When Toby's vision cleared, he was no longer standing on lime gelatin. He was plummeting through a sky filled with sepia-toned clouds and floating islands made of brass and mahogany. He screamed, clutching the glowing Mother Dough to his chest, until he landed with a soft thump onto a velvet chaise lounge.
He sat up, coughing on thick, coal-scented smog. He was on the deck of an enormous airship, suspended by a massive balloon stitched from patchwork silk.
"Ah, you've arrived. Splendid timing, old boy," a gruff voice grunted.
Sitting across from Toby, polishing a brass blunderbuss, was a badger. A very large badger. It was wearing a pinstripe vest, a bowler hat, and a pair of welding goggles.
"I'm Toby," Toby said, having decided to simply stop questioning things. "I have cosmic sourdough."
"Put that away before you blow us all to kingdom come," the badger snapped, lighting a cigar with a flintlock lighter. "Name's Bartholomew. We don't have much time. It's 1842, and Queen Victoria’s mecha-corgis have just intercepted the Gouda of Destiny. If that cheese reaches London, the timeline collapses, and everyone in the 21st century will suddenly be born with an uncontrollable urge to wear ruffled collars."
"We can't have that," Toby agreed.
"Precisely. The cheese is being held in the cargo bay of the Royal Zeppelin The Howling Windsor, currently flying parallel to us off the starboard bow." Bartholomew pointed. Through the fog, Toby could see an even larger airship bristling with steam-powered cannons.
"What's the plan?" Toby asked.
"It's highly complex," Bartholomew said, unrolling a blueprint that appeared to be drawn entirely in crayon. "I will launch myself from our cannon into their steam vents to disable the boiler. You will swing across on this rope, bypass the laser-grid security system—which, frankly, is an anachronism I don't understand, but we roll with it—and retrieve the cheese."
"How do I bypass a laser grid?"
Bartholomew handed Toby a rubber chicken and a pair of tap-dancing shoes. "The grid is motion-sensitive, but it runs on a waltz time signature. You must tap dance in a perfect 4/4 rhythm to confuse its internal metronome, while simultaneously squeaking the rubber chicken at intervals of pi. Do you understand?"
"Not a single word," Toby said.
"Brilliant. Put the shoes on."
Ten minutes later, Toby found himself swinging through the smog on a frayed rope, dressed in his pajamas and tap shoes, clutching a rubber chicken. He crashed through a stained-glass window into the cargo bay of the enemy zeppelin.
Before him was a room filled with crisscrossing red lasers. In the center, sitting on a pedestal, was a massive wheel of yellow cheese glowing with ethereal power. Guarding it were three mecha-corgis—robotic dogs made of copper, their eyes glowing red, steam puffing from their brass noses.
The corgis barked, a sound like grinding gears, and charged.
Toby panicked. He threw the cosmic sourdough orb from the grocery store directly at the robotic dogs. The Mother Dough expanded rapidly upon impact, creating an explosion of sticky, expanding dough that completely engulfed the corgis, trapping them in a giant ball of rapidly baking bread.
"Well, that was easier than the tap dancing," Toby muttered. He walked over, carefully stepping over the lasers which had conveniently short-circuited from the dough explosion, and grabbed the Gouda of Destiny.
As soon as he touched the cheese, the zeppelin violently lurched. The hull ripped open, sucked into a swirling purple vortex that had spontaneously opened in the sky. Toby, clinging to the giant wheel of cheese, was sucked into the void.