A/N ;; Hello, and thank you for reading. This is a giant Captain's Log for Gaia's 2010 Summer Event - Frontier Skies! I am hoping to continue with all, or at least some, of the other guides.
We start our journey with Louie and out ship, The Vampire Princess.
Comments and are loved.
Day Zero
Preparations are being made for our journey, though we have no idea how long it is going to take. Louie and I have gathered our band of miscreants to help us. We travelled around Durem, recruiting three of our members from there - Moira, Vanessa and Natasha. Devin would have come along as well, but he's not one for violence and somebody needed to watch the shops while we were all away. The other member of our crew is from Barton, that being Ian. He agreed to join, what with Louie being his brother and all. Rufus either wanted to join us on the journey or not let Ian go at all, but we finally managed to convince him to let him go with the promise that we would try and keep him safe.
Louie laid down his views on ship work right away. He wasn't going to help us hunt, which was understandable. He didn't want to eat it anyway. And I suppose that he is only the guide, not the captain as I am.
We all travelled to our ship, The Vampire Princess. A beautiful vessel, if I do say so myself. She's a Kestrel, the fastest of the airships. We packed in all the supplies we brought with us, two hundred rounds of ammo. We brought no food. Our plan was going to be that we would dive straight into hunting. We had heard that the woods were filled with Grunnies, Bison and Deer.
We're staying at Ian's house in Barton Town for the night, and we'll set off early in the morning.
Day One
We all awoke early, and teary goodbyes were said again to Rufus. The people of Barton all wished us well as The Vampire Princess took flight. With food already in our bellies, we were all feeling pretty Healthy as we started our foreboding voyage.
We hunted right away, our first haul reeling in a large amount of food from a small amount of animals - one deer and one Bigfoot - one hundred and sixty five lbs. Despite this success, we were a terrible shot, and it cost us in the ammo department - fourteen rounds. Hopefully we will improve, as I know that I could have done much better.
The pace was set for fast, and our rations were meagre. We didn't have much to work with for now, and we weren't as prepared as we expected to be. The crew were very supportive though, and we knew we would pull through this rough start.
As night time hit, a vampire leaped out of no where on to our deck, it seems that they were expecting us already. He threw a bomb down but Vanessa quickly took charge. She kicked the bomb right back at the vampire ( I didn't expect it from her, though I don't know why ) and blew him to pieces. I couldn't help but express my wonder in the only way I knew how, by standing dumbfounded and muttering "Woah." Vanessa then went on to remove her shoes, and we realised that two of her toes were now broken. Again, not a good start, but at least our ship wasn't destroyed. We thanked her for her courage, though her foot still hurt.
Day Two
I awoke to the sounds of the crew all talking in fascination about something. After proceeding to the deck I found the source of the wonder, over the side of our Kestrel I could see another airship. This one, on the other hand, was a wreckage from long ago. The crew seemed interested to investigate, but I told them that it would waste precious time and we continued on our way. They seemed enthusiastic enough about pressing on, so I didn't feel too bad for ruining their fun.
It was still early morning when I noticed that half of our crew were sneezing and had very pink noses. I questioned what was wrong and got a simple answer, "It's allergy season." I suspect that this will slow us down slightly.
I heard somebody calling from over the side of the boat, looking on there was a man that I had never seen before in my life. He was holding out what seemed to be candy, and offering it to us. While I wouldn't usually deal in such an offer, I remembered the troubles of our hunting, and accepted. He placed the sweets in the palms of my hands, and as he did so I felt something start to crawl up my arms. The treats that he had given us were covered in bugs. How disgusting. He gave a strange laugh before slinking off, me with colourful, sugar-coated goodness and creepy crawlies in my hand. On a strange whim, I placed one of the bugs in my mouth and felt slightly refreshed. They didn't taste that bad - not good - but they were still edible. Bundling them all into a jar, I worked out that it gave us around twenty five lbs more food. What a lucky coincidence.
Louie had already started to get bored, so he had challenged us all to an arm wrestling match. We had all agreed, which in retrospect we shouldn't have, considering his strength. He pointed this out to us, and suggested that next time we should play Old Maid instead, but continued with this game for now. Three hours later we were all still clutching our arms in pain. Next time Louie asks to arm wrestle, we know to politely decline. We decided that this was an appropriate time to take a rest, in order to relax the muscles in our arms.
Day Four
We set off again, eager as ever. Natasha was going to cook for that lunchtime, but instead came running up from the pantry followed by a disgusting smell. She reported that there was a whole section of Grunny meat that had gone off, which had confused as all because we hadn't shot any Grunnies. We decided it best to throw it out.
Natasha was generally having a bad day, after the incident with the Grunny meat, she hadn't felt like eating much. It turns out that it had just made her starving later in the day. In her strange, hungry mind, she thought it best to lick some of the moss that was growing on a part of the ship. I sat her down to give her an examination and make sure that she hadn't been poisoned or anything. Oddly enough, she seemed to be, if anything, better, and she commented on how good the moss tasted. Maybe we should keep that as our reserve food.
Louie told me to stop the ship for a moment, and announced that the forests were filled with treasure if you knew where to look. On that note, he casually shifted a large boulder and pulled out fifty loot from underneath. I honestly hadn't expected that.
As we had stopped, I decided this was a good place to try our hand at hunting again. This haul wasn't too much better - Two Bison. It did give us two hundred lbs of meat though, so we couldn't complain too much. It also took us a few less rounds, only eleven this time. Maybe we're improving already.
Day Five
We saw another crashed airship, it doesn't make anything seem very promising, especially considering we're not all that far from Barton still. What's lying in wait around here? We thought briefly about having a closer look, but decided it best to just keep going.
We came to our first landmark, Ol' Respectable. It was a beautiful tree, and the thought of how much it had lived through gave us all a little hope. As we sat for a moment and took in its appearance, we felt like it had blessed us a little. Maybe we'll be a bit luckier from now on.
We decided that the tree was also a nice place to have a rest stop, and so we waited there, just to take a break.
Day Eight
Right before we set off, we met with another wood-dweller. He told us that he was going to show us a magic trick, and so we gave him twenty five loot to do it with. He did do a magic trick. He disappeared. There went our loot. Why did we give it to a stranger anyway?
Ian's pinky finger, out of no where, exploded. We weren't really sure what to do about it, so we just bandaged it up. It was lucky that it was on his left hand, and not his right. At least he can still help us, even if he's one finger down. And I'm sure the pain will dullen soon enough.
We came across the body of a recently-deceased traveller, and our mood died down a little. There was so much death and destruction in these woods, and we had so much further to go. We stopped the ship and decided to give him a burial. It made us all feel better, even if it did take around three hours.
Day Nine
We were riding quite smoothly today when we heard something break on our ship. None of us knew what it was, but we decided it best to stop and make sure she was okay.
Day Twelve
We couldn't find anything wrong with The Vampire Princess, no matter how hard we tried, so we just continued on more cautiously. She seems to be moving a bit slower now though.
We decided it would be best to hunt again, considering our pantry was starting to look empty. We shot down a Grunny, a Pumpkin and a Big Foot; adding one hundred and sixty back into our stores. Again, it took us less ammo, nine this time. Our aim is improving.
I had a strange sense of mania today, and became convinced that Moira was a zombie. I tried to tell the rest of the crew, but they all laughed and took it as a joke. During the night, I smothered her. I am at a loss for words right now. My crew became very anxious around me, which was understandable. We buried her, and afterwards I looked through her stuff. She had been hiding food in her room. Her own personal store. I added it to our food store and didn't mention it to the rest of the team.
Day Thirteen
I noticed somebody littering on the forest floor, so I did what I had to do. I jumped down in a fit of rage and tickled them incessantly. Loot spilled out of his pockets as I did so, and at that point Natasha realised that this was the man who had performed his 'magic trick' for us. She ran forward and scooped up the loot, returning it to its rightful owner - us.
We came across our next landmark on the map, an ancient, ruined massage parlour. We decided this was a good time for us all to have a rest and check the place out. Natasha seemed particularly interested.
Day Sixteen
As we started The Vampire Princess, she seemed to be moving faster again. I suppose that whatever had broken on her must have fixed itself.
Louie took this moment to offer us some help. He threw out all of the food that he deemed as 'sugary' or 'fattening', reducing our food stores. Needless to say that our crew was displeased, and Ian gave him a small talking to while we were all complaining at each other.
I fell asleep, and I had a dream that the Shadow Man visited me. I knew it wasn't real, so I forced myself awake. When I did, I noticed the five rounds that were in my desk drawer were missing. I wonder where they went...
After proceeding to the upper decks, I noticed some of the best minds of our generation - starving, hysterical and naked. I gave a howl of surprise and did what any good Captain would do. I handed twenty five lbs of food and twenty five loot to them, and we went our separate ways again.
As night time hit, the clouds parted in the sky to reveal a beautiful yet ghastly seeming full moon. I heard strange noises from behind me, and turned to see Ian convulsing in what could only be some hideous lycanthropic transformation. I stood stunned for a moment, confusion setting in. I put it down to the medication he took for being a vampire, and started running for my life.
Day Seventeen
Luckily, Ian hadn't slaughtered any of us in the night, but he had awoken to be very hungry. We decided it was best to take another hunting trip. Our haul of a Bison and a Pumpkin ( one hundred and twenty lbs ) for eight bullets seemed somehow disappointing. But no more game would be seen for a while now.
We were eating our last section of deer at this point, and there was one piece left. Both Vanessa and Natasha called shotgun at exactly the same time, and began to argue quite violently over the matter. I stepped up and in my most authoritative voice told them to sort it over Rock, Paper, Scissors. They both agreed this was a great idea, and ended up sharing the piece. Our crew had matured slightly, and so we worked more efficiently together. I think this is speeding us up.
We continued on from our lunch spot. It was only when Louie came running to me in confusion that we realised we had left Ian back there. Turning around, we quickly went to go fetch him, but it wasted valuable time. When we found him, we all agreed that we should just slow down and take a break. If we were forgetting crew members, we were working too hard.
Day Twenty-One
For a while, I believed that Moira had come down with a case of general tumescence, making her breathing and movements hard. It was then that I remembered that she was dead, and put it down to my strange hallucinations and the fact that I had been on an airship for twenty one days. The thought of her sickened me slightly though.
We ran into a fort named Fort Larroquette, in which sat a man who offered to trade us some ammunition for some loot. We did so, ignoring the fact that we now had no loot left, as we figured that hunting would be more important.
As we continued down the path, we all heard an obnoxious noise. Howler monkeys. In our panic, we piled our ship into their tree. The ship was stuck fast, so while most of us tried to move it out of the tree with careful manoeuvring, Louie spent six hours teaching the howler monkeys to howl at a respectable volume. Maybe with his strength we could have just lifted the ship out of the tree. But of course, he wasn't going to help with that.
We hunted again, though it was highly difficult. We only killed one Bison, though we nearly took another one down. It took eight ammo for one hundred lbs. Not looking good.
Day Twenty-Two
Louie said he sensed a lot of death in the area we were in, and before we knew it we were being dragged to investigate the source. We came across a mass grave, where Ian and I became overwhelmed with a sense of grief. As we left, we were cheered up slightly by the fact that Natasha and Vanessa had managed to find five ammo from somewhere. We didn't question where.
We passed a billboard on the side of the path for a witch doctor. We all decided it best not to pay them a visit. Witch doctors are not to be trusted.
We found a vending machine on the floor, along with some loot beside it. Upon feeding the loot into the machine we received ten ammo. That will help with hunting.
We were all getting tired again, and so we thought it best to take another break.
Day Twenty-Five
When we started again in the morning, I noticed that we were being followed by vampires, thus, with Louie backing me up, I turned around and tried to catch them. This proceeded to be a large waste of time, as we caught nothing in six hours.
After the stress of catching nothing, we decided to catch something a different way, hunting. We took down a fair amount, two pumpkins, a broccoli and a bison ( one hundred and sixty five ) but used twelve ammo in the process. It made us all feel better though.
Day Twenty-Six
I had another strange hallucination last night about Moira being injured. Every time I see them I feel sick to my stomach thinking about what I did. This time she was putting on her shoes and she felt something stab into her foot. It was a thorn poisoned with salamander's blood, a favourite trick of the vampires. I shuddered with the thought that I'd be haunted by her memory like this forever.
We came across a dog in a shoe, and try as we might, he wouldn't play with us. We left feeling a little disgruntled.
It came the time to hunt again, as we could see the desert's looming presence. We needed to stock up on food. This time we had a deer, an eggplant, a pumpkin and a Grunny ( one hundred and fifty lbs ). I made sure to get some variation as to what we could eat. It only took me nine rounds as well, I felt so proud of my achievement.
Day Twenty-Seven
We found a dead bear near the path that our ship was going down, and decided that it would be a good idea to deep fry it, for speed's sake. This plan turned out horribly, and the grease exploded everywhere, clogging up our transmission. We decided it best to stop and try and clean it out.
Day Thirty
Try as we might, we couldn't get all of the grease out of our gears, and The Vampire Princess was moving slower and more bumpily than usual.
I went down to our food store to make sure we'd cleaned all of the grease out, and what do I find? Weevils. They decided that our ship would be where they hold their annual party. I guess that's some of our food gone. Not much we can do about it now.
After a month, everyone was starting to get bored, so Ian suggested that we have a talent competition. We pulled out the costume chest and the puppet stage and whittled away three hours of our time. It was a nice bonding exercise right before the desert though, and we learnt a lot about each other. I think we'll function more efficiently now.
It was as I was putting the costume chest away that I noticed a vine was growing up the ship's mast. I considered chopping it down, but I thought it best to let nature take its course. The vine grew quickly and then blossomed. As these blossoms grew into five beautiful, sweet smelling flowers, bullets fell out of each one. Thank you Mother Nature.
We took this time to go hunting again. Two deer, one pumpkin ( one hundred and fifty lbs ) and used ten ammo. Now we were ready for the desert.
Day Thirty-One
Today, we hit the crossroads. Louie told me that the forest would take longer but have more to hunt and the desert would be shorter but there would be less prey. I'd already made my choice though, and we steered the ship towards the stifling heat of the Badlands.
The first thing we saw as we were entering the desert was a sacrificial altar. Natasha seemed to want to be sacrificed to whatever God this happened to be, so I held her wish. I'd already killed once, and at least this one was her choice. Closing my eyes as I did it, I plunged a dagger deep into Natasha's heart and immediately felt the warmth of Zithillius the Damned smiling upon us from the cosmos. The crew was sad at first, but then the appearance of food and loot made everyone feel better. To top it all off, Natasha stood up again afterwards, completely fine bar from a scar. It turns out she knew what she was doing all along.
We saw a tattoo parlour on the side of the road, and all made a deal to go in and get an anchor tattooed on our arm. Upon coming out, we noticed that Ian didn't have an anchor, but instead had a unicorn. We all had a good laugh at his misfortune until the Unicorn Gang showed up and ripped the flesh off of Ian's arm. We bandaged his arm up, and re-bandaged his missing finger again. His left arm isn't looking too healthy now, and I'm sure he's feeling pretty bad too.
A very pale, terrified man started yelling and waving hysterically at us, so we found it in our hearts to stop for him. As we walked over to him, we realised that we couldn't understand a word of what he was saying and he seemed terribly ill. He collapsed onto Vanessa and died convulsing in her arms. We decided it best to leave him down on the ground and return to our ship, not wanting to waste time in the Badlands and end up in the same state he was. As we arrived back, we noticed two vampires running off with some of our food. They don't even eat it. I guess that's what he was trying to warn us about.
As we were cruising along, we came across a sign that was labelled 'Secret Shortcut'. Under Louie's advice we decided to proceed down it. We only headed a few meters before a Minotaur jumped out and stole some of our food. Note to self, don't trust Louie's directions.
Natasha announced to the crew that she had found a new, amazing way to tie shoelaces. Upon demonstration of this, we decided it wasn't, and spent the next six hours untangling her from the disaster area she called wonderful.
We came across a sign that advertised a party on the ground below, after the long day we'd been having, I decided that we should head down to this party. The crew seemed pleased with my decision, until we arrived at a study party. Six hours more of our time was wasted by having to learn about highly irrelevant things.
Day Thirty-Two
As we awoke, Louie spotted a ship nearby and assured us that it was the vessel that belonged to Edmund. As we planned our voyage over to say a quick hello, Louie corrected us in our plan of action. We were going to prank him instead. We snuck over to his ship, collecting all the scorpions we could find on the way. After managing to get into the air cruiser unnoticed, we let all of the scorpions loose before fleeing like naughty children. The exciting, trust-bonding exercise boosted our morale, and proved to use that we really could work well as a team.
When we returned to The Vampire Princess, Natasha managed to get conned by a televangelist, losing us twenty five of our loot. I never figured her as the type, I always assumed she would see through cons. The things you learn.
As we continued on, Natasha was having another of her bad days. She completely misjudged all sense of time and space and slammed a door into her own face. She wasn't feeling too brilliant any more so we took this moment to have a rest.
Day Thirty-Five
We came across a large skeleton jutting out of the ground this morning. We had a closer look at the what-seemed-to-be-dinosaur-remains and found a small plaque reading 'brought to you by the desert's terrible power'. That sounded too much like an advertisement to let any of us leave feeling comfortable.
Later on, Louie announced creepily to us that his hunger could no longer be contained, and that he had to feed. We all stood terrified until he just ate some of our supplies. I was worried for a minute there, I was convinced he would eat us.
I returned to my quarters for a while, and while I was trying to sleep I saw a ghost. It offered to show me how I was going to die, and I , bravely, agreed. The ghost pulled out a DVD before huffing that I didn't have a player for it and leaving. I guess I'll never know how I die until it happens. I was just curious as to whether it would be on this ship or not.
I quickly arrived back on deck, and Louie made an attempt to cheer us all up. We were all starting to get stressed from the heat and the food rationing. He told us that while these lands may seem blighting, there are ways to thrive in them. As he said this, he tried awkwardly to crush stones into the shape of bullets in his hands. The process looked more difficult than productive, though he did manage to produce five bullets before we told him to stop. We wouldn't want our guide getting injured.
Vanessa had decided to spend the day organising the ship better, and she came back to me at one point with what could only be described as a power up. I allowed her to use it, and she became invulnerable for roughly thirty seconds. She spent this time by wisely bullying the other members of our crew in a friendly manner. At least we seem to have a little more energy now.
At lunchtime, I realised how much I was eating. I called on Louie and Natasha to help me discover the issue, and after a short medical check up, we discovered that I had not only one, but two tapeworms. We dived into our medical kit and pulled out a few different drugs for the problem. I hope they work well.
Just after I came back from my tapeworm discovery, I spotted another ship trying to flag us down. They too were bearing the mark of the Jellyfish God, so we stopped to meet with them. They were very nice people, and they had been hunting and had more than they could store, so they handed twenty five lbs of food over to us. We continued chatting for a little bit before both making our way off to save the Jellyfish God.
It was Ian's turn to cook dinner, and he was blabbering on about how he had a brilliant idea for a pasta dish. We were all looking forward to it, as Ian wasn't too bad at cooking. When dinner was served , it turned out to be less of a good idea than previously thought, as he had made our pasta out of bullets. We took a few moments to explain to him that bullets were not edible and that he was going crazy from the desert heat. We decided this was therefore a good time to catch some shade for a bit.
Day Thirty-Eight
Natasha wasn't feeling too well today, and so she went to go take a nap. As I was heading to get myself a snack, I had a strange urge to check on her in her bunk. When I opened the door I noticed a shadowy figure near to her and called out. The figure vanished as I ran over to see what had happened. Natasha had bite marks on her neck. I suppose she's a vampire too now.
Louie then decided that we hadn't been working hard enough ( which was rich coming from him ) and wanted to whip us into shape, literally. We all picked up the pace to avoid being whipped, so I suppose the tactic worked. Sort of.
After our boost of speed, we met with the Party Sphinx. After a small discussion with the crew about how much we wanted his shutter-shades, he spoke to us, offering us luck in exchange for loot. We took up the offer, and received the equivalent of a lucky charm from him. I don't think he was sober though, so I wonder if he'll remember this.
As we were travelling we encountered a small girl. After briefly wondering why she was this far out in the desert, she asked us to help find her dog. While I felt harsh saying it, she was probably crazy, a vampire, or ill, so I declined. As I said this, she turned on Natasha and started beating her. Of course, she couldn't retaliate against the little girl, so she just shook her off. I believe my suspicions about her were correct, worse things could have happened while looking for her 'dog'.
We found another wreckage of an airship, and if my suspicions were correct, this was probably where that little girl lived. I didn't want to risk having her beat up my crew again, and so I hurried us along.
Natasha was starting to feel very bad, so I suggested we all settle down again. It was a bit sooner than I had hoped, I didn't want to stop this often, but I didn't want my crew injured. I suspected that she had contracted some sort of disease from that girl.
Day Forty-One
We set off again in the evening, just after dinner. Despite this, I noticed Natasha looking hungry. Reaching into my pocket I told her that I would share my candy bar with her. She smiled at me, and I felt a true bond growing between us. She felt better for it, and we worked more as a team after that.
We had picked a bad day to continue travelling, as the air pirates were on the prowl. We had managed to slink past a few ships, but this one had caught us and seen us. We couldn't just give in, our spirit was too high, and so we fought them. After a not-so-difficult battle they gave in, and we took fifty loot from them as a punishment. Maybe it's not so bad after all.
When we had stopped, we had managed to pick up a stray dog ( maybe it had actually been owned by that girl ) that had grown very attached to us, Ian in particular. It was obvious that he was missing Rufus, and so we had agreed to keep the dog. We had affectionately named him 'Lucky'. I had been sitting there, petting his head while he was laying across my lap when he had thrown up on me. I practically threw him off of me before going to clean up, but as I did I realised that Lucky was probably only sick because he had eaten a box of ammo. I cleaned up the five bullets and added them to our stash.
Day Forty-Two
As Natasha was sorting out breakfast she opened a box that none of us even knew that we had. Turns out that we'd managed to bring a box of cereal bars with us this whole way and not know. We all had a good laugh before adding them to our stockpile.
Louie had also been helping find breakfast, and he too came up with a surprise. He had found a bottle of what was labelled .be – Embryonic. Natasha was dying to drink it, and was chanting "Chug, chug, chug." Quietly to herself. I told her not to be stupid, she was still slightly ill anyway, and I handed it back to Louie for safekeeping. A couple of miles later he managed to pawn it off to some crazy guy in the desert for fifty loot. I have to say, well done to him. I don't think any of us even know what that does.
As I was standing, staring out into the endless wasteland that lay out in front of me, I was hit in the face by a large rope. There was a note attached to it that said 'do not pull'. I decided to heed this note and warn the rest of my crew not to get hit in the face by the rope like I did.
We then came across a strange mirror and gazed longingly into it. We hadn't seen ourselves for a while, and it showed us all looking very tall and handsome. We all feel so much better for knowing that we still look good, despite the lack of water and the amount of heat.
And old man flagged us down to tell us some stories from his youth. We sat with him for six hours getting lost in his stories before deciding to leave him be.
Seeing another sign for a party, we were wary. We decided it best to not go join the 'fun'.
Now feeling like we were in a vortex of déjà vu, we spotted a sign labelled 'Secret Shortcut'. This time I chose not to follow it, though I started to wonder if I was just hallucinating everything again.
It seems that I had fallen asleep at some point, and I heard my alarm next to me – "open your eyes, open your eyes" – I began to wonder if everything had just been a dream. Prying my eyes open I realised that, no. I was still on an airship going to save a Jellyfish Demigod from vampires.
I noticed as I pulled my shirt on that it had a hole in it. I started to get confused, not recognising myself. Maybe I was Louie? Maybe I was Ian? I decided I should just eat some cheese to feel better, and then sit down from my crisis.
Day Forty-Five
My bout of mania was finally over, and I was very thankful that I hadn't killed anyone this time, even if it had taken a little longer. We quickly came across a burning bush, and stared in wonder for a few seconds before moving on.
Natasha started mumbling weird things, and me and Louie checked the medical book to find out what was wrong with her. We deduced that she had developed a sixth sense called 'Clobe' which is both useless and unpleasant. Natasha seems to be getting increasingly ill. I'm starting to worry about her. We need to rest so that she feels better.
Day Forty-Eight
Natasha is still looking very ill, and we're running low on food. We're going to attempt our first hunt in the desert.
We shot down a Grunny, a vulture and a fish ( one hundred and fifty lbs ) in only eight ammo, which should keep us going for a while. Hopefully Natasha will get better.
The wind feels unnaturally strong today, and it's flowing against us. Our pace is down.
Day Forty-Nine
We awoke today to be confronted by and obscene cactus. We tried not to look at it, but glanced over as a man approached. He asked us if we wanted to buy some jerk chicken for fifty loot, and I agreed. Any food was good food in the Badlands.
Natasha was still feeling pretty awful, so we took a short break again with the promise that when we reached the ocean, we'd have a proper rest. We need to get her out of the heat. She's dying out here.
Day Fifty-Two
The rest helped Natasha a little, but not enough. We need to reach the ocean as quick as possible now.
It was hitting early evening when I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. Reaching my hand around I grabbed whatever it was and pulled it out. It was a small dart. Looking around I noticed a couple of meddlesome kids off the side of the boat and cursed loudly at them. I spent the rest of the evening being violently sick. Turns out they'd poisoned it.
While I was out cold, my crew apparently had found a troop of vampires cutting down a tree. Louie, being the anti-evil activist he is, had to stop them. After chasing them off, he spent a while bandaging the tree, though I'm not sure how long. I was fast asleep.
It was all too much. We needed to rest more.
Day Fifty-Six
Natasha is still ill. I hope none of the other crew member contract what she has, but we're so close to the sea. We can hunt more and rest more. I can see the blue in the distance, we're so close.
It turns out the ship has bubblegum rot though, so our speed in down again. I dislike touching the wood on the ship at all, as it sticks to our hands. Best to hope that the sea air will help it.
We've finally reached the Ocean. On the way in we saw a double rainbow and felt that our luck had already improved. The next thing we're going to do is hunt.
We hit down two Gwees and a crab ( one hundred and seventy lbs ) and now we're going to rest and feed Natasha. Let's hope she pulls through. She's pretty Sick.
Despite our efforts, Natasha doesn't seem to want to be helped. She's gotten into rock music and is anti-authority. We'll try and help anyway, even if it takes longer.
Day Sixty-One
The ocean is so much nicer than the Badlands. We had a good long rest, and now we're finally all okay. Natasha pulled through nicely, and we're ready to set off properly now. There's a lot less to worry about.
I spoke too soon. Right after dinner we all began to feel queasy. After further investigation, it turned out someone had put rat poison in the salt. We noticed a bat leaving the ship all too late, and cursed the vampires that were trying to sabotage us.
Louie came back with a cheer-up again though, he seems to be good at picking appropriate times for it. He said that he had gone for a swim and picked up some ammo on the way, but as an additional note he mentioned that "He might have accidentally kissed a merman, but that's a different story." And try as we might to get him to tell us what that was about, he simply handed us the ammo and quickly retired to his quarters.
Air pirates descended on us again, but this time they took us by surprise. We couldn't fight them, and they beat us down. Now we need to rest again.
Day Sixty-Five
We started the day off with a hunt. One Gwee, two Grunnies and a crab ( two hundred lbs ). And decided to just relax a little again.
Day Sixty-Eight
We set off, all feeling much more ready to tackle the ocean. I'll try not to jinx it this time though.
We encountered a shipwreck, but decided not to investigate too far. It looked very old, and I'm not the best swimmer.
After a little more travelling, we took another rest. It turns out the sea air is making us tired.
Day Seventy-One
We set off in the morning, though nothing eventful happened all day. It was a nice change of pace, and I was still piloting into the evening. Out of no where, Louie popped up to speak to me. I jumped out of my skin with a small squeak and waited for him to stop laughing at me before asking him what was up. He told me that he had jumped on to one of the islands without me noticing and had come back with fifty loot. How awesome of him.
Next we came across a traveller who was trying to rid himself of all his worldly possessions. We decided to help him out and he gave us fifty more loot. Today is obviously one of those days that your horoscope would describe as 'A good day with money'.
Ian was helping to clean the mast when he came across a nest of falcon eggs. After grabbing them and bringing them down, we rejoiced in placing them amongst our food store. Things like eggs were hard to come by, and so they were a jewel in the rough.
Day Seventy-Two
We all ate breakfast, and I noticed that after the hearty meal Natasha's belly was sticking out slightly. Unable to resist the urge, I proceeded to rub her belly. This brought laughter amongst our crew, and we felt slightly luckier somehow.
Louie piped up again, he seems to have gotten more vocal now that we've hit the ocean. This time he told us that vampires understand the stars and can navigate them easily, and as a side note he mentioned something to do with being good at knitting too, but none of us really heard what he said. After a couple of steers, Louie told us that it would take about six hours off of our time. Which is both quite a lot and nothing at all.
We took this chance to go hunting again, two crabs this time ( one hundred lbs ) but we had enough to keep us going anyway.
A band of pygmies invaded our ship and demanded that I be their ruler. Unsure how to react, I accepted. It was a rash move, and I paid for it as I sat around doing paperwork for the next three hours.
I heard my crew-mates giggling, though in a muffled sort of sense. Turning around, I too let out a strange noise. There was a cloud that was shaped like a butt, and as immature as it was, we couldn't help but laugh. After six hours we felt so much more refreshed, and decided that this was a good place for a break.
Day Seventy-Six
Again, we started the day with a hunt, two Gwees, a Grunny and a crab ( two hundred and ten lbs ) and started on the move again.
Around mid day, Ian began to grow tired of life. After two and a half months, he was severely missing his cat and his home, and while he had Lucky and The Vampire Princess, it wasn't the same. We all chipped in to try and make him feel better, but nothing seemed to be working. We don't really know what happened, but Ian handed five rounds of ammo over to me and seemed to be feeling better. I never asked.
Another ship, very fancy looking, flew up alongside ours. A wealthy eccentric was on board, and he informed us that our attendance to his event was mandatory. On that note, we paid a quick visit, but no more. We had a hearty meal and all felt very full. As we stood up to leave, he asked us if we'd ever had human flesh before that. I saw the looks on my crew mate's faces, and I'm sure mine matched it. I managed to hold down my 'food', but I'm not too sure about some of the others, especially Ian.
Despite our lunchtime incident, our luck seems to be up. The wind direction has changed, and now it is propelling us forward instead of pushing us back. We'll get there in no time at this rate.
Again, I spoke too soon. It turns out that the wind was emitting from a raging tempest that we headed straight towards. We braced for impact, and luckily all pulled through.
Natasha seems to be ill again. I think she might get travel sick or something. Apparently she now has an ear infection called 'inverted hearing'. Let's hope it clears up soon.
As we ran into the night, we encountered a priestess of the Jellyfish Demigod who seems apt on healing Vanessa's paper cuts while Natasha coughs in a corner. Well, I guess it's the thought that counts.
We saw a shady guy selling CDs, but told him that we didn't need any due to not having a CD player. We did decide to take a rest near him though, so that we could give him some scraps of food. He seemed very hungry.
Day Seventy-Nine
Today was The Feast Of Two Dinners, and so we ate twice to satisfy the Buffet God.
Day Eighty
I awoke to find my head very itchy. I scratched and scratched until I noticed that I had cerebral termites. I fished out an old coat hanger and enlisted the help of Natasha. We captured as many as we could, bottled them up and added them to our food store.
We noticed that there was a pelican on the deck, and it seemed adamant to waddle towards Natasha. It reached her, and she stayed still. As it did, it regurgitated a large stack of loot before then flying off. How generous of it, maybe it too was a follower of the Jellyfish Demigod.
The Jellybean Demigod then met with us, and we all took turns to pet it. As we did so, it excreted jellybeans for us, and we put them into our pantry.
We decided that with our new bounty of jellybeans, it was worth sitting around a couple of days and eating them.
Day Eighty-Three
We came across another little girl trying to find her dog, and we decided to humour this one. We looked around for a short amount of time but found no dog apart from Lucky, and he wasn't hers. Vanessa did return to our ship with a bunch of meat that she found nearby though, so the trip wasn't all wasted.
Vanessa decided that she needed a new hairstyle, and worked her magic on her own hair. I had mixed feelings about it at first, but then it proves to be highly aerodynamic. We all congratulate her for her hairdressing skills.
We went hunting again, it seems to be getting easier – two penguins and a broccoli ( sixty five lbs ) which brought us to a good amount. We could see the volcano in the distance now, and we have to get better prepared.
Natasha took some time in the day to admire the handicraft of the ship, being a type of 'artist' herself. She had been running her hands over the mizzenmast when an immense splinter lodged itself in her hand. It's best not to stroke our ship after it's bout of bubblegum rot.
I felt an overwhelming sense of pride as we continued on, and I began to get another fit of mania. This time I believed myself to be on an equal level with the Gods. On that note I began to fly The Vampire Princess higher and higher until we flew too close to the sun. Luckily, I was jolted awake at this point by Lucky licking my face. I noted to myself to not get too cocky during this flight and sat down to work on a less time consuming route for our ship.
We saw another crashed ship, and again its foreboding message hit us. We didn't explore it, we decided it wasn't worth it.
We took what would be our final rest of the ocean. I felt somewhat sad to be seeing it go. I had enjoyed my time here.
Day Ninety-One
We rested as much as we could before continuing on. We want to feel our best for the volcano.
We did a little but of hunting as well, two Gwees, a crab and a Grunny, making our food total 500. Now we're prepared. Bring on Mount Boom.
Right before reaching the volcano, Vanessa was running around the deck after a moth. She tripped and fell off of the ship. It would have been okay if she had done this earlier, we weren't as high up. I'm sorry to say that she didn't make it. We will miss her and her aerodynamic hair.
While we were clearing Vanessa's room, Ian found an unlabelled bottle of pills. We assumed they were safe, as they belonged to one of our crew, so Ian tried them out. We still didn't know what they were, but Ian felt better for it, so we didn't complain and put them in our medical kit.
Natasha, on her quest to catch all of the illnesses in the world, contracted 'double-face'. While this would usually be a bad thing, she had previously managed to catch 'half-face', so at least she had a full face again now.
We all spend a couple of moments thinking about how well our trip had been going when a child in a hang glider cruelly heckled us. We all pretended that it didn't bother us, but deep down it really did. Our morale was down, and so we pillaged our food supply.
To bring up our moods, the Jellyfish Demigod sent a band of elves that bless our ship's engine and make it go faster. We thanked them profusely before heading on our way.
As it began to reach evening, we headed into the volcano fields.
The first thing that happened was that right away, our engine overheated. It turns out that the volcano is even hotter than the desert. I'm hoping Natasha doesn't get heat stroke again or something.
While she didn't get heat stroke, she did come down with Oral Burpies. We all mourned for her and her magical ability to catch 'em all, especially the ones that aren't curable.
As we were settling down to rest, we came across the legendary bullet fruit. We decided it best to harvest it for food, as we weren't planning to hunt much across Mount Boom. We all found a small amount of delight in the idea of eating the masculine, heroic, jaw breaking snacks, and sat down to stare at all the wonderfully coloured rocks.
Day Ninety-Four
Natasha was feeling pretty down this evening. I get the feeling that she thinks she's dragging us down slightly, she's been ill nearly this entire trip. While she has slowed us down, she's proved to be very useful to us as well, and I couldn't as for better crew members. I felt the need to get her mood back up and show my gratitude, so after getting Ian in on the plan, we baked her a cake. She seemed to appreciate it anyhow.
Ian, on his way to bed, heard some noises in the hold, but didn't want to go down there by himself. I agreed to go with him, armed with my trusty pistol. When we opened the door a bat flew straight over our heads and I let out a few curse words. Those damn vampires. Turns out they took ten of our ammo this time.
Louie was suffering from the heat as well, and threatened to bite us all if we didn't work harder. I found this threat worrying being that Natasha had already been bitten and Ian is… well, you know. So I suppose the threat was just aimed at me. Needless to say, I started ordering everyone around to work harder.
Day Ninety-Five
We set off early again, and quickly came across a picnic table. After a very short discussion, we decided that this was indeed a good place to sit down for a while.
Day Ninety-Eight
Ian was beginning to get bored again, and so invented a game where you roll a hoop around the ship with a stick. He seemed to be having fun with it when it went flying over the edge. Before I had time to act Ian had thrown himself over the edge of the ship. I froze with baited breath, believing this to be a similar incident to that of Vanessa's. Just then, Ian proved to be able to fly, I guess it's a side effect of the medication or something. Using his new fangled ability, I sent him over to a close by airship to steal loot. He managed to swindle twenty five off of them. I believe his new power may come in handy more often.
Upon reaching a large pile of bones and trading twenty five loot for ten ammo with a terrified looking man, we chose a spot nearby for a rest.
Day One Hundred and Four
We ended up spending quite a while with the crazy man who lived in the pile of bones, but we told him about our quest and headed on our way again.
As we started off, we came across a bear that was eating the carcass of a cow. It turned out to be a very friendly bear, who was a follower of the Jellyfish Demigod, and he offered us some food to take with us. We gratefully accepted.
As we took the food down to the food store, we found a family of rats there. I calmly asked them if they would kindly leave. They pleasantly declined and continued to eat our food. I'll send Lucky down there later to deal with it.
I went down to the hold with Lucky, though when I arrived I noticed that the rats were now all zombies. Grabbing the rest of the crew, we set out to exterminate them all.
Ian found a rock on deck, and attempted to match Vanessa's very early on bomb-kick ( I wonder if anyone else remembers that ) Unlike Vanessa though, who only broke two toes, Ian broke his entire leg. Things aren't working out too well right now.
Natasha has also come down with another illness. I honestly believe that it's the heat. It turns out that now she has parasites in her intestines. I think we all need to try and get better. We're going to have to stop again.
Day One Hundred and Seven
I appear to have a tapeworm again. At least it's not two like last time. I think this volcano may be cursed.
During the night, Gnomes kidnapped our crew and disabled our ship. I woke up during the process, but figured there was not much I could do. Shrugging my shoulders, I rolled over and went back to sleep. When I awoke again we seemed to have moved further down the trail. How obscure.
Day One Hundred and Eight
I had another vision of Moira again. I hadn't had one for a while, so it shook me up quite a lot. This time she managed to break her arm play fighting with Louie. I shook my head and continued on navigating the ship.
Louie demanded that we take a closer look at the volcano, and so I cautiously obeyed his request. It turns out that volcanic ash is pretty toxic, and it left us all feeling pretty bad. We'll have to stop. Again. Thanks Louie.
Day One Hundred and Eleven
I awoke to the sound of the engine stuttering and complaining. Someone had stuffed a cow carcass into the gears. It took around six hours to get it all cleaned again.
I think it must have come from trying to clean all that dead cow out of The Vampire Princess, but I developed a horrible case of Rocketbutt. It's leaving me feeling pretty drained, but we must press on. Our food reserves are starting to run low.
Ian, on the other hand, appears to be pregnant. We're all unsure how this happened, but I put it down to that medication. He got very hysterical about it today, possibly because this is the first we've seen of a bump in his belly. It took us six hours to calm him down, and I wasn't much help as my ass was shooting all over the place.
Natasha took this moment to haul out our karaoke machine. I wasn't feeling it too much, but I grabbed the mic anyway. Singing 'More than a Feeling' in an awful tone, a group of geese committed suicide on the deck. I placed the mic on the floor and vowed never to sing that song again. Despite this, it did get us more food.
We noticed that a pterodactyl had taking up roost on our mast. I was going to move it, but honestly it looked far too cool and we were getting tired. It's probably slowing us down, but I like it. I've named it Caveman.
We reached a suggestion box and set up camp so we could all write long winded notes to place in it. We did so, and as soon as they hit the box they caught on fire. So much for that idea.
Day One Hundred and Eighteen
We can see the sky route now, but we're running low on food. We set out to do some hunting, catching two eggplants, a pumpkin and a broccoli. I hope we don't need to hunt here again.
We kept going and saw a sign for a roadside witch doctor. Upon not going in, we all felt a little better for it. That was obviously a good choice.
Just then we spotted a flying dog, of course we had to take a closer look. It turned out to be a real class act, and showed us a shortcut. We are very thankful, as any time is good time, especially now that Ian is pregnant.
Day One Hundred and Nineteen
Around midday someone, not that I know who, managed to set the deck of the ship on fire. Not knowing what to do, we settled down to cook some meat on it, burning less that usual and making more of it edible. Despite this, we did have to fix the large whole in the deck that the fire burned. It took a little time, but this meat tastes so much better now.
We then found a natural hot spring, but it was already occupied. We paid the man inside twenty five loot to move in the hopes that Mother Nature would cure us of our ailments.
Day One Hundred and Twenty
A nomadic megadog passed by our ship today. We stared in wonder at its grace and stature and before we knew it the mega-fleas were attempting to board our ship. We fought them off easily though, using only five rounds of ammo.
The sky is so close now; we should hopefully reach it later today.
As we ascended into the sky, we decided that it would be a nice place to rest, away from the heat of Mount Boom.
Day One Hundred and Twenty Four
We started our ascent into the sky, and began it by hunting, gathering a pumpkin and a penguin that should keep us going for a while. We have a fair amount of ammo, so we should be fine for the rest of the journey.
Day One Hundred and Twenty Five
I saw another ghost today, who offered to show me how I died. I accepted, braver than last time a ghost asked me this. As he went to show me, he stopped for a minute and laugh. I asked him what was so funny, as I didn't think this was a laughing matter. He told me that my death was far too embarrassing to show me, and handed me ten ammo for my bravery. How odd, now I'm really curious.
Walking out onto the deck, I found drops of blood on the floor. Concerned about my team, I then noticed that the blood was dripping down from somewhere. My head quickly shot up to find that Ian had strung up some sort of carcass while I was out. I questing him about why he hadn't put it in the pantry, and I quickly realised that our food store was locked and I had the key. We all had a small laugh before stocking the meat away.
That evening Natasha started choking on a piece of meat. At this point I jumped into action, I remembered my first aid class well, and I threw myself into the Heimlich manoeuvre. When the piece became dislodged from her throat, it looked as if she had tried to eat a whole penguin at once. On that note I cleaned the meat and placed it back in our store.
Another ogre waved us down to arm wrestle with us. I happily accepted, it added some fun into the equation. Louie took up the challenge this time, and pinned him easily. The ogre seemed to be strangely upset about this and cried for a while, but he told us a shortcut anyway.
As it was hitting night time we encountered a teenage girl. She told us that she had dedicated her life to the activist group 'JellyFirst'. We told her that she could hitch a lift on our airship until we reached the Demigod. She was so thankful that she gave Natasha a medical kit.
Day One Hundred and Twenty Six
We passed a crashed Gaia News chopper and Louie passed over to the helicopter and returned with fifty more loot. No complaints there.
Not far away from the chopper we found a rusty old mecha suit. I clambered inside to investigate because, honestly, who doesn't want to ride in a mecha suit. Sadly, the machine wouldn't work. I did find a box of ammo under the seat, so it wasn't a completely wasted journey.
Day One Hundred and Twenty Seven
A man who called himself 'Doctor Slaptastic' greeted us today, and asked if we'd like any help. I pleasantly declined, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He slapped Ian as hard as he could across the face, which oddly enough, seemed to make him feel better. We thanked the man and moved on.
Strangely enough, a deer dropped out of the sky and fell onto our ship, I can only assume it fell off of another airship. The poor creature seemed to have broken all of its legs though, and so I did the only think I could, I put it out of its misery and added it's carcass to our food store. I seemed to have been desensitised to things a little.
We saw a strange sphere over a checkerboard, and decided to take a rest by it. It didn't seem to do anything though, how obscure.
Day One Hundred and Thirty One
While we rested, I took a day out to organise the ship. This proved useful, as I found twenty five loot I didn't even know we had. I suspect this is Louie's doing, he seems to get bored and go exploring quite a lot.
We all became very concerned when a cloud mistook us for its baby and settled around us to nurse us. We proceeded with caution as our visibility was highly reduced.
Our team had a generous moment today as well when Ian brought up that he had seen a family of starving griffons. We couldn't just leave them be, so we handed fifty lbs of our food over to them. While we need the food, they need it more.
Day One Hundred and Thirty Two
As it hit the evening I began to scratch my hand a lot. Looking down, I noticed that my hand seemed to have grown a mouth. I was stunned for a moment before it spoke to me, and then I was completely shell shocked. After getting over this though, it turned out to be more of an advantage than a hindrance, as it told us helpful shortcuts. How it knew about them I have no idea, but I decided to ignore that.
Day One Hundred and Thirty Three
We saw a large, black looking vessel in the distance and Louie snapped slightly. Turns out that it was a vampire ship. We thought it best to sneak around it, and did so without any trouble. I hope they don't notice we came past here, we're so close now. I can see the Demigod in the distance.
For a moment, I thought that Natasha got kicked in the head by a horse. I thought this through for a second before questioning why there was a horse on my ship. Realising this, I noticed that Natasha wasn't even injured. Damn hallucinations.
I also hallucinated that Vanessa was standing majestically on the bough of The Vampire Princess when a load of bugs flew into her mouth. She commented on how good they tasted. I suppose my visions of her would be bug related after her accident.
It was then that we reached the Demigod, completely exhausted but very content. Louie, Ian, Natasha and I mourned for our two lost comrades, and handed over all of our loot to the Demigod. We got a lot of thanks and were told to rest.
Irrelevant Day Number
We arrived back in Barton safe and sound to a large welcome party. Ian got very teary eyed when faced with Rufus ( it turns out that he wasn't pregnant anyway. The bump was our imagination. ) and we ended up having a very strange party that seemed to be affectionately labelled 'Dancey Dancey'. Devin was very pleased to see all of us returning back safely, though Natasha especially. Louie seemed to just be content that we had a one up on Zhivago. Maybe I'll have to go on another run soon, a lot of people seem to want to be guides for this magnificent cause…