211 Mysteries

"Thanks, Chirpy." Mindy said softly, with one hand on the hilt of the Phoenix Sword.

Meanwhile, Raven had brought three younger children to Mindy. "Boss, these are my brothers and sister. Robin, Sparrow, and Dove."

"You're bringing them all on the Free Wings?" Mindy eyed them. Raven herself was eighteen, Robin was fifteen, Sparrow, twelve, and Dove was nine, about Eriane's age.

"Yes." Raven said.

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Mindy waited, but that was all she said. "Are you sure? I mean, they could be in school, or safely in the mines, or Adventuring…"

"I'm sure."

Again, another pause while Mindy waited for Raven to say more, but Raven really didn't say anything else.

"My sister doesn't like to talk much." Robin said, apologetically. "But we've always dreamed of flying. All of us, together, as a family. We want to travel the world and see other peoples and eat different foods, and look for our father…"

Raven cleared her throat, and gave Robin a sharp glance. Robin winced, and subsided.

Well, the school Barges were also mainly crewed by children their age. The Free Wings was a second-hand Deutero Sky Galleon, but it wasn't that much more complicated than the Sky Barges, plus there were already experienced Adventurers on the Free Wings' crew. They should be okay.

Besides, Sandra and Gammie were both on the Red Fang with their comrades, and they were fourteen and fifteen. Sparrow was about the same age. All three of them were older than Mindy herself.

Also, it seemed that Ruth and Xia wanted to come along on the Red Fang, along with…

"Eriane?!" Mindy blurted. "Why are you here?"

"Because there's nothing to do here!" Eriane scowled. "They're all huddling inside the mines, and closing everything up… there's nothing to shoot, unless they're already inside, and that's going to be a mess! I don't want to sit around waiting just in case and then trying to get a clear shot when everyone's crowded and fighting hand-to-hand in the tunnels!"

"But we're going to Fal'Herim to keep an eye on the industrial district. Remian said Tim will take care of it, but I don't know how he's going to protect an entire district from a Beast Tide! Chirpy said that after the Tide sweeps through the five colonies and Kara-Goth, they're going to hit Fal'Herim next!"

"That gives us about two days to evacuate the district." Sparrow mentioned.

Raven frowned at him.

"Evacuate? But we need that district to build airships! Otherwise, the contract…" Mindy trailed off.

"Do you think we can defend it against a Beast Tide?" Sparrow asked. "Is the contract really worth losing lives over?"

Mindy's head lowered. "But… Remian didn't say anything about evacuating when we were there…"

But Remian wasn't the kind to do everything for them, or to solve all their problems. Remian left Fal'Herim to Tim. He left Kara-Goth to George. He left Mindy with her own airships and enough experience with long-distance trading and visiting new cities to run her own trading fleet. Whatever problems they faced, they'd have to solve it themselves. Whatever choices needed to be made, they'd need to make it themselves.

Already he'd told George that it was the last time he would give George instructions. How long would it be before he said the same thing to Mindy, or Tim?

On top of that, there was something more important in the Industrial District that Mindy needed to protect. There was a certain tavern staffed by children around her age…

"We're going to Fal'Herim to pick up some people." Mindy decided.

"At a time like this? What's so important about those people?" Sparrow asked.

"They're going to be our new crew."

***

At that time, the La Vive settlement was already evacuated. They went over to the Ashdale settlement in a caravan, a row of carts loaded with goods and people. Those carts became part of Ashdale's outer fortifications, just another layer of perimeter obstacles.

Ashdale's colony, under the command of a certain Sir Stout Senior, fortified their perimeter heavily with five layers of traps, obstacles, a moat and walls. Fifteen qualified Battle Magi led by a Level 6 Battle Mage laid down heavy runic formations in preparation for a long, drawn-out battle. A full battalion of infantry armed with revolver rifles took up positions and dug trenches, a newly popularized fortification style in the world war. About fifty volunteers of men and women took up spare rifles and trained last-minute for additional defense. La Vive's incoming refugees added a full hundred such volunteers. Their additions brought the armed defenders numbers to nearly 600.

Itarim had been building siege engines, from catapults to ballistae and the faster firing scorpions. The war front had not spared them any modern weapons like rifles or cannons, but they made do with those siege engines, pikes and crossbows. Given the lake on one side and a strong stockade on the other, they started to reinforce that stockade with bricks and mud layers. In the event of a Beast Wave, the entire colony would be involved in defense, two cohorts worth, their numbers almost reaching 2000. On top of that, they had a merchant airship presently docked and open for trade.

Bellas had a complicated formation of defense towers manned with retired magi. Some of them were elderly, others were injured or traumatized by war, but for whatever reason, they ended up looking for a new start in the Frontier and got sentry jobs in defense towers. Following Battle Mage qualifications, most of them were around Level 3 or 4, though one particular old man qualified as a Level 5.He was positioned in the tallest, strongest tower along with a magic cannon and three squads of runic musketeers. A veritable maze of traps and bottlenecks were laid out across the entire southern approach, all of which were within range of every tower's weapons and magi. They didn't have much in way of standing forces, just four platoons on the ground, but those platoons were equipped with Tier 4 runic equipment. They also had three airships docked, two frigates escorting a galleon, all of them commercial-grade.

Meanwhile, the 9 Mountains colony was already in constant combat, fighting against troops of monkeys every day. Literally hundreds of mercenaries had joined their defenses, and literally hundreds of them had already died. The Great Ape King had been sending Beast Waves for days, and nobody was quite sure who was winning or losing. Nobody was even sure who was in command any more. Frankly speaking, the fighting on that front was a total mess.

Around that time, Ashdalian lookouts reported a most unusual sight; the fog over the Great Deep had lifted for a bit and in that short while they spotted what seemed to be a rocky island in the middle of the oversized lake. A small expedition was quickly planned and in three hours, a boat headed into the fog.

But the boat never found the island. It went on to get lost for the rest of the day before finally making it back to shore with only half its original crew, having lost the rest to sudden water Wild attacks in the fog. Still, they never found any island.

Then word from the Itarim settlement arrived.

For some reason, it seemed there was a new river cutting right into the desert to the north…