Celestria Chronicles

BLACK MARINER ON THE LINE - 3

The story briefly halted as Ystras handled a couple from the neighboring village, who went to sit out on the sands with their glasses of Green Whine, which gave Verlisa time to drain a good half of her Black Mariner. The two lovers were virtually at the bottom of theirs, and proceeding to begin to make out rather viciously before their third companion reminded them that they were in a public place. Ystras didn't mind, they were young and in love, that's what they did so who was he to stop them?  He resettled and motioned for Verlisa to continue her story.

'I'm not the biggest fan of Space-Portal warps anyway, but this one was particularly bad. You know when you can look out and see all the places you're passing whizz past? Well our first clue that we weren't heading anywhere particularly nice was the obvious fact that what was hurtling past us looked an awful lot like corpses. And ghosts. And pretty much anything related to death that you can think of. I remember soaring through the warp thinking 'I can tell we're heading to one of the asteroids in the haunted cluster all right.' It was like someone had designed the Space-Portal warp to ward off anyone entering towards it.

          Well we exit the other side and we're in a dark cavern. It's lit by flaming torches on either sides of the walls, but the whole place is thick with dust. Probably something in the torches themselves to keep them going for a long time, because nothing had been down there in years, save for a single set of footprints going out and then back to the portal again. Must have been the guy who told us about the place, because it can't have been anyone else, that's for sure.

          So there we are, meant to be resting from researching prices for an educational visit to Celestria, and we are standing inside one of the asteroids in the Abyssal Cluster. I think all of us were too scared and shocked to say anything, because if either of these two did say anything, I didn't hear it. The atmosphere there was messed up, I can tell you. It felt like it was your grave, fifty years after you had died. It was spooky, I felt chills go all the way from my center eye to both strands of my tail, but I also felt at home. It was peculiar, from a very unsettling point of view. I decided to venture out and find the damn medallion and get out of there as quickly as possible.

          So inwards into the cavern we ventured, cold and shivering from the temperature and the nerves of being there in the first place. The torches lit our way fairly well, and pretty soon we began seeing plaques upon the walls. A few names, some places, along with a couple of rusted and useless swords upon the walls. We reasoned that the place must have belonged to a fairly primitive civilisation that Celestria had just begun to trade with before something went off, and Celestria never went there again. The plaques and corroded and the names are hardly visible. Someone 'hermit' I think was one of them. Anyway, we kept walking, and eventually the place opened up into a small room.

          The entire room was metal, like proper industrial. Generators at the side, a few hover-boards here and there, I think there was an XF-31 Gamma on the floor as well, so really old stuff. Not caveman-old, but not that far off. And lying there in the dust in the center was a medallion. I knew instantly that it was what we were looking for, and I think Semoni gave a small gasp when she saw it.

'That's it!' she says, and rushes towards it. Greylarc follows on after her and picks it up. I walk after them and no word of a lie, I see an old woman in the corner. Human woman, white as a sheet, with a man in black. They're sitting on the floor with a cup in their hand. The woman looks me dead in the eye and I feel like the world collapses around me.  The other two rush back to me and the man thumps the cup onto the table. I swear I heard a small rattle inside, and then the whole pace begins to rumble. These two look around and I just yell 'Let's get the hells out of here'.

          So there we are, running through an abandoned asteroid save for an old woman and a man cloaked in black playing dice in the corner and when we get back to the door it's closed and the ceiling is starting to collapse in on us. There are chunks of rock and debris falling everywhere, and I've got several bruises on my back from them. I run up and whack the thing in the middle and it lights up like before. This time there's no second thoughts. It opens up and we pile into that thing, blinded by the flashes or not.

          Something must have hit the system at the other end though, because halfway back the whole warp changes from its usual warp blue to a demonic red, and suddenly we're flying downwards. Now if you know Space-Portal warps at all, you would know that you always go horizontally, and never vertically. My internal organs are trying to break out through my mouth and my tail is trying to wrap itself around my neck because it's out of control completely.

We must have been going down for at least a minute or so before the whole thing goes green and we're crashing through foliage. Whack, bam and crash, I about broke my arm. Greylarc's tail almost snapped in half, poor girl. Luckily we all ended up in a soft pile of earth, so the landing wasn't too bad. I look around and we all made it, with no idea of where the hell we were.

'What the hell happened?' Semoni asks, and Greylarc just shakes her head and kisses her forehead.

'I don't know but I'm glad you made it. I don't know what I would have done without you my love.' So they start making out and I'm being proactive, brushing myself off and suddenly I remember something.

'Hey Greylarc, you got the medallion?' She goes for air and looks at me. Reaching down her top between her cleavage she pulls out the blue medallion, with JZ on the face of it. They get up and I take the medallion, putting it in my pocket.

'Where are we? This isn't that Celestrian warehouse' Semoni says.

'Don't know, but let's go find out' I said.

So we begin to carve our way through this dense undergrowth and there's a gap in the sky. I look up and it's sunset, or rightly, suns-set. I follow them out of the forest and come across a beach. It's beautiful, with the sand nice and warm beneath my paws. I get onto all sixes and purr my lungs out, because I recognised where we were from the landscapes. We were on Crorst, and couldn't have had better luck of a landing place.

The three of us roll around in the sand for a few minutes, trying to get over what has happened to us, when I spy something out of the corner of my centre eye. A small hut, made of wood. I get up and look over to it.

'You two, didn't that guy owe us a Black Mariner?' They look up from their embrace, and Semoni sheepishly takes her hand from out of Greylarc's underwear. We stagger over to the bar, and where is it we ended up at?' Verlisa paused for dramatic effect. 'Why, here of course.'