Chapter 19 – A Whale of a Tale

“Wake up, dum dum,” said Shart.  I jostled awake.  Sleeping on a Shadow Whale was strangely comfortable if I had to be honest.  The flesh of the creature was kind of spongy, and the wind whipping by your head was relaxing.

The view was pretty spectacular as well assuming you liked horror movies.

I briefly recalled my wife, who I thought loved horror movies.  Would she be happy I was alive here, or horrified about what I was trying to do?  I didn’t know, probably a bit of both, really.

We passed the 1000 islands while I was sleeping, and the coast of Windfall was rapidly approaching.  The whale was not quite as quick as the nosebleed, but the nosebleed wasn’t an airship and now I wanted one of those.  The view from this height was amazing with the entire valley laid out before me, albeit in shadow form.

Normally Windfall consisted of four roughly equal area provinces, with the city of Windfall in the southwestern district.  The southeastern district was likewise against the ocean but underdeveloped.  During Grebthar’s reign there had been a small town there, but it lacked the barrier and had been entirely destroyed in the 8 centuries of neglect.

The two northern provinces butted up against the mountains, with the northeastern province containing the sulfur fields that gave Windfall it's old name, Rotten Egg valley.  You could still smell those from time to time if the wind was just right, but generally they were far enough away that was not a major concern.  The northwestern province was the domain of the Wargs now and they allowed few people into their area.  A small lumber camp with aspirations had been dismantled after the treaty but OttoSherman still traveled there for what I prayed was timber work.

In the center was Windfall Castle, which was a massive castle that the town had been aggressively working to repair for the past month.  We’d been close before the Falconians arrived in full force and given their ‘generous’ material support. Fenris said it would be completed any day now.

I assumed he was waiting for me to get back before they formally declared it open for business.  The latest message I’d gotten about Glorious Robert being placed as the Adventurer's Guild leader told me that the castle was already operational.

Ordinal may be weird, but politics never changed.

Shadow Windfall looked different.  The city was covered in a mass of dark creatures and the castle looked like something right out of a nightmare.

“Why does the castle look like it is a melted candle?” I asked as a group of shadow crows flapped around it. Windfall castle looked mutated for lack of a better word, like a hunchbacked attempt at the normal version. As the swarm thickened, a blast of shadow mana erupted from a spire, erasing most from existence.

“Shadow Source and a Dungeon, I’m surprised it doesn’t look worse,” said Shart.

“We need to get in there,” I said looking around.  The Shadow Whale was only about 200 feet off the ground now, its bottom tentacles already shooting down and lancing some of the local wildlife.

“The door to the dungeon should still be in the same spot,” said Shart.

“What about the mechanism to get in?” I asked.

“I’m sure it exploded by now,” said Shart.

“What,” I replied.  The door to the dungeon was blocked by a magical ward that only could be opened by the order of the Mayor or when a moon of Ordinal was in a particular alignment.

“Good luck with that,” said Shart.

I glanced up and realized the single moon in Newark was shattered into pieces in the sky. “No dungeon can be locked up permanently because they start to build up Mana to an incredible density such that eventually the internal pressure will force an opening.”

“Yes, Dum Dum,” said Shart cautiously. “And since the conditions for the doorway to open don’t exist here, the lock already exploded.”

“Easy peasy,” I said, looking down below us.  We were finally overland.  “Ready.”

“No,” said Shart.

“Feck you,” said Badgelor.

“Cool,” I replied, falling back off of the whale.  My Flight skills were up to Advanced now, allowing me a degree of control that I lacked before. That allowed me to do some tricks that were not available to the average person such as jumping from a flying whale.

I wasn’t even worried about falling, it was the tentacles. Like a Japanese schoolgirl, I needed to avoid those lest my virtue be compromised. More specifically, the shadow whale would immediately toss me into one of those thirteen mouths and that seemed like something to avoid. I dodged around the tentacles and when I finally hit the ground it was like I’d fallen from about 50 feet instead of 200, and I could easily handle a fall from that height.

I activated Treatment and fixed my sprained ankles while also casting Regeneration on myself.  I took a few awkward steps and then started cutting through the forest.

“I should have ‘superhero landed’ that,” I said, flexing my feet as a massive tentacle started reaching down towards my landing point.  Apparently, the whale could see movement after all.  We made for the trees.

The shadow trees were shadow scary because of their shadow … shadows.  Seriously, this place was worse than Hot Topic, everything was edgy and shadowy.  At some point you just got so overwhelmed you didn’t care anymore.

“Careful here,” said Badgelor.  “This forest smells wrong.”

“That’s probably due to the closeness of the Shadow source,” said Shart.

“Is it causing things to be more shadowy?” I asked.

Shart looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Yes, of course Jim,” said Badgelor.

I frowned, “What’s so bad about here?”

“With this much shadow energy, it will bring your greatest fears to life,” said Shart.

“So don’t pull a Ray, gotcha,” I said looking around trying not to think about marshmallows.  What were my biggest fears anyway?  You don’t really ever think about that.  Was it losing my wife?  My kids?  Nah. Maybe something more visceral, the truck smashing into me was terrifying but not my biggest fear because I didn’t honestly expect to get hit.

“Puma check,” said Badgelor.

Oh, yeah.  That would be it.  But I’d dealt with those before.  I couldn’t see how this would be my greatest fear.

Suddenly a creature dropped from a nearby tree.  It was an equal combination of Puma and Drop Bear.  A drop puma if you would.  

“Touché hell.”