Chapter six.

After a solid dinner Moosty, Billy Bob and Lula went to a clearing behind the inn to start off their journey
Moosty wondering out loud whether one should call it a voyage instead since Lula kept saying something about a ship. Tessa had giving them all food enough for a couple of days and blankets and furs to wrap themselves in for the night so he did hope they would get some sort of transport instead of having to carry all this all the way
"Where is that ship" Moosty asked. And Lula said he should take out the little leather case from his backpack the wizard Dalamar had lend them and place it in the middle of the clearing
Then open it saying "Shirack!" and get away quickly. Moosty shook his head and commented he had no magical talent what so ever - but Lula said "You have plenty, baby!" - so he did as he was told
And then stood gaping while a beautiful ship unfolded itself. A small perfect ship complete with a dragon head in one end, a red and white striped sail in the middle and a curled "dragon tail" in the other end
"Tha-that was in tha-that small ca-case" Moosty stuttered amazed. Then answered himself by saying "Yes, it was. ... it´s marvellous. The dragon is so life like that any minute now it might roar at us. And it is floating above the ground perfectly still ... Did you know it would be like this, Lula? Yes, of course, you did - you are a witch after all. Wow - it´s made of paper ... But then we can´t climb aboard! It will rip and - and my boots will go right through the bottom and - and ..."
"It is very solid, my sweet baby. Will you two get our gear onboard so we can get going" Lula laughed
Being rather amazed herself but not going to show it. She had only ever heard about Frey´s ship. Never actually seen how big it was. There was plenty of space for her two friend, her and all their luggage
Finally they were all aboard. And Lula move over and turned an elaborate ornamented bronze fish mounted in the front part of the ship in the general direction of the mountains and then yelled loudly "Go!"
And so it did. Very fast, without a sound and quite high above the tree tops. At the beginning Moosty was quite sure they would crash but after a while he started to enjoy the wind whipping his hair back and the glorious view of the land beneath them
Lula said it would take some hours to reach the mountains. So if they dídn´t mind she would sleep a bit - pussilainiousses clearly needed more sleep than humans - and would Moosty very much mind if she slept on his lap. She thought that would be warmer and softer than the bottom of the ship
Moosty blushed and Billy Bob giggled but Lula got her wish
After a while Billy Bob and Moosty started talking quietly among themselves. And Moosty started to talk about the beautiful princess A-oodaq. How sad he was that he would probably never meet her or anything. "And even if I met her a lovely, beautiful princess like that would have nothing to do with a ugly troll" he said sadly
For a moment Lula´s purring stopped and she lifted one eyelid. But Moosty didn´t noticed. Just went on to say that he just wished that she was with a kinder man than that mean wizard
Billy Bob told him that if the princess really knew him she would leave Landorkin in a minute. But that was only theoretically at the moment since you don´t meet that many princesses in the mountains. And Moosty agreed on that
But never the less stared longingly toward the horizon for a while dreaming of saving his princess from the ugly dragon - eh, wizard
Lula opened the other eye and looked at the troll sitting opposite Moosty. But Billy Bob just shrugged his massive shoulders and shook his big head and she went back to doing what pussilainiousses do best - purring and enjoy herself - while Moosty absent mindedly stroked her back fur with a warm gentle hand
After exactly two hours and thirty-seven minutes the ship went down gently on a very big rock opposite a landmark called the Eaglerock because it looked vaguely like an eagle´s head
The three friends got out and when everybody and everything was well down on the ground Lula said softly "Dulack" and the ship folded itself back together again in the leather case with a rattling sound like dry paper
Moosty hid the case in his backpack. Where after they went off on foot to try and find some Morant stones. Lula thought she could simply smell them with her very fine pussilainious nose. "They smell of magic" she giggled
"And what does that smell like?" Moosty smiled at his little friend. Then blushed deeply when she answered - while strutting off with her tail in the air - "Oh, like you, Sweetie - off leather and roses - it smells very good, indeed!"
Billy Bob broke down laughing. Then giggled even harder when Moosty aimed a half hearted kicked at his broad behind - although of course missed since he wasn´t really mad, just embarrassed
So the friends started their walk in rather high spirits
And after half an hour´s search they had found some very small pieces of Morant stone. Lula said that she wanted a bigger one - the size of a man´s fist would be best - since she was a big girl and it would take a lot of magical power to change her back to a human again
But just as she excited told them to dig beside a boulder - since she was sure there would be a huge stone just half a meter down - a flying carpet came slowly drifting around a corner about a meter above ground and the woman entangled with the man on top of it lifted her gorgeous head and said "Oh?"