The Joker and The Rose.

= Artemis =

Finding the dragons nest was easier than i thought. Before in the den the unicorns had been forced to scan the mountains for gems so that the diamond dogs knew where to dig. Using that same spell they quickly found a large signal coming from the top of a mountain, there was snow on the mountain so everybody that didn't have natural protection against cold was wearing warm clothing, mainly Nigel, Onyx and me, but some of the ponies had also decided to dress in appropriate clothing for the weather.

After some struggling with actually figuring out how the ship worked, we could make our way to the mountain where the dragons nest was.

The dragons nest was located inside a cave just below the summit of the large mountain, we dropped anchor and prepared ourselves to go inside.

"Alright, Ramon, your squad will follow me and inspect the cave. Tony, take some of the griffins and pegasi, take to the air and scout for any other dragons, i don't want any surprises. Catalina, stay on the ship and be prepared to move at any time. If something bad happens i want to be able to get out of here fast," I explained.

They all nodded.

Ramon's squad was made up by Rough Rider, i had given him the previous captains large battleaxe, and the diamond dogs, armed with spears. 6 in the group including me.

In Tony's squad were the griffins and pegasi, they would easily be able to keep lookout for anything approaching the cave. 15 in that squad.

Catalina's had the rest, the regular ponies and unicorns, also those who were too sick or injured to be of help.

All three squads had one Nigel each, with his joined mind he would act as the communication between the squads.

"Now remember, if you have something to report then talk to your respective Nigel, he will use the single mind to communicate with his brothers. You go that Nigel?" I asked him.

"Nigel understands and is ready." The three Nigels said in unison.

"Perfect, alright Tony, you go first, scout the air for us." I said.

Tony nodded and turned to his squad. "Alright guys, you heard the captain, lets get going!" He unfolded his wings.

"Flight on!" He shouted as he shot up into the air, his squad following him.

I turned to Ramon, "Yosh, lets get going Ramon, we got us some booty waiting for us in that cave." i pointed to the cave entrance with my hand.

Ramon nodded and turned to the landing party, "Lets go!" He thrust his spear to the sky. The squad cheered.

We jumped off the ship, landed in the soft snow and made our way to the cave.

As we arrived at the cave we lit the torches we had brought with us.

"Nigel, send a message to your brothers, tell them we are going in." I said to Nigel.

"Understood." Nigel responded, he turned his head around and closed his eyes. He opened them again and turned back to me. "It is done." he said.

"Good, lets go." I said to the group and moved forward into the cave.

We made our way into the cave, the torches reflecting our shadows on the dark walls. The cave was large, roughly 10 meters to the roof and another 20 from wall to wall.

It didn't take long to find what we were looking for. We had arrived at a large chamber filled to the brim of gems and golden objects.

*Wheeew* i whistled lowly. "That's a lot of dough."

I noticed something else, two round objects lying in a bed of golden coins. I approached them and picked one up.

"Dragon eggs." I heard Ramon say behind me. I turned around and smiled, "We are going to need a bigger boat."

--- Several hours later ---

It had taken us quite a while to move the entire treasure from the cave to the boat, thankfully we had a crane we could use.

So after transporting, loading and storing stuffing the ship with as much of the treasure we could fit without making it crash to the ground, we were quite sick of the mountains.

I gathered us main six (Ramon, Tony, Catalina, Onyx, one of the Nigels and me) in the great cabin to discuss our next step.

We were standing around the large table with a world map spread out.

"Mentlegen, to say the least we are in the worst possible situation. We are currently in Gem Fido, these mountains are crawling with raiding diamond dogs, dragons and i don't even think Celestia knows what else. We have no way to defend ourselves, save melee weapons and portable harpoon launchers. Our stock is filled to the brim with valuables, weighing down the already hard to maneuver ship. Hell i don't even know what the hell is keeping this thing afloat in the first place." i said.

"I might be able to answer that." Onyx said, she used her magic to roll out a scroll on the table. The paper contained a less than detailed schematic of the ship, "I found this in one of the storage compartments."

"Good work on that. Please, enlighten me." I said.

"Well, to put it simple. The ship is kept afloat using magical pylons built into the hull under the ship and embedded in the core of the two masts. You might notice the golden sails, they are used to absorb sunlight and natural background magic radiation. The masts relay the energy down into the pylons where it is converted into pure magic energy, it then uses that energy to automatically cast a predetermined levitation spell, thus the ship is kept from crashing to the ground. Barely any of the ships movement is dependent on the wind, the sails are for energy absorbing purposes only." She explained.

"Interesting, most interesting. I have heard about background radiation but never that it was magic, whats the deal with that?" i asked.

"I don't know where you come from, but here the world has a natural magical resonance in it. It is highly concentrated in Equestria but it also exists in the surrounding regions. That is why you will find higher than average intelligent animals and lifeforms in Equestria, while out here they are primitive and savage." She continued.

"That would explain the less than average intelligence of the diamond dogs back in the den, no offence Ramon." i apologized to Ramon.

"Non taken, i have no relation to these diamond dogs. My father was an alpha male, we are a higher developed breed of diamond dog." Ramon explained.

"That is also interesting, we will get back to that in a sec. So Onyx, are you saying that the ship will be easier to move around if we get to Equestria?" i asked the changeling.

"Well yes, but there are other ways to make it easier. If we could find a source of pure magic energy then not only would we be able to store more of the dragons treasure on board, but we would be able to reach Equestria within the week." she answered.

"Well, we have a ridiculously large amount of gems, if we use them to power the ship then this could be easier." i said.

"That could work, we could transfer the gems natural magic into the pylons." Onyx scribbled something down onto a note.

"Gems don't really have a limit on how much pure magic can be stored within them, however it is advisable to stop when they start to glow red hot. If you for some reason decided to continue beyond that then finally you would create such a large magical reserve that the pure heat radiating from it would outmatch that of the sun. However at that point the gem would have melted away and the magic would have been released in a violent explosion" She continued.

"Now that is cool." i turned the schematics of the ship to me and inspected it.

I knew barely anything about ships, but thankfully whoever made these schematics did neither, so the schematics were very simple. You could tell that this world was a cartoon for kids.

I decided to do some editing on the name of the ship.

I studied the schematics. "You said that the pylons were placed inside the hull?" I asked Onyx.

"Yes, the schematics only shows the locations of the pylons, they aren't actually sticking out like that under the ship." Onyx explained. "The schematics aren't to scale, its more of a guideline to show where everything is, i will try to find some more detailed plans of the ship later."

"Kon-Tiki III." Ramon read what i had written on the schematics. "What is that?" he asked.

"Aaah, the story of Kon-Tiki is an old tale about a man called Thor, he once built a ship and sailed it across a great ocean, all to win an argument. He named the ship Kon-Tiki. He also built another two ships, Ra and Ra II. I fancied the name Kon-Tiki so in honor of Thor i have decided to name this ship Kon-Tiki III." I explained.

"Anyway, that's enough lollygagging on the ship for now. We need to find a town or something, money has no value unless you use it." i said, as to indicate at our cargo hold which was now filled to bursting with gems and other valuables.

I rolled up the ship schematics, put them aside and looked at the map spread out over the table.

"Equestria is a lot smaller than i thought." i pointed out as i looked over the map.

"I don't know how big your world is but Equis is huge." Onyx said.

"Equis?" I asked her.

"Yes, it's one of the many names for this world. Most ponies just call the entire continent Equestria, but they rarely look beyond the borders of their own country."

"The Equestrian population is highly ignorant when it comes to foreign knowledge, they sit in their little paradise while the rest of Equis struggles." Ramon filled in.

"Well shit, and i thought the entire world here was all kitten whiskers and butterfly farts. You can tell by how i have so far gotten at least 12 huge scars, lost half a finger, a tooth and gotten all my blood replaced by black sludge from Tartarus." i said.

"What?" they all said in unison, save for the one Nigel who was with us, none of them rarely said anything.

I drew my sword and ran my thumb along the edge, creating a tiny cut. I held out my hand and let the black blood slowly pour out, only for it to recede back again moments later.

Everybody just stood there, staring.

"Fascinating." Onyx leaned in to get a better look at the cut on my thumb that had now closed, leaving only a tiny scab.

"I have read about the waters of Tartarus, it is said that they react differently from person to person, but not quite in this way. It seems to have given you some kind of regenerative powers." she said.

"Can we get back to the 'finding out where we are going' part?" Tony asked impatiently.

"Whu-? yeah, sure." i said, "Alright, we are currently here," I pointed at a location very near the border between Gem Fido and Equestria, "The closest city is Maneapolis, it should take us about a week to get there if we use the gems to power the pylons. When we arrive we will drop off the slaves and soldiers." Everybody looked at me queerly, "We need them to report back to Celestia, when she finds out she will try to send someone to stop us, most likely an officer or some such. We capture the pony and interrogate him, i want as much information about the Equestrian military as i can. I want to know what we are up against so that when we really start to cause a ruckus we are prepared." i explained.

"We aren't going to start plundering immediately?" Tony asked with a disappointed tone.

"Yeah, lets go head to head with the entire Equestrian military in a ship with no firepower whatsoever and a crew that has been slaving away in a diamond dog den." i responded sarcastically.

"Good point." he said.

"So, we go to Maneapolis, get us some supplies, weapons and maybe some more crew members, then what?" Catalina asked me.

"We won't have any financial problems when we cash in all the stuff we got from the dragon, so we upgrade the Kon-Tiki III and maybe find some people we can hire for the crew. We need a doctor, a cook, we can't hold the current ones forever, a bard, a shipwright and a navigator," I said. They all looked at each other.

"Yeah, why not?" Tony shrugged. They all agreed.