Kingdom Of The Weak

But who cares about that, right? The action was all taking place in Fal"Herim, and that"s where all the fun was at, so…

"Fire!" Remian triggered the most powerful weapon he"d ever laid his hands on. The main cannon of the Red Fang shot out a bright beam of energy right into the rear of the left Sky Galleon.

"Turning hard to port! Ready broadside!" Mindy announced. "Target the skiff! Fire at will!"

The Red Fang turned to the left, hard. The adventurers manning the smaller guns fired off blue fireb.a.l.l.s. They rained fire down on the poor skiff, blasting it to pieces before it knew what was happening.

The third airship turned around. Magical barriers were raised. The broadside gunners fired on it, but the barriers were too strong, the smaller cannons couldn"t penetrate their shields.

"Bring us about! Hurry!" Remian called.

"No time!" Mindy took the airship into a steep climb, dodging into the clouds, then swinging about furtively as the Sky Galleon below retaliated, blindly firing off cannons into the clouds. "Defense!"

Remian and five adventurers responded, pouring mana into the armor of the frigate the same way they powered up scrolls. The armor lit up, erecting barriers just as a few lucky shots splattered into the side of the airship.

"Damage?" Remian asked.

"Shields are holding!" one adventurer answered. "Seventy percent!"

"Fire!" this time they unleashed a full broadside barrage on the remaining airship, pummeling its hastily erected shields, tearing through in several places and setting both the envelope and the gondola on fire.

"Prepare another salvo… wait… what"s that?" Mindy peered at the Sky Galleon who was sending out rather strange signals.

But one man on the deck was giving off signals that Remian couldn"t help recognizing. "Is he waving a white flag?"

"It looks like it." Mindy agreed. "What do we do?"

"Stay in cover, but don"t shoot. Let"s see if they"re really surrendering, or if this is some sort of trick." Remian said, eyes narrowed.

"Heading?" Mindy asked, as they ducked back into the clouds.

Remian closed his eyes, and used Spike"s eyes and location to determine his position and his enemy"s. "Hard to starboard, and ascend thirty degrees."

Don"t tell the Desert King, but having eyes on the ground and a telepathic connection with real-time updates was practically cheating when it came to airship combat with cloud cover. Who else would dare to fly blind in the clouds, never knowing where you were or where your enemy was? But all Spike had to do was look up and Remian could see where his target was. Then he only had to use the sense of Spike"s location relative to himself to feel out his own position, and a very unfair battle would ensue.

It worked brilliantly. Remian only wished he"d actually thought of the idea, but honestly speaking, they didn"t even realize they could do that until just now, when they flew into the clouds and didn"t have any other way of figuring out where they were or which way they were going. The sense of Spike"s location was the first thing that Remian relied on, and it was proving invaluable.

"So… we won?" Mindy asked, as they watched the Sky Galleon floating and burning, waving white flags and scrambling to put out the fires.

"I think so?" Remian guessed.

"We didn"t even need Tim and the battle galleon!" Mindy said in astonishment.

"It"s not over yet. This is just the second wave from Fal"Herim. We don"t know what they"re going to send at us next." Remian cautioned her.

"Do we have time to properly capture that Sky Galleon, at least?" Mindy asked. "And salvage the wreckage below?"

It turned out, they did. They forced the remaining Sky Galleon to land, swapped the Galleon"s crew for adventurers, loaded up some of the wolfcats that only just arrived and sent it on its merry way to Frontier Town. As for the original crew… they were locked up on board, with wolfcats for guards.

Meanwhile, Spike, DD, the boars and most of the wolfcats continued on toward Fal"Herim. Tim and Mikai still hadn"t returned with the battle Galleon. Remian was getting concerned about them. Maybe sending in the lynxmice to do commando jobs wasn"t such a great idea…

[Tim! Where are you?] Remian asked, as he and Mindy followed Spike north.

[We"re… still at Fal"Herim.] Tim replied gloomily. [We"re kind of… stuck.]

[Stuck, how? Did you release the anchor chains?] Remian asked the first thing that came to mind.

[Yes, we did! We know how to launch an airship! But air traffic control wouldn"t let us leave the city! We told them we had an important mission to the south, but they wanted us to bomb the city!]

[What?!] Remian stared. [They wanted you to bomb their own city?]

[Yeah! It"s crazy out here!] Tim reported back. [I"m not even sure who"s giving us orders any more! There"s a Crown Prince saying one thing, and a Queen Mother saying something else, and a General something-or-the-other barking different orders… I can"t make heads or tails of any of it! People are fighting in the streets, soldiers against slaves, soldiers against soldiers, slaves against slaves… it"s chaos!]

Remian paused, not sure what to think.

[Mikai thinks they"ve gone mad because we stole their cheese.] Tim added helpfully. [And their b.u.t.ter.]

Remian shook his head. [Any other theories?]

[Salim thinks we triggered a civil war.] Tim offered. [He"s one of our captives.]

[What civil war?] Remian was dazed.

[Well, the representative barking orders in the name of the Crown Prince claims that since the Desert King died, the Crown Prince was therefore the rightful successor to the throne…]

[The Desert King died?!]

[But the Queen Mother"s representative claims foul play, that the king was murdered, and the prince was a suspect and since she is the First Queen, she took it upon herself to enforce justice…]

[She"s fighting her own son?]

[Uh… no, the crown prince is the third queen"s son. The First Queen"s eldest child is a daughter.]

[So… which orders are you following? Which side did you end up on?]

[Both of them, actually. We just shoot everything anyone tells us to shoot. That includes the general, who, according to Salim, represents the Second Queen, not the First, or the Third. He says that"s the one we should really be supporting, since we"re from Frontier Town.]

[Why is that?]

[Because that"s the queen who wants to free the slaves.]

Remian hesitated. [Can we really trust that Salim?]

[Come over and truth-spell him for yourself.] Tim invited.

[I have a better idea. Ditch the city and bring him to me.]

[But we"re doing so much damage here!] Tim protested. [Mikai loves it!]

A strange idea occurred to Remian then. [Tim, don"t do too much damage. What if we could take over Fal"Herim for ourselves?]

[Conquer Fal"Herim?] Tim hesitated. [Then… it would be better not to damage it too much, right?]

[We have air superiority, and we have Tier 5 Wilds already on the way.] Remian pointed out. [Why can"t we?]

[Because I"m seeing thousands of high-level troops with some pretty nifty gear killing each other on every street?] Tim guessed. [I"m not sure even Spike could get away unscathed if he came up against these guys.]

[That strong?] Remian stared.

[Some of them, yes. Maybe we should just sit back and let them sort this out themselves?] Tim hesitated. [Or we could just add to the chaos by doing what we"ve been doing so far.]

[Doing everybody"s bidding is simply begging to be killed. Just declare neutrality and let them sort it out without you.] Remian advised.

[Got it.]