“So, Captain, what are your plans?” Khikall asked as he walked beside me through the city.

I shrugged, “not sure. I originally came to this part of the world to simply explore. But as you know I was attacked. I’m not the kind of person to forgive and forget. First, I need to make some repairs to my ship, then decide what to do. Although, I would still like to explore the Isles of Fog,” I stated, letting him know in no uncertain terms what might happen if he turns on me.

He grunted, “that may be difficult and not just because of the pirates.”

“Oh?”

“If you aren’t planning on running trade, most ports will deny you entry at the least, the rest will simply fire on you as a precaution if you have an armed ship. Even pirate hunters may turn their guns on you if they can’t identify your vessel. Safer to apologize to the survivors than let a pirate escape.”

“Well, that’s discouraging to hear. I certainly don’t want to run supplies between ports. How can we avoid this?” I asked, not disclosing that I could cloak my ship.

“You have a few options. Join up with a convoy for defense. Run cargo, but you already said you didn’t care to do that. And get a pirate hunter writ.”

I grunted in annoyance at the options knowing only one really worked for me. But then again if it gave me free rain to hunt down my attacker all the better. “What does this writ entail?”

“Talk to the dockmaster. He can get you signed up and give you the token that will alert friendly ports that you are not a pirate. Then you can take on any pirate contract you wish.”

“What's to stop the pirates from getting ahold of this writ or tracking those with it to destroy them?”

Khikall hesitated for a moment before replying, “… the writ can’t be used by anyone besides the original contractor. It’s synced to their unique mana signature. As for the other concern, it’s a possibility but would require a tracking device, and those are built into only Guild ships.”

I didn’t like the thought of Guild ships being able to track me but this writ sounded a lot like the same magic that was in my badge from back when I worked for the Marshall. I wondered if I could spoof it and remove the tracking feature. It was something I would look into while we traveled.

“And let me guess, I can’t take these contracts without having a writ?”

He shook his head.

“Fine, but I want to make repairs to my ship before I speak with the dockmaster, I can’t imagine my decision will remain secret until after I leave otherwise.”

“A fair assessment,” Khikall replied.

We reached the end of the dock where my ship was, “wait here, I need to turn off the anti-intrusion defenses, otherwise, it may not end well for you.”

“Very well, I will remain here until you call for me, Captain.”

“Ugh, just call me Paul, none of this captain nonsense.”

I jumped aboard the ship and entered the top hatch. Seeing as there were no crispy corpses on the deck, I assumed nobody had tried their luck. It took a minute for me to turn off the defenses. I then grabbed a security token for Khikall that would authorize his access aboard and tossed it to him on the dock.

“Don’t lose that, it's safe to come aboard. Welcome to my ship, Retribution!”

He sprang onto the deck, using his tail and powerful legs to launch himself off the dock. “A fitting name for a warship,” he said, looking at the weapons. “Those aren’t mana cannons.”

“…hmm perceptive. Let's get below and I can give you a quick tour. How does this ship compare so far to some of your other ships?”

“It's smaller than almost any vessel I have crewed upon but larger than the first vessel I captained but not by much. It doesn’t resemble any type of vessel I have ever seen either.”

“So this is your first look? Here I would have thought you would come to check it out when you heard about me from the dockmaster,” I said in amusement.

“I felt it more prudent to locate you, in case you decided to leave shortly after I learned of your arrival.”

“Fair enough, I have to get some items from below to fix the damage, you might as well join me and I can show you around.”

He nodded, “where are the other crew, I would have thought I would meet them or at least hear them by now.”

I smiled, “you are talking to the only other crew aboard.”

He stopped as we got to the bottom of the stairs to the upper hatch. “Wait, you fly this ship alone? And you managed to escape Captain Grulaine with minimal damage?” he said with open-mouthed shock.

“Well, I can control the entire ship from one console but it was more difficult than I had anticipated. This ship is new and was never really tested in battle conditions. So you would probably be better at operating this ship than me.”

Khikall looked around, “I’m not sure about that.”

“Fair enough, but if I can do it so can you. Let's continue while we walk. You asked about my level before. Like you, I have a skill that hides my second class and level. I won’t tell you what my second class is but my levels are twenty-one and eighteen if that makes your loss any better.”

“Twice my level, even in my prime, I would have been hard-pressed to deal with someone that strong but thank you for telling me. I will return the gesture, my class is called Elemental Blade, It allows me to imbue elemental energies into any bladed weapon and allows me to wield any weapon with some proficiency. Although, I prefer my whip and knives.”

“I can see why, they were highly effective. Tell me, Khikall, what do you want out of this opportunity?” I asked as I retrieved the items to repair the ship from the storage.

“Revenge on the pirate that gave me the black mark,” he said without hesitation.

I had suspected it was something along this line. It also might explain why other Jerboa ships were so loathed to take on someone with a black mark.

“Does that allow you to remove the black earring?” I asked.

He nodded, “It will be replaced with white opal signifying the cleansing of my shame, then I would retire.”

“So you wouldn't go back to being an honored captain?”

“No, I would have to start over and work myself up from the lowest position aboard a Jerboa ship. But to do that I would have to abandon all of my previous achievements, achievements earned over a lifetime. Better to end with dignity.”

Yeah, that would suck. “Well, we can discuss that matter later. I recall you asking about the weapons. There are two types of weapons aboard the Retribution, mana lasers, and mana cannons.”

“Are you some wayward lord, out to seek glory?” Khikall asked.

“Me? No,” I chuckled.

“Then how did you get your hands on Guild weapons?”

“First off, fuck the Guild, but these aren’t guild weapons. They are a weapon of my own design, based on some dwarven mana cannons I recovered.”

“…ok,” he replied.

“They are similar but not quite as powerful as a normal mana cannon, so I set the mana cannon variant I created into groups of three. The mana lasers are based on a similar design but shoot a more concentrated beam of energy and don’t offer the explosive punch like a mana cannon so I mounted them in groups of four.”

“Makes sense I suppose,” Khikall replied. “It helps explain how your ship can be so small. If you were forced to have normal cannons aboard, the same number of weapons I saw above alone would take up most of the room. You should watch out for the Guild though, once they learn of your ship, they won’t be happy to know you have weapons like theirs. It’s their one main advantage over most other airships.”

“Oh, trust me, I know the Guild doesn’t like to share. But let me worry about that. Here, you will need this,” I said, handing him a darkened plate to protect his eyes from the welding light.

He looked at it in confusion.

“Trust me, cover your eyes with it while I cut away the damaged armor. You’ll see why in a moment.”

He did as was asked and I activated the plasma cutter, slicing through the seam of the damaged portion of decking. It took a few hours to cut it away as three panels had to be replaced. But the repair was now complete. You could tell my welding skills weren’t nearly as good as Timothy’s but they were acceptable. It was a good thing I had a dual-layered hull, not sure my welds would hold out water.

“Impressive,” Khikall said, pulling the mask away. “Still, an enchanted wooden ship would have been quicker to repair. All you would need is a druid or wood mage aboard and the damage could be restored in flight.”

“We work with what we know,” I said, standing up and putting away the tools. “Now, let's go see the command deck, I think, you’ll get a kick out of this,” I said with a disarming smile.

The Jerboa didn’t react as much as I would have thought when I turned on the surrounding view, making it appear that he was standing in the air.

“Now… this is impressive. How do you fly it? I don’t see a wheel?”

“With this,” I said, gesturing to the joystick that each chair in the command deck had.

“Why does every seat offer the same control?”

“Redundancy, what if the person flying is wounded, or rendered unconscious?” I asked.

“Yes, I can see how that would be an issue. How does it function?”

“I would imagine similar to a wheel, twist it left or right to go that direction, push it forward to reduce altitude, and pull it back to increase altitude. I based it off of the airplanes of this world,” I added.

“You’re a native? That would explain a few things I had been wondering about. I haven’t seen any natives in the Isles since I arrive but knowing they are human isn’t much of a surprise. What about all the buttons?”

“Weapon groups mainly.”

“Wouldn’t you just fire them all at once, I only saw the four weapon emplacements above, seems like a needless feature.”

I smiled. “That’s because those are the only weapons currently visible, the rest are safely hidden. Which reminds me, what would rather do, weapons, or flight?”

“You’re the captain, wouldn’t flying be your imperative?” he asked.

“Hardly, I am more than willing to turn over flying to a more skilled operator if that’s what you wish to do.”

“If you are certain, then, yes I would prefer to fly, I was never much good with aiming a cannon.”

“Good, now let me tell you about some other features of my ship.”

I went over the other systems, while I would be taking over defenses and weapons, he needed to be aware of how everything operated in case I was ever injured or whatnot. I knew I was taking a big risk on someone I hardly knew but I didn’t have much choice here. I needed someone knowledgeable about the local ecosystem. And it wasn’t like killing me would get him much, the ship was set to self-destruct in the event of my death. I didn’t tell him this though. Otherwise, he might try to keep me locked up for my own good.

One nice thing about the Retribution was the built-in training simulator. It only really worked due to the wrap-around display. It allowed the ship to remain in standby mode while allowing Khikall to test the flight controls and gave the illusion that we were flying. I had to explain this to him as he overcorrected the first time and crashed us into another ship within the harbor. Apparently, my controls were more sensitive than he was used to. But it didn’t take him long to get a handle on them.

I was still going to be taking the ship out of the harbor for the first time, just to be safe. I even let him test the simulated weapons systems and I swore I saw a gleam of joy in his eyes the first time he fired the full mana laser volley. I think it had more to do with him watching the simulated ship of Captain Grulaine’s break apart and plummet into the ocean than the weapons themselves.

He had confided that Captain Grulaine had been the pirate responsible for his black ring. So there was definitely some animosity there. That was fine, as long as he didn’t go chasing it blindly.

The rest of the day was set restocking supplies and getting an item Khikall said was a must in this area. Apparently, we needed something called a mist compass, it worked kind of like a lighthouse and helped with avoiding a collision with an island when the clouds rolled in so thick you couldn’t see. He told me flying above the cloud layer was a foolish endeavor as it would leave us at the mercy of the pirates, even with the stealth field.

I took his advice and found a shop that sold the enchanted device. I was annoyed at giving the Guild money but I had no time to try and cobble one together with my own skills.

We slept through the night and in the morning I located the dockmaster to get the writ and some bounties from the board. The Dormian recorded my mana signature and handed me the writ, wishing me luck in my search. The bird would probably sell me out the minute I was out of sight, so I hurried to my ship so we could leave. The clouds were already starting to close in on the town so this was the perfect time to leave without them knowing which way we went.