"We have to turn back!" shouted one of the White Flags pirates. His name was Marko, and the rest of the crew treated him as their leader, and apparently representative. Except for Herrman and the portsmiths, of course.

"We'll be fine," Emelia assured him. "Mast-Chewer isn't going to attack us."

"Maybe we should just fly there and leave the ship here," Adam suggested, not wanting to do anything to turn away their hard-earned crew. A mutiny, after all that'd happened, was the last thing they wanted.

Emelia frowned. He noticed in her expression that she didn't really believe the thing she'd just said, and she clearly wanted the giant airship as back-up in case the Slug Dragon didn't like them strolling into its lair with its stolen egg.

But then she must've had the same thought as Adam.

"I want all of you ready on the ballistae in case we have to hurry back," Emelia told Marko.

"Yes, ma'am."

The pirate went to spread the word, yelling loudly to catch everyone's attention. Within a minute, all of the ballistae were manned and aiming towards the ominous island in the distance. Even the Ship-Breaker was loaded. After all, they were dealing with a Slug Dragon here.

Adam split two of his barriers with the acolyte's tome and shaped the unsplit one into a sled to transport them.

Emelia had a grim look on her face as she got on behind him and the pessimism slowly crept in on him.

So much for this being a simple egg delivery…

Since their airship was pointed right at the cluster of islands in front of them, they soared above the heads of their crew as they flew from the helm and towards Mast-Chewer's nest.

Adam hadn't known what to expect of the place, but he wasn't surprised to find that the Slug Dragon had made its nest on a fortress island much like Iffen. The island had apparently been an old outpost for the Golden Fortress, and it was fortified to the extreme, with large dark stone blocks reinforced with metal and portholes pointing away from it in every direction, though the ballistae that might once have been hidden behind them were long gone.

The nest was at the centre of a cluster of six islands, which were all covered in lush forests. There was a large stone tower on each of the islands, and these too had once clearly been armed to the teeth. When the Golden Fortress had up and left, presumably at the time that Mast-Chewer had decided to move in, they'd taken all their weaponry with them. Still, it would be easy enough for anyone to move in and bring their own artillery, and for a faction like the Whale Eaters, taking down the Slug Dragon squatter had clearly been more than just some flight of fancy. After all, capturing the cluster of fortified islands would be quite a strategic move, especially since the headquarters of the Drakes was relatively close.

Emelia clutched the egg in her arms, protecting it with her body. Adam's four split barriers orbited them like shields, since he had no idea what to expect.

"Where exactly do we go?" he asked her.

"Into the stronghold," she replied. "I just have to return this to the nest."

Since it was Emelia's personal quest, he didn't have anything to go by at all, which was kind of unnerving. The fact that it wasn't shared with party members felt weird. But it was no doubt by design, since not knowing made it easy to create rifts between Players.

The barrier took them over the fortified wall, and the sight of what lay within was enough to make Adam instinctively stop them mid-air.

The entire place was covered in silk, like that of a spider, and in the centre of it all was a spot with hundreds of other eggs like the one Emelia was holding, although they were smaller. Below the dense carpet of silk were buildings and houses, much like in Iffenguard, but they were clearly beyond saving, since many of the silk threads pierced the structures.

"Put it in the middle with the rest, and then we're getting the fuck out of here," Adam whispered to Emelia as he continued floating them towards the middle of Mast-Chewer's Nest.

"Where's the dragon?" she muttered, looking about.

Adam kept them well above the silk-covered ground and buildings, worried that disturbing it would somehow summon the monster that called this place home.

"Hurry," he told Emelia, after they'd stopped above the centre and he'd lowered the barrier down low enough that she could place the egg without damaging it.

The moment she set the egg down in the middle of all the other eggs, the entire nest started to vibrate.

Oh shit!

Adam immediately pulled the barrier up and sent it hurtling back towards their airship.

"Look!" Emelia shouted into his ear, and he turned his head back.

Two enormous crimson hands reached up over the far edge of the fortress island, quickly pulling a massive shape up from below. Plates like volcanic rock floating on lava covered the red Slug Dragon as more and more of its body came into view.

It must've been waiting underneath the island!

Christ, it's almost as big as Iffen!

Two pairs of enormous wings flapped to lift the last of Mast-Chewer up onto the top of the island, and its eyeless and mostly featureless head shifted around in the air, as though trying to sniff out their location. It had six arms supporting its thick plate-covered body and a long tail tipped with what looked like a crude sword, swishing around behind it.

Then it must've locked onto them as they were almost halfway across the cluster of islands, because it suddenly screamed.

A shockwave sliced through the golden clouds and made all the trees beneath them sway violently.

Then Adam's spell cut out, vanishing in an instant.

"Oh, f­—!"

[Warning! Mana at 0%. Overconsumption triggered!]

[You have been afflicted with Mana Exhaustion. Stamina reduced to 0% and all recovery rates lowered by 90% for the next 20 seconds.]

Adam passed out before he could even comprehend what had happened.

Wind fluttered his hair while a woman's voice screamed into his ear, though he could barely make out what the words were.

"—iers now!"

He was spinning and tumbling with a heavy weight wrapped around him.

It felt as if he was forgetting something important.

"Summon your barriers!!" Emelia screamed, finally breaking through to him.

Adam gasped as he saw the island that rushed up to meet them. It was covered in bones and ancient shipwrecks, and the ground was a writhing carpet of fat dark-blue lamprey eels feasting on the remains. The third eye of his necklace was spinning around on a different axis than his body, and it was making it impossible to concentrate.

But he summoned his three barriers and quickly commanded them to match their speed and catch them.

If not for Alepheria's Mandate, they would've hit the ground and exploded like meat balloons.

However, the barriers caught them, and he was able to slowly bring their fall to a complete stop.

Only five metres below, the eels swept their disgusting heads around, sensing Adam and Emelia above.

"Why didn't you use your wingsuit!?" he immediately scolded her.

"All of our Relics were put on a 30-second cooldown by that scream," she replied. "And by the time I could use it, I was already holding on to you, so it was impossible."

"You should've just let me drop," he told her. "I still have my Cheat Death."

"No!" she said forcefully. "I'm not going to let you die just to save myself!"

"It wouldn't be permanently," he replied.

"Don't ever say that again!" she shouted at him.

Adam sighed. "Sorry."

He looked around. The lamprey-covered shipyard of death extended out as far as he could see in every direction.

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"Where the fuck are we?"

"The bottom of the Floating Sea," she replied.

"This isn't an island?"

"No. This is the floor of the world."

Adam looked up.

There were no clouds at all for at least half a kilometre, if not more, and he couldn't see a single island above them.

Fuck…

"We've gotta get back to our ship," Emelia said. "I had no idea Mast-Chewer had a power like that, but she may not have attacked our ship. If she did, then we have to get back there immediately."

"What about your quest?"

"It's done," she replied. "Completed as soon as I delivered the egg."

Adam started moving their barrier up into the sky and away from the endless carpet of fucked-up eels.

"If we hadn't used my spell as transportation, we would've been fine, wouldn't we?" he asked.

"It was an unforeseen edge-case."

"Next time I'll make sure to fly above the islands if possible."

"We definitely would've died if you'd done that," she pointed out.

"Oh…"

"I think that move was simply meant to force everyone to not attack when the Slug Dragon showed up, but against someone flying atop a spell it was way worse."

"I wonder why it immediately exhausted all my Mana," he muttered.

"It might have had a Mana penalty for every active spell it destroyed."

"And since I had five, I was fucked…"

"Probably," she said. "I've never heard of this before to be honest. But as I've said countless times, the Slug Dragons are too dangerous to take on."

"I believe you now," he replied.

It took nearly 15 minutes to just fly all the way back up to where they'd come from, even though they'd fallen that distance in a third of the time.

Thankfully, Mast-Chewer had not left its nest, and it seemed that the pirates aboard the Golden Slug hadn't had to fire a single bolt.

"So much for a simple egg delivery," Adam muttered as they landed back on the deck of their ship.

"Hopefully your quest will be easier," Emelia replied.

They assured their crew that they were fine and then Adam brought out Captain Fallow's Compass, sending them south-east.

They ran across a small fleet of four airships belonging to the Drakes soon after leaving the cluster of islands ruled over by Mast-Chewer. One of the ships was a medium class, but the rest were small, though it didn't stop them from quickly lining up for a fight. Their ships were shaped to mimic the large Slug Dragon, with the fins turned into wings, a tail sprouting from the rudders, the bowsprit turned into a neck and head, clawed arms jutting out from the underside, and the shape of the deck and helm warped to resemble a moving body.

Although they were clearly outmatched, the Drakes looked serious about fighting, so Emelia had Marko present their crew on the deck to show off their attire marking them as White Flags. After that it didn't take long for the medium ship to approach them, and the captain of the Drakes stepped onto their ship.

He wore the Drake Wing Relic like Emelia and had dyed his hair and beard a deep red. The rest of his attire was made from a mix of the shape-shifting flesh that Slug Dragons possessed, and the dark volcanic rock plates that Mast-Chewer had on its body. It was clearly gifted to him by the dragon, no doubt as a sign of their friendship. He also had a massive gauntlet on his right hand, which was tipped with black claws.

"Once we heard her roar, we thought for sure y'all had come to attack!" the man said with a booming and cheerful voice.

"We were only delivering an egg that had been stolen from her nest," Emelia explained.

The captain clapped her on the back with his gauntleted hand and laughed. To her credit, she didn't stumble from the impact.

"I could use folks like y'all," he replied. "We've got a feral dragon on our hands, and we don't have the weapons to take it down ourselves. It would also be dangerous to rely on Mast-Chewer to do it."

"A feral dragon?" Adam asked. "What's that?"

"It happens sometimes," the captain said, his voice darkening. "Down below, at the depths of the Floating Sea, the parasites live. They thrive on whalefalls and sunken airships. Rarely, very rarely, one of those parasites finds its way up here and burrows into a Slugwhale. Once inside, they force whales to evolve into dragons, but they never turn out right. They become ravenous evil things, always on the lookout for something to devour and attacking everything they run across indiscriminately."

< < Quest Unlocked > >

< Tainted Dragon >

< Aid the captain of the Drakes in defeating the feral Slug Dragon >

"We are on our way to somewhere else," Emelia told the captain, "but we will return once we have time and aid you with this beast."

He clapped her on the back again. "I knew I could count on y'all!"

Then he and his men quickly returned to their airship and pulled away, allowing the Golden Slug to continue its journey towards Adam's quest.

"Is this it?" Adam asked, confused.

In front of them, where the compass pointed, was a tiny round island with a single palm tree, golden sand that steadily trickled off the edge, and a white beach chair pointed off into the horizon of golden clouds.

"It has to be, right?" Emelia responded.

"But there's no one there," he said.

"Let's just go check."

"Maybe the compass is a trap too," Adam muttered as they got onto his barrier and floated over to the island.

By now, their crew knew to be ready at the ballistae when they left the ship, and Adam thought it was kind of reassuring to have an entire broadside of artillery to back them up in case it really was a trap they were going towards.

The moment they stepped off the barrier and onto the sand of the tiny island, something weird happened.

Adam could've sworn his whole body froze mid-step, as though time paused for a fraction of a second.

He turned to look at Emelia to ask, "Did you feel that?" But before the words could leave his mouth, she said, "There's someone in the chair."

Adam followed her gaze and saw that she was right.

But it was empty just a moment ago…

Instead of waiting for them to come to him, the figure got up from the lounge chair and stretched his body.

He didn't look human.

The top of his head had a very wide-brimmed hat with a small dome in the middle, and it was pure white. As was most of his lanky body. Except for his hands and face, where dark patterns swirled, like a trippy Rorschach inkblot, except there was no symmetry to it. It was just random noise.

"Tada. You have found me."

Emelia stiffened. "I know who this is. The Gift-Giving Stranger. That's what Arturo called him."

The swirling face switched between them repeatedly in quick succession.

"Who is it going to be?" he asked, his voice weird and echoey. "You?" he asked, looking at Adam. "Or maybe you?" he continued, inclining his head to Emelia.

"My compass sent us to you," Adam said, dumbfounded.

"Powerful little thing," the Stranger spat, sounding disgusted. Then his cheerful tone returned. "So, what will it be?"

"You give gifts?" Adam asked.

"You heard the lady. Chop-chop. I am busy."

As always, Adam had a lot of questions, but he figured the compass sent him here since it was the most expedient way to complete his quest.

"I am trying to find Alepheria. She must've escaped into this world."

The Stranger pressed the thumb of his right hand against his lower lip. It was hard to tell it was there, since the patterns swirled around and obfuscated any details his face had.

Then he pulled his hand away from his face and snapped his fingers.

A crisp rolled-up bone-white parchment scroll appeared in his hand, nearly identical to Captain Drew's map.

"There you go," he said and handed it to Adam.

He lowered his head and wide-brimmed hat slightly in a bow. "Good luck!"

Adam blinked and the figure was gone.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked.

"An enigma," Emelia said. "When we were in the Singing City, Arturo told me about the Gift-Giving Stranger. He told me how to find him, but when I went to the place in my last loop, he wasn't there, although there was a folded piece of paper left behind. It looked like a unicorn."

"And what, he just randomly shows up and gives things?" Adam asked.

Emelia nodded.

"That makes no sense. Why would they have someone like that in the Trials?"

"I don't think he's specifically a part of the Trials," Emelia said. "Although Arturo warned me to not ask him for something that the rules of the Trials would not allow, so I don't think he's entirely independent either."

"He must be working on behalf of some Absolute," Adam said. "Like how Skǫll is the envoy of Nwetrou."

"What does the map show?" she asked.

Adam unfurled it, but, instead of a drawing like he'd expected, there were just three words: 'Below Windtop Cove'

It had taken them three hours to sail back to the White Flags settlement and now they were flying down below it atop Adam's barrier.

"I think we should do the Golden Map after this," Emelia said.

"What about the feral dragon quest? Do you want to wait to do that until tomorrow?"

"Yeah. We need to get going on the main objective before it's too late, and we should probably do a drive-by of some islands to rack up kills for the Extermination bonus. We only need 60% of all enemies killed, and the majority of the actual enemies in the Stage are the man-eaters and Fallow's Fallen pirates. All the other factions don't actually count for that one, since they're not outright hostile. Getting the All Objectives bonus and the Safe Haven bonus will be easy enough, but we have to hunt down an elusive pirate to get another secret weapon, and I'm guessing the last secret Relic I'm missing comes from whatever the Golden Map leads to. Oh, and Plunderer should be easy enough to get as well if we just hit up a bunch of islands while eradicating man-eaters."

"That's a lot to do in one-and-a-half days," Adam replied.

"We've wasted quite a lot of time just travelling," she said. "But that's my fault, since I decided we should get the Golden Slug. As I said, it's best to do that the last day. Plus, if our group hadn't split up, then we could've made an effective plan. I should've just told Maalia, Ruimin, and Leon all of that up-front… I took too long to explain everything, but seeing Riccardo like that at the start really threw me off."

"It's okay," Adam said.

Emelia sighed. "Maybe the reason why those two always kill each other in my Stage Nine is because I don't know how to get people to trust me. I just don't have what you have," she admitted.

"You can't be expected to perfect everything," he told her. "And besides, I fucked up the way things panned out in this universe by showing up like I did."

"There are too many moving pieces for anyone to control all of the outcomes," she said, dismissing his interference as the root cause. "I'm not aiming for perfection, but I know I fucked up and bear part of the blame for things turning out the way they did."

Trying to control everything must be why Mórrígan went crazy, Adam mused.

Suddenly they left the cloud layer as the barrier brought them deeper below Windtop Cove.

The voracious eels writhed at the bottom of the Floating Sea way down there, begging them to come closer.

Unlike the first time they'd come here, there was an actual structure that the omnivorous eels avoided. It was shaped like a well, with a dark hole seemingly leading even deeper than the floor of the world.

As Adam brought them towards it, Emelia said, "The way you summon the Cloud Leviathan is by capturing one of those eels and taking it to a Slug Dragon. It'll burrow inside and then force it to evolve, just like the Drakes' captain said. Except when a Slug Dragon evolves it becomes a monster of insane proportions."

"Why are you telling me this?" Adam asked.

"I thought you'd want to know. I guess it's just that talking about Ruimin and the others reminded me of her insane quest. Now that you've seen two Slug Dragons, you must understand that, right?"

"It's not me you need to convince," he told her.

Emelia sighed. "I know."

"I think you should just try to show people what you're warning them against, instead of hoping they'll trust your word on its own," he said. "Also, your descriptions kind of suck."

"They do not!" she replied defensively.

Adam laughed. "At no point did you mention that the dragons were the size of a small town! You just said they were 'dangerous'."

"So, what!? Should I draw instead!?" she retorted, clearly taking his criticism much more personal than he'd intended.

Adam laughed again and was about to reply, but then their barrier reached the edge of the well. A pop-up interrupted his train of thought. Nearby the eels swished back and forth to try and reach them.

< < Patron Quest Updated > >

< The Tome Keeper >

< Explore the depths of the painted world for signs of Alepheria. >

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