Apparently, the tax collection force took taxes very seriously. Victor wouldn’t know, since tax evasion was among many of his crimes. You couldn’t write “steals random stuff from people, the guy reading this included” as a source of income, and as a street rat he lived off the grid anyways. Wearing chitinous black armor and wielding high-end swords made of heartsilver, these were obviously a cut above your average town guard. The tight squadron of 4 helmeted soldiers pressed in carefully, wielding clear glass-like shields in addition to a double-handed broadsword in their unoccupied hand (a testament to their strength). One of them promptly took a left turn and jumped, falling through the floor into a hidden basement area while holding onto a rope.

“Dangit quit that! That’s mah stuff you goin’ through yeh lil’ pieces of ordure”, Henry yelled in an eloquent bit of admonishment. He promptly ran at the squadron head first, who appeared to be busy causing as much of a mess as possible. Just as one of the black-armoured men started screaming randomly and smashing a vase against the wall over his head, Henry promptly made his appearance with his miniature cannon.

“AIGHT YA LIL’ MONEY-GRUBBIN’ GRIMALKINS PREPARE TO MEET YER TAX-BASED RECKONING” bellowed Henry in response to the soldiers’ random behavior. He promptly thrust a foot out and kicked the screaming vase-breaker clear across the 15-foot carpet, tossing him out of the busted doorway. He then cocked his weapon and squeezed the trigger while pointing it in the air, blowing a part of the roof off while making a thunderous boom.

One of the other soldiers dropped through the roof directly onto a small wooden table butt-first, flailing his sword around while yelling something about illegal earnings and false rebates. He then proceeded to whip out a can of some sharp-smelling spray and ejecting it’s contents into the eyes of Victor. After yelping a bit, Victor proceeded to take out a dagger and whack the man’s helmet with the pommel of it, causing him to collapse. Victor then proceeded to scrabble into a closet and wipe his eyes of the stinging substance, his vision blurring.

Several other troops separate from the original four began entering in, one jumping feet-first horizontally through a window while shattering the glass. Another broke through a wall and began flipping over a table with fruit on top while yelling incoherently. “HENRY WE KNOW YOU HAVE A FUGITIVE HERE GIVE THEM UP!”, a female soldier yelled while rooting around his hidden basement area.

Henry began yelling in return, whacking people with his weapon over the head and flailing around randomly, telling his guests to leave while he held them off. Still recovering, Victor and Silk stumbled away from Henry’s lodge into the shopping district, looking on the house and recognizing it as an apothecary. Quickly running over to the docks, Bundo and Levi quickly followed the sickened duo all the way to the ship. Pushing people aside and evading the various black-clad soldiers chasing after them, Silk hoisted Victor’s protesting body in a bridal carry.

“Hey, don’t carry me like this! This is uncomfortable, and embarrassing. Look at all the people staring!”, Victor dissented.

“We both know very well that I am far stronger than you physically, and we are in a situation where me carrying you while running would be safer and faster while we are being pursued.

This is especially true right now, where you are injured. Would you rather me carry you like a sack of flour instead?”, Silk responded emotionlessly.

“Actually, this is fine. Carry on”, replied Victor in a troubled tone. He had no wishes to be flopping around like a ragdoll. In comparison to that, being cradled like an infant or a damsel in distress from one of Silk’s beloved romance books was the less humiliating of the two options. He simply crossed his arms and put on a pouty expression the entire journey to the boat. The minute they landed onto the gangplank, he immediately leapt out of Silk’s arms and cut the knot holding the ship into the harbor, with the remaining crew members barely making it on time to get onboard their patchwork vessel. Just as they were about to leave, Silk felt a sudden dragging as she was working the pulley that lifted the cirrus anchor.

Lo and behold, Henry was clinging on for dear life while shrieking for help, looking for all the world like a monkey hanging onto a vine. His face poked just above the misty surface of the ocean as they left to the coastline, hauling himself onto the port bow’s safety railing while the white vapor slowly leaked out of his clothes, falling back into the surface of the cloudy sea. With him, he hauled a massive bag labeled “BACKUP MATERIALS FOR EQUIPMENT”, apparently all he could salvage from the Tax Collector’s rampant destruction.

“Say, do I get to join the crew now? Seems like you youngsters are lacking a proper adult to take care of ya, and I reckon that I could act as a gunner, once we get a proper blastcannon.”, Henry said while brushing himself off.

“Given that you literally risked your life to protect us, I’d say you can join. Plus, your reputation more than proves your worthiness to sail with us, and we do need someone to man the defense. Sign our ship’s compact, and you’re in.”, Victor replied. The crew nodded in agreement.

“Heh. I said “you’re in”, like urine.”, Victor snickered while Silk cradled her face into her palm, sighing.

“Alright, that’s settled.”, said Henry gruffly while scribbling on the piece of parchment detailing the ship’s rules. “Say, where do ya keep the rum on this ship? I could go for a drink.”

“Don’t have any. We’re far too young to do this, and if Bundo decided to drink it for some reason the aftermath would be disgusting. Elves can’t digest alcohol, you know, and that leaves a toll on the latrines.”, said Levi. As the quartermaster, she ran the ship spick and span with an iron fist.

“Is it too late to leave?”, said Henry hopefully.

“Nope! The contract states you have to be here for a minimum of a decade, and you also don’t really have a choice according to your own words. Welcome aboard!”, chirped Levi brightly.

“Oh king. This is going to be a long journey.”, despaired Henry. He then looked over at the gunport, most of the hatches empty. “Is that a ballista?”, he questioned.

“Yup. I built it myself!”, replied Victor brightly.

“Ugh, let me see it. I’ll get to work adjusting whatever budget artillery we have. Can’t even afford a blastcannon, buncha good-for-nothing ragamuffins…”, grumbled Henry. However, despite his surly attitude, he had to admit. This was the first time in a long while that he was truly happy. He had missed being on the sea of clouds, discovering new sights and adventuring about. He had a feeling that this new chapter of his life was just beginning.

While Henry was busy familiarizing himself with the weaponry, Victor was furnishing an entire room for the newest crew member. There wasn’t enough space for Henry to bunk with the crew, and Henry frankly needed a place where he could synthesize various medicines and cures for things. Acting according to Henry’s journal that he had acquired while asking him if he needed anything to acclimate himself to his new job. As it turned out, his skill lay within chemistry and healing, with his interest in weaponry being an extension of that. First off, a bench. Henry preferred to sleep on a hammock than any ordinary bunk, so that was really easy to install. Taking bits of metal, he took a slab of smoothsteel he nicked from one of the buildings on Argosy Isle and drilled thirty six holes in it (six for each leg). Arranging them into a hexagonal pattern, he then slipped interlocking screw bits into the afformentioned shapes and attached them to the legs for maximum stability. Finally, he implanted each of the six legs of the bench into the ground and welded them there, preparing for the most difficult part of all: building Henry’s medical equipment.

Looking at the complicated diagrams of equipment, Victor took the pieces of the substance that Henry described as “chemically-inert Omnic Glass”. Carefully welding them, the self-proclaimed engineer set out to make the filtration system. He first took the metallic grains and attached them to the first horizontal cylinder, with some tubes to extract the leftover residue attaching to another compartment. Carefully taking the coarse particles, he attached the Lodestones found from Henry’s expedition in the Omnic Empire onto the sides to make them float in place, unable to move but still filter out materials midair. He then took the pane of treated corrundum and attached it to the second cylinder, acting as a microfilter for purifying various substances. For the final steps, he made the third and fourth cylinders contain some sort of “polymer”, according to Henry. Extremely rare, these ones somehow only let through the finest of substances, with water barely being able to go through. The final cylinder, the “reverse osmosis” tube as Henry called it, required highly pressurized fluids to go through another Omnic material used for filtering. Preparing to attach it to his homemade condenser that used cloudsea vapor, Victor steeled himself for the task at hand. For once, Victor felt like he was going to have a real challenge for his construction abilities. He smiled the grin of someone who knew they had a purpose to fulfill.

Levi, on the other hand, was feeling a little underwhelmed by how small of a role she had played. So far in their three weeks of journeying, she had been little more than a bystander. None of her talents had been used, and she was beginning to feel similar to the way things were when she first joined their friend circle. Back in the day, it was only Victor and Silk, with Bundo tagging along occasionally. To be honest, she used to wonder if they only let her tag along due to a sense of debt after their jailbreak.

As she pondered this, she quickly began getting more and more drowsy, her attempt at sketching Argosy Isle’s gleaming bladelike buildings quickly drifting into dreams of the past. More specifically, dreams of how she first met with Victor and Silk. Silk noticed this and carried her gracefully to her bunk, tucking the slumbering crewmate into her quarters while draping a blanket over her. After all, Levi’s sleep schedule was that of a cat’s, and everyone knew cats slept until dusk.

“Say, Henry, why exactly did the Tax Brigade make you pay extra? You mentioned a grudge of some sort, but what exactly was it?” queried Silk. She was busy using the odd whetstone she found all those years ago in the bungled robbery attempt at Gildhelm to hone her Thief’s Blades to ridiculous levels.

“Oh, that? Yeah, I had, how do I put this for youngsters like yourself, repeated confidential dalliances with the Tax Brigade Organizer’s wife. And his sister. As well as his daughter. And possibly his mother, although I never got confirmation about that. He found out about my various flings when he was auditing my records and demanded I read to him some highly private and graphic letters I acquired from them. In front of the entire tax brigade. I tried to warn him, but eventually I read them aloud at his insistence of them possibly being evidence. You know, average stuff for a retired explorer.”

Silk slapped her face in sheer disbelief. She knew he was crazy from the tales she had read, but this was a whole new level of stupidity. And here she thought Victor was going to be the only problem crewmate she was going to deal with.