Rhys went back to Hans first thing the next morning and took the supply job for the harvesting operation at the spire forest.

With the job chosen, Hans gave him the full details of the job. Namely, that it was two days flight away, the pay was a sovereign for delivery in the next four days and details on what exactly they were carrying. As Oliver had guessed, the majority of what was being sent was preserved. Pickled vegetables in cloud quartz containers sealed with ironwood sap and smoked meats. Not the most appetising of dinner options.

Rhys had given Oliver two sovereigns of ship funds to buy trade goods that would sell well at their destination. Oliver had offered to do a larger amount, but Rhys was a little hesitant. He wasn't rolling in sovereigns quite yet, so he didn't want to commit too much to any single venture. There was always a risk, after all.

With that in mind, Rhys made sure to visit the captain's guild and see what they had on offer. Unfortunately, it seemed that they'd come at the wrong time. The metal stocks were low after a few heavy-duty cargo ships had come through. The same ships had brought in a lot of what was needed for import.

That left Arn Dukatt with an empty job board for small ship captains like Rhys. If he lingered, he was sure he'd find something to do, but that would have a cost in itself. No, the smart thing to do now was to take what work they could get and move on.

He checked in with each of the others over the course of the day, making sure they were ready to set off in the morning. The goods from Hans would arrive early on, and they would head off as soon as they were loaded.

-**-

Rhys rose early the next day, making sure he was first to the galley so that Zaxx could make him his tea without issue. He could do it himself, but it just wasn't the same somehow.

Oliver had spent the whole five sovereigns on various consumables, most of which was fresh but had a decent lifespan to it. Unlike some ships, the Endeavour didn't have a cold storage area. Rhys was sure that Zaxx could add one, but there was no way he could get away with that. Well, no way to do it stealthily. He could always leave them behind for a short while and change the ship before he returned.

It was another good reason to stick to short trips. Tom was still in charge of stocking the ship's stores, which was much easier to do for a few days.

'Morning, Captain,' Tom said, entering the galley and filling the cold, empty kettle with water from the barrel for his own drink.

'Morning, Tom. All set for our next trip?' Rhys asked, wanting to gauge how Tom was feeling about it all.

'Yes, Captain. We're all stocked and ready. I even got Oliver a good deal on some spices that he's going to resell.' Tom said, yawning as he sat down at the table. 'What about you, Captain. Have you got something else lined up for us after this?'

'Not from here, no,' Rhys said with an expansive shrug. 'I'm going to take us back to Arn Gol. There's plenty of work there for a ship like this. If we go the long way back, we might pick up a few things on the way as well.'

'Sounds good to me,' Tom said, giving him a reassuring smile.

Oliver and Lucy joined them a few minutes later, confirming that they were ready to go as well. Oliver gave him a quick rundown on what he'd bought in preparation, while Lucy yawned in the background and cut past him in the queue for hot water.

The supply shipment for the harvesting outpost arrived about an hour later, Oliver and Tom loading the eight pallets of supplies into the cargo hold with practised efficiency.

With everything loaded up, Rhys headed up to the helm and fired up the engines. It was time to move on.

-**-

The Endeavour lifted gracefully into the sky on thick plumes of vapour as Rhys put the engine to work. After the heavy load on the way here, it felt like the ship was all but floating through the air as he started them on their course.

Arn Creth, where Rhys was born, was on the outer edge of the Alliances of Spires. They were close enough, in fact, that they regularly had merchants from the Agrestal Expanse come in to trade.

The Agrestal Expanse was a huge area, several times the size of the Alliance of Spires and home to hundreds of colonised spires. Those colonies ranged from homesteads to towns and cities, with everything in between.

In the Alliance, everything was nice and orderly. They were all part of the same society. The military controlled the borders and came together to hunt down any beasts or creatures that threatened a spire.

In the Expanse, things were a little different. Morca was far more abundant in the cloud sea, which meant more creatures could survive on it. More than a few petty kingdoms had been founded in the expanse on the back of that easy wealth. Equally, more than a few fledgling kingdoms had fallen after their ships were torn apart by monsters.

Overall, they were north of Arn Creth at the moment, but this job was taking them due east, straight toward the Agrestal Expanse.

It was easy to forget about the perils of cloud ships. After all, it had been a series of easy voyages for the Endeavour so far, but Rhys was definitely going to be watching carefully for this next trip.

He had the first shift at the helm for this trip, so he stood by at the wheel and let the clouds drift by as they headed east. It was nice not to have to talk to anyone for a while and just enjoy the view.

-**-

'Rhys. I'm sensing something large nearby. There is a certain resonance to it that is akin to the energy crystals you use to power your machines. I'm unsure of what it might be,' Zaxx said, interrupting Rhys as he sat in the galley drinking tea with Tom.

'.. and it helped that they used my favourite vegetable for a lot of their dishes. Honestly, they were boiling 'em, mashing 'em, even sticking some in stews, great stuff!' Tom said, gushing over a family eatery he'd once been to. It turned out that the big sailor remembered the places he'd been by the best food he ate while he was docked there. 'You okay there, Captain?'

Rhys realised he must have looked distracted as he processed what Zaxx said and tried to recover as best he could. 'That's really interesting. We might have to look for it if we go there. It would be nice to try it myself.' Rhys said, giving a variant on the same response he'd given about the last three places that Tom had talked about. 'So, erm, would you like to head up on deck and get some fresh air?'

Tom glanced down at his half-full cup of herbal tea and shrugged, lifting the mug and tipping it back in one long pull. 'Sure thing, Captain.'

Rhys's face was frozen in a smile as he abandoned his own drink and led the way up at a quick pace. He made sure to take the last few steps so that he was on deck before Tom, taking the opportunity to whisper to Zaxx. 'Is it any closer, any idea what it is?'

'We are closer to it, as it seems to be up ahead and to the right of us, but it is heading to our left. At our current speed, we should fly straight over the top of it. I'm still unsure of what it might be. For it to be so easily detectable, it must contain a large amount of energy.'

Rhys's eyes widened as he caught onto one particularly important part of that report. 'Did you say it is further down than us?'

'What was that, Captain?' Tom asked, coming up onto deck next to him.

'Just remarking on how nice the view is today,' Rhys said in a strained voice, trying to act natural.

'Correct. I can't give any raw data as I do not have any instrumentation to use. My sense of it is purely from my own restricted abilities.'

'It is quite nice, isn't it? Shame we've got to arrive at some point,' Tom said, stepping up next to Rhys and leaning on the railing with a content sigh.

'You know what, you're right, let's take it easy for a bit,' Rhys said, trying to keep the two conversations separate as he considered what Zaxx was sensing. In some ways, it didn't matter what it was. Anything that flew inside the cloud sea, or, ancients preserve them, within the Misting itself could be bad news.

Ignoring Tom's surprised sound, Rhys hurried over to the helm. Lucy was on shift at the moment, holding their course due east as her eyes wandered over the horizon.

'Captain, what can I do for you?' Lucy asked as he came over, perking up and giving him a smile that faltered a little at his expression. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing, its just that I…..' Rhys started to say before pausing to sigh and rub his face. 'I've got a really bad feeling. That's all it is. Can I take the helm for a few minutes?'

'Of course,' Lucy's posture changed completely, the smile dropping away as her expression changed into a mask of professional concern. 'But don't underestimate your intuition. How bad a feeling is it? Do I need to man one of the guns?'

'Yes, I think that would be best,' Rhys said after a moment of thought, sighing in relief as Lucy stepped aside and he took over the controls. Taking the wheel in hand and turning it a few points to the right, Rhys grabbed the thruster lever and slowed them down somewhat.

If there was something down there, flying overhead at a good speed was a great way to get noticed. By going to the right, they wouldn't be flying so close, and they'd be harder to detect at this slower pace.

While he adjusted their course, Lucy jogged over to Tom and had a quick word with him, the two of them moving to man the fore guns a moment later.

'How are we looking?' Rhys asked, not bothering to whisper now the others were at the other end of the ship.

'On our new course, we will no longer fly over the anomaly. Instead, we will pass through its wake. You seem to be quite concerned by its presence. What do you think it is?' Zaxx asked, sounding unmoved by Rhys's panic but still intrigued as to what the anomaly was.

'Nothing good, that's for sure,' Rhys said, avoiding the question as he focused on making them run as quietly as he could.

A few tense moments passed as they carried on their course. With each second that slowly ticked by, Rhys felt the slightest amount of his tension bleed out. Perhaps there wouldn't be an issue, after all. He may have overreacted to Zaxx's news.

'Captain!' Lucy called from the prow of the Endeavour, gesturing at something off to his left. Cursing himself for jinxing the whole matter, Rhys looked over to where she was pointing.

Around a hundred feet from them, several large shapes were emerging from the cloud sea below them. A blanket of cloud rose with them before slowly drifting back down to merge with the sea once more.

As the clouds parted, Rhys saw that it was two huge striss rays, each one maybe fifty feet long and surrounded by a dozen smaller skraa rays that were a mere tenth of their size.

Something was wrong, though. The striss rays were moving quickly, far more quickly than normal. They even seemed to be heading up, away from the cloud sea and into the open sky. That wasn't normal either. Rhys had never seen a striss ray go far from the clouds before.

'Captain!' Lucy shouted again, pointing once more at the rays. 'Get us higher, now!'

Confused, Rhys acted on instinct and did as she asked, pushing the ventral thrusters to full to start them climbing higher.

As he did, Rhys saw the clouds at the edge of the sea beneath the rays shift and move, half a dozen pale white tentacles erupting out to grasp at the fleeing rays. The rearmost of the two striss rays was thirty feet from the edge of the clouds and climbing, but the tentacle reached out and grasped it, coiling around the rear of the ray.

The striss rays were big, even for their species, but the tentacles were able to stop them with ease and start to draw them back towards the clouds. Each of the pale appendages must have been several feet across, at least, from how they stood out on the rays they caught.

The smaller skraa rays were able to keep flying away, moving out of the dangerous area as their bigger cousins were drawn inexorably back down.

The surface of the cloud sea was a shifting, roiling mass all around them. Rhys could have sworn he saw flashes of silvery scales amid the shifting clouds, along with hints of a hidden, twisting form.

The reality was revealed as the head of the creature breached the surface of the clouds, its jaws wide open as it bit down on the first of the rays, a massive chunk of the big ray disappearing down its throat in a single bite.

Rhys could see that the tentacles came from the cheeks of the creature, three of each side of a head that must have been half the size of the Endeavour.

The frantic resistance from the rays disturbed more of the clouds, revealing a long, sinuous body that coiled and flowed within the cloud sea. Along its length ran a crystalline spine ridge that glowed with a pale blue, framed by silvery scales that shimmered in the light.

'May I access your sight to see the creature? I can sense it is nearby and that we are fleeing from it, but your emotions make me wonder just what form it has.' Zaxx asked, breaking the horrified shock that had taken over Rhys.

'Yes, just do what you can to boost our thrusters and get us away from it as well,' Rhys said, his eyes never leaving the creature as it devoured the two rays, bite by bite. It seemed able to hover amid the clouds by constantly moving its body in a sinuous, coiling manner, the long curls of its body shifting effortlessly through the cloud sea and barely disturbing the clouds.

The actual size of the creature was hard to tell, but it was long enough to wrap the Endeavour up in its curls with room to spare, that was for sure.

'Fascinating. Those crystals on its back are similar in nature to the akast crystals you feed the Endeavour's engine. From the lack of wings, it must use them to stay aloft somehow. I would highly appreciate it if you would kill it and bring it aboard so I can examine it closer.' Zaxx said, a slight pricking sensation behind Rhys's eyes telling him that the eldritch creature was sharing his senses.

'You've got to be kidding me. There's no way we can take that thing on,' Rhys said, hissing the words at the helm with a mixture of horror and shock.

'Perhaps not now, but in the future. I would be intrigued to see what energy I could derive from the crystalline structure on its back.'

'Not even with a pair of dreadnoughts backing me up,' Rhys said adamantly, watching as the distant creature finished its meal. The Endeavour was still rising away from the scene, but there would be a limit to how high they could go. The atmosphere would thin soon, and the engines would begin to fail.

With a final chewing motion, the last of the second striss ray disappeared down the creature's gullet. For a long moment, Rhys was convinced that it looked up at them and considered chasing after them. In the end, however, the beast sank into the cloud sea, the clouds sealing up behind it as though it had never been there.

Rhys watched the surrounding area to see where the huge monster went, but there wasn't even a ripple to the clouds to show its passage. Of all that had happened in the encounter, that was perhaps the most terrifying.