Virgil

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

At Day's End

A deep, gutteral growl rumbled out aways of the distant and blackened sky, prompting the newly minted crew of The Eagle's Deliverance to shiver in agreement with their terse host. Suddenly a gleam sparkled in Caleb's eye, and all the quickly he exclaimed, "H-Hold On! Just one more thing!", before making a mad dash for the captain's cabin with Ribbon and Flower gleefully trailing after the boy's frenetic exit. The other half of the crew, alongside their gracious hosts, could only stare after him in bewliderment.

"...well...Well then--", a noticeably less projectile-vomit-shade-of-green Rainbow began, still clutching his stomach but lacking the previous accompanied stupor of an abject drunk, "--It's been, ehr, pleasant making your aquaintance your "Majesty" - admittedly we might not have made it this far without the..." At this point his eyes temporarily twitched, locking deadset on the hippocampus sat beside the larger Merman and his Siren companion: "...intuitive intervention of our newest mate, but I have a feeling he'll be a little more considerate about that when we head for this next shortcu---"

A short burst of WHACK, CHOP, CRACK, CRACKs erupted from out of the aftward cabin, jolting the fuzzy little gremlin mid-scathe and streaking a ripple of disgust at the discordant melody playing across their hosts' presence. Ribbon bolted out of the doorway ahead of her companions, barking triumphantly between a jawfull of a table leg; Rainbow was looking to turn green again.

"I've got it, I've Got It!", Caleb cried with a similar glee to his canine companion and the white gull screeching approvingly out and overhead of him as he slammed the door back open and charged down the brine-soaked planks. The three stopped just short of colliding with their miniature admiral and sending the lot of them tumbling over the railings, and the boy produced a hastily procurred, but nonetheless equisite wood-carved mold of a bear's growling face.

"Here - I'd like you to keep this until we see you two again. A luck charm, since nothing'll be able to happen to us until we come back to collect it again." The more imposing of the two mythological hosts took it gently in the palm of his hand, which on its own easily dwarfed the size of Caleb's head; he turned it over a few times by the tip of a finger, and although the boy could've sworn he heard the faintest mumbling about...salt, and...preserves, for some reason, the being returned his gaze with the slightest of smiles: "Very well, it will be a King's honor to keep this...artifact, in your stead, as a sign of your fortuitous passage across the Great Sea."

"--king-to-be...", the siren mumbled between some mock pruning of his feathers with a delicate hand.

Before anyone else could respond, Caleb beamed an absolutely radiant smile, shot his knicked sword into the air and waved a proud, hearty "GOOD-BYYYYYYE!!!". The sound of their farewell echoed across the ancient seas, rippling out like a great north wind in Rainbow's mind - afternoon passed into Twilight, and the reality of nightfall snapped him awake again. All around them was the glistening of silver waves dancing under moonlight, punctuated only by the sweeping strokes Edward made through them...all else was calm, almost serene.

He scoffed, crossing his puny arms over his chest and squinting his eyes at the makeshift form of the hippocampus wrestling between shadow and light. It'd been a good few hours more since they'd departed, and he was still, STILL swimming. Did he even need to sleep? Did he even need to eat? Wait...yes, technically that last one was true...

Meanwhile the admiral of the ship couldn't even stay awake long enough to keep an effective Night Watch, tsk. The rabbit-goblin shook his head, rising from the barrels he'd slumped himself up against and giving a nice, exaggerated stretch to signal his presence on deck. If he was going to play the part of the crown this ship, it wouldn't do to be anything other than "A Big Deal" in the presence of his newfound crew.

"I see we're still making steady progress--", he cut the words short, cursing himself at the momentary slipup; still, well, maybe the hippocampus hadn't noticed he'd been out of it...as if there even was much "it" going on in the first place. The hours had probably all blended together in his little mind, and even the fleas knew that youth wasn't exactly the brightest fish in the barrel...

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

Black Foams Rising

"Your Hector sounds amazing! And your Eeegull friend too - they must've had so many adventures together!", Edward whinnied as his boat-sized body excitedly powered through the rumbling charcoal surf. "--Oh, I am DEFINITELY going to have to let the others hear this - do you have MORE?" Caleb beamed, his mind swiftly forgetting the dark skies and intensifying rain: "Yeah - Yeah SURE! And say, who do you mean by 'Others' ?" Rainbow's innerds churned over the distinct increase in the rocking of the boat, specifically those coming from the direction of the bow. For a split second the ship swung ever-so-sickly alongside its pilot as he made to heave across the rudder, yet he rapidly attempted to course-correct, his green complexion amplifying by the second. Edward bobbed to and fro about the increasingly choppy waves as easily as if he'd been trotting on dry land. "My Friends! They're going to be AMAZED by this - what other Stories can you tell??"
That was a very good question - Caleb had heard so many of Elder Eagle's stories over the years...it was like he'd been the only one the old spellbeast had actually gotten to pay attention for more than a few hours. Now let's see, there was the tale about how the legendary duo rescued the Black Queen's prized hairdresser, Shaun, from being sheared and eaten; Or the one about how Kin--er, "Prince" Hector dressed up as a giantess, fooling the local mountain tribes into gifting him the long-lost Kingmaker's Rod as a wedding dowry; Or...---

A sudden unexpected tilt from port to starboard caused him to momentarily stumble across the narrow deck, clasping the mast as he attempted to reorganize his thoughts;

---...or-Or that one with the wild pig stampede - that one seemed relevant.

"WOULD, YOU, STOP THAT ! ! !"

Rainbow's voice was hoarse - his puny body broken by the perpetual turbulence, and his expression an absolutely livid sea-green. "THIS is a SHIP, you oversized BARNACLE, not some lifeless DRIFTWOOD you can toss any whichway!!!", he ROARED over the exponentially torrential winds! At first the hippocampus didn't seem to process this, yet he quickly began to slow, ease back - and eventually, just...stop. Flicking his gaze between the mythical beast idly contemplating at their bow, and the rapidly liquifying goblin at their stern, Caleb managed to eek out a squeamish smile and interrupt:

"Come on Rainbow, Where's your sense of ADVENTURE!?"

"ANYWHERE but T H E R E !", the halfpint admiral exploded, shooting a finger out across their portside!

. . .Oh.

"...It's too Difficult to tell from this distance -- I...I think !...!?", the boy sputtered meekly, his stomach sinking into his boots as he tried to dissuade the reality constipated across his companion's face.

"DO the SIZE of those Waves look HARD TO TELL!?!", Rainbow screamed in his most high-pitched voice yet. It was, really, a surprisingly big cyclone for having snuck up on them in the way that it did; a deaf silence rung out over the craft as it briefly drifted with the swell of the now monstrously thick, black sea.

" . . . You all Don't like Rain?"

The latter half of the crew remaining outside of the shelter of the captain's cabin Both shot their heads over in Edward's direction.

"...YES--", the pair started--
"--NO!", and finished in unison.

Edward bobbed peacefully with the thunderous slaps of the ocean waves, then seemed to have finished making up his young mind.

"...Okay, I guess we could meet Them now and wait it out from there."

And without a second thought, the hippocampus shot off like an arrow through the rolling black, yanking the hapless box of timbers along behind it like so many skipping-stones toward the cyclone.

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

A Bloody Toil

Without warning, a second dwarf came bounding in from the side towards the boy, cutting in front of the first with a look of murder, his whole face contorted into a monstrous rage. He screamed, leading the now dual-dwarf foray with a gutteral battlecry: "FOR THE MIGHTY BEAR, HEATHEN!!!" Caleb took a step back, skidding a little on the aftermath of his previous work - the shock tripling his heartrate and accelerating his response to a purely instinctive level; the dwarf charged, Caleb swung wide AND--

--Missed by a mile, the infuriated cultist hadn't even arrived at the spot!

Cold fear serpentined down the boy's frame at the sudden realization of just how exposed he was. For an instant his aggressor's livid expression twisted into a vengeful, jagged-toothed grin, the pair locking eyes in a moment of realization between hunter and prey. The predator, arm outstretched and screaming victorious - the quarry, limbs squeezing every muscle they could to stop themselves from recoiling any farther. Instinct kicked in, or perhaps it was inspiration from all those hours of watching better knights train with the older kids, or those few of being trained himself: A flick of the wrists inverted the blade's momentum, suddenly rising the point directly on line with its target; a weight like a boulder knocked Caleb down onto his knee - the dwarf hung confused and limp, panting with hoarse breaths, self-impaled down to the hilt.

Without even hesitating, imitating the movements he'd seen a thousand times before, Caleb rammed an elbow into his opponent's stomach, half-sworded the blade around its edge, unsheathed the bloodied iron from his foe's belly and promptly jabbed a warning-shot from the point into his second attacker's eye. She SCREAMED, recoiling with a mouth agape of sharply filed teeth.

Ribbon and Rainbow had made surprisingly good use of their initial ambush, weaving in and out of the vicious mob as easily as Flower sailed across the fresh sea air - those dwarves who remained clutching onto their wretched lives were quickly coming to regret it. Ochre mixed with scarlett beneath the flickering of candlelight as the blood of the dead and the dying scrawled a massacre across the sanctuary floor.

The battle was over. They had won...

. . .

...Caleb just felt sick.

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

After An Ark

It was an eerie walk they took, silent as they had to be to avoid detection. The jungle loomed around them in a motley web of twisting vines and tangled roots, and Caleb couldn't help but *feel* like something was watching them, somewhere, even though the space was silent; unnaturally silent, he noticed, even for such an early hour. As they passed beneath the latest in a series half-fallen branches, curiosity got the better of him, and softly as he could utter the words, he whispered:

"...w h y i s e v e r y t h i n g s o...y o u k n o w...q u i e t ?..."

Rainbow gently nudged Ribbon to tiptoe around what looked to be a particularly tripwire-inspired twig fork, narrowly avoiding what would surely have been a crack like a bullwhip at this hour. "...w e l l...y o u k n o w h o w I m e n t i o n e d t h e n u t h e a d s l i k e m a k i n g o f f e r i n g s ?"

"...u h - h u h ?"

" s i m p l e", the pint-sized creature finished promptly, flourishing a hand in the air without so much as confirming his scrawny bodyguard had even seen it from behind. For a moment Caleb's mind flashed back to the cramped hole he'd slept in, specifically to the snakes that'd supposably occupied it. He wondered if Rainbow *had* actually forced them out all by himself, or if they just hadn't been able to understand their newfound company. At any rate, he still didn't know why the jungle was so dead quiet.

It wouldn't be much longer that he could hold onto that thought though, for all of a sudden the vines and shrubs became sparse and unpopulated, like they'd stepped into a completely different world. Here there were no hanging vines, no crawling roots; here there was no tussling thicket - only woodstumps, broken axe handles and discarded...fish. . .bones . . . ?

"...t h e r e...", Rainbow pointed out what appeared to be a rather carefully refined woodworking station at one end of the enclosed clearing, "...a n d t h e r e...", he continued, nodding to another. The scale was small, but organized - efficient...unnervingly so, frankly; it was like somebody had carved a swath of a chessboard out of the otherwise dense surrounding foliage. "...t h i s i s n ' t a n y o l d g a r d e n p a r t y -- t h a t ' s a m i l l , a n d t h e o t h e r ' s a j o i n e r y s t a t i o n..."

Caleb scratched his head again, the idea just hadn't sat right with him since he'd agreed to figure out if it was even real or not. If it was...well, it'd certainly be a fine ticket out of...wherever this was; but he couldn't understand how the "goblin" could be so sure it even existed...at least, in a useable state.

"...a s h i p i n t h e m i d d l e o f t h e j u n g l e...", Caleb pondered unbelievingly.

"...l e a v e i t t o t h o s e e a r t h - f o n d l e r s t o g e t i t a l l b a c k w a r d s . . . a n y w a y , l i k e I s a i d , i t ' s m o r e l i k e l y b u r i e d u n d e r g r o u n d t o o; t h u s . . . w e n e e d a K e y."

This had been the part the boy had been wondering about. It was some sort of special day of worship for the dwarves today...a day on which they didn't work, didn't go outside, didn't even eat (the fish carcasses must've been from the day or...days, prior). All day, today, they'd be locked up in that central forttress of theirs - and the keys they carried to get in would be with them. So imagine that Rainbow had just so happened to find a dwarf who not only just so happened to disdain this practice of theirs, but actively did so in secret, at the end of every week, and right out in the open. The chances had to be below those of finding a unicorn.

"OH Mighty One, are you pleased with me? Surely you who are the most cunning would look favorably upon your most cunning servant - KARRASS! Karrass who makes such beautiful carvings for you, Master, and do you not see how the others worship the work of Karrass as miracles of your own in his place? Karrass does not NEED the praise of others...of course, of course..Karrass is humble, and devoted to his god...but...if perhaps the Mighty Bear could bestow just a *little* sign of its affection upon him...why, Karrass would make A HUNDRED such assumed "miracles" in his god's name!

...or, a hundred more, that is...

...Praise be to the Mighty One...Karrass earnestly awaits your reply; As he always has; As he always does...Still."

Caleb froze. He hadn't even *n o t i c e d* the dwarf kneeling before the tiny figurine not fifty feet away - he'd been so still, and his clothes blended in perfectly with the sea of woodstumps checkerboarding the parched earth.

"...j u s t l i k e w e p l a n n e d , r e m e m b e r ?...", Rainbow muttered quietly atop his equally subdued steed.

With a flash, a brief wash of purple light passed over him, and Caleb could begin to feel his features *seem* to change. But he knew it wasn't real, this was all an illusion, he didn't Really look like this...

...the question was, would their newfound friend see things differently?

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

Down The Rabbit-Hole

By the standards of his many practiced and flawlessly executed hurdles from various tree-branches, rooftops, and improperly balanced ladders, the descent down was surprisingly short - in fact it barely gave him time to properly brace up in anxiety before he'd reached the bottom. He landed on his feet with a heavy thud outside a squat, arched cavern entrance, the inviting gleam of some purple aura emanating from within. As he ducked inside, he could immediately make out the rag-tag assortment of "living conveniences" tucked away along the smoothed dirt walls of the cave - a motley assortment of twig-&-nettle "sofas", burnt plate-chunks of otherwise glossy green metal serving as makeshift tables for various knickknacks, a rather large and jagged shard of a mirror leaned just up adjacent the entryway, several melon-like fruits with what *appeared* to be Rainbow-esc faces carved into them, a few expertly stacked metal crates and chests, and tying it all together, a luminescent purple lantern of some sort pulsating dead-center in the room. Everything was surprisingly neat and tidy for a cave...

"Woah...", Caleb gawked.

"Yeah, real luxury - feel free to take a seat when you're finished playing in the dirt though." At that, Rainbow shot an irritated snap of his fingers over toward a "sofa" nearest his dumbstruck companion, and in an instant it looked like just about the most comfortable pillow he'd ever laid eyes on; Ribbon immediately brushed past him at the door to take dibs on their newfound convenience.

"...Or...stay where you are - anyway, I could give you all the background on the when-what-whys of our current predicament, but chances are it'd probably fly over you at this point. So instead I'll just say this: "

Rainbow paused for a moment, clearly trying to think of the simplest way to phrase his climactic statement.

"...N o t h i n g here is as it first seems."

...

. . .Ribbon took the opportunity amid the brief interim to scratch a flea; Caleb considered the same, but decided against it - this weird li--er, "Rainbow", was clearly upset.

"...Uh-huh."

Rainbow clapped his hands together for no apparent reason, and shortly continued with: "Great! Now that all the nitty-gritty backstory stuff is out of the way, let's outline what matters here: I've been stuck on this rock for two whole years amid a clan of mouth-breathing idiots with a penchant for zealotry, You just got stuck here with me, and of the two of us, you look like you'd stand more than 5 seconds in a fight - now, how experienced are you with Guerilla Tactics?"

Caleb attempted to look as composed as he'd ever been before answering: "...-- Glue-what now?"

The rising frustration in the creature's face was visible enough to practically be its own lantern.

"Can. You. Fight. With. That. Thing?"

He nodded over to the hand-me-down hunk of ir--the noble blade hanging at Caleb's side, prompting the also-increasingly-flustered boy to sputter: "O-oh that - no-yeah I've...practiced with many competent sword-Knights back at home, Heaps: They come through my village all the time."

Rainbow crossed his puny arms in an otherwise unnerving level of disbelief, putting a finger over his mouth in contemplation. For a moment the room entered another phase of nerve-wracking silence, and Caleb considered easing in aside Ribbon in the hopes of not completely losing his cool. He suddenly had the trailing realization that he looked *nothing* like the armor-clad heroes he'd idolized (and occasionally perturbed) as they stopped in from longer travels. His arms were too scrawny...well frankly, his Everything was too scrawny. And he had a girl's neck. And his hands were small with five "plushy" (as Mrs. Ardia had once called them - boy was he glad that nickname hadn't stuck longer than a few months) fingers protruding out of each of them...

...he didn't even own a helmet; E v e r y Knight had a Helmet...

It was at that moment that he realized the creature was pointing its finger at *him.*

S N A P! In an instant a wash of purple light enveloped him, toppling the boy over in his yet latest moment of complete unprepared-i-ness, landing him flat on his back, eyes glued to the upside-down mirror behind him.

...What...in...?

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

@Dusty Alright, but why? And when?

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

youtu.be/gg6mDY2HWdQ

@Zapdos Omg we just entered "Life of Brian" / "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" territory? XD)

This is gonna be gooooood!!!

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

How I *thought* the post would turn out...originally >_)

Behind The Scenes

fantasy : diversity : creature : creature : nature/navigation/transport

Caleb observes his seagull companion : luck : loyalty : betrayal
::: he watches it fly out of the mist, then around with a juicy pulp twig in its clutches, before it vanishes into the glare of the sun, leaving him afraid that he's back to being alone
::: the cry of the gull from behind alerts him to its perched position on the bow, twitching its head and pecking vigorously at the pulp
::: his relief is alleviated by anxiety at the sudden looming approach of another small sailboat - this one properly shaped and equipped, with a shadowy figure perched atop the bow herself
::: Elytra Eagle-Eye calls out to Caleb, surprising and causing him to release the instinctive clutch on his hilt
::: After a momentary back-and-forth of scornings, Caleb declares that his intention to find the cure on his own gumption, to which Elytra questions why he's sailing back toward the village in the first place, then; Caleb twitches his eye when she asks why he doesn't have a map

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

...Amidst Mist & Gentle Waves...

For a moment he could only squint to guess the rippling form emerging before his eyes, as it undulated toward him in frenetic rhythm, a small yet haphazard mass of a murky shadow rapidly growing in size and clarity. The early morning sunlight, try as it might, could barely pierce the veil in little more than a haze of shimmering Sea Green light. Caleb clasped desperately to the bow of the boat, hand at his hilt, nerves steeled for any sudden surprises...
. . .
. . . ..."FLOWER!?"

PHWOOMPH! Like an arrow the gull shot out through the green mist, whipping past its surprised sea-side companion and just about knocking him off his sea legs in the process. Caleb struggled to regain his balance against the sudden turmoil he'd caused to the shaky wooden vessel, then his eyes snapped back towards the bird. Round and round it flew in a dizzying dance of loops and arcs, crying out a screech of delight at its quarry. Like the rising sun, a gleeful smile beamed across Caleb's face:

There, in the seagull's talons, hung a Cherub-Twig -- the succulent and pulpy volume of it betraying only the best of signs...LAND! Despite the mist and murk surrounding him, the sea-tanned boy spun about on his heel--

--and promptly slipped and tumbled flat onto his ass--

--But was back up again just in time to wince through the pain and behold the silhouetted fore-shore-form of his salvation! There, just as the gleefully screeching gull at his back had done not a moment earlier, peeking out through the eerie fog arose the crisp shape he had been searching for; in fact for a second, a whimper of homesickness almost upset the boy's stomach - but no, he had to steady himself for this. He'd made this journey to prove to the others that he was Strong, strong enough to become a Knight like all those that'd passed through on their way to...well, frankly more important places - but STRONG, STRENGTH, and now was the time to prove it! HERE, at THIS PLACE, with the JANKY OLD WOODEN PIER, and the CROOKED LAMP-STRUNG TREE...and...and the Chipped Church Belltower. . .

As the boat slowly bumped to a standstill against the familiar moss-covered pier, the scent of pipesmoke drawing close stung at Caleb's senses. His nose twitched and his eyes watered up at the acrid smell, so much so that he could only hear the sudden arrival of heavy footsteps plonking down along the creaking wooden boards stretching out into the sea:

"...Crowsnest...Is That You? Where in the World have you been dear boy?!?", "she" inquired with surprise and anger.

...Home. Now he wished he hadn't plugged that map after all.

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

2nd or 4th is fine by me!