The lightning bolt ended, Dellen vented excess power out of his hand and over the side. He could feel raised scars over his body, with just a few curling on his face, one around his left eye socket.

He had returned to First Trinity. The canvas bag under his fingers was not ruined, but it was damaged, with holes in the fabric where the metal had eaten through on its way to his skin.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Gilgamesh said.

“Ravenport,” Dellen realized he didn’t care if anyone overheard him.

Thunder faded from his ears, and the rain took over, pelting him and the deck. It felt cool on his new burns. With a quick motion, he took the damaged bag and threw it through the hatch to below, sealing it again to keep the ship as dry as possible, then he ran to Aurora.

“What the hell did you just do?” She yelled at him, hands still on the wheel.

“It’s a one-time trick, captain. I used the Aether in the lighting to forge, and vented the rest. We need to either get away from this storm, or far above it,” he tried to think of the right lies to tell, “I can feel lightning in the storm, and living creatures in the clouds, as well as more ships than we have.”

“I’ve never heard of Aetherforged knowing things like that.”

“It’ll fade. It’s part of the forging,” he lied, “Now, are you going to get us out of this storm?”

Aurora took her eyes off of their heading and locked gazes with him, weighing him, and made her decision. The Phoenix’s Flight dove down.

“This is going to be bumpy,” Gilgamesh yelled.

Dellen remembered this, they had hit the ground, catastrophically, last time they had tried diving in this direction, but last time they had dove before a lightning bolt had driven them from the sky.

“Once more into the breach,” Gilgamesh said.

Dellen found the least sharp portion of Gilgamesh’s body and wrapped his fingers around it. “Only until we level off.”

Aurora kept them diving. Ahead, Dellen could see a lighter shade of grey above rocky ground.

“Aim for the light grey,” Dellen yelled above the wind.

Aurora did not respond.

“She’s a captain. She probably didn’t need your advice to think of that,” Gilgamesh said.

The wind around them ebbed, then sharply dropped as they grew closer to the break in the dark grey. The rain also slowed, not stopping, but enough that they could see much further around them, even back to the storm they fled.

“What about the rest of the fleet?” Aurora said to him once it was quiet enough to speak without yelling.

The fleet was going to be captured, with all passengers and crew thrown in cages, then sold at auction in Ravenport, Dellen thought to himself, though he did not know what to tell Aurora. He hesitated, “Can we find a safe place to watch the storm from, and then retrace our flight path?”

“I was following them, what happens if they get blown off course, or they end up going to a different city?”

“What if they do? There are still Aetheric Cultivators in Copperopolis, if the fleet ends up at another city, they will come back of their own accord.” Dellen knew that Aurora was affiliated with the cultivators but not a member of their order. He suspected that her interest lay in payment rather than anything else. “If Thaddeus decides that this in some way breaches your contract, House Northcote will make up the shortfall.”

Aurora’s stance relaxed. “In that case, yes, we can let the storm pass, then try to follow the path they should have taken.”

“Thank you,” Dellen said, his thoughts on how he could possibly help anyone. If Gilgamesh was right, he had taken this journey before, probably been captured, and spent a lot of time with the order, or one of the other groups at the auction. Forging had not broken the loop, nor had almost winning the exhibition. His intuition told him that the loop was somehow connected to the fleet.

Aurora settled them down on level ground, support struts extended out from the Phoenix’s Flight holding them up to either side. The rain slowed, then stopped. Dellen was startled when the hatch slid open, letting Eliza and Finnegan onto the deck.

“Where are we?” Finnegan asked, turning his head in all directions.

“Where’s the fleet?” Eliza asked not a second later.

“We were separated in the storm,” Dellen said, “We should be able to find them at Evergale if we make our own way there.”

“Exploring on our own,” Finnegan said, his eyes alight, “Real adventurers.”

Eliza squinted one eye and looked about, “If the storm has passed, shouldn’t we be trying to catch up with them?”

Dellen thought of the fleet, they were probably still struggling in the rain, some of them were undoubtedly wreckage strewn across the ground, and the rest of them were going to be captured. “Do you have charts or a map that can lead us to Evergale?”

Aurora twisted her mouth in dissatisfaction, “Yes, I didn’t want to rely on them. Hard to be sure of your charts when no one alive can verify your maps, except the Mercantile Guild, and,” there she paused, “The Mercantile Guild was never going to give us any information about the outside world.”

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Dellen nodded, “You’re right about that. Still, let’s return to our old heading. Maybe we’ll find them on the other side of the storm.”

“Thank you, Northcote,” Aurora said drily, “I would never have thought of that.” Her voice raised to a roar, “Mr. Stevens, we wait for half an hour, then we resume flight.”

“Aye, captain.”

Dellen took advantage of the break to strip off his sodden clothes below and bring them to dry on the deck. Then he took a few minutes to eat hard bread with cheese before stopping to just be. Between his stay with the order, then returning to the Phoenix just to have to tangle with a storm he felt worn.

“Stevens!” Aurora roared, “Back to the sky.”

“Bogsmith, Westlake!” Stevens yelled, “Positions!”

After the noise of the storm, Dellen had not noticed the quiet of the engines winding down after they landed, but he did notice the sound of them coming back to life, and the pressure of The Phoenix’s Flight lifting off. Glancing over the sides, he saw the support struts retracting back into the body of the ship.

“If you don’t mind,” Dellen said, “I’m going to go below and sleep, I find myself exhausted from forging.”

Eliza and Finnegan looked at him with concern, while the crew ignored him and Aurora gave him a curt nod.

Dellen walked below, followed by Gilgamesh, “What happened to you after they captured you?”

Dellen lay down and sighed, “We were kept in cages, taken to Ravenport, and sold to different groups, I ended up being bought by Lady Katherine, head of the Order of the Red Truth in Ravenport, fighting in an exhibition match, and forging my way to Second Trinity.” He took a breath, “What happened to the seven of you?”

“The Order of the Red Truth?” Gilgamesh said, “Interesting name. Our time was less memorable. It took us a day to reach Evergale after losing you to the pirates.”

“Aurora didn’t take you back to Copperopolis?”

“What was anyone in Copperopolis going to do about pirates? You were one of the most powerful Aetherforged in the city, and they swatted you aside without effort.”

Dellen nodded to that. “I wasn’t even First Trinity when we left, and out here, it seems like anything below Second Trinity means you’re helpless.” That brought him to the problem of finding a way to raise Eliza, Finnegan, and perhaps Aurora and her crew. “What did the seven of you do at Evergale?”

“They all had to forge at least one metal so they didn’t stand out in the city. Lacking any form of steelskin was a problem.”

Dellen nodded, impressed, “How did they do that?”

“They went to a teaching institution, what was it called, ah, The Aetherweave Institute.”

“What did they do after that?”

“Well, you won’t believe this, but they all made it to First Trinity.”

If Dellen had been walking he might have missed a step.

“They all made it to First Trinity? How?”

“Teaching methods out here are much easier and kinder than in Copperopolis.”

Dellen had not found that to be the case.

“What else? They convinced members of the institute to help them look for the fleet.”

“That’s surprising. Any success?” Dellen asked with curiosity.

“No.”

“So you spent all that time not talking to anyone, or having anything to do. How did you cope with the boredom?”

Somehow, Gilgamesh managed to draw himself up, “I cultivated a rich inner life. I hardly noticed you were gone.”

Dellen laughed until small tears formed at the corners of his eyes, “That’s good.”

“What do you think we should do now?”

This time, Dellen’s laugh carried exhaustion, “I think this will take several attempts. I can’t imagine that there’s any way for me to defeat a pirate fleet more or less on my own, which means attacking the ships in the dark after they capture Valtair and the rest, or finding a way to get the money to buy them all at auction.”

“How much did they spend on you?”

“I don’t know, and I was in the first back they bought. I didn’t see any of the others sold.”

“Perhaps you should reach Evergale, then we can look at a map and find out where this Ravenport is.”

“We could check Aurora’s maps.”

Gilgamesh coughed, “I’ve looked at them. They are… perhaps rustic?”

“Rustic?” Dellen asked with interest.

“I wouldn’t trust them over anything we find out here. I think they’re copies of copies of copies.”

“Ah,” Dellen said and closed his eyes, “Wake me if anything important happens?” He didn’t hear Gilgamesh’s answer.

He did hear Finnegan when he was shaking him awake an hour or so later. “We’ve found something,” Finnegan said, looking somber.

Dellen yawned and nodded, trying to shake the sleep out of his eyes.

“Wreckage,” Gilgamesh said.

Dellen stood, and held the ceiling, feeling the ship descending. He shrugged his way into a dry jacket and walked to the deck. Wind ruffled across his face and he sighed with the pleasure of not wearing a mask upon waking. A serious mien fell across his features as he saw the ship below, then he frowned, “That’s not from the fleet.”

“What?” Aurora said.

“That wreckage is old. Look at the exposed timber and metal, they’re aged and rusted. Something crashed there, but not a ship in the fleet.”

Aurora was quiet for all of a second, “As captain, I feel duty-bound to engage in salvage.”

Dellen kept his chuckle quiet, and turned his eyes back to the ship below them. The ship lay at an angle, partially buried in the earth, faded torn fabric and twisted metal testifying to the violence of its descent. Once splintered wood jutted from the deck, edges softer thanks to the fury of many storms.

It was hard to imagine what it had looked like, but Dellen thought he saw lines that suggested a streamlined hull with faded gold and copper accents. The tattered remnants of ornate banners hung sodden after the storm, clinging to the skeletal frame of the ship. Patches of moss and ivy had claimed parts of the structure, adding an eerie touch to the scene.

“Stevens!” Captain Aurora yelled, keeping her crew alert as they touched down.

The deck juddered underfoot as Aurora effected a gentle landing.

Stevens, Bogsmith, and Westlake all hurried down the gangplank, rushing toward broken crates. Dellen followed at a more leisurely pace, curious in spite of himself. The airship's cargo hold had spilled open upon impact, revealing crates and containers of various sizes scattered about, all broken or shattered. Everything was dripping wet, and the ground squelched underfoot.

As Dellen approached the wreckage, his gaze fixed upon the broken crates and containers strewn across the ground. Among the debris, shards of glass glinted in the sunlight, remnants of delicate vials and bottles. It looked as though anything that might have been of worth had long since been pilfered.

Dellen jumped from the ground five feet up to a torn opening in the hull large enough for him to walk through.

“A little help?” Eliza called up to him.

Dellen looked around and found a rusty iron bar and threw it at the ground a few feet away from her. “Hold on tight to that.”

Eliza picked up the bar, “This?”

Dellen held out his hand, and manipulated the bar with a magnetic field, pulling it up to him.

Eliza yelped and let go of the bar, before jumping to grab it again.

The bar rose up to the opening and then floated into the ship.

“You could not have done that the last time I saw you,” Gilgamesh said.

“That was… unsettling and impressive,” said Eliza.

“Easy enough once you’ve passed the First Trinity, and put in some practice with Aether,” he stopped to consider, “With Pyro Aether you might have a different skill set, maybe you’d melt through the hull.”

“What’s First Trinity?”

“First Trinity is the act of forging three metals, copper, iron, and silver. They have better, easier techniques for doing that out here.”

Eliza gave him an uncertain look. “What can Pyro Aether do?”