Rhys spent the rest of the morning considering their next steps, only being interrupted by a knock on his door around noon.

‘Yes?’ Rhys called out, a little surprised that Zaxx hadn’t warned him in advance of his visitor.

‘How are you feeling today?’ Lucy asked as she opened the door and stepped inside, a plate with some sandwiches in one hand. She was back in her normal overalls today, but she seemed a little paler than usual.

‘Not too bad, thank you. Yourself?’ Rhys asked, rising to fetch her pistol from where it lay on his table as he waved for her to come in. ‘Here, you left this behind.’

‘I left it here?’ Lucy asked, her cheeks flushing a little as she walked inside.

‘Oh no, you left it upstairs after you were ill, don’t you remember?’ Rhys said, pointing up at the ceiling with the pistol.

‘I don’t remember much after I went to get it, to be honest. I think that the vodka did a number on me,’ Lucy said with a grimace before glancing at the plate in her hand and holding it out to him. ‘Here, Tom made you these. Apparently, a sailor dropped off some supplies for us earlier on, including fresh bread. He’s also left some aside for Oliver to have when he’s back. Saying that, do you know where Oliver’s gone?’

‘Oh, he went on a tour with Dorian, the assistant quartermaster from the Daedalus,’ Rhys said, trading the pistol for the sandwiches. The aroma of the fresh bread made Rhys’s stomach rumble, and he realised that he’d only had a few cups of tea all morning.

In fact, now that he was thinking about the time, he realised that Oliver must have been gone for at least three or four hours by now. A tour of the whole spire might take some time, but Rhys would be surprised if there was much to see that was far from the Daedalus. His impression so far had been that the crew of the Daedalus were still sleeping aboard ship, so any buildings would likely be nearby.

When he voiced his concern to Lucy, she smiled crookedly and asked him, ‘what did Dorian look like?’

‘Fairly tall, dark brown hair, groomed moustache,’ Rhys said with a shrug, not really having paid that much attention.

‘Slender but with a fair bit of muscle?’ Lucy asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

‘I suppose, why?’ Rhys asked, a little confused as to where she was going with this.

‘Well, that’s Oliver’s type for sure. He told me that he has a thing for a good moustache,’ Lucy said with a grin, laughing out loud at the look on Rhys’s face.

‘How did I miss that,’ Rhys said, shaking his head as he thought back on the teasing banter between the two men. No wonder they’d been so quick to leave after he’d made them some tea. Still, at least that set his mind at ease about where Oliver was.

‘You do seem to miss quite a bit,’ Lucy said, giving him a pointed look before heading back out of his cabin and closing the door behind her.

‘What?’ Rhys said, a little confused by that last comment. He wasn’t sure what else he might have forgotten. Hopefully, whatever she was referencing that Rhys had missed wasn’t too important. Still, he’d give it some thought, just in case.

-**-

Oliver came back mid-afternoon with a cocky smile and a spring in his step. Lucy called him over to share a few whispered words, but after that, Oliver came over to sit with Rhys and update him.

‘So, Captain, we have been given a good deal on the salt they’re mining, but it will depend on how much you want to spend. We’ve agreed on a trade of the herbs and spices for salt at a rate which will give us around a sovereign of profit at the normal selling price. Have you thought how much additional you would like to buy?’

‘How much are they offering?’ Rhys asked, tapping a finger against his chin in thought.

‘Three sacks worth, at two and a half sovereigns per sack if you buy all of them. I saw one of the sacks they’re talking about, and I’d put its value at three to four sovereigns, depending on local pricing.’

‘So, it’s a good deal then, no matter where we go?’ Rhys asked, thinking back to his planning on where they would go next.

‘Yes, Captain. If we have the funds available, I think it would be a good investment.’

‘Very well, then buy all three. I’ll go fetch the coins now,’ Rhys said, heading back to his room to get the money from his lockbox. The total came to six and a half sovereigns, quite the hefty amount, but from what Oliver said, they were all but certain to make a profit on it.

Returning with the coins, Rhys sent Oliver off with Tom to fetch both the bags they were purchasing and the one that they were trading for. All in all, they’d be looking at several sovereigns of profit here, a good indeed.

The embargo that Aeolus had instigated would finish tomorrow, so Rhys intended to leave early in the morning. As nice as it was to not be constantly on the move, Rhys had a lot to do and nothing that could be achieved by sitting here pointlessly.

He’d found himself thinking about the Endeavour and comparing it to the much larger Daedalus, considering what Aeolus’s ship could do that Rhys’s couldn’t. The answer was a lot. The Endeavour had been designed for basic cargo runs, but Rhys was in a unique position that he could change that.

Of course, to do everything he wanted would require resources beyond his wildest imaginations. Just completing all the options that Zaxx had already presented him would require a few dozen crates of akast crystals at least. Still, the lure of building the cloud ship of his dreams was a powerful one.

Once he had the materials needed, Rhys would probably go for one of the energy upgrades next to try and lower the cost of running the Endeavour. The less he had to spend on fuel for the ship, the more profit he would be making, and the faster he could save up for the next upgrade.

His mind full of the potential upgrades, Rhys settled down with his wood blanks and a carving tool, practising his runes and testing himself on the ones he’d already learnt.

-**-

They idled away the rest of the day doing small jobs here and there, all of them a little frustrated at how they were grounded with nothing of substance to do. A crewman from the Daedalus brought confirmation from Aeolus that they hadn’t sighted the kurador anywhere nearby, so they were free to leave in the morning.

They all retired early that evening by unanimous agreement, waking up bright and early the next day. Oliver had already taken delivery of their bags of salt, so Rhys wasted no time in getting them off the ground and in the air.

The wind roared as Rhys pointed the Endeavour north-west and powered up the vapour thrusters. Everyone was up on deck as they ascended up to a cruising height and settled in for a long journey.

‘So, Captain, where are we headed?’ Oliver asked, all but shouting to be heard over the wind.

‘Back to Arn Gol,’ Rhys called back, reluctantly easing back on the power to the vapour thrusters. As much as he wanted to make up for lost ground, reducing their speed would make conversation a little easier.

‘Arn Gol?’ Oliver asked with a quirk of an eyebrow.

‘Yes. I want to give people the opportunity to leave if they wish, and I think it will be a good place to get a new job, resupply and work out our next steps.’

‘I see, that makes sense. How long do you think it will take to get back?’

‘Well, with the additional distance we’ve gone from Arn Dukatt, I reckon it will be about three days if we push it. Aeolus gave us those rations he promised, and with the existing stock from the military job, we should have more than enough supplies to get us there.

‘Well, I’ll let you know now that I intend to stay on after Arn Gol. So, if you have an idea of where we’re going after that, l can work on picking up some trade goods when we arrive.’ Oliver said with a shrug and an easy smile.

‘Glad to hear it. You’ve been invaluable so far,’ Rhys said, returning the other man’s smile. ‘It will depend on the jobs available, but I was thinking of further north. Maybe keeping to the border, maybe further into the Alliance, I’m not sure yet.’ Rhys said with a shrug of his own. At the end of the day, it would come down to what jobs were available more than anything else. He wasn’t at the point yet where he could go where he wanted and know that they would make a profit.

Still, encounters like the one with Aeolus were a great example of how fortunate circumstances could leave you walking away with a few more sovereigns than before. Then again, the opposite was always true as well.

They were so close to being what he would consider a true trading ship. It would just take a few more good jobs to get them on their way.

Oliver had gone back over to speak with the others, leaving Rhys alone at the helm, lost in his thoughts.

-**-

Their trip back was thankfully uneventful. There were no giant monsters, pirates or anything else that would threaten them.

They started to encounter more cloud ships as they drew close to Arn Gol, the sight of other cargo ships around them providing some much-needed reassurance.

Further into the Alliance, there would be much more traffic between spires and more non-merchant ships to be seen. Arn Gol was the closest trading hub to them, but it was only minor in comparison to some of the spires in the Alliance.

The further into the Alliance you went, the more expensive it became to do anything. But, at the same time, more money was there to be made. It was a delicate balancing act that Rhys wasn’t really confident enough to do at the moment. Especially not with how expensive the Endeavour was to keep fueled.