When the change first started to happen, one Uyehara Yoshiake was in the middle of reviewing the more problematic parts of one Father Simon Wales' vision of a religion meant to bring forth a new age of unity, transcending many of the foibles that evidently plagued humanity.

Which was all nice and well, but theologically defining it as acceptable to consider 'nonbelievers' less than human and failing to, among other things, define a minimum age for marriage, caution against the dangers of societal collapse caused by a complete lack of certain inhibitions or, say, not endorse the worst of the excesses the supposed deity involved in this mess tended to indulge in general, all spoke of the kind of crazed cult stuff you saw in a bad movie or TV series instead.

Hence why he was trying to convince the man behind this (honestly just as crazed) plan to make several amendments to his personal, self-written bible, which was more a collection of several books pertaining to the fundamental conceits involved in any religious works, invented myths loosely based on what could be gleaned of His past (and present, for that matter) and a lot of doctrine interspersed with what Uyehara could only call insane rambling and calls to praise one monster or another.

It was a slow process, but he liked to think he was slowly getting some sanity into this entire madness, the backup plan he was enacting just in case there was any infinitesimal, just barely existing, one-in-a-billion chance any of what Wales believed to be the truth having a core of truth to it after all.

"That's why I'm saying, you need to…" Going over the pages one by one, he was pointing out passages with… 'positive potential', as Indigo had suggested he call it when something or someone was a fuckup, Uyehara was currently right in the middle of it only to be interrupted by a glow coming from the paper that had been produced in the Workshop. "Ugh, what now?"

"Oh? Oh?!" Growing twice as animated as he'd been before, Wales leaned forwards, his beard quivering slightly as steady, humming vibrations began to shoot through the entire room. "Can you feel it, too?"

"I can feel something all right," Uyehara grimaced, the unpleasant sensation of something large shifting nearby washing over him. Normally these things were a rarity, happening when some new facility or location was created (or dredged up, revealed or whatever was the most accurate term to describe it), so having it happen right now was… probably not boding well, during the big bad's hibernation.

"Look at this." As Wales pointed out, the Cryptic Book, as it had been titled for the moment, continued to glow, a silvery mist rising up from it just like when things or people were summoning into the real world. But how? The monster was as immobile as it got, so-

"OH LORD!" The sudden shout had Uyehara nearly topple over backwards. "PRAISE BE TO YOU, THAT YOU BRING A NEW AGE!"

"No," Uyehara asked as much as he asserted, refusing to believe what he immediately figured had happened. "You can't be serious. It can't have happened."

"REJOICE, FOR IT HAS HAPPENED!" Disregarding the existential breakdown going down across the table, Wales was busy exulting his God, it seemed. "GOD HAS AWOKEN!"

Uyehara Yoshiake wasn't sure whether it was the screaming or the realization that some the worst predictions he'd made had come true, but he was feeling a serious headache coming on. Given such things as headaches normally couldn't happen in this place, he figured that was a notable occurrence in itself.

Not so much, though, as the book Wales had been laboring over like the madman he was being copied repeatedly, brought to parts unknown in a process that shouldn't be possible- without Livsey being awake, nobody should be able to access the thing, never mind summoning it over and over- or replicating it, rather, as the original remained as well.

If only he could be arsed to investigate this bullshit closer instead of going back to the lab and sulking, while doing so accidentally sleeping with both Indigo and Nolac. At the same time. For several days straight.

Look, he was stressed, okay? Besides, it was presumably too late to stop the madness from spreading anyways, he may as well, right? Right?!


When the frost came, it came for everyone. Everywhere. The cold covered the world like a sharp, heavy blanket, pressing down on all of humanity, freezing it all in place.

When supplies stopped flowing, the streets covered in too much snow to be used, fear began to set in. The grand, complex machinery of civilization ground to a halt, stopped in its tracks as surely as the trains that would not run anymore because it was just too cold, the weather too unforgiving.

When starvation began to set in amidst the collapse, the choice was made for any that still could. Not for determination to try for it, but rather for a lack of alternatives. To stay was to die, and so they left.

North, ever onwards, they left, carrying what scant things they could- the last rations to be salvaged they fit into whatever pockets they had on the thickest, most resistant clothes they could find. Into the blanket of snow they went, trudging through the unforgiving cold on any vehicles that still ran, all the horses long since frozen to death and then eaten when it was still warm enough to carve into their flesh.

Leaving behind any that would be too weak to make it. The young and the old. The sick and the unwilling. Consigned to the frozen grave of the cities left behind in the march to another place.

The times of plenty were over. They went on for weeks. Maybe months. Through the pressing plumes of snow, across the frozen sea. Slowly. Step by step. One by one. Loss by loss.

It was hope that pushed them forward. Against the cold. Against the world. Against each and every time they paid the price of their journey.

And finally, they arrived. They arrived where something was supposed to be. The Generator that would warm them, that would be the center of the Last City.

It wasn't there. Despair set in, for a time. But before they could die or kill each other, one of them found something, buried in the snow right where the goal of their journey was supposed to be.

The Generator had never been finished, only its foundations set into the ground before the project had been abandoned after all. But in its stead, the survivors found an oddly immaculate book.

It was this book that would be the key to their survival. To the rebuilding of the world, in spite of the effects of Global Cooling. The fire it lit was inside each of them, and so they constructed a humble, simple shelter, using what construction materials remained on the site.

Instead of a generator, they raised up the beginnings of the Spire.

Sealing themselves into their new homes, they found protection against the cold, the material made to shut against itself perfectly, cold steel growing warm and becoming the shell that would protect them.

They warmed themselves with the power of faith, literally praying for warmth over the rooms those of them blessed with otherworldly knowledge worked away inside of, creating new forms of vegetation somewhere between a fungus and a plant, feeding on blood and producing all that granted life; warmth, light, food, everything.

Knowing they would live or die on the approval of the deity they had found, they began to worship it, one way or another, for none were willing to give up the precious lives they had won by coming this far. And if any outsiders came and found issue with it… They would learn better.

Learn better and join them. Or else end on the altar raised over the spot the Book had been in, a bare, blank thing of granite that embodied all they had been become at the end of their journey.

The Crypticist Faith was born beneath a protective shell of twisted steel, fueled by ever more twisted things grown inside it, in vats and pools and creeping lines spreading to every home, feeding every citizen.

The Faith Must Survive.


It's a weird experience, floating between reality and non-reality like this. Part of you is inside the cocoon on the Grand Cruiser right now, the ship having already set sail once again once everyone was done on Sandy Island, your body liquefied into a thick sludge made of suffering and loss and some other ingredients on the side, while the rest…

There's no particular place you can make out you'd be in, just because 'space' as a concept does not apply to you. Neither do you have any clearly defined form, being more an idea, a line of thinking made just a little more manifest than most, an existence based not on biological constructions of flesh and blood and proteins and all that but rather more- conceptual, you suppose you'd call it.

You do not exist because you have a body that allows you to have a brain with which to think, you exist because you decided you do and that's that. Outside of physical reality altogether, what you are doesn't quite match up with the laws of physics, which is where most of your supernatural powers and all that come from- the friction between what is and what you are, you suppose.

It's all quite interesting, and under other circumstances you might be tempted to sit down and do a few tests first off all. Sadly, you lack any body to sit down with, and when you try to make one you just end up with an imaginary collection of clawed, metal-armored tentacles flailing through non-space until you give up grumbling.

You're basically having to relearn how to move your own 'body', except it's a lot harder because you've never done it before with this brand of existence, and you even have to make sure you don't accidentally lose track of the dimension you were sticking to like a giant, eldritch tick so far, that being where you're keeping your physical body right now, no matter how liquefied it is right now.

You still have the 'chain' wrapped around a part of yourself, more a lifeline now than anything else, but that only helps so much. It connects you, but you're stretching and flexible enough you may just accidentally slip free, which… would probably be quite bad.

It's simply not something you want to risk for now, having little to no idea what the possible consequences might be. Best not to gamble with that one quite yet.

Time, much like space, seems pretty irrelevant 'here'; not only are you nowhere, you're nowhen as well. Another interesting aspect of being in what you are increasingly suspecting to be your 'true' body, or at least the source of your own power, and likely the reason you can bounce back and forth between dimensions without 'losing' any time.

Time simply is inconsistent here, and this lack of consistency is how you can just show up as and when you want to, as long as it's not entirely nonsensical. You think. Note to self, try existing in two places at the same time at some point, see what happens.

It is now that you realize that you are not alone, however. Standing atop one of your potentially-existing tentacles, Robert and Rosalind Lutece are carrying a bucket of paint each, holding them both up, uncaring of how impossible it should be for them to be having their concrete, human forms here and now.

"Red?"

"Or Grey?"

"Red suits what he does."

"Grey suits what he could do."

"One would think we learned to compromise by now."

"Red and Grey clash horribly."

Shifting around awkwardly, you direct your attention towards them. If you had some sort of body, no matter how amorphous, you would be pointing an eye, so to say.

"Oh."

"Awake, are we?"

"Congratulations to being born."

"Or to leaving an old life behind entirely."

"It really was about time either way."

If you could, you would be asking whether or not they have secretly been painting you without your knowledge. Sadly, sound, much like all the other physics you're aware of, doesn't work in this context, so even if you could produce any right now it wouldn't do anything.

How exactly these two are managing to speak is another one of those mysteries you'll have to look into later, you suppose.

"In hindsight, the lack of a womb is unsurprising. These things are quite irrelevant at this level."

"Arguably, the worlds he visited might well have acted as surrogates. Test tubes, perhaps."

"One does have to wonder how much of all of this has been the fetal flailing of an unborn child."

"Certainly no comfort to the victims made along the way," Robert notes mildly.

"Much like friends, they are what counts at the end of the journey," Rosalind shrugs.

If you had an eye directed at them, and furthermore could control it properly, you'd be rolling the thing vigorously right now. If they're just here to comment on your eating habits, they can just take their paint and go use it elsewhere.


The Grand Cruiser, flagship (and only ship) of the Dead Sea Pirates, was drifting through the waters of the Grand Line, aimless as its captain was indisposed inside the gently pulsing mass of red, flesh-like matter pushing out of the cargo hold.

Normally this would be as good as suicide, as not knowing where one was going amidst these treacherous waters was just asking to run out of water, food and hope in that order, if the weather conditions and the fauna didn't end the ship and its crew along the way regardless.

The Grand Line was not a place for the weak to do as they pleased, nor to travel much, for that matter. It was lucky, then, Nico Robin concluded, that the Dead Sea Pirates were the opposite of weak.

The ship itself was somehow alive (or the opposite, if she understood it right), moving under its own power day and night regardless of the crew's efforts, plowing through the roughest of waves and weathering the worst hailstorms without complaint. If it got too bad, it even simply dived into the ocean, letting the currents push it across while a transparent bubble of air kept everyone breathing.

It was fascinating, to watch the surrounding ocean pass by the ship from this perspective. Certainly not something most got to see as they sank into the depths. That usually involved a lot more chaos and screaming than the almost bored mention the event received the two times Nico witnessed it here.

Not that the ship itself was the only notable part. The crew was… Pretty happy-go-lucky, overall, but for all that they were very jovial and sometimes careless, the Dead Sea Pirates were strong themselves as well.

She'd seen the crew members shrug off blades and knives more than once during the fighting in Alubarna. The gunshots bouncing off them were another matter entirely, too.

According to them, the captain had magic and used it to make them immune to bullets. Given everything she'd seen so far… Nico was inclined to believe them, to an extent.

There were stranger things out there than a wizard wielding mysterious forces… For all that she suspected there was more to it than that. Gabriel Livsey had an interesting story of his own, she was sure.

The talking book she'd been shown had alluded to as much when asked, though it didn't explain any further. She'd still been given the choice to 'use' it to 'learn anything recorded inside', though Nico hadn't done so as of yet.

Most of the crew likely had and they looked fine, but she wanted to be sure before she risked it. Very disgruntling, considering a part of her was driven to read any worthwhile book or document she could find, too.

Then there also was the monster she'd felt exploring the outside of the ship's hull, her questing arms feeling its carapace just like the eyes she then also grew confirmed its presence. Most likely an ace up the Pirates' sleeve of some sort.

Though they hardly needed one, considering the lieutenants. All female, all four in a relationship with the captain, from what Nico had heard, though she wouldn't judge until and unless this was confirmed once he came out of the large, red cocoon in the middle of the ship.

She'd seen what happened to the handful of Baroque Works operatives trying to push things into open conflict after the princess and the pirates had arrived. Their instantaneous deaths had been as creatively varied as they had been thorough. It was hard to judge as of yet, but they definitely had what it took to fight the Marines, should they have to.

Good enough for Nico. She'd done what the World Government didn't want anyone to, after all- the location of Pluton had been hinted at in Arabasta's Poneglyph, and now she knew of it. She also had been seen on the island, so the Marines would likely be chasing after her soon- Smoker, if nothing else, would likely inform his superiors- but with the random course taken by the ship right now, she was about as safe as she could be.

Nico Robin would stay with the Dead Sea Pirates as she looked for opportunities to find out more about the history hidden and protected with absolute, lethal force, until they were destroyed or she left them when circumstances conspired towards that end.

Now, why exactly was the one pirate known only as 'Sarah' literally lying atop the fleshy mass the captain had become at all times of day…?


When you awaken, you do so with a jerking startle, the return to having an actual, physically defined body (flexible as that definition may be) such a difference to just being a construct of thought and concepts and yourself that, if you had the ability to, you might well be completely nauseous as your brain begins to work, your senses transmitting information galore and your various bodily functions return to being under your control.

Maybe being fully self-aware in your… greater self, you suppose you could call it, isn't necessarily the best way to spend your time if you're looking to regain corporeality shortly afterwards. Ah well, it hardly matters now- especially considering you're still aware, to some extent.

It's entirely unlike the full, complete awareness you had earlier, but some part of you is still there in the void, like ink infinitely spreading out in water yet never reaching farther than a certain point. And also not at all like that, because badly-fitting metaphors are the only way you can really describe something that has no similarity to anything happening inside the framework of a physical universe of any sort.

You're getting… flashes of things when you concentrate on this link to your greater self, the thing that you heavily suspect to be your soul or something, considering the similarity to how it feels to observe other souls to what you're doing now (are you literally pulling your consciousness into it whenever you interact with your Inner World?), as though you're keeping track of things that haven't happened yet or that could have happened in another place but didn't, but most of these impressions you're getting are just too vague to make out much.

Ah well. This'll take some getting used to, but you suppose you'll just have to do that on your own time. For now, you simply wiggle your way upwards, tearing through the already drying mass of your cocoon as you go.

Pulling one arm free by ripping through to the surface, you pull yourself upwards and out, breaking out right below the psychic presence you were feeling since earlier. Your head emerges from your cocoon right between Sarah's legs, your sister having been sitting on you for some reason.

"Hey sleepyhead, you with us again?" She asks, smiling down at you sweetly.

"Arguably," you reply, and if your shoulders were free already you'd shrug. Speaking of, actually.

Pulling the rest of yourself up to sit alongside Sarah, you stretch a little, making sure your body reformed properly this time as well. You have yet to have any issues, but that's no excuse to get surprised about any popping up at random just because you didn't check ahead of time.

Looking out at the sea, you realize the night's just about to be over, a far-off glow in the clouds announcing another pass by the glowing cancer ball in the sky. The Grand Cruiser is slowly drifting along, a quick access to what passes for its mind letting you know it's just keeping moving in no direction in particular right now.

It's actually kind of a nice moment, all in all.


"Captain! Are you secretly a Mothman? I'll understand if you are!" "Shut up, he's obviously a butterfly!" "Have we considered the possibility of a spider?"

Everyone looks askance at that last one.

"Nah, I don't think so." "I dunno, did the stuff look kind of like silk to anyone else?" "So? Spiders don't have a monopoly on the stuff. Look at him, does the captain look like a spider?"

Sighing, you realize Taylor went and randomly dropped a bunch of insect factoids on the crew while you were out, looking over people's memories over the past few days, and this caused them to kind of… organize into camps over what bugs are cooler than others.

So now you've got this to deal with until they get bored of the whole thing in a couple days. Lovely.


With yourself back in the driver's seat of your own body, you can once again tale control of the ship after it spent the last eight days, according to Sarah, just kind of drifting into the direction of anything vaguely worthwhile even as your sister kept it going in the general direction the Log Pose's needle was pointing.

Everyone (by which you mean all vampires present during your temporary absence) pretty much decided to lay low for a little while you weren't available, so dithering around collecting some food from the ocean was what they chose to go with in the meantime. On the one hand, that means you're nowhere near as close to the next island as you could be, though on the other you have plenty of fresh, refrigerated crab meat in stock to feed the more human crew for a good while.

Taylor really has been busy, you suppose. In other news, Sherrel got a little snippy about you accidentally breaking the Grand Cruiser a little when your cocoon manifested itself in full, not that she doesn't help you fix the hole you made as soon as you get back around to doing that.

Turns out she appreciates a great ride in all forms it may take… Just the kinda girl she is, really. If the drugs and cape stuff hadn't played into it so much, you could totally see her being the girlfriend of some wealthy dude with a whole ton of luxury cars, or a mechanic pimping her own ride for a hobby and maybe even a living.

She's just got that kinda vibe, you know?

Anyways, you make some good progress once you confirm that you're in full working order (and then some), slowly deprogramming the crew from the near-hysterical bug wars they'd gotten up to while you weren't looking and just making sure everyone is doing alright all around, from Kate (who's just been lazing around like the big cat she is sometimes) to the newest addition to your crew.

Nico Robin is… probably just trying to use you somehow, or at least that's the conclusion you come to after talking to her once or twice. She's ready to cooperate with the crew and add her expertise as and when necessary, but she's not really considering herself part of the Dead Sea Pirates, more like a temporary member of a group she's staying ready to distance herself from eventually.

Which, to be fair, is perfectly alright as far as you're concerned. Not that you'd be happy about just letting her go, but if she really wants or needs to, that's that. Thing is, you're pretty sure she's mostly like this because she's just been surfing from one pirate crew to another for most of her life so far or something, from what you've been able to pull out of her, rather than genuinely needing to or being uncomfortable with the Dead Sea Pirates or anything along those lines.

This entire situation will have to be figured out in depth at some point, though you don't think it's all, like, urgent for the moment, so no need to rush her. Nico seems a little like she'd just keep a stoic face, but be a little overwhelmed if you tried to sit down and fix all her problems for her in an afternoon.

Kind of like Taylor when you first met. She really does remind you of an older, more jaded version of her when you killed Lung together, though where Taylor was suffering from crippling loneliness caused by bullying an depression, Nico is after something else entirely, some important goal she's focused her entire life towards.

Something to do with those 'Poneglyphs', you're pretty sure. Hence why she was working with Crocodile and all that. Note to self, get that all untangled and figured out at some point, preferably before it blows up in your face down the lone.

Your newest problem child aside, though, the crew is doing well and really getting into the whole piracy thing, when they aren't busy arguing bugs right now, even taking the initiative to train a little and setting up a little shooting range on the deck, seeing as the space isn't being used for much otherwise thanks to the advanced work distribution of making the Grand Cruiser swim.

As in, nobody has to do much of anything, so they don't need to keep the deck clear the way it'd have to be in normal ships.

So you keep on cruisin' along, making perfectly good time- until something odd happens with the Log Pose Sarah is keeping an eye on, despite how much she's always clinging to you of late, something you noticed she often does after you're cocooned and all.

That is, the needle is pointing upwards all of a sudden, straight up into the sky.

"It must be pointing towards a sky island," Nico says when this phenomenon is brought up with everyone.

"Oh, the place where those Dials come from?" You ask, remembering buying some of those weird shells that can take in and replay sound.

You totally should go up take a look, is all you think.


The journey upwards isn't really anything special, for all that the crew makes a big deal of it, crying and screaming and holding onto anything nearby. Even Nico holds on to her hat as you go, despite that being absolutely no problem; you literally made sure to redirect gravity to make sure nobody can fall off or lose anything as the Grand Cruiser shoots up diagonally, lifted into the sky by its own weight.

The Crabkren is just holding onto it from below, providing you some extra leverage and even course correcting slightly now and then as you command it to nudge the ship a little here and there.

You of course are simply standing at the bow of the ship, casually posing with one foot on the railing as you make the ship look like the stock market index of Cryptic Solutions- going one way only and that one way's up.

Sure, it would've been perfectly possible to not bother making the 'tip' point 'forwards' as you went and just lift the ship up vertically instead, you just chose not to because this looks cooler.

And really, why bother being a pirate breaking all the laws if you can't do it looking awesome as you do it? Especially if you're talking about the laws of physics.

So yeah, the ascent isn't anything to speak of- until you get close enough to the clouds to confirm that there is, indeed, something fucking weird going on up there.

Nothing too obvious from below, but, well, you can literally see the blood signatures of living creatures flitting back and forth up there. Kinda reminiscent of what you normally see in the ocean, so…

When you break through the thick, actually quite massive cover of the clouds, the entire ship engulfed in thick white for several seconds, there's just a little more resistance than you're used to getting from water vapor- and then you're there, noting that the mortal crew couldn't actually breathe for a bit there, as if you actually went through a layer of water.

You didn't really try to breathe yourself, so you basically didn't even notice. Whoops.

But anyways, now you're here- in the midst of a white, cloudy expanse stretching as far as the eye can see, filling out everything in all directions. Off in the distance, you can even make out what looks kind of like a waterfall of clouds, and even the sky above you is filled with, you guessed it, more clouds in turn.

"Well… I think we've arrived somewhere," you note, letting the Grand Cruiser 'fall' onto the clouds; it doesn't sink in far, actually managing to remain buoyant in this environment.

"Figure that. An actual cloud-ocean, complete with stuff that evolved to live in it," Sarah agrees, standing right next to you. "Why even?"

"Well, there's a lot of weird shit around in this dimension," you shrug. "Not that strange to see something like this, right?"

Just then a giant octopus surfaces right next to the ship, a great torrent of air escaping its beak-like maw to produce an excessively aggressive whistling sound. In response, Kate shoots it, popping it like a balloon and making it flail helplessly as the air inside of it starts to push it into random directions.

"Alright, you might have me there," you admit after all. "This is a good case for 'why even'."


There's not really much to be done around here as far as you can make out, so for now you just direct the ship to move towards the cloud-water (cloudfall?) off in the distance. Along the way, some of the crew get it in their heads to try swimming in the clouds, which you allow- though only once they've each got some rope tied around them as lifelines, seeing their inability to fly on their own.

You are, after all, in the sky right now. It's a long way down from here, just saying.

While letting them have their fun, you also discover that there's more kinds of clouds to be discovered yet- some of them, rising out of the 'sea' below, are spongy, but hard enough to remain distinct from the water-like stuff, enough so a person can walk and lie down on them without issue.

You end up stealing a few of those, actually. they're remarkably light, so with some elbow grease you can stuff them into your shadow just fine, just as long as your shadow is large enough at the time; one way or another, having some samples for later can't hurt.

And if you do manage to make use of the things later, they'll make for some excellent padding for just about anything you can think of. A bed of literal clouds? Yes please! Not a real big deal in the grand scheme of things, but you think it'd be cool to have.

Eventually, you reach what seems like a bit more of a manmade structure, however, right at the base of the cloudy waterfall; a large, open gate in front of a spiky, vaguely star-shaped tunnel with a big sign saying 'Heaven's Gate' right up top. Complete with a bunch of sparkly decorations and all to really sell the look.

"Huh, guess we're actually going somewhere now," you say as the Grand Cruiser comes closer. "Who'd have thought, eh?"

"Did you come from here and did it hurt when you hit the earth?" Sarah asks, cuddling into your side as she butchers the already stupid, corny and just all around bad bit of flirting you never once tried to use yourself in your life.

Suffice it to say, you do not dignify it with a response. You also still reach for her back to stroke it once or twice, but that's that.

"Someone's coming," Taylor narrates. She's seeing the same thing you are, naturally, as the blood signature of a small, roughly humanoid-shaped creature comes out of a door in the walls of the tunnel, right in front of the nearest pair of pillars inside of this thing.

An old, positively ancient woman comes tottering onto the walkway at the side, her strained hair kept in two small buns at the top of her head. More importantly, at her back, from somewhere around the shoulder blades, two stunted little white wings jut out past her shoulders.

"Are you here for sightseeing?" She asks, pulling something out of a pocket on her old lady dress as she peers at you past the eyebrows slacking down over her actual eyes, her mouth surrounded by so many wrinkles it barely even looks human-like anymore. "Or… To fight?"

With that, she starts to take pictures of you, your crew and your ship using her little camera, the 'click, click' of the thing irritating your ears as much as the action itself irritates you. In fact, you aren't about to take that at all, you think.


Smiling pleasantly, you push down on the instinctual urge to murder this woman on principle and address her with words instead of one brand of violence or another. "I suppose we'd be here to fight then," you inform her, picking from the choices given instead of making your own for once. "Do we get a menu?"

"…" The old woman stares at you, her beady eyes as inscrutable as they are flat.

"Oh, I mean, do we get options for whom to fight in what order or is it a free-for-all?" You 'correct' yourself, gesturing mildly as you do. "Wouldn't want to mess up any systems the locals have for these kinds of things."

If they're gonna have a gatekeeper literally invite you to commit horrible atrocities against them, you aren't about to object, now are you?

"Actually, it doesn't matter why you're here," the old woman tells you. "If you want to go up, each person must pay a 1 billion extol entrance fee. That's the law."

"Ugh, border customs? Seriously?" To say you're already regretting not beginning this conversation with murder is an understatement.

"You can go even if you don't pay. It 's up to you," the ancient hag lets you know. "I'm not here to stop anyone. I just want to know your… intentions."

"Whelp. We're going up one way or another."

Just as you're about to confirm you fully intend to ignore the entrance fees involved in this obvious tourist trap kind of scam, a popping sound comes from below as a notably fast, large creature approaches the Grand Cruiser and takes hold of the Crabkren below it with two sizable pincers, lifting the whole thing up in one smooth motion.

"That's the White Sea's 'Speedy Shrimp'," the gatekeeper explains, not moving a single muscle.

And with that, the giant, mottled shrimp starts to run, carrying both your ship and your abomination up the waterfall and the winding flow of the cloud-stuff it's made of leading up above in a large spiral.

Well would you look at that, a border agent that just lets you go through without actually giving a fuck. That probably already makes you a criminal or something where you're going, but then, you usually are, so it's really no big change, is it?


It's a bit of a trek up the winding river of clouds that leads you into the upper reaches of the giant cloud construct you've managed to find yourself in, but with the help of the Speedy Shrimp it's really not too bad overall, you gotta say.

Aside from a few short conversations along the way, of course. "Hey captain, does this mean we're, like, going to heaven?" "That shriveled lady had wings, too, like an angel!" "Guess we're actually all dead and we've just been in limbo all along!"

"Hey! No existential dread on the ship!" Sarah reminds the crew, her golden hair flowing in the wind disturbed by your passage. "We made some clear rules about this!"

""Sorry, Miss Sarah!""

Yeah… You probably should snuff this out in the crib. "I can attest we aren't in any sort of afterlife," you announce, arms crossed as you await whatever will happen on the other end of Heaven's Gate. "Just think of whatever we'll find as some weird cloud-based island, 'kay?"

""Aye, capt'n!""

Good. That cleared up, you simply lean back and wait, silently raising an eyebrow at the crew when the next sign along the way comes close enough to be read by them. 'God's Land Skypiea' it says, but nobody raises any further concerns after your declaration.

Good. You'd hate having to reeducate anyone that decided to make an issue of this.

When you actually make it through the final loop of clouds and through what almost looks like a hole in the cloud layer above, the shrimp rushing straight upwards and all but throwing the Crabkren, and the Grand Cruiser along with it, out into what awaits beyond, the sight awaiting you… moderately breathtaking, you suppose.

Lit up by the glow of the sun above, still so distant yet much closer than normal on the surface of the planet, a gently roiling 'sea' of clouds is here, too, except it is also covered by gently drifting 'normal' clouds, their vapor caressing the atmosphere and concealing some directions from easy view. Not far from you, an actual island 'swims' in this terrain, actual plant life growing on it in the form of a variety of tropical-looking vegetation and even palm trees, and large man-made structures can be seen all over parts of it.

Perhaps most importantly, large 'streets' and bridges made of clouds lead away from the island, spiral-like structures made of similar material (though their surface structure is quite different) acting as railing for the things. Very clearly, you're looking at a civilization that thrives by manipulating the clouds themselves, everything you've seen here so far making a lot more sense than before now.

If you were still affected by the sunlight, personally, you'd probably hate it here, what with how much of it there is in all directions, the sun's direct attention nigh impossible to evade for long. As it is, though, you simply determine that you'll have to keep the girls down in the cabins made specially to keep out sunlight unless absolutely necessary while you explore the whole new place opened up for your exploration.


Well then, much as you'd love to go and have a little mini-vacation on this cloudy beach, you're kinda sure the whole, well, not paying the entrance fee thing is probably going to have some consequences at some point if you just go and pretend you're a normal tourist. Also, hiding most of the crew amongst the populace would be kind of a pain if, as you suspect, having wings is the normal and expected thing to do around here.

Those things totally are some regressed version of actual wings, by the way. You didn't have the opportunity to do any in-depth analysis yet, but even a brief glance at the old woman earlier confirmed as much using Yoshi's power.

Speaking of, your most trustworthy borderline sane soul around is currently having one apoplectic fit after another while he's trying to talk some sense into one Father Wales. Good luck and more strength to him, because you for one wouldn't have the patience to discuss matters of faith with a self-anointed prophet that actually has legit prophetic powers going for him.

How else did he figure out you'd be doing some godlike shit before you ever did? Say what you will about Wales, but his mad ramblings and insane cult behavior have all been vindicated of late.

But never mind that side of your business, you've decided, after about two seconds of careful introspection, that you may as well avoid the inevitable drama of dealing with whatever law enforcement they probably have around here and just go explore a bit first and foremost.

You can always get back to discussing the textbook definition of genocide with the natives later on but for now, well, adventure awaits!

"Bold choice, to sail in the opposite direction of the nearest sign of civilization," Nico comments as you set the course, handling the steering wheel (mostly for show, the Grand Cruiser can steer itself just fine).

"Well, we can always go back there, but for now I'm more interested in getting the lay of the land ourselves," you shrug, looking over the admittedly majestic sight of this cloudy ocean. "Any preferences on what to look for?"

"…Any ancient ruins would be preferable," she says, all noncommittal. And obviously not particularly believing you can just pull any of those out your ass.

Joke's on her though as you pull a compass out of a pocket, one of a handful you keep inside your shadow just for occasions like this one. "Find me the nearest ancient ruins," you intone, both yourself and your newest traitorous lieutenant whose inevitable betrayal (or lack thereof) you already await watching as the needle shifts, shivering once or twice.

And then it points straight in one direction and one direction only. Moving the compass left and right a little, you note as the direction shifts accordingly, essentially doing a poor man's job of triangulating the approximate distance and location involved relative to your own.

Then you also tilt the thing, because it's not a three-dimensional compass like you'd prefer using for this if it wasn't too much of a pain to prepare these kinds of things. You can make the basic bitch model of compass work just fine, see?

Anyways, having confirmed those ruins you're looking for now are somewhere in the approximate height range you're in right now as well, you nod, satisfied. "Guess you'll get your wish, then. Setting a new course everyone!"

Off you go to see what this place hides for you to find.


Bounty Update: Leader of the Black Dead Sea Pirates, Wanted Dead or Alive

Crimes: Regicide, Murder, Resistance against World Government Members, Battery, Foul Language, Coffee Endangerment, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Misuse of World Government Property, Murder of Warlord of the Seas Crocodile, Crimes against Member Nations, Denial of World Government Authority, Being Too Handsome

Amount: 300,000,000 Beri


You know, there's a lot of those little things that you don't really bother with in regards to sailing. Your ship can steer itself, it gets its own propulsion, it even reacts to changes in the environment by itself and just all around brings you to wherever you want to go with minimal fuss.

The crew rarely needs to do anything along the way, hence the whole… keeping them busy otherwise you sometimes turn into a way to kill time, whispering inside their heads while you sleep. That's not to say they can't do anything to help, just that it's not really necessary.

"Land in sight! Land in sight!"

That didn't stop you from issuing telescopes to anyone interested and letting them keep lookouts. Sure, your naked eye can see farther than the telescopes' magnification allows, but that way you don't need to pay much attention yourself for the most part.

Plus, you'd notice just about anything actually coming close to the ship through your other senses anyways, so there's barely any issue you can find with this approach.

"Looks pretty overgrown, huh?" You comment as you scan the 'land' in question, really another island sticking out of the clouds like a sore thumb. Enormous trees grow out of a chunk of actual soil, creeping plants draped across some of them, a gigantic forest stretching out before you just like that. "Let's see if we can't find anything interesting in there."

"What about the others?" Robin asks, throwing a glance at the door below deck and leading straight to your cabin.

"Oh, they'll be around to protect the ship, but otherwise mostly taking some time off," you wave her off. "Don't worry about them, they'll help if we need it. For now, let's go explore, just the two of us."

"Really, just us two?"

"Yup!" The sound of splintering wood echoes from below deck. "Let's get going before Sarah breaks anything important!"

"Illegal trespassers have entered the country."

"Again? How many does that make?"

"We received the message from Amazon. Watch out for a particularly handsome man."