Loopshard

“I hereby vow to never sleep again,” Lasse said. “I can’t believe I missed this.”

“You should’ve woken us up,” Ellen grumbled.

Cathy and Jabari didn’t seem at all upset about the large ship Adam had brought up alongside the Creaking Madam. The moment they stepped onto its cloud-spun deck, they were both like small children, running around and exploring every nook and cranny.

He hadn’t realised just how loud the horn had been, but everyone on the Creaking Madam far below the island had immediately woken up. They’d been awaiting him on the deck as he brought the legendary ship down.

“What do we do with the old ship?” Ellen asked as she looked across the bridge Adam had extended from the side of the cloud ship.

“We leave it,” Adam said. “But let’s bring our provisions and valuables across.”

The airship he had summoned with the horn wasn’t quite like the other ships of the Floating Sea, since it had no propellers on the back nor fins on the side. It was three times the length of the Creaking Madam and had three masts, as well as gaff sails, jib sails, foresails, and topsails. Its figurehead was a hippogriff, a chimaera with the front half of an eagle and the back of a horse. Despite the fluffy clouds that the ship was built from, the statue was rendered in exquisite detail, almost seeming alive.

Even though the ship was much longer than the Creaking Madam, it wasn’t that much wider nor deeper, though it did have two floors below the main deck, with the first one for their artillery and the bottom one for storage and sleeping. The sleeping quarters featured actual beds, as opposed to the hammocks of the Creaking Madam, which seemed to excite the others. The weaponry also didn’t consist of ballistae as was the standard for the Stage’s ships, but instead it had cannons that fired self-replenishing cannonballs. Adam wasn’t sure it made much sense to shoot condensed clouds at their enemies, but since the ship was magical, he had a suspicion they’d be strong. Compared to the other large airships of the Floating Sea, the cloud ship had a lot more firepower, since it featured seven cannons along each broadside, as well as four mounted to shoot out of the bow of their ship, with the gun ports set into the hull on either side of the hippogriff figurehead.

The captain’s quarters were a lot more spacious too and the floor of the helm was raised two metres from the main deck as a result. The room featured a large bed, chests for storage, and, most importantly, an ornate wooden desk with a map that automatically updated based on their location and surroundings, showing a compass in the bottom right. Already, Adam could see what awaited them ten kilometres away to the north, and even the names of the islands were visible.