Aranea, meanwhile, was returning to her hive, with Nelly following her, when she heard a voice:
Ohohoho! down on your luck in your quest, lass? Allow me, Clover, to give you a wee free sample of mine! You could ever so use it!
"Who are you? What luck are you talking a8out?" she asked.
The luck of the leprechauns, me lass! It's what you need to complete your quest! You just need to get lucky and find the light to outshine this fog!
"I don't see how strong light is supposed to elimin8 fog!"
Ah! A smart one indeed! How fitting for a light player such as yourself! But the physics you know of is long gone, me lass! As is mine :( But no matter! Adventures await you! and with all the luck in the universe, you can't possibly fail!
"How can you help me?" Aranea asked.
I am giving you a nutritious breakfast of 8 marshmallow charms! Use them wisely, lass! in fact, you need luck to know just which ones to use, and which your friends can use! Here they are!
And before Aranea's eyes, 8 different marshmallows, totally not stolen from some Lucky Charms cereal, appeared. A red balloon, a blue moon, a purple horseshoe, a rainbow, a golden shooting star, a green clover, a pink heart, and an hourglass.
I would have made it 7, but you need 8 because it is your special number, is it not? I threw in the hourglass for free! Use all of these wisely!
Aranea thought carefully about which one to use. Which one would be useful for getting to wherever or whatever it was that got rid of the fog? It would take some intuition-a form of knowledge in and of itself-to solve this lucky puzzle. The moon and the horseshoe couldn't be it. The clover seemed dangerous and unpredictable. The balloon was a likely candidate, but it seemed too obvious. Certainly not the heart or the hourglass. The rainbow? No. It had to be the shooting star. She glanced at it briefly before eating it.
Oh, you're ever so lucky! That's the one!
Aranea felt a little light-headed, and when she looked down she saw that she was floating in the air! She could fly! Nelly stared in shock, hissing for her to come back down this instant.
"Sorry, Nelly! I think I need to do this to solve my quest! I'm sorry you couldn't help me find it!"
She said sadly. Aranea flew into the sky, high above the clouds. The sky above her was bright and blue, and she could just make out a faint outline of her world. After scanning for a few seconds, she found it: her Quest Bed! She was about to fly off and get to it when she heard a motherly spider hiss from behind her. Nelly had fused with the sprite! It now looked like a floating 8 ball with spider legs. The two flew off together and were soon directly above her Quest Bed.
Dive down! If you're lucky, you'll die on your Quest Bed! That's the only way to get the tiger's charms!
Aranea was a little nervous, but she did nonetheless. Nelly screamed in horror as the troll under her care crashed into her stone Quest Bed.
Aranea opened her eyes. She was in her bed on Prospit, wearing orange robes with a hoodie. The robes had a bright sunshine on them. Finally, blue wings had grown on her back. She had done it; she had reached God Tier! She took out her Lucky Charms and pondered which one to use next to get back to her planet. Nelly was probably worried sick!
"Clover, thank you? 8ut what do I do now?" she asked.
Ohohoho! You don't need me to tell you! Just use the charms! And don't thank me; thank the marshmallow power!
Aranea almost instinctively ate the rainbow marshmallow. A massive rainbow appeared from her window that stretched far from Prospit. She touched the rainbow and found herself flying very fast, far away from where she had been before...
Moments later, she was back on LOFAS. Nelly saw her, now alive, and hugged her with its eight legs. Aranea spread out her arms, and a massive wave of light spread out from her body, clearing up the fog of the land. How exactly light clears up fog is a mystery to us humans. Only Aranea had the knowledge and the luck to know how this works.
"THANK YOU, MARSHMALLOW POWER!" she cried. Flying high above her world, she knew just what to do next.
. . . . .
Courtyard Droll waddled up the long winding stairs to Meulin's room on Derse. His little feet were tired of walking up those steps, and he hadn't really wanted to hurt the sweet cat girl, but Jack had threatened to beat him with his horse-headed cane thingy if he refused. As soon as his stubby legs got him to the top, he leaned his head back to take a quick nap. Just a quick one, because he was tired. But when he leaned his head back, he soon found himself tumbling down, down, down, the spiral staircase of Meulin's tower. Hegemonic Brute radioed him after his tumble was finished.
"CD! Have you killed her yet?" he asked.
"Oww...no. I was about to, uh...kill her, but then I, uh,...fell down some stairs," Droll said sheepishly.
"Sigh. What did I tell you about the stairs? I warned about the stairs, Droll!" HB said grimly. "They'll get ya if you're not careful!"
"I know that now! I just fell all the way down. My head hurts!" Courtyard Droll said in a somewhat whiny voice.
"Geez, kid, relax. You're gonna be fine. Tell you what, you get the job done, and I'll talk to the Dignitary about getting some ice cream for ya. Ice cream always made my head feel better. But I'm not telling Jack you hit your head, cuz' he'll just get mad and make it worse."
"You'd do that for me, Brute? Gee, thanks! Now I feel really motivated!" CD cried happily. He scampered back up the steps to finish the job. This time he was gonna do it!
After climbing up the stairs without a hitch, Droll found Meulin, still asleep in her bed. Now, what could he use among his assortment of weapons to kill her? He looked around the room and finally decided on using a pillow. Since Meulin herself was wide awake, her dreamself was completely helpless. Then again, Derse dreamers are always vulnerable to assassination, aren't they?
It wasn't long before Meulin's dreamself was dead from asphysixiation. (I hope I spelled that right!)
. . . . .
Meanwhile, Meulin herself was sailing out to sea in LOSAD, accompanied by the finest kitty sailors on the planet. They were heading out in search of treasure and grist. Meulin, dressed in a swashbuckling pirate's outfit consisting of a blue captain's hat that concealed her hair, supposedly expensive leather boots, a coat that was several sizes too big for her that Porrim had sent her the code for, and a bone necklace like Rufioh's that he had sent her the code for. Boy, she sure had a lot of friends! Of course, this is understandable. How HIGH to you have to BE to NOT want to be FURRIENDS with MEULIN?!
Everything had been fine when she hoisted the anchor in the cargo hold. Everything had been fine when she ordered the ship out to sail. Everything had been fine when she noted the direction of the wind and sailed for an island that was allegedly just north of the port town she had been in for what had seemed like sweeps. And everything had been fine when an enemy vessel, full of imps and ogres as crew members, tried to raid her ship. Things were a little problematic, to be sure, when they had managed to board her vessel, the S.S. OTP. But this was just a minor setback, right? Nothing could ruin this adventure!
Meulin slashed her Kitty Claws (they had a fancier name, but she really didn't care for such formalities) at the nearest imp, tearing it apart and turning it to grist. Her kitty pirates got out their cutlasses and swords and stabbed at the imps, who in return shot gave scalding wounds with their plasma pistols. Meulin saw her crew dying, but in the heat of the battle, she found herself surprisingly uncaring. For her, this was roleplaying to the MANX! (get it, max, manx? No?) She sank her now undoubtedly feline teeth into the head of an ogre, sending it crashing down onto the deck. Her other crewmembers made short work of it. Slashing at the open air towards the enemy ship, her Kitty Claws, tipped with small, motion-sensitive tips, fired thin white lasers at the deck, crow's nest, and sails of the imp's ship. The ranged claw attacks did what you'd expect; the sails were torn, the cannons were damaged, and the enemy was now ready to be boarded!
Repurrlsing the enemy, Meulin and her crew leaped across the open ocean to the other vessel, whipping out some matchsticks and gasoline salvaged from the port. Matchsticks was connected in no way to any of this. The wooden of the ship was set ablaze, and the angry Giclops captain stormed out from the poop deck, previously unseen. This was because he was too lazy to fight unless he absolutely had to. Meulin gave a war hiss and lunged for it, eager to claw out that solitary eye.
And then she felt herself stumble and falter on the burning deck.
"The high seas is a 8ad place to lose your luck. Quite a shame," a voice whispered.
"(?0?) Aranea? Is that you?" she asked. Before she could get a reply, the Giclops knocked her overboard.
Meulin opened her eyes and found herself floundering in the ocean. She could see both ships burning in the distance, her heart sinking as her own sank. And if she looked hard enough, she could also see the doomed adorabloodthirsty kitty sailors as they drowned to their deaths. Meulin found that there was nothing to do but swim for the island, now in her field of vision in the opposite direction. She left a trail of green in the blue ocean. That is why oceans are bluish and green, especially at the shallow spots, where Meulin cried the most.
Anthropomorphic Complexity (AC) began trolling Undergarment Crusader (UC)
AC: (*n*) Purrloz! Help!
UC: :o)
AC: ():() something horrible happened to me! i was sailing to the island to go exploring, but then pirates came and attacked us!
UC: :o(?
AC: (^-^) oh, right! i'm so silly fur not reminding you! pirates were those guys that raided ships back before it was outlawed! not like Mitunafish! he's not the kind of pirate i am...er, was.
UC: :o(
AC: (Y+Y) no, it wasn't the pirates that got me. i was just about to claw out a giclops' eye when i got distracted by somebody. she said something about luck running out! and then the giclops knocked me off the ship i was raiding. and without me to guide them, my crew was killed as they were burning the other ship! i think everyone's dead now...
UC: :'o(
AC: (#h#) thanks. you're always caring fur me, kurloz. if you had been with me, this wouldn't have happened.
(?s?) furr some reason, i feel like i know what it was about. someone killed me...but i'm still alive. do you get what i'm saying?
UC: :o?
AC: (XX) i feel like a purt of me is dead, and a part of me is still alive, talking to you. and i feel like whoever did this, or wanted it to happen, is doing more than just sinking ships.
UC: :o(?
AC: (ZuZ) i'm getting sleepy. i'll just take a catnap. maybe some rest will help me figure this out.
UC: :o)
After Meulin fell asleep on the island shore, Kurloz closed his laptop, now angry. Someone had killed Meulin's dreamself!
YOU WILL BE MOTHERFUCKIN AVENGED, MEULIN! I SWEAR BY THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS THAT THE FULL FORCE OF MY WRATH WILL BE EXERCISED ON THE ONE WHO KILLED YOU! :o(
