The Heroes of Aeseganora: Part 1 - The Oca-Tree

The Calico Sword - Part II

"A sword? Really?" Barnacles almost laughed as Felix handed Kwazii a glossy and metallic sword.

"That's one of the missing treasures?" Kwazii asked, as he closely examined the sword.

They were standing in the ship's store, which was packed with things like old armour, jewellery and tarnished musical instruments. Felix was sitting on a stool so he could let Archie tend to his cut paw.

"You're lucky you haven't damaged the nerves in your paw, Barnacles," Archie said, looking at Barnacles as he tightly bandaged Felix's paw. "That was a really stupid thing to do."

"Well, it made him let go, didn't it?" Kwazii said, quickly coming to his captain's defence.

"As if our Captain was going to tear apart two out-of-towners like you two," Archie snorted. "He's a big softie most of the time, our Felix. He's had two loving mums to raise him well and to chop the rough edges off of him. He might seem like a rough-tough tomcat, but he's like a baby kitten."

Barnacles and Kwazii giggled, and Felix stood up as he blushed as a means to say Oh, will you behave, Archie? But he was smiling.

"Hey, come along with me, and I'll get us some drinks!" Archie suggested, beginning to lead the way.

****************

All four of them were sitting in the ship's galley, taking small sips of seaweed juice (not the usual rum) from wooden cups. Once Archie had treated Felix's paw, it wasn't as bad as it had looked before. The blood was cleaned off, and it had been proven that he still had the feeling in his toe beans, before it was finished off with the bandage.

Of course, it made it difficult for him to hold his cup, but it was better than nothing.

"What did Ollum feed you in Ocalihalla?" Felix asked, as Archie closed the door to the galley. "You're gonna need your strength for a mission of this magnitude."

"How?" Kwazii asked.

Felix put his cup of juice down and cleared his throat.

"Fixing the magic imbalance in Aeseganora is going to be very, very dangerous," Felix said. "And finding the seven treasures to restore the Oca-Tree will be a small drop in the bucket. When the Tree is restored, as Ollum will have already told you, it will be able to generate energy for Aeseganora again. However, the unknown cause of the crisis will cause said energy to leak out of the universe, like water through a sieve."

"Is it leaking too fast for it to be replaced?" Barnacles asked, his eyes narrowing.

"I'm not exactly sure," Felix replied. "The only way to tell is when the Oca-Tree starts generating energy again."

"What else has to be done for the threat to be found and stopped?" Kwazii asked, breaking a brief silence.

"Well, you may not have been told this," Archie said, finishing his cup of juice. "But the treasures you're all finding have a connection to you."

Barnacles and Kwazii didn't understand what Archie was meaning.

"Those treasures you were sent out to find are personally connected to all of you," Felix said. "Within their physical forms, they hold the spirits of your ancestors - the Heroes of Aeseganora."

The Heroes of Aeseganora? Barnacles and Kwazii's first thought of that title was of the portraits of the heroic figures they saw in Vivi and Gary's hideout earlier.

Suddenly, what Felix had just told them had immediately started to make sense. They remembered the fact that the portraits looked so much like the crew, and what Ollum told them all before they were sent out across Aeseganora, about them being the team of heroes he read about in the ancient oracle.