RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-One - Isnding

  “Oh, this is heavy,” I pined as I pushed the tarp up and off of me. The Beaver’s balloon was made of a thick, coarse material—I was guessing some sort of vas that was treated to be a little more airtight aher-resistant.

  With a grunt of effort, I climbed to my feet, arms pushing up aing the vas around me so that I could see around the deck. The sunlight, filtered by the blue cloth, made everything very blue, but that didn’t mean I was uo find Amaryllis pushing and shoving against some of the vas c her.

  “This... this is annoying,” she said.

  “Well, it’s not so bad. At least we nded safely?”

  “Oh yes, how wonderful,” she griped. “Never going to get anywhere on time now.” She seemed to be in something of a foul mood. I couldn’t really bme her.

  “e o’s find the others; make sure everyone is okay. And then, I guess we work oing this tarp off the top of the ship?”

  Amaryllis and I were pushing and shoving our way towards the Beaver’s prow when we found the first of our crewmates.

  “Oh no,” I said.

  e was on the ground, lying on her side, sprawled out across the deck.

  I gasped and fell onto my knees o the spirit kitten--who was more of a ow-- and reached out.

  On toug her, the cat opened her eyes and gred, a sort of “why are you waking me up” gre. “You’re not hurt?” I asked.

  Her tail curled up and back down, and she let her head fall bato the deck.

  “Okay then,” I said.

  The tarp started to lighten, and then it was lifted up to float above us. Standing a bit straighter now that I didn’t have a dozen kilos of vas weighing me down, I looked around and saw all of my friends. Everyone seemed mostly fine. Awen poked her head out of a hat the other deck, while Clive grabbed the ship's wheel and pulled himself upright.

  Around us hovered a dozen cry, all of them spaore or less evenly around the Beaver Cleaver while the tarp floated on seemingly nothing at all. “Okay,” I said. “Everyone, let’s gather here! We might o get off the Beaver for a bit.”

  “That would be wise,” a cry chimed.

  I turhen looked up as a cry hovered closer. They were huge, a pilr of crystal as big around as a wagon. They had a slight deformation in their crystal on one side, a rge purple-ish blotch that stood out quite a bit.

  “Hi,” I said. “My name is Broccoli Bunch, I’m the captain of the Beaver Cleaver. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for the help. Not just with the tarp, but with slowing us down. I’m gd we didn’t crash!”

  “We greet you, soft one. We are Shard of the Exiled Pilr, First Split and One Whole. We are not the leader of this unity, but often act as an intermediary between our kind and the local soft ones.”

  “You’re the local diplomat,” I said. “That’s wonderful! What’s this town called?”

  “This is the town of Mistrust.”

  I blinked. “That’s not the most cheery name, but okay. I’m sorry that we nded right in the middle of your towook a bit more damage than we would have liked, and this was the only ft spot around. Do you know if there are any meics or, um, airship engineers in Mistrust?”

  “We are not aware of either,” Shard of the Exiled Pilr, First Split and One Whole said. “In most circumstances, we would be wary of assisting you, but you came esc a lost shard in need of assistance, and that same shard delivered iing devices to us. Are you the ohat created those?”

  “The fog lenses? No, that was Awen. I just had the initial idea from sce css.” I gnced around at all of the cry silently helping lift the balloons around us. “Maybe... maybe we could trade?”

  “Trade?”

  “Yeah! You seem to like the fog devices. They were cobbled together ihan an hour. Imagine how much better Awen could make them if we gave her a bit more time? I bet she wouldn’t mind making a dozen more. And in exge, you give us permission to nd here, and a bit of a helping haing our balloon fixed.”

  “You pn to leave already?” the cry asked.

  “Well, we don’t have much of a choice. We’re trying to stop a war, and if we don’t make it back soon, that could mean a lot of trouble for a lot of people.”

  “What is the cry saying?” Amaryllis asked.

  I transted real fast, and she he a talon on my shoulder. “We obviously did not io nd in your town, though the circumstances of that nding should be taken into at. We came to this isnd specifically to deliver Shard of Mountaintrowth, Fourth Split, and not Yet Whole. In the carrying out of that duty, we were followed and attacked by cry who I only presume are your own adversaries.”

  “The cry from the g Mountains are not our adversaries,” Shard of the Exiled Pilr, First Split and One Whole chimed, pausing for me to transte. “We are exiled from them, broken away, and therefore do not have the standing upon which to decre them ehey are within their rights to trespass upon this isnd.”

  “Uh,” I said. “That... okay? I don’t get it. You did fight back.”

  “Just because they have the right to do something, does not mean it is the right thing to do,” they expined.

  That sounded a little strao me, but I wasn’t quite ready tue it. “Well, I’m gd you helped. I ’t imagihings going well if you had refused to help.”

  “They were here with ill i. As for your trade, we are willing to eh the idea. The location where your ship is stationed is inve, but we uand the reasoning for your nding here.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it too. The cry were being very nice, and super uanding. “We’ll try not to stay around for too long.”

  “We would appreciate that,” Shard of the Exiled Pilr, First Split and One Whole chimed before bag away.

  I turo my friends and crewmates. No one was injured, which was a great pce to start. “Okay, everyone, we’re in a bit of trouble, but we make it out of here. Clive, Steve, Gordon, what we do about the balloon?”

  “Now that we’re on solid footing,” Clive began. “Plenty. If urchase some tarp and vas here, we fix it up. Better than just a quick patch-job too.”

  “Helium will be an issue,” Steve said. “It looks like two of the inner sacs are fine, but that means that six of them were pierced through. Ohe balloons are fixed, we’ll o repce the gas.”

  “And it’s uhis backwater has any,” Amaryllis said. “No airship port, so no refueling or repair stations. There might be an alchemist here, but I doubt they’ll have the materials or skills to synthesize helium from empty air.”

  “Oh, that’s not great,” I said. “Could we use something else?”

  “Hydrogen?” Awen asked. “Ah, but that’s... not safe.”

  “Wildly dangerous,” Amaryllis said. “If we don’t have a choice, we try that.”

  I rubbed at my . We needed a gas that we couldn’t get easily, which... wasn’t great. “Could we put the Beaver on the o and sail to Sylphfree?” I asked.

  “We... that’s a dumb idea,” Amaryllis said.

  “Possibly,” Clive replied. “But I wouldn’t be keen on it. Not much experience sailing on water, and we’d o roof the hull, add sails, pate holes up. It would be a lot of work.”

  “There are some ports in Sylphfree that we could sail to,” Bastion said. “But travel by o is slow.”

  “So that’s a pn B,” I said. “Oh! The other airships!”

  “What other airships?” Joe asked. He was standing with the Scallywags, all three of them looking a bit rough-and-tumbled from our little adventure.

  “The ohat went down. I think two of them crashed. Their balloons might be intact.”

  “That could work,” Amaryllis said. “If not the balloons themselves, then the sacs within them. And they likely had a few tanks of helium onboard.”

  “We don’t have any?” I asked.

  “Two of them, but each only refill one sac,” Awen said. “And we’ve used up a bit to make up for the losses st time.”

  I nodded. “Okay, we’ll do this in two parts. One group go out and try to sge things. Aays here to guard the Beaver and repair our balloon.” I gnced around, at all the cry still holding things up above us. “We ’t ask the cry to help up all day long, that wouldn’t be fair. Awen, I... may have promised that you’d help the cry make more of those focuses.”

  “I don’t mind,” Awen said. “I might need more materials to make them, though, and maybe some tools that I don’t have.”

  “Then we’ll talk with Shard of the Exiled Pilr, First Split and One Whole together. I’m sure they arrange for us to get you set up to make them as quick as possible.”

  “How do you want to divide things?” Bastion asked.

  I rubbed at my . “Gordon, you e with us to salvage things? And... maybe Oda and Sally too? Steve, Clive and Joe stay here to fix the tarps. Bastion, if you don’t mind ing with us, that would be nice.”

  “Certainly,” Bastion said.

  “And myself?” Amaryllis asked.

  “e with me? We might o iate things with the town’s people. You’re better at prices and things than I am.”

  “Very well,” she said. “We should get a move on. We’re likely to lose half a day to all of this already; I don’t want to turn that into two.”

  “You’re right,” I said. The passing of time was already weighing on me a little. It wouldn’t do for our first introdu to our new sylph friends to be arriving te. “Okay, does anyone have any ideas that we could use?”

  Oda raised a hand. “We could get some help from the locals. They might have some meics, even if they’re not airship meics.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “We might meet some people, so I’ll try to make some friends.”

  “This is a penal y,” Bastion said. “Or at least, a town built by prisoners and exiles. Keep sharp; they might not be as friendly as you’d wish.”

  I hough it was a bit of a relut nod. “Okay. Anything else?” No one seemed to have anything to say, so I cpped my hands together. “Alright! The’s get started! We have a whole bunch of work to get done, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”

  “Aye, aye,” Clive said. He stepped back, then started direg the others to get to wht away.

  I wasn’t going to belittle his hard work by not giving it my all too. “Okay, let’s get down. We o find out where the ships crashed, and if there are any cry around the nding zones. I guess that the local cry might want to help with that.”

  “Do they even take prisoners?” Amaryllis asked.

  “I... guess? I don’t know. Maybe they’ll just kick them out ahem fly bae uheir own power. I guess it’s a little bit out of our hands.” I’d interfere to stop anything too bad from happening, but the cry had kinda-sorta attacked the town, so I figured whatever passed for police around here would be ied in capturing them at least.

  “Don’t worry,” Amaryllis said. “We’ll be ba the air in no time.”