Chương 598: Chapter Five Hundred and Eighty-Two - Add a Dash of Impending Storm

The day passed without much fanfare except for two things. First, the tiny ship that Calamity had seen way off in the distance reappeared. It was possible that the second sighting was a different vessel, but the dark-grey balloon and the shape of the hull were the same. We spied upon it through a telescope that Awen set up on the poop deck, and more or less confirmed it. The ship was catching up. That was... both good and bad? If it was trouble, then it was just a little bit of trouble.

The ship was far smaller than I had initially thought. It was bigger than the Redemption that was resting in the centre of the Beaver but only by about twice? Basically, it was a third of the size of the Beaver itself, and that small size probably meant that it didn't have as much trouble gaining speed. So, faster than us, but we could probably assume that it wasn't as well-armed as the Beaver was. Which meant that if it came over and wanted to fight, we would have the weight advantage for once.

Plus, being so small meant that it couldn't have a huge crew. I was a tiny bit anxious about it, but we pressed forwards anyway. It was entirely possible that it was an innocent ship just moving in the same entirely random direction as us. No one on the crew seemed to think that was likely. Still, by the time evening arrived, the ship was still way off near the horizon. It was catching up, but not fast enough that we'd have to worry. Not until morning, at least.

"Hmm, wind tastes strange" Clive said. I turned around and looked at the old harpy.

"The wind?" I asked. Raising my head, I gave the air a sniff, but it just smelled a bit like oils and rope and wood and a little like the fumes that the Beaver's engines belched out.

"Not smell, taste," Clive said. I blinked, then opened up my mouth and sucked air in that way. When that didn't do anything, I resorted to sticking my tongue out and licking the air. Which is about when Desiree and Caprica showed up.

"Captain Bunch," Caprica said rather delicately.

"May I inquire as to what you're doing?"

"Licking the air," I said, though it was a big muffled on account of the tongue sticking out of my mouth and all.

"I see," Caprica replied.

"Why?"

"Perhaps this is a ritual?" Desiree asked.

"Does your tongue have barbs upon it? For grooming?" Now it was my turn to be a little confused.

"Barbs? No? At least, I don't think so." I washed cleaning magic over my hand, then ran my finger across my tongue. it didn't feel barbed...

"Nope, nothing like that... Do you have tongue barbs?"

"They're rather vestigial," Desiree replied.

"We have brushes now. Far more sanitary. And they require less... flexibility." She twisted one of her big floofy tails around and hugged it. I was kind of a little teeny-bit envious. Her tails were so big and soft. Mine was just a puffball stuck above my butt.

"That's... very interesting," Caprica said before she shook her head.

"Sorry, no, I'm losing track of things. Why were you licking the air?"

"Clive said the air tasted weird," I explained with a gesture to the harpy at the ship's wheel. Clive shook his head.

"Wind. Not air," he said.

"There's a difference, capt'n."

"Oh, sorry," I said. I tried to lick the wind instead. This didn't help.

"I can't taste anything but wind."

"Hmm," Clive replied.

"You'll learn to tell the difference one day. Spend enough time in the air and you start to get a feel for when things are changing. There's a storm brewing upwind of us." I perked up at that, bun ears straightening until the wind had them folding back.

"Really?" I asked. I spun and looked ahead, and noticed Caprica and Desiree doing the same. Unfortunately, it was getting late into the evening, and the sun was a molten half-circle slipping below the horizon, casting rays of gold through mountainous clouds. But if they were storm clouds, they didn't look it. That said, they were dense enough that visibility was pretty bad, and it looked like it was only going to get worse as we were flying towards a cloud bank.

"I came up to tell you that we've reached the edge of Amaryllis's calculated search zone," Caprica said.

"Or we should be there within the hour, at least."

"I see," I said.

"Should we set up lamps along the edge of the hull, to see through the clouds a little?" Flying through a cloud was like flying through thick fog. At the moment, it wasn't exactly dangerous, since we were over the open sea -- we wouldn't need to worry about hitting any mountains, and the chance of randomly encountering an oncoming airship or a flying monster were pretty low. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But our actual plan wasn't to fly in a straight line, it was to spot a flying castle. That'd be pretty hard to do if we could only see a few dozen meters in any given direction. We could splash some light out into the dark. We had decent lights onboard... well, more like we had good Awen-made devices that amplified and directed any light spells we cast to create a sort of fog-light effect. But those tended to not be super helpful when there were clouds to catch the light.

"We might want to run dark," Caprica said.

"Fully dark, or...." I started and then trailed off. She nodded.

"Fully dark, yes. We're being pursued. If we make no light and slip into the clouds, we might just lose them. Sylphfree naval ships practice the technique, ducking behind mountain ranges or employing tactical fogbank spells.

"Are these effective?" Desiree asked.

"Somewhat? For smaller ships, certainly," Caprica said.

"At a minimum, you can deploy that kind of spell, then change course. Breaking line of sight is extremely valuable in warfare. Obviously, that kind of ruse is significantly more effective at night, but only if the ship deploying it runs completely dark." I could see the logic there. We didn't have 'Create Really Big Fog Wall' spells, but we did have clouds, and they were thickening with every minute. As it was, I could still see the tiny ship way off behind us, but it was getting hazy.

A ship with lights on, in the middle of the night, stood out quite a bit. From really far, the lights weren't much stronger than a star in the sky, but stars didn't typically hug the horizon. Or move. So it was often pretty clear when a "star" was actually an airship. From closer up, the lights on a ship were super obvious. Though most ships had magical lamps that could be hung off the port and starboard sides, past the figurehead, and on the very rear, to give other ships an idea of where they were.

If we didn't use those... then it was possible that light from inside would be visible too. Light just carried far.

"Do you think we can create another decoy spell that leaves some lights behind, then shut ours off? It kinda worked on those pirates last time?"

"Oh!" Caprica said as she lit up.

"It's a valid tactic, I see no reason why we shouldn't use it again. I recall it being somewhat controversial back home."

"Why?" I asked.

"This was a long time ago, when airships were a lot more primitive. A famous smuggler had a skiff of sorts and was being chased through the Sylyphfree mountains by a naval patrol craft. A fogbank rolled in, and the smuggler did something similar. They had lights move one way, then shut off their ship's own and dropped down and out of sight."

"Then what happened?" I asked.

"The patrol craft flew into a mountain," Caprica said.

"It was a terrible embarrassment, but the story grew quite popular... unfortunately. We had a rash of young Sylph that wanted to become dashing smugglers and pirates for a while, though that cooled off."

"Did anyone die?" I asked. Caprica blinked.

"From the crash? No, of course not. We can fly, Broccoli."

"Oh."

"There was a death unrelated to the crash, of course," she said. I felt a melancholic smile settle on my face.

"That must've been hard on the sailor's family." I sighed.

"I hope they're feeling better."

"Oh, you needn't worry. It wasn't the sailor; it was the smuggler. Once we caught him, he was publicly executed.... Why are you looking at me like that? Smuggling is illegal. Beheading isn't even the maximum punishment." I mean, sure smuggling's a crime, but it was also a little bit cool? I could understand the appeal. If things had turned out just a little differently, I might well be a sky pirate. Mostly because I couldn't think of a single thing that was cooler than a sky pirate. A nice one, of course.

It took some effort, and a bit of Awen and Amaryllis' expertise, but eventually we had a set of lights floating at the back of the Beaver. When the clouds thickened and the night settled in for real, we had the lights slowly drift off to one side. They'd only last an hour or so, but that ought to be enough to lead someone off-course.

And now we just had to hang out in this cloudbank, a cloudbank that sent forth increasingly strong winds, ominous distant rumbles, and a tang of storm growing so prominent that even I thought I could taste it.