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| (I am using Grace's blade again despite it have no critical rating - I don't have any Crowns left to transmog. :( ) |
I held my breath as I went through, expecting to be underwater... but I was surprised. The door opened up into an underwater dome with perfectly breathable air! Who had made this?
"Look, there are people there from Marleybone, they can help us," said Grace.
"Yes we did," said Christina, puffing up in pride. "The Three Wizardteers at your service! All for one and one for all!" I groaned and I held my head. Really, Christina?
"Thank the stars you've come!" said Edith. "I was certain that distress call wouldn't come through!"
"Please explain the situation, Mma Benchley," said Grace.
"Yeah, how did you get here?" demanded Christina. "We were told that the Spiral Door to this place was underwater and nearly flooded Ravenwood!"
"Oh that," said Edith, tossing her wrench casually with a grin. "We found this place the long way, by sailing our skyship through the Outer Dark skyways across the Spiral. Thurston Plunkett led the expedition to find this place, long lost Celestia. Our skyship is on the surface of the world and we've been building air-filled domes so we could explore the ancient ruins. We discovered the Spiral Door but it was locked until you came through."
I smiled. "Well, we had a long hard ordeal getting here. So, where is Thruston? Grace's mentor is an old colleague of his."
"Oh my," she said, shaking her. "He's disappeared! He went missing even before the Crustaceans attacked!"
"Crustaceans?" asked Grace.
"Yes, horrible crab-men who are sheer brutes! They started attacking our domes violently!" said Edith. "They're probably trying to stop our research into Astral Magic."
"Astral Magic?" I asked. "What's that?"
"Wow, that sounds interesting," said Christina.
"The missing artifacts that power the Grand Astrolabe are stored in the three Astral Galleries," said Edith. "The Stellarium, Lunarium and Solarium. We had almost deciphered the inscriptions on the major portal when the Crustaceans attacked! The ways into those Galleries are through the Gateway portals, and the portal stones were taken and broken apart by those brutes!"
I looked at the platform nearby - indeed, there looked to be three portal archways but they were damaged. "We can find the portal stones for you, Edith," I said.
"If you're here to help us, girls," said Edith. "You should really start by speaking to Dalton Prescott in the Promenade." She handed us a map showing where the various domes were. I recognized the Floating Land label and the Research Station, which was where Montgomery was said to be. But I could deal with Montgomery eventually - we had to do things in an orderly fashion. "The Promenade can be accessed by tunnels in the Survey Camp. Dalton should be easy to spot." She showed us a photo of him and we committed it to memory. "Prescott is the acting leader of the expedition until we get Sir Plunkett back."
"We'll find and rescue Rra Plunkett," said Grace.
"Let me look around first," I said. "I'll meet you at the Survey Camp."
"Be careful!" warned Edith. "There are strange things afoot in this place!"
I heeded the warning.
I met a strange fellow called Ogden Peake on my explorations. He asked me to do some tasks for him and he promised to help me in my training. I guess it wouldn't hurt. (Once you hit Level 52, Level 54 and Level 56, this guy will ask you to visit him in the Celestia Base Camp. The girls hit Level 54 before defeating Malistaire so all of the quests are now available to them. Like Zeke, completing his quests will net you a training point. There are people in the next two worlds who also give you training point quests outside of the Zeke scavenger hunts. Ogden's are pretty easy to do and don't require any fighting whatsoever. You get three training points - I used all of these points to get Sierra to learn Death up to Feint so she won't have to rely on Christina to supply the Feints. Feint will be vital to future quests which require her to battle solo as bosses will start spouting more HP than Malistaire and you need that 70% damage boost. The others did the quests too - Christina did them all before the others got to Celestia.)
The first thing he asked was for me to go to Marleybone and buy a sandwich for him. Of course, turns out he mistook a pet snack vendor for a regular snack vendor, but Gordon was able to whip up a pet snack sandwich as long as I supplied the pet snacks. I was grateful the Bazaar had them! (I first thought you had to farm Manders, O'Leary Burglars and Ninja Pigs for the stuff, but then I learned you can just buy them - they are always available - at the bazaar and they count. You need to buy Golden Squash, Stinky Cheese, Medium Fish and Nettle Root.)
The next task was to get a collar from the Pet Shop Boys in the Pet Pavilion and deliver it to his dog in Marleybone. The zebra guy was someone I had seen hanging around Wizard City, Krokotopia and Marleybone, but I never understood where he came from until he stopped me before I left.
"I hear you're pals with a girl from Zafaria, a fellow student called Grace," he said. "Could you ask her to help me out. Me and one of the Professors are planning a field trip to that place soon and we could use another guide, someone who is a fellow student and knows the world in and out."
I paused. "I'll think about it. Grace has been reserved lately."
Ogden was pleased to hear that his dog was happy. He then asked me to craft a tea set. I went and bought the recipe from a trader in Northguard(who gave me a hero's discount) but I found I was sorely lacking the vital treasure card I needed and I hadn't seen it at the Bazaar at all! I hoped Ogden didn't mind waiting for some tea. :(
But I had other business...
Namely getting THIS. I was ready to start crafting my second house! Well, not really, but I had the recipe at the least! And all I had ample of was the Crystal Vials. *sigh* I had a deep regret that the items I would need would cost me an arm and a leg. (I found the recipe for the Celestian Sconce but the Star Chalice recipe was too expensive for me now.)
I met Zeke again(he needed help finding lounge lizards) and a couple of Marleybone women - one was a journalist who was seeking the books telling of the Celestian Zodiac. Another talked about the the Astral Schools.
I looked over the devices and recognized the place - The Sailor Wizards had brought me here to learn my Strong and Giant spells. I smiled as I realized I already knew some Astral Magic.
"If you check them out, you can see why Morganthe attacked Celestia," said Llewella. I turned to her.
"Morganthe?"
This was the first time I heard that name. It would not be the last. At that time I didn't realize it, but little did I know that Morganthe would be our next major enemy, one who would make Malistaire's insane plan to revive his wife seem like a pipe dream compared to what SHE did...
(If Grace had been there and heard the name, she would have told me all about this person. But I was alone at the time.)
We headed into the Survey Camp and met with Dalton Prescott.
"We don't know ourselves!" I laughed. "Anyways, we are here to help you with the expedition and are here to help you rescue Mr. Plunkett!"
"Jolly good," said Dalton, grinning. "So it's obvious you got Thurston's distress call."
"It was a strugg, but we got here," said Christina. "So, give us the low-down."
Dalton shook his head. "So much has gone wrong since we arrived! We no sooner made base camp when we were met with technical difficulties - most likely sabotage!"
"That's bad," I said. "Go on."
"Following that were thefts of equipment and stores," he continued. "Then we lost members of our expedition... including our leader... to strange disappearances!"
"Define strange," said Grace.
"The most recent calamity was an assault by some of the indigenous species that have inhabited these ruins," said Dalton. "It would be a great help if you could find the survivors of the attacks. I've taken roll and found that Edgar Ableton, Mackenzie Trowel and Peter Cheswick are still missing."
"We'll have them back in base camp before you can wag your... well, just trust us!" I said.
Our adventures had begun with a survivor search but they were easy to find. Two were cowering in the shadows of chambers and one was on the balcony. I saw the 'species', the Crustaceans, and grunted. They reminded me of the crab soldiers who patrolled Crab Alley. Did these creatures migrate through here?
"Thanks," I said.
"I hate to bother you some more, but Thruston Plunkett's notes were scattered all over the camp when we lost him, so..."
Yeah, we had to collect the notes. He asked us to hold onto them when we found Plunkett. He then told us to go recover some tubes of powerful sealant from the Crustaceans so we could patch up the leaking dome.
Our first battles in Celestia began! These crab-men were much stronger than the constables in Crab Alley - they unleashed all sorts of fire magic at us, but our teamwork defeated them and we confiscated the tubes of sealant. (Enemies in Celestia will usually start with 3-4 power pips and unleash Rank 5 and Rank 6 spells at the outset, like Helephant.)
Christina tried out the Moon magic by turning into a Death Ninja Pig... she never used it again. (The Polymorph Ninja Pig Moon spell comes from some boots she got in Wintertusk. You should never train in any Moon magic except the special 'shift' spells in Khrysalis because Moon Polymorphs last for six turns and usually make you weaker than you normally are - Polymorph Gobbler is an exception by giving you 5000 HP, but who uses that?)
We quickly sealed the leaks but my clothes were soaked by salty sea water, yuck!
"As they say in the explorer business, it's hat and whip time!" he said. "Look around the Promenade and search for clues to what happened to them."
"Hat and whip time?" laughed Christina. (Indiana Jones reference for the LOLs!)
We went through the metal tunnels and entered another dome which had even more crab-men. (I am too lazy to write down 'crustacean', sue me.) We split up and found clues. I found a piece of rock...
Grace found a piece of shell...
And Christina found a pocket watch. "Let's show these things to Rra Prescott," said Grace.
"One: That piece of shell belongs to a Crustacean. Two: That pocket watch belongs to Barclay O'Brien, one of our expedition. He was so proud of that watch! He mail-ordered it from a dealer in Firecat Alley in Wizard City. Barclay wouldn't part with it for anything!"
I wondered if the dealer was Seamus, the guy who I dealt with in my rookie days.
"And three: That piece of stone looks like it has the same inscriptions as the stone walls of the towers in the Pinnacle."
"I see!" said Grace, lighting up. "So the Crustaceans kidnapped Barclay and the others and are holding them in the towers!"
"Exactly!" said Dalton. "You're quite the detective, Grace."
"Well, she IS the #1 Lady Private Detective in the Spiral," I teased. Grace blushed.
"So what we need to do is invade the towers and rescue our men," said Dalton. "However, the towers are locked and the Crustaceans patrolling the Promenade are the ones who have keys..."
"BRB," I said. It was time for another crab bake.
These guys were a bit tougher as they resisted Storm Lord... but not my Frog! ^_^
We got the key from the first group and invaded the tower, dodging tougher crab-men.
We found Barclay in the tower and gave him back his watch. "My watch!" he cried, taking it. "Thank you girls, you're true Girl Scouts!"
"Are there any others?" asked Christina.
"Just Rutherford," said Barclay. "I'll scoot back to the camp. Thank you so much!" And with that he ran off down the ramp.
"Careful," warned Grace as we entered the top room. "We must be ready for anything."
Indeed, a really big crab warrior was standing with a crab who looked like Herman from Crab Alley. "Who's this?" he demanded. "An intruder! Let me get my claws on you!"
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| (And Christina gets hit with Freeze first turn. MARVELOUS. X( ) |
We teamed up and brought down the crabs with Triton, the Frog(cast by Talos) and Sandstorm.
"Look," said Christina, picking up a blue shard of stone. I recognized the make - it was the same as the gateway portals.
"This must be a piece of one of the portals," I said. "We should keep it on hand and look for the other pieces. Maybe we can access one of the Galleries."
We also found the first learning device and took notes on the Zodiac Sign of the Chariot for the journalist later.
"Thanks," I said. "You can head back to the camp now, we've activated the portal device that will teleport you to the camp."
"Could I ask of you a favor, young ladies?" said Rutherford. He handed us a giant piece of paper and some charcoal. "Could you make a rubbing of the tablet down near the base of the tower? I think it may have some significance to our research."
"What is this?" I muttered. "Krokotopia again?" Bad memories of having to make rubbings of stuff.
The tablet was attached to a strange device that looked like a walk-in shower stall. Not like I was gonna shower here, mind you! I have my dignity!
He looked it over and muttered. "I can't understand most of this," he declared. "But I believe that the device you took the rubbing off of is designed to be a magical device that will allow anyone using it to be able to breathe water as easily as air, allowing one to breathe underwater! Why don't you check it out? The instructions to use it are arcane, but you Wizards are used to incanting strange words."
"Who does he think we ARE?" muttered Christina. I shook my head and dragged her to the device. We got under it and read the instructions, which were actually easy to understand. We chanted the words of power and suddenly got drenched with something that felt like water. I choked and gasped for a few minutes, but then... it passed.
"That was weird," said Christina. "I..." She felt her neck and screamed. "I have GILLS!"
I checked my neck too as did Grace... they were small and you couldn't see them behind our ears, but they were definitely gills. We had grown gills like fish!
"I cannot see yours," said Grace. "The magic must make these invisible to anyone but us. Perhaps this is how we can breathe underwater. Such amazing technology the Celestian people had..."
"I guess we should try them out," said Christina. "But where?"
I had no idea...
[To be continued...]
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