Terrible, and I will crush you like the bug you are! Tell me about the contents of crate 496H-32B9...the DRAGON'S Blood you have been transporting." "Ensign, bring up that number. What is the contents of that crate?" The captain moved over to the computer being stationed by Ensign Helvig. "Sir, that is Assorted Liquid Refreshment. 4,900 pounds of cargo, sir." "This is all we can give you, Herre Nosmo. Please understand that we had no idea that meant "dragon's blood". I can assure you that we would not have shipped it if we knew otherwise. We have strict policies forbidding such perishable items." "Items?!" Nosmo nearly blew a fuse. ""But, all dragon's blood is sacrosanct! It should only be spilt by me! You piece of flesh meat, I'll tear you apart!" Nosmo began trying to claw his way deeper into the bridge. He would have too if not for the commanding tone of another, wiser, older dragon who had just landed at the stern of the cargo liner. "NOSMO! Enough of this!" Nosmo awkwardly pulled is massive head from the doorway, leaving the frame permanently bowed on both sides with massive gouges in the integrity of the steel jam. Standing before Nosmo was the revered Plato of Lazlo, a 50 ft tall regally built great horned dragon. This creature was nothing shy of stunning and awe-inspiring. The sunlight beaming around the edges of his outstretched wings, slender neck line, powerful arms, and muscular body left the onlooker breathless. He was everything the chronicles of Erin Tarn and the myths surrounding Lazlo spoke about, and more. "From the effluence dripping from your face, It appears that you have found the thing that I have been tracking down. I have been trying to find out who or what has been killing dragons in North America. This is why I have been on this ship." "But-but you knew! And you have allowed these beings to walk about like nothing is wrong?!" "Young one, I know your anger. Its writhing flame beats hot in my chest, too. But these men are innocent. There is a larger player in this shell game that I intend to find out. Taking your anger out on the captain and his men will only make the trail grow cold, and harder to punish those who are truly to blame." Fifteen minutes ago... "Large supernatural bogey at 6 o'clock coming in hot, locking targeting systems, powering up missile tubes..." "What it sam hill are you target locking, Moro?" "Ma'am, it is a potential threat. Analysis coming in from scanners. The bogey appears to be a great horned dragon. Class 9 threat." "Oh sweet Jesus! Hot dog! He a big'un!" The tiny female mech operator jumped off the cargo crate where she was just sitting and chatting with a group she was now calling her friends. In the excitement of hearing the news of the bogey from her giant robot, Moro, instead of landing square on the deck of the ship, her right foot phased right through. She instinctively caught herself, probably having done something similar at other times. She ran to pair up with her mecha. "Moro's spotted a great horned dragon, y'all!" She called back to her new found friends. "Did she just say a great horned dragon?" A young female psi-stalker said to her elven companion dressed in neo-aged goth and bones attire. "Lucryllin, you don't suppose Mononoke is referring to..." "PLATO!" They both shouted together. "Hot dog!" Mononoke said again from a distance, she had already sprinted over a third of the massive ship's deck toward her target locked mech. It wouldn't take long for her to "ghost" into her pilot compartment and launch her surface to air missiles in "two shakes of an armadilla's tail" as she would put it. "Gawain, you got to convince those two nut jobs to power down!" The psi-stalker yelled to another companion Gawain was a tall, wiry-built knight aging around the edges, but still spry and full of life. He was that same Gawain who sat at the round table with King Arthur. He had been kept alive for so long due to the corrupted magic of an evil version of Excalibur, now called the Necrom, which currently lay hidden in a magic puzzle box constructed by none other than Merlin himself. "I'll stop her, Benna! You can count on me, m'Lady." The old knight raced after the Psi-ghost pilot. "Halt, fair maiden and iron beast!" Gawain called after Mononoke as he ran in her direction. "Do you think we should help him?" Lucryllin asked Benna. "Nah." Benna replied with her highland accent, that never made a lot of sense as she grew up mostly here in what was once old Colorado. "He can handle it. 'Sides, we need to work on stopping these Ice Creatures from keep comin' ba'. I'm not sure if we can take any stronger waves of them. Turag would still be alive if we stopped them sooner." "I'm sorry we lost him. He meant a lot to you. You spoke about him often when we were traveling from town to town in the Wastes." "Yeah. I miss him. And 8 more years wandering the Wastes won't bring him back this time. This time it is forever." "Forever is very relative to a necromancer, you know..." "No! Absolutely NOT! 'Sides, doesn't he need a body for you to bring him back...that is if he would even let you use your "dark magic" on him." Benna used air quotes and cracked a smile remembering all of Turag's strict rules about magic, along with his growing list of taboos that the Irregulars got him to break many times for the "greater good". "Resurrection and zombies are not my only talents, you know." Lucryllin replied. "That will have to wait. Right now, we need to figure out what Saint Rebecca's vision meant about putting the box with the Necrom into the chest of one of those ice creatures, and wrapping it in death." "Well, Benna, I think it means exactly that. We need to place the puzzle box into a place where these creatures can't track it. They are repelled by death. So, we place it in the chest cavity of one of the commanders that ThorFrid took out last session, and then I mummify it with my death magic." "Last session?" "Yes, it is what the all-mighty DM calls the segments of time that lapses between two sometimes important, sometime inconsequential events that happen to us." "Oh bloody hell, Luc. Not this rubbish about the all-mighty, all-powerful DM again. Just because we got out of the Wastes as you predicted the DM would do, does not make him real. Nor does your crazy belief that the only reason I was sent to the Wastes for 8 years is that the DM could make me older without killing me off. When will you give up on this rubbish?" "He is real." "Oh its a HE now?! Come on let's focus back on this mummy. What do you need to get started?" "Natron powder, about 500 pounds of it." Meanwhile... "Its a darn tootin' good thing, Mr. Gawain came runnin' as fast as a jack rabbit being chased by a cay-yote, or Moro woulda shot through Plato like a .45 pumpin' holes in an ol' tin can. Ya say ya need to find some natron?" "Yes." Lucryllin replied dryly. "Five hundred pounds." "Good shoes on Jesus' holy apostles! That's one large bunch of powder!" Mononoke blurted. "I'll see if Moro can sniff out some on this ship. It's mighty big. I bet the crew has some lying around. How long will it take you to himminy-jimminy up this mummy once you get this here powder?" "It will probably take an hour, but I should be able to do it in half that time." "Right-e-o, sweetie plum. Moro, lock your sensors to Lucy's chemical specifications: Sodium carbonate decahydrate and sodium bicarbonate." "Natron signature found. Focusing sensors. Analyzing quantities..." "See? Easy as pie, sugar." "Quantity unknown." "Well, I guess even Moro has his limits. I betcha the captain would oblige, and provide us these details if we ask real kind like." "Don't count on it!" Nosmo fumed arriving from his disgruntled encounter with the captain and Plato. "The captain is a feckless, spineless flesh meat without principles or honor in regards to dragon's blood." "What?" All of the Irregulars, including Mononoke asked simultaneously. "Our blood can only be shed by me and my kind!" The dragon began to ramp up again. "Nosmo, I'm so sorry t'hear that." Benna tried to console. "I thought that the blood had a familiar scent. I just wasn't completely sure. Why is this ship transporting all that blood?" "A better question is why won't that boneless Plato let me teach these humans a lesson for playing a part in this desecration?!" "Hey, big guy, maybe I can help." Benna replied. "That blood is being shipped to someone. As Luc is trying to make this ice creature mummy with Saint Rebecca and Mononoke, I could hack into the ship's logs, and find out who is paying for this blood to be shipped. When we find out, maybe we can take care of this issue without anyone innocent getting hurt." "Innocent? Those DRAGONS who were slaughtered were the ones innocent!" "You KNOW what I meant. Give me 30 minutes, and I will get you some answers. Until then promise me you won't do something stupid and end up like Turag." The dragon grumbled. "PROMISE ME!" "Fine!" The dragon conceded against his darker instincts. "Now that's better." Thirty minutes passed... Lucryllin, Saint Rebecca, and Mononoke had petitioned the captain for some natron. As Mononoke had predicted the captain was able to provide the appropriate amount for a fair price. The ship kept a supply for cleaning purposes. The mummy's chest was hollowed out with a cavity large enough to fit the puzzle box with the Necrom. Saint Rebecca insisted that she place the box in herself, as she felt that a man was not worthy of such a task. It was far too important to mess up. She also muttered about how the actual ritual used to raise the ice soldier into a mummy was trivial, and thus could be delegated to a man. But in this case, she was completely fine that Lucryllin was doing the task as she believed the elf necromancer was more woman than man, as no man from her experience would ever take as much time doing their hair in the morning as "Lucy", or would any man have so much worn jewelry, and most importantly no man would ever be able to command an army of mindless men as well as "Lucy" could. Saint Rebecca was about 87% sure "Lucy" was NOT a man given these evidences. And the fact that Rebecca was a blind Altaran priestess, that 87% was as good as 100%. Somehow Lucryllin's magic had desecated the once bulky body of the ice soldier. It now was lean and sinewy. Yet, it looked just as menacing as before, if not more so. As a previous commander of the ice soldiers, it wielded their vicious swords, that had retained all its sharpness. Leathery straps and linen wraps held the undead beast together from constant decay. The creature was no short of a masterpiece of macabre artwork. "It is finished, friends." Lucryllin gloated with a slight wry smile. "My proteus is complete with 28 minutes to spare. You will note it has superior strength and speed. Its spirit was nigh impossible to convince, but that was a mildly simple task for myself. It shall keep the box safe until we reach Merlin's cave." "If Apollo were here he would have made it worthy of Olympus itself." Saint Rebecca added. "About that cave, this will help us retrace the path." She held up a strange statue figurine of a dragon entangling its coils and tail around a seemingly innocent unicorn in a precariously suggestive sexual position. "Uh...what is THAT?" Asked Benna blushing. "I conjured this object to help remember the vision I had." "A vision about a dragon and a...unicorn?" Benna asked preplexed and intrigued. "I know you are blind, but this seems quite peculiar for a vision about Merlin’s cave. What type of cave did you 'see'." Adding air quotes, intentionally knowing Rebecca could not see them. "I was inspired..." the priestess explained, "by a certain affiliate of Merlin..." Gawain suddenly had a very salacious look towards Saint Rebecca. There was an uneasy tension felt at that moment with the rest of the Irregulars. Saint Rebecca seemed just a bit more unsaintly in that instant.. "...And a little bit of ThorFrid might have slipped in. Girl's nights maybe starting to rub off on me." "Well, speaking about dragons," Benna changed the subject hoping to not confront more about the reason for this fetish statue. "I found some interesting things when I hacked into the ship's intranet. It seems those containers in question are being shipped to a V. Tepes. This specific ship has made 6 major shipments to V. Tepes over the past several months. Each shipment has had several containers each time." Nosmo suddenly crushed the side of a container with his massive clawed hand. Benna made an audible yelp of fear. Nosmo still had not changed back to his human form. His claws, teeth and dorsal spines seemed more dark and ominous after returning from his visit to the bridge. Benna recomposed herself before continuing. "Not sure if this makes a difference, but only two of those 3 to 4 dozen containers were labeled with the same "Assorted Liquid Refreshment" as container 496H-32B9." Nosmo tore off the crunched metal corner of shipping container, releasing another yelp from Benna. "I'm going to kill him!" Nosmo threatened, starting to storm off wielding the slag of metal like a giant jagged dagger. "Woah them horses, Big Guy!" Mononoke interceded. "We all need to take one big step back before we git bit by some rattler." Nosmo stayed, but let out a wrathful roar. After a fearful moment of silence, Benna continued. "Among containers holding blood from psi-stalkers, bursters, dog-boys, and various other supernatural creatures, several other containers labeled as 'Dinosaur Blood' came from a benefactor named Falmcrynth..." "THAT'S IT, WE'RE TURNING THIS SHIP AROUND!" This time it was Mononoke flying off the handle. She ghosted through the crate containing Moro. Before anyone could stop her, Moro powered up and burst out of the container, making its way to the bridge. "[What the HELL, girl?!]" Benna shouted through Moro's comms. Moro's huge steps over crates and containers rocked the ship's deck. "Benna, you don't understand. We are turning this ship around." "[Mononoke, we have a mission. We need to find Merlin to stop Morgana!]" Moro slapped out of its path the swivel crane used to load containers onto the ship. The cable spindle released several yards of cable as the giant pelican clamp slammed up against the aftercastle and down upon the weather deck with a loud crash. "That's just gonna have to wait, Sugar. There's a bigger fish to fry. I'll strangle that weaseling traitor!" "[You can't turn this ship around, Mononoke! We've come too far to be stopped by...]" Mononoke switched off Benna's comm channel. "Moro, open a direct communication to the bridge. Passcode: Hotel Zero Tango Lima One Papa Sierra Houlihan." "This is Captain Torvöld Thorbjörn of the Ölstein Crossbow cargo vessel. Who in HELHEIM has taken over my secured channel!" "Captain, its me, the big flapjacking iron giant with a CS mRG-50 rail-gun barrel pointed at your bridge right now." Moro tapped gently on the reinforced glass of the front aft window of the bridge with it carbide tip barrel. Captain Thorbjörn, who had been looking out the stern-facing window at the wake of his ship, quickly turned around, the comm receiver still to his ear. His whole bridge staff had left their stations, all standing aghast with their hands up. Out the aft window was a threatenly ginormous gun barrel starting to glow with energy. "I'm glad to see I have your attention, Captain. I am ordering you to turn this ship around. We're heading back to the Americas, pronto. You hear me?" The captain nearly dropped the receiver. He fumble to put it back to his ear. "Ja, ja." He said in Norwegian with sweat beading up on his forehead. "Snu denne båten!" "Course, captain?" Asked the first mate. "Sett kursen mot det gamle Amerika!' "Sett kursen mot det gamle Amerika!" The first mate parroted to the helmswoman. "Aye, aye!" The helmswoman shouted back. She turned hard on the wheel the boat rocked dangerously to the left. Outside Moro grabbed onto the communication tower for balance as the ship lurched towards the port side. "New bearing of 285.7505 ° West by Northwest, sir." "Kurs er satt for det gamle Amerika, Kaptein." Confirmed the first mate back in Norwegian. Back on the comm receiver. "Will that be all, Frue?" Asked the captain holding back his anger. "Thank ya, kindly el capitan. See that was as easy as hot molasses on a metal skillet." Moro lowered its massive rail-gun and powered it down. "No, NO, NOOOO!" Benna atop a flying Tut came bounding over the knocked over shipping containers. "Mononoke, you have NO RIGHT to change the course of this ship." "Darlin', this here CS mRG-50 says otherwise. What's done is done. Mosey on back to your quarters as the grown-ups handle the situation." "NO!" Benna shouted back, now standing up right on Tut's shoulders holding on to his scruff on his head. "I AM one of the adults now, not like in your stupid books. And you are going to listen to me!" Benna's eyes began to glow with a bold pink telekinetic aura. "Mononoke, why are you even ON this ship? And why have you changed our course?!" "Look Sugar, nothing personal, but I have a right to my own business." "Not when your..." Benna tried to come up with the most henious and aggressive word she could muster, but her internal filters didn't allow it to come. "Fluging...frappering, stupid business takes us away from OUR mission!" "Fluging? Frappering? Sweetie pie, you clearly need to simmer down. Your stew pot's a boiling over, and you're forgetting who holds the key to the cookie jar." Moro's massive rail-gun cannon pointed to Benna's head. Energy could be seen arcing down the long, dark tube of the barrel Tut's eyes became as big as dinner plates fit for a young dragon. His stubby tail fearfully tucked itself beneath his hind quarters. He gave an audible gulp. But Benna kept her ground. "Why are you HERE, Mononoke? Who exactly are you working for?!" Pink ethereal energy began to reach out from Benna like wispy tentacles. Moro's armor plating began to quiver and tort along the reinforced seams and alloyed rivets. "TELL ME!" Benna was almost at the point of using her mind powers on her new friend, to just rip the details out. It would be so easy. Mononoke was too weakminded to be a match for Benna's growing powers. But she knew it would also be a clear violation of trust. Their friendship would never be the same after that. "Zhe betrayed me!" Mononoke cried. Moro's gun barrel lowered. It fell to its knees with a massive thud against the asphalted steel deck. "I have to make zhim pay! Zhe lied. Zhe killed those mighty creatures for...for...for money? For power?" Benna's stance softened. The pink ethereal energy faded away. Her eyes released their insidious glow. A weight of emotion filled her tiny body.
"Mononoke, I'm sorry you were betrayed. Who was this who betrayed you?" Continued ...
