Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-One - Islanding

“Oh, this is heavy,” I complained as I pushed the tarp up and off of me. The Beaver’s balloon was made of a thick, coarse material—I was guessing some sort of canvas that was treated to be a little more airtight and weather-resistant.

With a grunt of effort, I climbed to my feet, arms pushing up and tenting the canvas around me so that I could see around the deck. The sunlight, filtered by the blue cloth, made everything very blue, but that didn’t mean I was unable to find Amaryllis pushing and shoving against some of the canvas covering her.

“This... this is annoying,” she said.

“Well, it’s not so bad. At least we landed safely?”

“Oh yes, how wonderful,” she griped. “Never going to get anywhere on time now.” She seemed to be in something of a foul mood. I couldn’t really blame her.

“Come on, let’s find the others; make sure everyone is okay. And then, I guess we can work on getting this tarp off the top of the ship?”

Amaryllis and I were pushing and shoving our way towards the Beaver’s prow when we found the first of our crewmates.

“Oh no,” I said.

Orange was on the ground, lying on her side, sprawled out across the deck.

I gasped and fell onto my knees next to the spirit kitten--who was more of a cat now-- and reached out.

On touching her, the cat opened her eyes and glared, a sort of “why are you waking me up” glare. “You’re not hurt?” I asked.

Her tail curled up and back down, and she let her head fall back onto the deck.

“Okay then,” I said.

The tarp started to lighten, and then it was lifted up to float above us. Standing a bit straighter now that I didn’t have a dozen kilos of canvas weighing me down, I looked around and saw all of my friends. Everyone seemed mostly fine. Awen poked her head out of a hatch on the other deck, while Clive grabbed the ship's wheel and pulled himself upright.

Around us hovered a dozen cry, all of them spaced out more or less evenly around the Beaver Cleaver while the tarp floated on seemingly nothing at all. “Okay,” I said. “Everyone, let’s gather here! We might need to get off the Beaver for a bit.”

“That would be wise,” a cry chimed.

I turned, then looked up as a cry hovered closer. They were huge, a pillar of crystal as big around as a wagon. They had a slight deformation in their crystal on one side, a large purple-ish blotch that stood out quite a bit.

“Hi,” I said. “My name is Broccoli Bunch, I’m the captain of the Beaver Cleaver. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for the help. Not just with the tarp, but with slowing us down. I’m glad we didn’t crash!”

“We greet you, soft one. We are Shard of the Exiled Pillar, First Split and One Whole. We are not the leader of this community, but often act as an intermediary between our kind and the local soft ones.”

“You’re the local diplomat,” I said. “That’s wonderful! What’s this town called?”

“This is the town of Mistrust.”

I blinked. “That’s not the most cheery name, but okay. I’m sorry that we landed right in the middle of your town. We took a bit more damage than we would have liked, and this was the only flat spot around. Do you know if there are any mechanics or, um, airship engineers in Mistrust?”

“We are not aware of either,” Shard of the Exiled Pillar, First Split and One Whole said. “In most circumstances, we would be wary of assisting you, but you came escorting a lost shard in need of assistance, and that same shard delivered interesting devices to us. Are you the one that created those?”

“The focusing lenses? No, that was Awen. I just had the initial idea from science class.” I glanced around at all of the cry silently helping lift the balloons around us. “Maybe... maybe we could trade?”

“Trade?”

“Yeah! You seem to like the focusing devices. They were cobbled together in less than an hour. Imagine how much better Awen could make them if we gave her a bit more time? I bet she wouldn’t mind making a dozen more. And in exchange, you give us permission to land here, and a bit of a helping hand getting our balloon fixed.”

“You plan to leave already?” the cry asked.

“Well, we don’t have much of a choice. We’re trying to stop a war, and if we don’t make it back soon, that could mean a lot of trouble for a lot of people.”

“What is the cry saying?” Amaryllis asked.

I translated real fast, and she nodded, then set a talon on my shoulder. “We obviously did not intend to land in your town, though the circumstances of that landing should be taken into account. We came to this island specifically to deliver Shard of Mountaintopper’s Growth, Fourth Split, and not Yet Whole. In the carrying out of that duty, we were followed and attacked by cry who I can only presume are your own adversaries.”

“The cry from the Crying Mountains are not our adversaries,” Shard of the Exiled Pillar, First Split and One Whole chimed, pausing for me to translate. “We are exiled from them, broken away, and therefore do not have the standing upon which to declare them enemies. They are within their rights to trespass upon this island.”

“Uh,” I said. “That... okay? I don’t get it. You did fight back.”

“Just because they have the right to do something, does not mean it is the right thing to do,” they explained.

That sounded a little strange to me, but I wasn’t quite ready to argue it. “Well, I’m glad you helped. I can’t imagine things going well if you had refused to help.”

“They were here with ill intent. As for your trade, we are willing to engage with the idea. The location where your ship is stationed is inconvenient, but we understand the reasoning for your landing here.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it too. The cry were being very nice, and super understanding. “We’ll try not to stay around for too long.”

“We would appreciate that,” Shard of the Exiled Pillar, First Split and One Whole chimed before backing away.

I turned to my friends and crewmates. No one was injured, which was a great place to start. “Okay, everyone, we’re in a bit of trouble, but we can make it out of here. Clive, Steve, Gordon, what can we do about the balloon?”

“Now that we’re on solid footing,” Clive began. “Plenty. If we can purchase some tarp and canvas here, we can fix it up. Better than just a quick patch-job too.”

“Helium will be an issue,” Steve said. “It looks like two of the inner sacs are fine, but that means that six of them were pierced through. Once the balloons are fixed, we’ll need to replace the gas.”

“And it’s unlikely this backwater has any,” Amaryllis said. “No airship port, so no refueling or repair stations. There might be an alchemist here, but I doubt they’ll have the materials or skills to synthesize helium from empty air.”

“Oh, that’s not great,” I said. “Could we use something else?”

“Hydrogen?” Awen asked. “Ah, but that’s... not safe.”

“Wildly dangerous,” Amaryllis said. “If we don’t have a choice, we can try that.”

I rubbed at my chin. We needed a gas that we couldn’t get easily, which... wasn’t great. “Could we put the Beaver on the ocean and sail to Sylphfree?” I asked.

“We... that’s a dumb idea,” Amaryllis said.

“Possibly,” Clive replied. “But I wouldn’t be keen on it. Not much experience sailing on water, and we’d need to waterproof the hull, add sails, patch some holes up. It would be a lot of work.”

“There are some ports in Sylphfree that we could sail to,” Bastion said. “But travel by ocean is slow.”

“So that’s a plan B,” I said. “Oh! The other airships!”

“What other airships?” Joe asked. He was standing with the Scallywags, all three of them looking a bit rough-and-tumbled from our little adventure.

“The ones that went down. I think two of them crashed. Their balloons might be intact.”

“That could work,” Amaryllis said. “If not the balloons themselves, then the sacs within them. And they likely had a few tanks of helium onboard.”

“We don’t have any?” I asked.

“Two of them, but each can only refill one sac,” Awen said. “And we’ve used up a bit to make up for the losses last time.”

I nodded. “Okay, we’ll do this in two parts. One group can go out and try to scavenge things. Another stays here to guard the Beaver and repair our balloon.” I glanced around, at all the cry still holding things up above us. “We can’t ask the cry to help up all day long, that wouldn’t be fair. Awen, I... may have promised that you’d help the cry make more of those focuses.”

“I don’t mind,” Awen said. “I might need more materials to make them, though, and maybe some tools that I don’t have.”

“Then we’ll talk with Shard of the Exiled Pillar, First Split and One Whole together. I’m sure they can arrange for us to get you set up to make them as quick as possible.”

“How do you want to divide things?” Bastion asked.

I rubbed at my chin. “Gordon, can you come with us to salvage things? And... maybe Oda and Sally too? Steve, Clive and Joe can stay here to fix the tarps. Bastion, if you don’t mind coming with us, that would be nice.”

“Certainly,” Bastion said.

“And myself?” Amaryllis asked.

“Come with me? We might need to negotiate things with the town’s people. You’re better at prices and things than I am.”

“Very well,” she said. “We should get a move on. We’re likely to lose half a day to all of this already; I don’t want to turn that into two.”

“You’re right,” I said. The passing of time was already weighing on me a little. It wouldn’t do for our first introduction to our new sylph friends to be arriving late. “Okay, does anyone have any ideas that we could use?”

Oda raised a hand. “We could get some help from the locals. They might have some mechanics, even if they’re not airship mechanics.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “We might meet some people, so I’ll try to make some friends.”

“This is a penal colony,” Bastion said. “Or at least, a town built by prisoners and exiles. Keep sharp; they might not be as friendly as you’d wish.”

I nodded, though it was a bit of a reluctant nod. “Okay. Anything else?” No one seemed to have anything to say, so I clapped my hands together. “Alright! Then let’s get started! We have a whole bunch of work to get done, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”

“Aye, aye,” Clive said. He stepped back, then started directing the others to get to work right away.

I wasn’t going to belittle his hard work by not giving it my all too. “Okay, let’s get down. We need to find out where the ships crashed, and if there are any cry around the landing zones. I guess that the local cry might want to help with that.”

“Do they even take prisoners?” Amaryllis asked.

“I... guess? I don’t know. Maybe they’ll just kick them out and let them fly back home under their own power. I guess it’s a little bit out of our hands.” I’d interfere to stop anything too bad from happening, but the cry had kinda-sorta attacked the town, so I figured whatever passed for police around here would be interested in capturing them at least.

“Don’t worry,” Amaryllis said. “We’ll be back in the air in no time.”