The morning saw an array of dockworkers coming to the Endeavour. They brought four carts with weight-reducing runes and parked them at the end of the slip. Each cart was empty, so they started with the unloading of the Endeavour first.

The guild had contracted all the workers, so there was no need to split up which items went where. Working together, they transferred the thirty logs down to the carts by the cargo hatch on the ship’s hull. Rhys watched from the sidelines as they operated the winch and did all of the heavy lifting for him. One of the perks of being the Captain.

With the logs lowered down and loaded up, the six flasks were tied together and lowered down as well. With the flasks put on the carts, they were loaded and ready to leave.

A few workers left to drag the carts to their destination, while the rest brought in six heavily laden replacements. Each of the new carts had a pallet filled with goods of all kinds on its back. The winch in the cargo bay saw heavy usage as the pallets were hauled up and then dragged into place within the cargo bay. Fortunately, the pallets had been tied up with plenty of rope to keep them stable, giving the workers something to hold on to as they dragged them.

The six pallets filled around a third of the space he had in the cargo hold, which was enough to make Rhys dream of shipping cargo worth dozens, if not hundreds of sovereigns.

The foreman in charge of the delivery had Rhys sign the manifest with a cheap silverpoint pen, the silver nib barely more than a coating to the quartz. Still, even with such a small amount of silver, it was likely priced at a sovereign or two. Most metals were uncommon at best, and silver was rarer than most. The pricier pens probably had price tags reaching up to five sovereigns, a horrifying amount for a writing implement. On the upside, it was yet more encouragement to make money as quickly as he could.

Shutting the cargo hatch and securing it with the bolts at either end, Rhys jogged up the two flights of stairs to the deck. There was no point in holding off on their trip. The quicker it was done, the better, and there wasn’t really much else he wanted to do here.

It was a waste of the docking fees, but next time he’d know to just buy two days at first. It was all a learning experience. He was bound to make a few mistakes.

Activating the runes to reduce the Endeavour’s weight, Rhys fired up the vapour thrusters and grinned as he felt the thrum of power race through the ship.

Rhys brought them around in a slow circle as they rose, eventually bringing them out the way they’d come. A few other ships were coming in and out of this dock, but not too many. He wasn’t confident enough to be flying in a busy sky, so he kept low and out of the way of the other traffic.

It helped that Arn Gol was designed so that each dock for the different districts faced out from a different side of the spire. That meant that any ships entering or leaving didn’t have to keep watch for errant vessels above or below them. It also meant that Rhys could get out of everyone’s way quickly and easily.

Keeping the speed low while they cruised out into the open skies, Rhys looped them around so that they were heading north-east and slowly increased the Endeavour’s speed.

-**-

The trip to Arn Bolear was the perfect time for Rhys to practice his control of the Endeavour. It would add time to the journey, but the advert only said it was important, not critical, so a few hours here and there wouldn’t make a difference.

There were quite a few small and rocky spires along their way, some in groups of twenty or more that made a maze of rock for him to weave through. Despite being a cargo ship at its heart, the Endeavour handled well through the obstacles, suspiciously well.

‘Zaxx, have you changed the ship somehow?’ Rhys asked aloud, thinking how the last set of turns had felt much easier in comparison to the initial ones he’d done. While it could be him improving as the pilot, he doubted it.

‘Yes, I have smoothed its lines to make it more aerodynamic. I’ve also used the data from these manoeuvers to fine-tune the engine’s performance. Upgrading the engines will provide more performance, but the current equipment is working at the highest efficiency it can with the current materials.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Rhys said, bringing them back onto the direct heading toward the spire. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was a pleasurable experience to get the most out of such inefficient machinery. I look forward to doing similar work in the future.’

‘Yes, well, good,’ Rhys said awkwardly. He still felt odd talking out loud to something that whispered back into his mind, but he’d get used to it eventually. They were in this for the long haul, after all.

-**-

It took almost three days to reach Arn Bolear in the end. The newly improved engines had cancelled out the delay for practising, but they were still slowed down by needing to land for the evening. Rhys refused to let Zaxx fly the ship alone.

Zaxx had perfect vision of the ship and a rough understanding of their surroundings, but that wasn’t enough for Rhys to feel confident with him taking control. Maybe if they were able to get some way for Zaxx to see more of their surroundings, Rhys would consider it. Maybe.

Arn Bolear was more akin to Rhys’s home of Arn Creth than the towering Arn Gol, being quite wide and not as tall. The difference was that rather than being a single prominent spire, Arn Bolear was surrounded by a dozen or so smaller spires.

The central spire was around two thirds the size of Arn Creth, with what looked like a single city up against one end. The rest of the spire, and all of the subsidiary spires, were devoted to farming and husbandry. Hundreds of miles of farms were spread out across them all, massive bridges spanning the individual spires to connect it all.

Rhys had heard that Arn Bolear was a big food producer, but from their vantage point, he could see the sheer amount of crops and animals being tended to. They no doubt produced enough here for several other settled spires with ease.

The city at the end of the spire was a decent size with extensive docks that jutted out from the rock of the spire, supported by huge ironwood supports that had been sunk into the spire itself.

Bringing them down and settling into a docking slip of their size, Rhys saw a huge ship that was two or three times their size land across the way. It was a boxy and ungainly ship, but it had many times the haulage capacity of the Endeavour. Hundreds of sovereigns of goods could be carried within such a vessel, which was exactly why he could see thick gun barrels jutting out from the side of the ship.

Rhys spent a few moments simply admiring the ship, watching with interest as its crew bustled around and started unloading cargo. Seeing them in action prompted him to do likewise. In Rhys’s case, that meant he disembarked and headed up the docks to find the local guild.

The docking fee was five bits a day here as well, so Rhys paid for two days on his way through the docks. He doubted he’d be here any longer than that, but if needs be, he could always buy more time.

Fortunately, the guild was always near the dockyards and always prominently labelled as such. The docks here were much larger than those at Arn Gol. It was likely because the other spire had its capacity split between three, rather than altogether like here.

With the additional size, it took Rhys a bit of time to find the guild, but eventually, Rhys saw the ascending cloudship sign and made his way over to it.

The building was easily twice the size of the one in Arn Gol, and was more elaborate in its construction as well.

Showing his medallion to get in, Rhys approached someone who looked to be their equivalent of a receptionist.

‘Excuse me. I have cargo for delivery from a job posted at the Guild in Arn Gol. Who do I need to speak to?’ Rhys knew that he needed to speak to someone here in the guild, but that was about all he knew.

‘If you go to the job desk, they will record your details and arrange receipt,’ the receptionist replied with a pleasant smile, pointing to a door to their side before going back to their work.

‘Thank you,’ Rhys said politely, taking the door indicated. Inside, he found a similar room to the one he’d used at Arn Gol. In line with the bigger building, this room was at least twice the size of the last one he’d been to.

The officials of the guild were all along one wall, while the tables and chairs for relaxing captains were on the other side. There must have been forty different people scattered around the room, more than a few grouped together in quiet discussions.

Rhys wasn’t that interested in any small talk or getting to know the other captains, in no small part due to Rhys feeling somewhat intimidated by them. Bypassing the other captains entirely, Rhys headed for the jobs desk and repeated his request for what to do.

‘Not a problem. Do you have your receipt from when you accepted the job?’ The official rummaged through the multitude of ledgers and pieces of paper on his desk, eventually pulling out the one he was looking for.

‘Of course, here,’ Rhys took out the receipt and showed it to the man, giving him his guild number, name and ship name as well.

‘Excellent, that’s all in order then. We’ll have the cargo changed over first thing in the morning for you. Any other jobs you’d like to take on at the moment?’

‘I’ll just take a look, thanks,’ Rhys took back his receipt and went over to the huge board on the wall to one side of the desk.

The immediate problem that Rhys could see was that over half of the available jobs were bounties on local pirates. Of course, the bounty wasn’t on particular pirates. That would be all but impossible to prove. Instead, the reward was based on the ships the pirates crewed.

After all, it was only the genuinely horrific pirates that were known by name. The rest were identified by ship. Even an artificer recluse like Rhys had heard of the Dread Sky or the Black Thunder, but he had no idea who captained them. Piracy was a dangerous business, after all. In a battle, everyone was one step away from a long, long fall.

He was thankful that the board contained no bounties on such impressive ships. A ship like the Endeavour would stand no chance against pirates like them, so it was reassuring to know they hadn’t even been sighted in the area.

The other jobs available were more Rhys’s speed, but he couldn’t take any of them. Everything here was about exporting foodstuffs, things that were needed either at speed or in bulk. He simply couldn’t take what they considered bulk, and none of the speed based jobs were going to Arn Gol. To be fair, he wasn’t even sure that the Endeavour was fast enough for a speed run, not yet anyway.

A little disappointed, Rhys looked over the supplies for sale and the roster of crew looking for a berth. All those pirate bounties were making him feel a little conscious of how little defence the Endeavour had. He couldn’t fly and shoot at the same time.

The crew list had names and a description of their skills, but Rhys wasn’t seeing anything that jumped out at him. The majority seemed to be either general crew or engineers, neither of which he really needed.

Zaxx took care of the day to day cleaning, and Rhys was more than capable of managing any repairs or maintenance needed. In fact, it would be quite nice to do some of his old work every now and then.

Discouraged, he passed the list back and moved on to the supplies. He had everything he needed, but the academic inside him was desperate to know what would happen with one of Zaxx’s upgrades.

He remembered the rough cost of what Zaxx had said. He’d need two hundred days worth of akast crystal to be able to get a single upgrade. Ten days was usually half a sovereign as standard. He could bulk buy enough for an upgrade, but he’d need to remember to not buy more fuel from here for a while, just in case someone realised he was buying far more than what was required. He doubted that they would jump straight from that observation to accusing him of harbouring an eldritch being of questionable intent, but why risk it.

Because Akast crystal had such a standardised price, Rhys couldn’t get a discount for buying twenty measures of the crystal, leaving the price at ten sovereigns. It was a hefty cost, a full quarter of his total funds, but it would be worth it as an experiment if nothing else. He fully intended to watch what happened as closely as he could.

Rhys wasn’t carrying that amount of money around on him, so he booked delivery for the morning and confirmed he’d pay on receipt of the goods. He’d do the upgrade on the way back to Arn Gol and then maybe spend a few days there looking for some crew. Managing the crew with Zaxx’s presence was going to be difficult. He had a few ideas for what to do, though, which mainly revolved around lying a lot. Not the best plan, but there wasn’t much else he could do.