84 The Hunt For Spike 1

"They're headed toward Craggy Falls." Remian and Mindy both agreed as they watched the Desert King's three Sky Galleons soar south.

It was a daunting show of power. Each Sky Galleon was Tier 5.3, commercial grade and respectable in any airport in the world. They could fit DD, Spike, Buff and Carrie together on the deck of any of the Sky Galleons and still have space for Remian and Mindy to join them. Any of those ships could land in between Kara and Goth and immediately become a land bridge across the Pit from one mine to the other. How many troops could the Desert King squeeze into one Sky Galleon? Two hundred plus equipment and supplies? Three hundred? Four, if they squeezed?

In other words, three Sky Galleons could very well be carrying about a thousand of the Desert King's troops to investigate Craggy Falls and why their little secret excavation site had fallen silent. It was a very honest show of the Desert King's concerns for that site.

They were going to find that place stomped into dirt, Spike's footprints all over. They'd probably blame Spike, but what could they do against a Tier 5 Wild? He was too strong, too dangerous. Perhaps they'd just pack up and leave it alone from now on…

Remian sighed. Even he felt that much wishful thinking was just too optimistic.

It had been a good plan, he'd thought. It was just a small camp site. It shouldn't be that important, not enough to cause a disaster, right? Surely the prospect of challenging Spike was too daunting for them to pursue revenge for that little site's destruction, right?

Three Sky Galleons showing up overhead tossed Remian's hopeful ideas out the window. From their deployment, it was clear as day how important the Black Ruins were to the Desert King. There was no doubt at this point that they were definitely going to pursue the matter in force. But of course, it was too late for regrets now. They simply had to handle it to the best of their abilities.

Having Spike discovered and attacked was going to be extremely costly to him; it meant outright war with the Desert King, and they were not ready for that. It was them who had pinned the blame of destroying the excavation site on him, and there was no way Remian was going to abandon Spike now when he was under fire for that.

In any case, even if they wanted to take revenge on Spike, they'd have to find him first, and Spike wasn't at Craggy Falls any more, or anywhere near it. He was here, at the hills of Kara-Goth, busting hillsides into sheer cliffs so that nobody from the south could cross over the hills. In the process of doing so, he was also supplying the Iron Legion with untold tons of gravel for their road-building. The entire Legion was scrambling about collecting and carting off gravel onto Mindy's Sky Barge, which (with the help of the Tug) hauled the gravel to the airport and road buiding site on the north of Fort Spoas.

What was the worst that could happen? Remian gulped just thinking about it. If those three Sky Galleons attacked, Frontier Town was done for. Just the bombardment from airship cannons would devastate everything he and his crews have worked for. All they had to send up against those three airships was the Foresight and the Sky Barge; they'd be outnumbered, outmaneuvered, outgunned and outmatched in every way. Maybe the Feelo-Wasps could help a little? But Remian didn't expect them to make much of a difference.

"We need more airships, and more long-range weapons capable of anti-air combat." Mindy decided. "Even if we don't have to fight airships someday soon, there's no telling if and when flying Wilds might show up in a Beast Wave."

"Or we could form an alliance with Three Pines Peak. Maybe the Sun Eagle Lord would help us fight off the human Destroyers who are not as friendly with Wilds as we are." Remian speculated.

"Or we might annoy him into killing us all." Mindy pointed out. "I'd rather count on airships."

"How much time do we have?" Remian asked. "A day before the Sky Galleons reach Craggy Falls? Another day before they investigate and reach conclusions? A couple more days before they actually find Spike working with us? A fifth day before they start attacking Spike and our crews with him?"

"It's the Iron Legion working with him, would the Desert King's forces really risk a war with the Iron Legion?" Mindy asked.

"Maybe. Maybe they'll attack anyway and make up some excuses." Remian shook his head. "We better hide Spike tomorrow and keep him hidden for a week."

"Hidden where? In the Pit?" Mindy snorted.

"Maybe not there, but somewhere. In the river, or the hills, perhaps. Maybe even squeeze him into amine. He could help clear out space from inside."

"Have you seen the way he's been tearing up the hillsides? More likely he'd bring the entire mine down."

"How about the airport? We have a hangar half-built. If we rush it, we might be able to finish in time." Remian thought out loud. "It was designed to fit the Sky Barge. It could definitely house Spike."

That turned out to be their final solution. In less than an hour, two hundred workers had been set on building the Hangar. It was basically a steel frame filled with bricks and steel sheets, with a few Runes inscribed at key points. Andros also had to set in some runic channels so that all the runes around the hangar fed off the same network, the same reservoir that had a dedicated charging point. Some of those runes gathered mana from the atmosphere, others reinforced the structure, others stored mana or transferred it to whatever airship within the hangar needed it, and most importantly, there was the mana intake Rune whereby mana could be fed into the network (because the amount that could be gathered from the atmosphere wasn't much compared to how much an airship like the Sky Barge consumed).

Having so many workers taken from the mines meant a lower output of Fire Copper and Jade this week, but Remian didn't hesitate for a moment. He did, however, wonder about the efficiency of the workers and about getting better machinery to raise it.

For example, tools made using the material that the Burning Steel was famed for. It was an alloy of Fire Copper, iron, carbon and some other stuff Andros was very secretive about, but Burning Steel as a material should make easily make Tier 3 equipment of any sort, including pickaxes, shovels, saws and axes… if skillfully handled, such equipment might even reach Tier 4.

That, or they could just use Tier 4 bones and bone powder alloys. Andros would know better which materials to use for what. Remian simply had to add this project to the list. Or, more to the point, add it to the very top of the list, right behind the Forge's own metalwork tools and equipment.

Andros was going to complain about that. He complained about everything. Remian shook his head. He was going to have to end up doling out more money to directly purchase some of that metalwork equipment from Charlie. In the end, all of Andros' complaints always led down to that request; to buy and acquire high quality metalwork tools rather than to have to make lower quality versions themselves.

Before, while worrying whether the Burning Steel would revert to being a gang and turn on him, Remian didn't think it was a great idea. Now that he was going to own 50% of the Burning Steel Company, however, the concept seemed a great deal more appealing.

Not so appealing was the question of what they were going to do about the Black Ruins at Craggy Falls. Remian had intended to investigate it at leisure, sending in well-prepared adventuring teams, maybe setting up a Guild branch hall at the Ruins, with an airdock and shops for the adventurers' needs…

But there had been no time, and they were already short on manpower as it was. The Adventurers Guild had been somewhat neglected by Remian even though he lived there, many of the missions and rewards unchanged for weeks. Joshu and the older ones still took missions of exploration and hunting, and the younger ones still did utility missions like hauling goods, or scroll-Inscribing, or cooking… but Remian couldn't help feeling like there was a lot of potential there going untapped.

Soon, he felt. A lot of the new adventurers were teenagers still learning how to use scrolls and weapons. A few of the better scroll students were learning to Inscribe as well as use scrolls. One or two of the weapons trainees were starting to take low level hunting jobs. Soon, it would be time to really ramp things up at the Adventurers Guild.

But right now, they just needed to hide Spike.

***

"Find it." A flat-nosed man glared around at his men and said in a dull tone. "Find that Tier 5 monster!"

They spread out on three sides, each airship sailing a day's walk out from the ruins, squads of men patrolling the ground, tracking the gigantic footprints.

"Sir! He went north!" report after report came in.

It was an oddly well-trodden trail northward, through the rocky ravine. Even now, there was a giant tortoise, yet another Tier 5 creature making its way on that trail north slowly, so slowly toward the Deadly Sands.

Meanwhile, the scouts were finding all sorts of tracks on that trail, everything from rabbit tracks to burning bulls. That spiked-lizard-turtle creature was the largest of the lot, and therefore the clearest, but even so, the tracks seem to go both ways in a very confusing manner.

Still. There was only one trail and only two ways on that trail, north and south. Since they didn't find the creature in the south, it could only be in the north.

Three Sky Galleons and roughly 1000 rough men followed the trail of the Beast Waves.