Book 1
Chapter 17: Skyfluff and the Balloon Pirates: Pigaro's Power
Gold-Ladder Getaway
The party's ascent from the Fire Caverns was a logistical nightmare. The sky above stretched wide and endless, a canvas of soft blues and drifting clouds, a stark contrast to the turmoil below. The golden ladder shimmered faintly in the sunlight, casting fractured rainbows across the jagged rocks. Even in this fragile beauty, the air thrummed with tension, as if the very wind whispered warnings of the chaos to come.
Ken's Mone had turned a simple rope into a rope ladder of pure shimmering gold, a ridiculously heavy object that took all of Ichiban's considerable strength to manage. Their ride out of the caverns was less of a "climb" and more of a "staggering, gold-fueled ascent." It was a relief, then, to finally break free of the cavern ceiling and into the sky. This relief was short-lived.
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The Sneeze-Engine Takes Flight
The Temple of Quid lay far beyond the known roads. For most heroes, this meant one thing: an airship. But this was not a normal airship. A flotilla of ramshackle airships, cobbled together from driftwood and stolen sails, bobbed in the air before them. Each one was a riot of color and rust, but their propulsion system was the most peculiar thing. It was powered by a Sneeze-Engine. Each ship was tethered to a giant, brightly colored balloon that pulsed with a wheezy, raspy rhythm.
Pigaro, the noble pegasus of lofty birth and perpetually clogged sinuses, was strapped indignantly into the central chamber. Every sneeze he unleashed was funneled into a gleaming crystal core, which, through the miracle of questionable engineering, converted allergic misery into thrust.
"My noble lineage…" Pigaro wheezed, his voice dry. "Reduced to a mere propulsion system for these… air-dwelling miscreants! Do you understand, Ken Hanzori, that I was once painted in frescoes? This is a disgrace!"
Ken, lounging in a hammock that had no business being on an airship, nodded wisely. "Nah, now you're painted on clouds, buddy. It's efficiency."
The ship lurched violently as Pigaro sneezed, sending the deck tilting like a drunken seesaw. Fluffy clung to a rope, cloak whipping in the wind, shouting, "Is it supposed to feel like being kicked in the stomach by fate itself?!"
"Volcanic sneezes make excellent thrust curves," Laluna noted, scribbling furiously onto her corrupted scrolls, nosebleed flaring. "Though the side effect of flaming pollen ash may complicate landing."
Ichiban said nothing. He merely adjusted his footing, his silent glare communicating that this was the stupidest way any warrior had ever traveled. Ken's chaotic Mone field only made it worse. Each sneeze triggered sparks of reality static: deck planks turning into pudding, ropes singing out of tune, and once, briefly, the sky itself turning upside down.
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Enter the Balloon Pirates
The adventure was already nauseating when a shriek split the skies. "SKWAAAAK! Surrender yer ship, land-sniffers!"
From the horizon descended the Balloon Pirates: a squadron of enormous, talking macaws tethered to patched balloons. The lead ship, a patchwork monstrosity with a skull-and-crossbones flag made from an old pair of long johns, drifted closer. A motley crew of feathered, bird-like pirates swarmed the deck. Their beaks gleamed with cutlass attachments, and their feathers were painted in garish pirate patterns—skulls, anchors, and one deeply regrettable attempt at a mustache.
"Surrender yer loot, landlubbers!" squawked their captain, a scarlet macaw with a tiny pirate hat and an even tinier eyepatch.
"Or we'll… we'll… uh… what was the next part of the threat, Gary?"
"I think it was 'make ya walk the plank,' Captain," a smaller bird chirped from behind him, holding a laminated cue card.
"Right! The plank!" the captain shrieked. "And then we'll strip yer pollen reserves bare!"
Fluffy pointed dramatically. "The legends were true! The Balloon Pirates live!"
"They were not legends, you fool, they were trade restrictions," Pigaro wheezed.
Ken, oblivious, just stared at the balloons. "Wow! Look at those giant bouncy balls! Can we get on one, Narutama?"
Narutama, hand on the hilt of his katana, a vein throbbing, sighed deeply. "They're not 'bouncy balls,' Ken. They're pirates."
"We're the dreaded Balloon Pirates!" the macaw screeched. "We're terrible! And also very organized!"
"Board them!" squawked the pirate captain. "Plunder their pollen reserves!"
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Mone Meets Mutiny
Confetti cannons fired from the pirate balloons, coating the deck in glitter and sneezing powder. Pigaro gagged. "This… this is cruelty of the highest—aaAAHH-CHHHHHHHOOOO!" The airship shot forward like a firework, ramming one balloon straight through.
Ken, slipping on glitter, shouted, "Counterattack formation! Which one of you knows counterattack formation?!"
"I only know panic formation!" Fluffy cried, parrying a macaw with his lute.
Ichiban drew his blade, cut a rope, and sent three pirates spiraling into the clouds without a word.
Laluna, bleeding from both nostrils, raised her scrolls and bellowed a ballad of doom so loudly that one macaw dropped its sword in existential dread.
Then Ken, trying to "high-five" a pirate mid-battle, accidentally pulsed his Mone aura. The entire pirate mast turned into licorice, sagging under its own weight and toppling two pirates into the clouds.
"What in the blazes?!" the captain squawked.
"We're being repossessed!" a panicked pirate bird screamed.
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The Sneeze That Ended It All
Just as the pirates regrouped, Pigaro's nostrils flared with cosmic inevitability. The confetti dust, the pollen ash, the endless glitter—it was too much.
"No… no more…!" Pigaro wheezed, eyes watering. "Tell… my ancestors… I resisted with dignity…"
And then it came. A sneeze so colossal it bent the clouds.
"AAAARRRGHHHHH—CHHHHHHHHHOOOOOO!"
The airship somersaulted through the sky, a tidal wave of glitter and Mone-dust exploding outward. Pirates squawked in all directions, balloons burst, and Ken found himself momentarily weightless, spinning alongside a rain of confused macaws. The impact sent the macaw captain careening off his own ship. The other pirates, witnessing their captain's defeat, surrendered in a panicked, feathered flurry.
And then the entire crew crash-landed in a tangled heap at the edge of a rocky cliff, covered in glitter, feathers, and the faint smell of syrup.
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The Ballad of Ridiculous Proportion
Narutama stood up, staring at the empty sky, then at the stunned-looking Ken, who had miraculously landed with a soft thud. His katana remained stubbornly dull. He sighed.
Laluna, bruised and bleeding, immediately sat upright. Her hands shook, but her eyes blazed with inspiration. "I must… I must preserve this!" she whispered, quill scratching madly. "The Sneeze That Shook the Skies! The Ballad of Ridiculous Proportion!"
"Hark! The hero bold and grand," she sang, her voice melodious and theatrical, "'Midst the swirling clouds they stand! A valiant sneeze, a mighty flight! To banish pirate fowl from light!'"
Ken spat out a feather. "Make sure my heroic pose gets included."
Fluffy groaned. "Make sure my suffering gets a footnote."
Ichiban simply stood, brushing glitter from his armor with the fury of a man who had fought too many stupid battles.
Pigaro, collapsed in misery, whispered hoarsely, "Next time, I choose the method of travel." He slowly hauled himself up, still wheezing. His gaze drifted from Laluna to Ken, then to his own trembling form. With a dry bitterness that belied the absurdity, he rasped, "First, a ridiculed propulsion flight. And now my suffering is a ballad. Most… vulgar."
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The airship, half-broken but still upright, creaked in protest. Far ahead, the jagged silhouette of the Temple of Quid loomed, waiting like the punchline to a joke no one was ready to hear.
And so, battered but intact, the party prepared to continue their ridiculous journey.