At least a dozen crewmembers on the airship are at the rail, watching me with various degrees of wariness and disbelief. I quickly have Echo scan them and read off their levels and classes. I relax fractionally. Most don’t appear combat oriented. A couple are also new species I haven’t encountered before—great. Another species Mirzayael will want me to add to the Dungeon Core’s index.

  “Hello,” I call, slowly drifting forward. “I hope we didn’t alarm you. We were hoping to speak with your captain and potentially trade some goods.”

  “See? I told you they weren’t wyverns!”

  I hadn’t been able to overhear the first meeting with the fishing boats that well, as I was at a distance and listening through Ollie, but I thought I’d detected an accent before. It’s very clear now. It’s the same language, but the sounds feel more soft. Interestingly, I didn’t perceive the Jorrians to have an accent any different from the Fyrethians.

  “How’s I supposed to know from that distance?” an elf objects, glaring at a nearby human. “It’s the Drifting Isles! They’s supposed to be wyverns!”

  “Er, we’re not the Drifting Isles, actually,” I say. Mirzayael and I had discussed using the name as a cover after the last case of mistaken identity, but determined that had the potential to blow up in our faces when someone with more knowledge of the Ruin inevitably revealed us to be lying.

  “We’re the Flying Fortress,” I say, leaving off Fyreneth’s name. Even though we decided it would be better not to lie, this was one omission we thought it would be best to withhold until we learn more about how the rest of the world views Fyrethians—if they remember them at all. “We’re fairly new to the whole flying thing, actually. As I said, we’re merely interested in trade.”

  A different human steps forward, tall, muscular, and scarred. His skin is dark brown, and his black hair is worn in short twists. He’s wearing a sleeveless shirt and a faint, confident smile. Echo identifies him as Marlowe; I can tell he’s the captain before he even speaks.

  “New to flying?” he repeats, a hint of amusement in his deep tone. “Then what did they call your city before? Just, Fortress?”

  Cheeky. But it’s exactly what I would have wondered from the outside. I grin. “You’re not far off. May we come aboard to talk? I can’t keep these flames up all day.”

  Technically I could use the mana the Dungeon Core has access to, but that’s been set aside to keep the Fortress running—and flying—so I try to only rely on my own mana stores for personal use.

  He eyes my Jets curiously. “Interesting technique, that. But I don’t know we’ll have much to offer if it’s trade you’re after. We were coming out here to capture some wyverns for ourselves, so our stores are light.” Even so, he beckons me forward. “Well, no sense in wasting the trip. You can come aboard if you’re careful with those flames. But if you singe my ship, you’ll pay for it.”

  I’m uncertain if he means that in a monetarily or metaphorically threatening way, but it’s a reasonable request regardless.

  I turn back to Dizzi. “You’re with me. The harpies with empty packs can head back. The ones carrying goods can come aboard. I don’t want to crowd them.”

  “You got it!” Dizzi passes my message along as I reach out to Mirzayael and relay the same.

  The order makes her nervous. “They could overpower you with so few of your guards around.”

  “I don’t think they’d try that.” The crew is admittedly rougher looking than the fishing boats we’d run into before, but there’s something about this captain I can’t put my finger on that I like. “All of us can fly, while they don’t have any harpies on their crew. If it came to it, we could cut their balloon and jump off.” Not that I particularly like the idea, but I’m sure it’s something that’s already crossed Marlowe’s mind.

  I can feel Mirzayael’s approval of the slightly horrific contingency plan. “Good. Alright. Still, be cautious.”

  “I will,” I promise, drifting closer to the airship.

  Getting on, however, presents itself to be somewhat of an issue.

  The moment I cut my flames, I’ll begin to fall. This isn’t an issue in the Fortress, because the ground is stone everywhere save the crop fields. But in this case, there’s not enough room for me to comfortably hover under the balloon without my Jets scorching the wood deck below. Which means I’ll need to cut my flames before I’m over the ship, and for that, I’ll need a bit of help from momentum.

  “If I could have some space, please,” I say.

  Captain Marlowe gestures for his crew to make room, watching with a curious, amused look to see what I’ll do next. I really hope I’ve gauged the angles right and I’m not about to make a fool of myself.

  Backing up and dropping slightly below the level of the main deck, I flare my Jets, firing myself up toward the ship. I cut the flames just about when I’m level with the rail. My stomach lurches, though my trajectory continues to take me up and over the side of the ship. Almost too far up—for a moment I’m terrified I’m about to crash into the balloon—then I reach the apex of my arc, and gravity pulls me down once more. I land hard on the wood, and go stumbling forward, flapping my wings to keep upright. Heart hammering in my chest, I straighten up and turn around, attempting to appear much more nonchalant than I feel. Dizzi and the other five harpies easily touch down after me with small gusts of wind.

  Captain Marlowe rumbles with a laugh. “An impressive show. And not one wooden plank singed. Shame—I was hoping to squeeze some coins out of you to pay for some much-needed repairs.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” I say, tucking my wings in. “I doubt we have currency you would have been able to use, anyway.”

  “New to Dunmora?” he asks.

  “You’re the second group we’ve encountered,” I admit.

  The other harpies are keeping rather close to me, and the rest of Marlowe’s crew is hanging back, uncertain. I was expecting Dizzi to break the ice, but even she seems a little reserved. I glance over the crew again, wondering if I’ve missed something. They’re mostly humans, elves, and dracid.

  Ah.

  Fyrethians are of course very familiar with dracid, what with the dragon-like people making up a sizable portion of our population. Elves, however, are new to me, and so I assume they’re new to the Fyrethians, too. And humans… Well, over half the Jorrian population were humans.

  I recall Dizzi acting nervous on the fishing ship when a human had approached, and their reactions abruptly click into place.

  But people from one country are not representative of people everywhere, which the Fyrethians I am sure understand, given the Jorrian dwarves and felis that also fought against us. If some have developed an unconscious bias or fear, it is something I can’t blame them for; we’ll work through it.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Branching out into this much larger world is going to be uncomfortable. We’re going to be confronted with the unknown quite a bit. But putting ourselves in these new, uncertain situations is the only way to grow used to it. And once such excursions start to feel commonplace, we’ll surely become a force to be reckoned with.

  “Your ship is amazing,” I say, turning in a circle to take it all in. Mast-like pedestals are situated beneath each opening in the balloon, spell circles and runes carved in their surface; on top of each column is a live flame. “That can’t be the only lift mechanism. You have small wings, too. How does it lift such heavy wood?”

  The captain raises an amused eyebrow. “How does your stone city fly?”

  “Cloudstone,” I say. The implication in his question sparks my interest. “Is there wind arcana in the wood, too?”

  “Nay, we aren’t rich enough for cloudwood,” Marlowe says. He raps a knuckle on the railing. “The spell circles keep us aloft. Wind and null.”

  I tip my head. “How does null arcana help?” I’d asked Echo about that field of magic before, but from what I can recall, it is mostly used in magical applications that involve summonings and bindings.

  “It has spatial attributes,” Dizzi jumps in before Marlowe can respond. “One application can be to alter gravity in an area. Very interesting. I didn’t think to use it on this sort of scale. Though I’m not sure we have any null arcana mages among us, anyway.”

  Marlowe gives Dizzi an appraising look. “Mage?”

  “Artificer,” she says, puffing up proudly. “The best in the kingdom.” It’s good to see her warming up, now that she’s back in her element.

  Marlowe grunts, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “Perhaps there’s trade we can do after all. We don’t have much on us, save for some equipment and a week’s worth of standard supplies, but I’ll see what we can do. Tam.” He beckons an elf over. “Go over the inventory with our guests.”

  I start to step toward the elf, but the captain shakes his head. “No, you and your artificer friend with me. I’ve got some spells I’d like looked at.”

  Dizzi looks at me questioningly, and I nod. “Let’s see what we can do. Salvia,” I say, turning to the harpy who’s standing stoically with the rest. If they’re bothered by the presence of the humans and elves, they’re not showing it. “Are you comfortable handling the trade talks for a few minutes while we step away?”

  “Of course, my lord,” Salvia says. “I made myself familiar with our inventory before we departed.”

  “I’ll leave it to you, then.” It should be a good test of their leadership skills, which I’m sure Mirzayael would appreciate.

  Dizzi and I follow Captain Marlowe to the helm of his ship.

  “I didn’t realize we were in such an esteemed presence as that of a lord,” he says. His tone is flat, but I suspect there’s a level of humor, or perhaps sarcasm, in the remark.

  “I suspect the honorific is overstated,” I say.

  Dizzi snorts, undermining my remark. Thanks, Dizzi.

  The captain doesn’t comment on this. “I’m Marlowe, by the way.” He offers his hand.

  Oh, I’d completely forgotten introductions! Sometimes I lose track of what people have told me versus what Echo has told me. It’s easy to take her insight for granted.

  “Fyre,” I say, clasping his hand. “And this is my science officer, Dizzi.”

  “A pleasure to meet you both,” Captain Marlowe says. He leads us to the bow of the ship, where the main wheel and a variety of levers and spell circles are arrayed. This is interesting. I’d expect the helm to be located at the aft end of the ship, since it steers the rudder, as is the case with sail ships. However, the controls are instead at the forward end, more similar to aircraft. They must have a complex system of mechanisms in the ship’s underbelly to control the rudder remotely.

  Captain Marlowe swipes his hand over a spell circle, which illuminates.

  On second thought, I suspect the rudder is more likely steered by magic.

  “We’ve been having issues with the starboard aileron lately,” he says. “Though we can find nothing wrong with the mechanisms or spells.”

  Dizzi leans excitedly over the control panel. “Wow! This network is amazing. I haven’t seen some of these designs before.” She traces a finger over the lines of a spell circle. “Hmm, but it’s pretty rudimentary. Hey Fyre, do you remember that lift equation offhand?”

  “Yes,” I say, trying to decipher the runes. I can read a bit of it now, but I’m far from fluent. “What are you thinking?”

  When we were designing the Fortress for flight, I had provided all of the aerodynamic knowledge I could recall off the top of my head, and re-derived a few more equations besides. I’d worked through the theory with Dizzi, and she’d been able to incorporate some of it into spell circles of her own design. There’s so much more I can’t recall—I’d kill for a Flight Dynamics textbook—but given enough time and experimentation, I’m sure I could recreate many of importance.

  Then again, if I taught Dizzi differential equations and linear algebra, I’m a little afraid how quickly I’d become obsolete.

  “This spell isn’t very efficient,” she says, pointing to a circle. I can read enough of the runes to know that spell is what steers the ship. It’s probably connected to the rudder in some way. “You can use the same lift spell for each of the wings. It’s simpler, more controlled, easier to maintain, and saves mana. I bet I could work in one of those feedback loops you showed me…”

  Ah, rolling to induce a yaw. She learns fast.

  “I’ll draw something up,” she excitedly tells Captain Marlowe, producing a piece of chalk out of nowhere.

  He eyes her skeptically. “Well that’s much appreciated, but it doesn’t explain the issue with the aileron.”

  “Oh.” Dizzi absently taps one of the runes. “There’s a hairline crack between set and tah. It’s probably shorting intermittently and disrupting the circle’s function.”

  The captain leans over the panel in surprise, and I chuckle.

  “Perhaps we should leave her to it,” I say, stepping aside. “She gets a bit sucked in with things like this.” I was much the same when I was her age.

  Though Mirzayael would insist I’m much the same now.

  Captain Marlowe moves to the side with me, though he doesn’t go far, positioning himself so he can keep a careful eye on the both of us while Dizzi sketches out a new design on the panel.

  “You two are something else,” he says. Do my ears deceive me, or does he sound impressed? “Can’t say I was expecting this when we struck out this morning.”

  “Sorry we’re not the wyverns you were seeking,” I say.

  Marlowe chuckles. “I think meeting a couple of beautiful and talented harpies more than makes up for it.”

  An embarrassed heat flushes through me. What? Beautiful? He’s not talking about me, is he? I’ve never been called beautiful in my life—not in this one, or my life previous. He must be talking about Dizzi and… and some of the other harpies.

  “Are you alright?” Mirzayael asks. “You feel… nervous?”

  Flustered, I try to stem my emotions and keep them from radiating back to Mirzayael. “It’s fine,” I quickly reply.

  “Fyre?” Captain Marlowe prompts.

  I haven’t said anything for a moment. “Sorry. Lost in thought. I, too, am glad we found your ship.” I smooth the rest of my nerves out, focusing on business once more. (But in the back of my head, a small voice is still spinning on that thought. Beautiful. Am I beautiful?) “I was hoping you could tell me more about the town we’re approaching. Are there more airships in Deltablue?”

  “Delta? No, not likely,” Marlowe says. He shifts his attention from Dizzi to the rest of his crew, who are speaking with our scouts. They’ve opened up their bags to share what they’ve brought, and another appears to have produced a list of his own he’s sharing with Salvia.

  “The Delta isn’t very large,” Marlowe continues. “We were only in the area to drop off a shipment. Then we heard rumors of a sighting of the Drifting Isles and came out to investigate. There’s always something valuable you can scrounge from its passing, even if it’s just capturing more wyverns for trade.”

  I ask Echo to tell me about wyverns as he talks, and I get a quick rundown. [Wyverns are a winged, bipedal, bird-sized reptile of the dracus family. Frequently captured and raised to be pets or carrier lizards, they are naturally found in the wild, and especially tend to gravitate to the Drifting Isles. The reason for this attraction is unknown, but speculated to do with the ambient storm arcana found in the Ruin.]

  “Too bad,” I say. “Dealing with more airships would be terribly convenient for us.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” the captain says. “Three days beyond the Delta is our hometown, Mount Haze. It’s South Dunmora’s second largest sky dock. There will be plenty of ships there interested in your Fortress, I’m sure.”

  My heart skips. We’d spent all this time planning trips down to the surface, but I hadn’t been expecting for our city to receive visitors—at least, not this soon.

  Some of my emotions must have slipped through the cracks of my mind once more, for Mirzayael’s presence resurfaces. “What is it?” she demands. “Don’t tell me it’s fine again.”

  “It’s not a bad thing,” I assure her. “Just surprising. When do you think we’ll be ready to accept visitors into our city?”

  “I don’t like this question,” Mirzayael lets me know. “But perhaps three weeks. Maybe four.”

  I smile nervously. “How do you feel about four days?”

  Discord

  Patreon