Down they went. Down through the cloud sea. Down until the white clouds started to become grey. Down until the grey began to become thicker and heavier, cloying all around them.

The last traces of the clouds vanished above them, leaving Rhys alone on the deck of his ship, unable to even see more than ten or twenty feet beyond the Endeavour.

‘Take a breath, keep heading to the spire forest you told me about.’ Zaxx tried to reassure him, but Rhys was oblivious to the other being’s efforts. There was too much going on in his head for him to really hear Zaxx.

‘Okay, okay, I can do this,’ Rhys muttered, ignoring the existential dread that was gnawing at his soul as he raised the thrust to keep them steady. Once the altimeter was even, he started them moving forward faster, but not too fast. The soft violet glow from the quartz around him illuminated his instruments, the rest of the world painted grey.

Part of him wanted to walk over to the railing and look down to see if he could see through the dark grey of the Misting. To see if he might glimpse the Abyss.

Rhys’s breathing was harsh as he gripped the wheel with white knuckles, his heart pounding in his chest. Every moment down here brought them further from the pirates but was another moment to tempt whatever foul horrors dwell below the sea.

If his mental image of where they were was right, they were only a few minutes from the spire forest. He would hold the course for now. Once they were closer, he’d slow down to make sure they didn’t hit anything.

The following fifteen minutes were the longest of Rhys’s life, each second dragged on, and he was one dark shape in the mist short of an anxiety attack.

When a dark outline did appear up ahead, Rhys started to panic for a moment before realising that it was the outline of a thin spire. As he steered around it, he saw more spires appearing as vague shapes. They were in the forest.

Firing up the ventral thruster, Rhys carried on into the forest even as they ascended. The moment they were shrouded in white clouds was the moment he breathed again. It would be a millennium too soon if he went into the Misting again.

The clouds were thin enough to give a good view of his surroundings at times. The spires here seemed to have more than their share of caves and hollowed out areas. Considering some of the spires were barely big enough to park the Endeavour on, that wasn’t always helpful.

Looking out for something bigger, Rhys spotted a spire that could support a village easily enough and made his way over to it.

‘Rhys, I detect something ahead of us. Directly ahead, but down a little perhaps. It resonates with me a little.’

‘Forwards and down,’ Rhys repeated, bringing them to a halt before heading to the prow to see what he could see.

Sure enough, further down on this side of the spire they were approaching was a cave entrance. It must be mere feet above the top of the Misting, so it would be easily missed from higher up or if the sea became thicker.

Rhys hesitated for a moment before slowing the ship down and descending to the cave’s level. On the one hand, going down like this was uncomfortable, especially given his panic from being in the Misting. On the other hand, Zaxx being able to sense something was interesting to the artificer in him. He wondered what it might be.

He did feel a shiver go down his spine as they went back down once more. Taking a deep breath, he focused on the fact that they were staying in the sea. They weren’t going into the Misting.

By the time they reached the entrance, he’d gotten himself under control. For the time being, he could focus on the task at hand.

The entrance to the cave was surprisingly large. From a distance, it had looked like the Endeavour might barely fit, but up close, it was easily big enough. The problem was that Rhys had no light source to look inside, and he didn’t want to get any closer in case there was an erenerious living there.

Most people thought the erenerious, or cave-krakens as they were known, were a myth, but Rhys knew better. A ship he’d done some work on had been attacked by a cave-kraken. He still remembered the buckled and torn ironwood planks that they’d had to repair.

‘Tell me what you see,’ Zaxx said, his voice eager as they drew near the cave.

‘It’s a cave of some sort, but I can’t see inside, and we don’t have any lights strong enough to illuminate it.’ Rhys knew they had some lanterns below deck, but they lacked any of the artificed devices that would allow for more significant amounts of light production.

‘It’s worth the risk to look inside. I can sense a concentrated amount of energy, enough for me to perform an upgrade to the ship. I can almost taste it.’ Zaxx’s whispers were intense, his words making Rhys shudder a little.

Every now and then, Zaxx said something that reminded him of just how different they were. The way that he’d said that he could almost taste it was a prime example. Still, that didn’t mean that he was wrong about the risk being worth it.

Bringing the ship to a halt, Rhys considered the problem. The world fell away as his mind turned inward, and he worked over the issue. There were three main obstacles. Illuminating the cave to see where they were going, seeing the surroundings when they were in there when he was at the helm, and not attracting undue attention from pirates by lighting up the ship.

It was still quite bright, even fairly far down in the sea, so the risk of any light they made catching unwanted attention wasn’t too high. Still, it was a concern, so the best thing to do would be to enter the cave, then provide the light.

That dovetailed into how to produce the light quite nicely. Rhys could take the lanterns he has up and hang them from the railing at the front of the ship, but the light would be minimal at best. He’d almost need to stay at the front to be able to see properly.

He couldn’t watch from the front and steer simultaneously, which meant that he’d have to delegate one of the roles. Zaxx couldn’t see, so that meant more of the verbal steering they’d been doing. Rhys disliked it, but his burning curiosity outweighed his dislike of giving Zaxx agency.

Sighing, he headed down to the supplies he’d bought back in Arn Creth. While he dug out the lanterns he needed, Rhys explained the basic idea of what he had in mind to Zaxx.

‘A reasonable plan. If you move us to the entrance of the cave, first of all, we can see if there is any adverse reaction to our presence before entering.’

‘Yeah, that’s not a bad idea actually,’ Rhys said, changing his path to head back to the helm first of all. Putting the lanterns down, he took control of the ship once more and brought them in to face directly into the cave. The entire approach was made as carefully as possible, with his hand poised to push the front thruster to maximum and get them out of there.

No tentacles came out to try and drag them in, and the little that Rhys could see of the cave looked empty. Despite his trepidation, the Endeavour was soon partially inside with no adverse reaction.

Bringing them to a halt once more, Rhys listened carefully for any sounds of movement within the cave, but there was nothing. Satisfied, he went forward with his lanterns, lighting them with a firestarter before hanging them at the front of the ship.

The lanterns had a clasp at the top that he could fasten to the railing, allowing them to be hung over the edge for maximum effect. He spread the three lanterns out enough that they gave a reasonable aura of light. Rhys could just make out the cave’s floor, and even then, it was more of an impression than an easily defined area.

‘Right, start us moving forward, slowly,’ Rhys said, clutching the railing tightly as the Endeavour started to inch forward. Leaning forward, Rhys was just able to tell that they had enough clearance from the floor to keep going and not hull themselves.

With that in mind, Rhys alternated between looking at the walls, floor and roof. So far, it all seemed rather even, with nothing sticking out, but he wanted to be certain.

‘Here, just up ahead on our left.’ Zaxx said, bringing the ship to a halt a few moments later.

‘I don’t see anything,’ Rhys said, more to himself than anything. Unclipping a lantern, he moved over to that side of the ship and held the lantern out as far as he could. The light stretched only a short distance into the darkness, but Rhys saw the edge of something more angular in the darkness. Peering out at it, Rhys couldn’t make out details, just that there was a definite straight line to whatever it was.

‘Damn it, drop us down ever so slightly, I’m going to take a look,’ Rhys said, cursing himself as he went down to the galley and grabbed the biggest knife they had. Adding a personal weapon to his mental shopping list, he went back up onto deck and grabbed a lantern from the opposite side to where this shape was.

Feeling as ready as he was going to be for this, Rhys took a deep breath and unsealed the outer hatch. Leaning out into the cave, Rhys held his lantern out to look around a little better. Nothing was moving in the dark. All he could see was the bare rock, and all he could hear was the wind produced by the Endeavour’s thrusters.

Cursing himself for a fool and an idiot, Rhys jumped down from the ship. The Endeavour was around four feet off the ground, so it wasn’t too far at all. He could already feel a part in the back of his mind gibbering about being exposed like this, but he ignored it with an act of will, pushing it to one side.

The rocky base of the cave was uneven and difficult to traverse, forcing Rhys to carefully pick his way along as he headed for the shape he’d seen. The reason he was so excited was to do with the straight line he’d seen. Straight lines weren’t natural, not without something actively creating them. That meant that whatever he’d seen was by definition artificial.

There were two easy answers to why there would be something artificial here. The first was that someone built it, a supply cache maybe, or a failed attempt at building in a cave. The other was that it was from Before.

The mere tantalising possibility of finding something so ancient that it was from the times Before was enough to push Rhys to get out of the ship. He hated every minute of it, but his desire to know pushed him on.

Scrambling over the uneven terrain, Rhys found the edge he’d seen. It was a ledge leading into a hole in the side of the cave. Unlike the rest of the cave, the ledge was straight and even. The rock had been smoothed and clearly worked by something.

His lantern was just strong enough to show some objects further in. They looked like crates, from what he could see. Clambering up onto the ledge, Rhys walked carefully in.

A device was suspended from the ceiling, its base glinting in the lantern light with a runic inscription. Lifting the lantern higher, Rhys was able to see it was an activation rune of a fairly common type.

The whole thing looked like an artifce that created light that he’d seen before. With that in mind, he tapped the activation rune and ducked, just in case.

Bright but soft, white light filled the hole that had been dug into the side of the cave. The artificed device was able to illuminate far, far more than his lantern, and he could see a second one further in.

Activating the second device, first of all, Rhys took a moment to look around the supply cache that he’d stumbled upon. There were ten ironwood crates, each sealed to protect their contents. Behind the crates sat a few stacks of ironwood planks of varying size.

Rhys couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. Sure, this was probably a pirate cache, but he’d been dreaming a lot bigger. Sighing, his mind wandered back to the amount of crystal that Zaxx had mentioned was here. Thinking about a second upgrade perked him right up, and he was opening up the top of the crates in no time.

Six of the crates were filled with crystal, with the total coming to at least two hundred days of usage by Rhys’s estimate. This would be the large source of energy that Zaxx had sensed. The next two were filled with parts and spares for some essential cloudship machinery. While not terribly useful right now, it definitely would come in handy if the engine ever got damaged.

The next three had various supplies in them, from dried foodstuffs to clothing and spare cooking equipment. It really did seem like this was an emergency supply stash. What was here could keep him alive on its own for some time.

The final crate was the one Rhys was the most interested in. It was sat at the rear of the excavated space and was a bit sturdier than the rest. He was forced to use a crowbar from one of the other crates to get it open in the end.

He wasn’t disappointed. The crate contained only a few things, but each was of immense use to Rhys. The first was a pouch of sovereigns, ten to be precise. The second was a bulky pistol with four chambers. Each chamber on the pistol was covered with runic inscriptions, imparting their effects to the shot dependant on the barrel used.

The rear of the pistol had four glowing pieces of cloud quartz set flush with everything else. They were positioned so that Rhys could see them even as he pointed the gun. From what he could tell, each barrel improved the speed and impact of the projectile created, and one of them seemed to imbue it with the essence of fire.

The third thing was a charger for the pistol. It was designed to be hooked up to an akast engine and then allow the pistol to recharge like the swivel cannons.

Finally, there was a pair of firestarters and another two light-emitting devices like those already set up. While not as interesting as the rune pistol, they were perhaps more useful in the short term. Especially the lights.

Interested in the source of all this, Rhys looked over the crates, finding four different brandings and a few burn marks on one of them. If he wasn’t certain this was the work of pirates before, he was now.

Taking the devices, the pistol and the money, Rhys headed back to the Endeavour. He dropped everything cargo hold and opened the cargo hatch at the base of the ship. It was going to take time and an awful lot of effort, but he wasn’t leaving until he’d taken everything in that cache.