Kingdom Of The Weak

***

Getting a larger crew was easy enough. Unlike certified magi, Adventurers from the Guild still accepted Guild Points or Lir in payment. Mindy put up missions for round trip crews (from and back to KarGoth) offering 1000 lir for a week, six hour shifts, three-shift rotation. She got so many applicants, they had enough crew to manage a four-shift rotation.

"Can we really put that many people on board the Red Fang?" Izhan shook his head. "Even Izak"s coming along, now."

"Both you and Talia are on board. What did you expect your brother to do?" Mindy shook her head.

Fifty-two crew members were able to form four shifts of twelve each (under normal circ.u.mstances, battle situations was different). The engine room only had so much s.p.a.ce, after all. Twelve people around the power core was already a squeeze. It went with the saying "many hands, light work", but Mindy accepted every Adventurer who signed on. The reason for this was because they were going to pick up a new (old, second-hand, actually) Sky Galleon at Ashdale. Charlie"s dad had the deal all worked out already.

Along with the Sky Galleon, they were also supposed to pick up some heavy machinery and some friend of Arnold"s named Schwartz. Mindy had a little trouble even p.r.o.nouncing the guy"s name, but the point was, he was good with machines, and he would be a big help to the miners. Charlie"s dad was kind enough to get his crews to load the stuff into the new Galleon for free. All they had to do now was go and collect.

But first, they needed to make a stop at Fal"herim with a load of water. No, seriously, Remian had a whole new industrial district out there with new people joining up, and the first thing they asked for was water.

As for how they were going to fit all of that into the Red Fang, well…

They weren"t.

"What is this?" Izhan asked, while keeping an eye on Izak and Talia.

"It"s a frame with wings." Mindy shrugged. "It"s heavy, but it has to be strong in order to carry all that water. See those barrels? We"re not trying to put tons of water into the airship. We"re carrying the water outside it."

"A military airship bearing a frame carrying nets loaded with barrels." Izhan muttered. "We"re back to planks-and-netting."

"That"s our trademark." Mindy agreed. "At least, for now. Once we"re at Fal"herim, we can drop the whole frame and move on at our proper speed."

"How long will we take to get there, with that cargo frame attached?"

"Uh… about nine hours? It"s still faster than a Sky Barge and a Tug."

"ANYTHING is faster than a Sky Barge and a Tug!"

"Except maybe a Sky Barge without a Tug."

"That won"t even move!"

Mindy stood up. "Okay, I think we"re done here…"

"WAIT!" Alani burst in. "Wait for me! I wanna go!"

"Alani? You too?" Mindy stared.

"Yes!" Alani said.

"How come everybody wants to come along all of a sudden?" Mindy had to ask.

"Well, it"s not like there"s many jobs left!" Alani sighed. "There are new clans here and hundreds of new Adventurers now, and all the easy jobs have a queue waiting to snap them up! A QUEUE! Who in the world queues up for jobs?!"

"Ah." Mindy grimaced. "It sounds bad. But if jobs are in such high demand, I wonder why they didn"t sign up for my crews."

"Probably because mana channeling is a requirement." Alani pointed out. "Scroll-casting is one of the first things all of us learned as Adventurers, but the new guys haven"t had the chance to learn yet."

"Ah! So that"s it!"

Mindy stood there looking at Izhan and Alani, the oldest and youngest members of her current crew. Izhan was eighteen now, three years older than his brother Izak, and her top choice to captain the Red Fang once Mindy had her new Galleon. Alani was nine, almost ten.

Having such a young crew presented her quite a bit of problems. For one thing, she was nervous about docking at countries that might see her friends as child labor. Even though she was younger than most of them, those countries" laws could still get her into a great deal of unnecessary trouble. At least Charlie"s dad was more understanding, and Germat didn"t care who brought the goods as long as the goods were brought. But docking at Itarim to pick up Iron Legion trainees was a nervous affair and the one time she tried to dock at La Vive, she noticed the dock workers giving them a great many odd looks.

That was about the time she lost the last of her adult crews. That one trip to La Vive did it in a single hour. It was like all the adults in her crew at the time suddenly realized that they were following the orders of a child and that they were in a location that was pretty good to stop off at…

Mindy grimaced. La Vive was a bad idea. Learning the prices there was really not worth losing her adult crews or getting all those weird looks from the locals. They kept asking if they were from Otta, or the Ira Caliphate. Were those places famous for hiring youngsters? Maybe she should go there and take a look one day… but not just yet. Right now, the new Galleon and the machinery held priority.

***

They took off around 10 in the morning and crawled their way north. After whizzing around in the Red Fang all these weeks, Mindy suddenly felt like they were being pushed back by even the smallest winds and every three steps forward was accompanied by two steps backwards.

The cargo frame creaked and swayed the entire way. Carrying tons of water in barrels as it were, Mindy was half afraid she"d see the whole rig tear apart and fall to pieces despite Arnold"s best a.s.surances.

Ten nervous, exhausting hours later, they finally pulled into Fal"herim airport and put down the cargo frame. In the midst of lowering it, the frame finally gave way. With an especially loud creak, the left wing collapsed and the barrels on it fell the remaining two inches to the ground in a series of loud crashes. Mindy almost quailed thinking of what might have happened if they had been even a minute slower in arriving or taking off the frame.

"It"s all right… it"s all right… we"re okay…" Izhan waved off the local airport crews who"d come running up to see what the noise was.

Mindy looked about for Remian, but he wasn"t to be found. Where was he? He was supposed to meet them here.

Maybe he was a bit late. Mindy decided to wait for a few minutes.

After a while, someone did show up, but it wasn"t Remian. It was Phoebe.

"Where"s Remian?" Mindy asked.

"He"s… not in good shape, right now." Phoebe trailed off. "Would you like to come see him?"

"What happened?"

"Nothing unusual. He"s just been busy. Too busy." Phoebe frowned. "He won"t listen to me. I kept telling him to take it easy, but…"

"Where is he?"

***

"Remian!" Mindy pounced on him the moment she burst through his door. "What are you doing out of bed? The doctor said you needed rest!"

"The doctor…?" Remian blinked.

"She"s right. I did." Phoebe mentioned blandly.

"It"s fine. I"m almost done. I just need to do a little more." Remian said, making his way to the door.

"That"s exactly what he said yesterday. And the day before." Phoebe mentioned.

"Stop! Enough already!" Mindy jumped. "You need to rest."

"I don"t have time to rest. Everything is coming to a crux… it"s not just Fal"herim. Everything is… everywhere is…" Remian coughed twice, heavily.

Then he collapsed.