The Flight of the Mudskipper - Part III

The Flight of the Mudskipper - Part III

Nearly five years had passed, and it was once again Myrthday. Similarly to five years previous, everyone had come out to celebrate Twiddy, but this time they did so not only to celebrate his birth, but the launch of the Mudskipper.

Twiddy dashed this way and that, checking rigging and pounding nails that protruded just slightly. Professor A.M. Fiddlewiz looked on calmly, smoking his pipe and lounging against the console from which he would operate the wing-like structures that protruded from either side of the craft. "Just a little of this and a little of that and ahh! I need to settle down."

Twiddy fell to a heap before Fiddlewiz and looked up at him. "How are you always so calm, friend?"

Fiddlewiz shrugged, releasing a breath of pipe smoke, and said, "I calculate the odds of failure in everything I do. When you realize it all comes down to precise calculations, of which there is no true variability if you've done your equations right, you can more or less know and accept what is coming?"

Twiddy blinked and shook his head, saying, "I don't understand you, Fiddlewiz, but I wish I did."

Fiddlewiz shrugged and turned to the side of the boat to knock ashes out of his pipe. They floated down through the wind and twirled past the crowds of halflings that waited to see the Mudskipper off. Among them were Twill and Liddy Bobick, and Twiddy paused at the side of the boat to lift a hand to them. Liddy was weeping into a kerchief, but she lifted a hand and said, "Twiddy, my little love, do us proud!"

Twiddy smiled to her and then looked at Twill. The halfling's hair had gone completely white in the last five years, and his back was just beginning to stoop from so many years bent over a workbench. Twill looked neutral for a moment as he caught his son's gaze, but finally, he smiled and said, "Like your mother said, we are waiting for you to show us exactly what we didn't think could be done."

Twiddy stood up a little straighter as he went to the wheel. Assuming a position behind it, he shouted, "Fiddlewiz, let's launch!" The gnome nodded and gestured to the halflings on the ground. One by one, they released the cords binding the ship to the ground. The balloon of multicolored cloth above their head began to shift in the wind, and Fiddlewiz one by one pulled down a series of levers that made the wings at the side of the ship begin to move up and down mechanically. Ever so slowly, the ship began to move. Twiddy's heart leapt as he felt it shudder beneath him, and as they began to move, he appreciated the wind in his hair and stared into the sky above him as the ship drew away from the scaffold that had held it in place for so many years and, miraculously, took flight.

For close to half an hour, they kept altitude, and Fiddlewiz pumped at levers to try to gain them height. They had not yet made any altitude, but Twiddy wasn't worried. It would happen, and they had done it: they had flown. Behind them, the village roared, and excitement surged through Twiddy's veins. But as quickly as it seemed they had triumphed, everything began to fall apart. Fiddlewiz was the first to notice.

"Twiddy," he shouted, "the wings are moving all wrong. This isn't the way I set them to go!" Immediately, the gnome began to mutter equations to himself and crawled under the console upon which his levers connected to the wings.

Twiddy watched him disappear, trying not to panic. He tried to keep his gaze fixed forward, toward the sky, and maintained a firm grip on the wheel. Suddenly, the whole craft lurched to the side. The wheel spun out of his grip. "Fiddlewiz!" he shouted. "What's happened?"

"Nothing!" said Fiddlewiz, emerging from under the console with a perplexed look on his face. "I didn't touch anything!"

The craft lurched to the opposite side and it was all Twiddy could do to grab something to keep from falling straight off the poop deck. Below, Fiddlewiz had slid to the opposite side of the ship, crashing heavily into the railing. "Hold on!" shouted Twiddy. "I'm going to try to steady her!" But they lurched again, and this time, one of the wings caught in a tree, tearing off completely as the ship continued forward. The change was immediate, and nothing was to be done about it, the ship began tipping down toward the ground. "Fiddlewiz!" shouted Twiddy. "Abandon ship! Abandon ship!"

Fiddlewiz was on his feet in a flash, making to jump from the side. "Bobick!" he called. "Come on!"

They had not been so high in the sky that there was time for any more conversation. Twiddy made one last desperate attempt to straighten her before moving to jump off the side. As he did, his leg caught on a piece of loose rope and was caught. He tried futilely to loosen himself, but there was no time. The ship hit the ground with a terrible crunch, and Twiddy screamed, covering his face with his hands. The last thought he could recall before darkness took him was that the Drafling must have been playing some terrible joke on him so long ago. If he'd had any destiny, it must have been to die here, a fool and a failure, and where was the greatness in that?

Twiddy awoke to feel himself being pulled across the ground. Through blurred vision, he saw Fiddlewiz, a bloody gash across his forehead, dragging him across the ground. "Fiddlewiz?" he mumbled. "What's happened?"

"She's down, boy," said Fiddlewiz, in a soft voice. "She's down and burning."

Twiddy immediately snapped to attention. "Burning? My ship? The Mudskipper?!"

He pulled himself to his feet and out of Fiddlewiz's grip. Turning, he set eyes on the truth of it. Before him, his ship was burning as the alchemical agents in the mechamagical engine ignited; flames devouring the cloth of the balloon, and wearing down the wood of her hull slowly, but steadily. Twiddy watched it all for what could have been minutes but felt like hours, too shocked to speak. When Fiddlewiz finally set a hand on his arm, something inside of him snapped as the reality of what had happened set in.

"Auuuuugggghhhh!" screamed Twiddy. "Auuuuuughhh!" He dropped to the ground and began tearing at the grass and pulling up clumps of dirt and throwing them every which way. "Auuuugggghhh!" He screamed again and again as he pounded furiously at the ground. Behind him, Fiddlewiz watched without comment or gesture, pulling a now cracked pipe from inside his jacket and setting to light it. For his part, Twiddy tore at his hair as he watched so many years of work burn before him. "I'm done!" he shouted. "I've had it! So much wasted time! So much wasted effort! I won't do it anymore! I won't be laughed at for nothing! Nothing! Why did they tell me I could when it could not be done?! Why!"

There was a long stretch of quiet as Twiddy remained kneeling on the ground, hands gripping his hair, breathing heavily. Finally, the Professor stepped forward and put his hand on the halfling's shoulder. For a long time, he didn't say anything, but only watched his friend breathe heavily and hold back tears.

Finally, Fiddlewiz said, removing his pipe from his mouth, "My dear boy, I do believe what we have seen here today proves well and indeed that a ship can fly. So far as I am concerned, what needs be done now is to figure out how to make it fly at length. We have done the impossible and proved that the possible is not what anyone previously thought it to be. Now it is time to get to work at the may-be-possible, and that's not nearly so intimidating, now is it?"

Twiddy gently released his grip on his hair and straightened to a stand again. He stepped up beside Fiddlewiz and once again surveyed the smoldering wreckage of the Mudskipper. Turning to look at his friend, he noted that for once, Fiddlewiz's head was not covered by anything. Though seeing him so made him realize how tiny the man was, with his nearly bald dome, and his pointy little chin, and his too large mouth, but despite it all, Fiddlewiz did not look small, or scared, or upset by the day's events. The gnome's eyes shone with anticipation, and his lips were set in determination. He had truly believed what he had said.

"What do you say," said Fiddlewiz, finally, turning to look back at Twiddy, "shall we begin work on the Mudskipper II?" Twiddy considered his friend's words and, without response, went to the wreckage. Twiddy marched over to the Mudskipper and began walking her length at as close a distance as he could manage. "She'll need to be lighter but somehow stronger... and made in a way that the air parts like water before her... and, and..." Twiddy paused and struggled, searching for that missing piece.

A flash of metal caught his eye. He frowned and made his way over to it. By the forest's edge, within a patch of long stemmed ferns, he spied a small metal object in the ground. Picking it up, he turned it over in his hands. It all but completely resembled his flying ship -- with one exception, its tail end was shaped differently, almost like a four pointed star.

"What in the name of Bristlebane...?" he muttered.

A green tail flashed between the trees before him, and a familiar chuckle filled the air. "The Drafling?" Twiddy murmured. He bolted into the trees. "Hey! Hello!" he called after the disappearing figure. "Is this yours? Did you leave it?" He swung the box around, snaking through the undergrowth.

Immediately, the figure stopped and turned. The halfling face squinted out at him from the dragon's body. "Is what mine, then?" asked the Drafling.

"This... model of my boat," said Twiddy. He tapped it and started as it resonated with his touch.

The Drafling grinned. "This is for the egghead and you. Consider it carefully, and you might find a way to stay off the ground for more than a minute."

Twiddy looked down at the box and then back up at the Drafling. "How can I ever thank you?" he asked.

The Drafling's eyes crinkled with delight. "In exchange for my good deeds, I ask that you do one thing for me. Build me a tower at the heart of this land, on that isle. Do so and... well... do so and I won't eat you and all you love!" The Drafling roared ferociously and Twiddy scampered backward, tripping over an exposed root and falling to the ground. The Drafling laughed for a minute before continuing, "Hah ha ha! Get on with your work. Build the tower here and the boat someplace higher. Farewell little mugs."

With that, the Drafling turned and in just a few moments, had vanished into the underbrush. Twiddy scrambled to his feet and gripped the box tightly. He retreated back to Fiddlewiz, carrying the box aloft. "Fiddlewiz!" he called. "Fiddlewiz! Get to your gears, we've work to do! This time, it will fly. This time, the ship will not just leave the water, it will fly straight up into the clouds! Let's not let ourselves get tangled up in the past. This is the future. We'll be building ourselves the Cloudskipper, and she will fly as high as the birds - no, higher! Fiddlewiz! We've work to do! Get working!"

''And that is how Twiddy Bobick and Professor A.M. Fiddlewiz began down a path that would lead to the building of the Cloudskipper, the craft that would eventually carry our party to locales none had known before. Though they were a pair of little men, their ambitions were enormous, and we wouldn't have gone half so far without them.''

''And the tower they promised the Drafling? It was built tall and true just outside of Rivervale only months before our party was to encounter and recruit them. Though I myself have not ever truly believed he was anything more than a halfling dressed up as a dragon, Twiddy swears otherwise, and loathe am I to disagree with him.'' - Eylee Zephyrswell