"Okay, so does anyone know how to steer one of these things?"
The small airship was launched, with three people in tow. Cassandra, Julian, and Roxanne. The axe was safely tucked away in the common room alongside the fixed-up bear corpse.
"I just kind of assumed you knew how to steer." Julian replied to Cassandra while sipping his green tea, looking over the controls. In the ship were several buttons that they couldn't tell the use for.
"I was the lookout." Cassandra replied to Julian at the helm. "I thought it'd be easier than this."
"Doesn't it take a year to learn to fly a skyship?"
"That's besides the point!"
"Okay, one flight shouldn't be too hard unless we get invaded." Julian mumbled, taking a sheet of paper and a pen. "So, should we write what the buttons do?"
"Press one and see what happens." Cassandra replied.
Julian did as obliged, and the ship started falling from the sky. Another press of the button and the ship stopped.
"Okay, that one stalls the engine." Julian mumbled calmly, writing that on the back of the paper.
"What are you two doing?"
Roxanne came to the cockpit with the smell of green tea emanating off her. "Are we being invaded?"
"Nah, we're just trying to figure out what everything does." Cassandra replied casually. "You have any ideas?"
"Is there not an instruction manual? I'm pretty sure you need to have one to be allowed to take off."
"She's right." Julian nodded. "There should probably be one here somewhere."
"Julian." Roxanne sighed, taking the paper away from him. "You're writing on it."
Julian turned the paper over, and on it was the instruction manual for an 3EL skyship.
"This is why you're important." He said with a supportive thumbs-up, flicking through the manual.
"Hey, which button is it to suspend the ship?" Cassandra asked. "We've got a life signal from below. Pretty big one, too."
"Wait, from below?" Roxanne asked. "Is that a new ship type?"
"Nah." Cassandra smiled as Julian stopped the ship. "Just step outside, you'll wanna see this."
The three stepped out onto the deck of the boat, looking out over the sea of clouds, the Saoloro grand just in reach.
It shot out of the sky like a bullet. It's slender blue serpent body was at least three times as long as the skyship they were sailing on. It spread out its wings to hang in the air for a brief second, clouds hanging off its lizard-like face like an elegant moustache. Another dragon shot out from beneath the clouds. This one was yellow with more slender claws, and a green spot on it's back. The yellow dragon followed suit and spread it's wings next to the blue dragon. The green spot on the yellow dragon jumped off the back of the other one and spread its wings to fly in the air, flying between the two dragons. It tried doing an aerial flip but ended up awkwardly tumbling through the air onto the blue dragon. After about a minute, it sleepily went onto the head of the blue dragon, and the dragon family fell back beneath the clouds.
"You never get tired of dragons." Cassandra whispered, wiping a tear from her eye.
"So was that a family?" Roxanne asked.
"Pretty sure it was." Cassandra replied. "Can't say I've seen that before."
"That'll be me one day." Roxanne whispered to herself.
"What, a dragon?" Julian asked.
"A family, dumbass."
But once the clouds shifted like the dragons never existed, Cassandra got a call.
"Hey, is this Cassandra Torres?" The voice asked. It sounded younger than Rory.
"Yeah. Who's this?"
"Dragon didn't get you, cool. Look, there's been a change of plans. My name's Dermot, and I'll be the one looking after you while you're here. That okay?"
"Sounds fine. We'll only be a couple minutes anyway." Cassandra nodded.
A couple minutes passed, and Cassandra landed in the top deck for the Saoloro grand. It was a small deck with vines growing over the walls. The three stepped out and past the miniscule fleet of airships.
"Hey, I'm going to need a name?" A man clad in a simple light green uniform asked.
"Cassandra and Julian Torres. As well as Roxanne."
"Just Roxanne?" He asked.
"Roxanne…Rocks?" Roxanne replied. "Sorry, I don't have an official surname."
"Well, we are expecting the two of you." The man nodded. "And I suppose you can come over if it's fine with her."
"Oh, thanks."
"No problem." The man replied, taking a flip phone out and making a call.
"Dermot? Yeah, they're here. Already? Didn't you call them a couple minutes ago? You can't be that far away. Okay, I'll let them know."
The man sighed and closed his phone. "He's running some errands. He'll be a little later than expected. But he told me you can take whatever from the market street up the path and he'll pay for it."
With that permission granted, the trio went out to look over Saoloro. The outside of the ship was about as green as everyone said it would be, with animals casually grazing by several small farms dotted throughout the horizon, with a stone wall lining the outside of the grand to prevent anything falling off. The three went up the stone path and crossed a short bridge to the market street. It was several buildings seemingly stacked on top of each other in a chaotic order, to the point a map was needed to figure out where anything was.
"Well, I think the berry beast emporium would be the best start." Julian said to the others. "Seeing as we're in the fruit capital of the world."
They made their way to the berry beast on the second layer. It looked like any other modern store you'd see anywhere else. The interior was simply a place with both a fridge and a slushie machine inside, only the slushie machine took up an entire wall and had twelve different flavours to its name.
"Julian, have you ever seen this?" Cassandra yelled out. "They have Witburn flavour! I don't even know what that is!"
"It's a fruit grown in fightston." The scrawny young man behind the counter explained. "It's basically used as an ingredient to help fighters bulk up in a healthy way. Taste wise, it's like a sweet yogurt…but as a fruit."
"And we can put that in a slushie?" Cassandra yelled out.
"You can put any fruit in a slushie if you try hard enough. Heck, you can get the ultra-berry supreme for 120 luxa."
"120 luxa?" Julian asked. "That seems expensive for a slushy."
"Hey, if it's twelve times the fruit it's twelve times the price." The man shrugged.
"Who's paying 10 luxa for a slushy?" Roxanne asked. "I thought they were like, 3 luxa max."
"I mean, you are at the source for almost all of it. Super fresh. Besides, you get a bigger cup to fit everything in."
He pulled a cup out from his counter, around the size of his head. Cassandra looked at it, then towards Julian.
"We can share it." She whispered.
"Fine." Julian nodded. "Besides, I wanna know what this thing tastes like."
"Alright, that'll be 120 luxa." The clerk said casually.
"Can I make that 123?" Roxanne asked with a red can in her hand. "And we were told that Dermot would pay for it."
"Yeah, sure."
The three of them went back down the street when Cassandra took the first sip of her slushy. The fruits elegantly danced along her tongue and left a heavenly aftertaste as the icy liquid went down her throat.
"This is…pure heaven." She muttered after a few seconds, her eyes gleaming at the icy concoction in front of her.
"Does it remind you of anything?" Julian asked.
"Nope. This is just the best thing I ever tasted."
Julian dipped the wooden straw he got from the store into the slushy. His eye lit up the same way as Cassandra's did.
"Damn, maybe I should get one of these."
"Please…don't."
Julian looked towards the source of the voice, and a distressed looking man was ahead of them. He was wearing a blue flannel shirt with jeans, and under his light brown shaggy middle parted hair were green eyes in pure agony.
"Did you get an ultra-berry supreme?!" He yelled out.
"Yeah. Why, are you Dermot?" Cassandra asked.
"Yes, I'm Dermot!" The man yelled out. "Oh god, I'm gonna be living off smoothies for two weeks!"
"We were told we could get whatever we wanted." Julian said calmly, taking another sip.
"I was expecting you to get some chocolate or something!" Dermot yelled. "Not the most expensive thing here!"
"I mean…you are connected to Rory, right? We just kind of assumed you had the funds." Cassandra replied while taking another sip.
"I'm only an intern!" Dermot yelled. "Ah, whatever. But you guys need to help me with something, let's go to the Torthai."
The four of them walked up to the Torthai, listening to Dermot mutter to himself about how he was going to afford food for the next two weeks.
"So I'm guessing the Torthai is the big tree in the centre of this place?" Roxanne asked Julian.
"Pretty much." Julian said. "You ever watch the skyworld games? New legion invaded the track last year, so they held the track events around here. It's a giant tree that can grow most of the fruit in the world."
"So mister Dermot." Cassandra asked. "Mind if I ask where Rory went?"
"So, you guys know how the Gurut Hammer was stolen by the legion, and they tried to steal the Sandala Axe before you guys stole it back? Well, the Luxes got super anxious about what could happen next and summoned all the remaining leaders to the centre grand and discuss what comes next. Which is why you're stuck with me."
"Remaining leaders?" Roxanne asked.
"Basically, Sandala and Gurut had their weapons taken, so they aren't on the council anymore. They'll still get support from the other nations, but they aren't able to vote on issues affecting the entire skyspace until they get them back."
"Wait, what?" Cassandra yelled out. "That's really dumb."
"Yeah." Julian added. "If Sandala didn't agree, couldn't they just stop electricity output to the rest of the skyspace?"
"Probably, yeah." Dermot replied with an exasperated sigh. "Which is why we want to discuss having you guys give the axe back to Sandala to stop anything major breaking out."
"And hopefully the legion won't break through again?" Cassandra asked.
"Well, there's the thing." Dermot said with a head scratch. "Maybe you could hold onto it while they say the axe is back where it belongs while they tighten their defences."
"I could do that." Cassandra nodded.
"Great, great. But anyway, we're here!"