The Hourglass plunged toward the waves below.

Twila’s grimy fingers burned as she yanked on her ratchet wrench over and over. The Sunset Sea’s waters churned against gray-white cliffs a thousand feet below. Thirty feet above her, the wind whistled past an open hatch in the bottom of the airship’s hull.

And next to her, Rosie’s hand rested just above a lever. “Keep it tight, Twila!”

“Throw the lever! Now!”

Her friend’s hand pulled the lever up with a jerk. A purple-green splash of color filled Twila’s eyes, and a humming overwhelmed her ears. Breathing a sigh of relief, the thirteen-year-old girl let go of the wrench, stopped using her [Tinkering] Skill, and lay on the cedar planks of the rats' nest. She wiped a filthy hand across her forehead, leaving a gray smudge under her tangled, flaming orange hair.

The Hourglass started ascending again. Its two engines coughed jets of violet steam that bounced against the silvery steel rudder, turning the sloop toward the towering stone pillar in the distance. As she sucked in acrid, bitter lungfuls of air, the myst condenser’s vibrations rattled the rats' nest under her.

“Old Bitch almost had me that time. Gotta get new coupling nuts and bolts - they’re stripped. There’s a skywright in Ternport, yeah?” Twila asked, her chest pumping as she caught her breath. Her mind whirled as she imagined row after row of shiny brass plates, copper wiring, and glass.

“I dunno,” Rosie leaned back against the rats’ nest’s railing, uncaring of the thousand-foot drop behind her. She pushed her mousy brown hair out of her eyes and adjusted her ponytail. “I’ve never been there.”

“28 gauge hexes, may as well replace all of them, so eight. And strip-clean the condenser if Ternport’s got solid docks, not just lines. I ain’t messing with her while she’s running. Not even idling.”

“I’ll be happy with a fresh meal. Maybe I’ll spring for veggies since I skipped them in Drelven. Three masts for a handful of peas? Unbelievable.” Rosie paused to look out at the sunset. “Do you ever miss home, Twi?”

“Nope. I’ve been aboard for three years. Hourglass is home. I’m gonna learn her, save my crowns, and buy her from the skip. Then she’ll be mine,” Twila said wistfully. “I’d be a better captain than Anton. I’d actually take care of Hourglass. Treat her right.”

“What’s with the skipper, anyways? He’s such a hardass!”

“Connor said he used to be a pirate. Got pardoned, went on the straight and narrow, and bought Hourglass.” Twila looked up at the airship. Bigger than most villages' fishing ships, the paint on its wooden hull had long since peeled. Its brass still shone, though.

A metal stripe ran down the center of its fifty-foot hull, and its thin width left plenty of room to see the sky above it. Brass vents puffed out puffs of purple smoke as they kept the ship upright.

She sighed. “I’ll be the best pirate hunter ever. Slap some cannons on her, and Hourglass could run down anything! And the treasure…”

“What would you even do as a skipper, though?” Rosie asked.

“Skipper stuff, like Anton does. How hard could it be to pilot the ship, and what else does he do? Yell at us? I can yell at people.”

Something popped below them, green sparks showering down toward the sea. Twila sighed. She hated the condenser mast more than any other part of the ship.

“Old Bitch…better check my harness, Rosie. I’ll be flying soon.” Twila stood and held out her arms. Rosie pulled her [Myst Lens] over her eyes and checked the [Ship Rat’s Harness]’s brass buckles, leather straps, and the safety rope attached to the airship’s hull. She was almost done when a teenage boy’s head appeared in the hatch above.

“Skipper says we’re rerouting! We’ll coast to Iswixel and do repairs there! Shut it down, get up here, and stow your knickers and shit!”

“Stuff yourself, Connor,” Twila yelled back.

“You got lucky today, Twi!” Rosie started scaling the rope ladder, her safety rope dangling from her stomach as she pulled herself up.

Twila shook her head and climbed after her eleven-year-old best friend. “What’s Iswixel?”

The Hourglass’s hold shimmered with heat. Especially the girls’ quarters - little more than a closet with two hammocks - right next to the enormous myst boiler port side. If Twila had been sweating at work below, it drenched her now. In fact, the whole hold reeked of it.

She and Rosie hadn’t had to share space with a third girl since Allie’d been cut loose at Drelven, and neither of the two preteens had cleaned since then. She shoveled a handful of oil-stained clothes onto a shelf, stopped for a moment - was that her second overalls or Rosie’s - and shrugged.

“Think they’ll have a washerwoman for hire in Iswixel?” Rosie mournfully held up a shirt that had once been white and was now shades of brown, gray, and black. “I’d pay a whole crown for a clean change!”

“Someone’ll do it if you got a crown or a couple masts. Veggies or clean clothes, though? Tough trade.”

Rosie shook her little leather coin purse. A sad pair of coins clicked together, and she sighed. “Hopefully, they’ll only want a few masts. I’m broke. Are you finished stowing your stuff?”

“Yeah, good enough. Let’s go.”

The two girls’ faces shone with sweat as they picked their way through the dark hold. Sunlight poured down the stairwell as a barrel-chested man with a long, brown beard pulled the double doors open. Both girls blinked and squinted at the [Veteran Skyskipper] in the sudden, blinding light.

“You two! Start checking over the engines! If anything’s off, you report it to me. Before you start tearing it apart this time, Twi!”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Yes, sir…”

“Alright, Skip.”

The two doors bounced closed with a thud, leaving Rosie and Twila blinking in the dark.

“I think Anton picks on us,” Rosie complained.

“Yeah, he does, Rosie. You’re newest, and I’m…well, not his favorite. Picking on us? That’s normal. Open some portholes. Can’t see anything.”

The two hot-myst engines loomed in the Hourglass’s narrow stern, twin rust-covered monsters eagerly eating every drop of myst the condenser pulled in. The tiny courier-class airship didn’t need engines this big; cargo traders had four, but those merchantmen quadrupled the Hourglass’s loaded weight while empty. But Skipper Anton had insisted. The ship was his pride and joy and would be the fastest in the skies. Someday.

But not today.

Twila activated her [Tinkering] skill.

“‘Kay, those parts? Coolant lines. Runes heat up too much, they’ll melt through, then we have no power,” Twila said, pointing to a cage of tubes that trapped each beastly engine. “Then the runes. Skywright in Limeton put ‘em on. They keep the myst moving. Nasty stuff when it’s this hot.”

The runes covering Rightie the engine glowed a dull orange - a good sign. A myst leak in the engine room could mean an emergency landing, a hull crack, or a fire unless the ship rats could control it.

Twila ran a gloved hand across the gears leading up to the ship’s wheel and controls, caressing them lovingly. The rest of the ship might be home, but this was where her soul felt she belonged. Well, that or at the helm.

“Grab a hex wrench, check the gears for tightness. I’ve got the starboard one. Shout when you’re done.”

“Got it, Twi.”

The two girls got to work, tightening pins and replacing stripped gears. The coolant needed topping off, an oil check showed low, but not dangerously low, and none of the pipes leaked. Too much.

Twila grinned as they snuck back through the ship’s hold toward the stairs. “Forecastle?”

“Yeah, forecastle’s got good views. We’ll see Iswixel that way.”

Boxes and crates covered the ship’s deck. The Hourglass was no merchantman, but Skipper Anton offered reasonable prices and fast runs, and small-time merchants kept the ship’s hull full more often than not. With so much clutter, the girls could find the ship’s gracefully-pointed bow unseen.

They sat down and began breaking their teeth on hardtack and dried fish, staring off at the ever-closer stone pillar.

The two girls sat quietly, feet dangling off the forecastle, resting their arms over the lowest railings, and ate. Twila shut her eyes, imagining being behind the Hourglass’s wheel, wind in her hair, and the heat and smog from the engines behind her instead of filling her lungs.

“Look at that!” Rosie shouted, wonder in her voice. Twila stared at the ocean and the ever-closer pillar.

The sunset on the sea below matched the one in the sky as the Hourglass descended slowly. A huge pillar of sparkling gray-white tuff dwarfed the little sloop. Scraggly trees and bushes covered most flat areas, though a few had been hacked clear. Twila could see a tiny vegetable patch clinging to a ledge, a stone-and-wood house or two, and far below, the ruins of an old sea ship harbor long forgotten. A path, cut from the stone, wove up the cliffside.

The ship slowed, rocking her forward slightly. A rippling barrage of pops near the ship’s stern jolted her the rest of the way from her thoughts. Before she could see more than a thin trail of purple steam rising from the engine room, Skipper Anton’s shout rang out through the popping. “Myst leak, port side! Rosie, Twila, get down there! Fix it, and keep it fixed!”

Twila abandoned her tough, dry dinner and ran toward the hold’s stairs. Had Rosie messed up her maintenance check?

Sure enough, choking, purple-green smog filled the engine room and billowed into the hold. Tortured screams came from the port-side engine. “Rosie, tell the skipper we can’t fix this while she’s running. He has to shut down Leftie.”

Rosie nodded. “This is a mess, huh?”

“Just go!” Twila shouted, then pulled on a pair of goggles from a nearby rack, pulled a bandana over her mouth, and dove into the smog.

A brass pipe had ruptured near the engine. It slammed against the hull as myst poured from it in waves. The popping pulsed in time with the engines’ heartbeats. Twila took one look and shook her head, stomach plummeting. She wasn’t going to be able to fix that. But maybe she could cut the port engine’s myst flow to the vents to begin with.

She started [Tinkering] with a valve as the engine’s heartbeat stopped. The whole ship tilted to port–they’d cut off not only the engine, but the repulsor vents as well! She rushed to the other side. Acrid smoke seeped through the rough bandana, burning her throat and sending her coughing. She spun another valve open.

The ship overcorrected as the vents kicked back on and the skipper spun the wheel at the same time. Twila staggered into the now-shaking starboard engine. It rattled her bones. She stared, jaw dropping–bolts were shaking loose!

“Rosie! Rosie! Tell the skipper to cut to ‘Ahead Slow,’ or we’ll lose Rightie!” Before Rosie could reply, Twila turned back to the port engine. The skipper had shut it down. So now Twila would have to start it again. She grabbed a [Firestarter] from the supply cabinet and started flicking it. It vomited purple flame into the engine’s starter. Leftie roared back to life.

Filling the room with purple smog again.

“Dammit, skipper,” Twila muttered under her breath. The Hourglass deserved better than this, and she was going to tell him so, getting cut loose or not–just as soon as she’d fixed this blown-out pipe joint!

As she worked, the Hourglass plunged toward the village’s small dock, and toward the waves below.

[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level .27 (Myst 9/10, Hit Points 1/1)]

[Head - Empty]

[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]

[Chest - Ship Rat’s Harness (lvl. 0)]

[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets - Equip an additional Gizmo]

[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]

[Gizmo #1 - Basic Myst Tools (lvl 1) Skill - Tinkering]

[Gizmo #2 - Empty]

[Gizmo #3 - Empty]

[Gizmo (Belt) - Empty]

[Myst Battery - Basic Myst Battery (lvl. 1) Small Storage (passive) - 10 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill]

[Weapon/Pair - Empty]

[Skill #1 - Tinkering 1]

[Skill #2 - Empty]

[Skill #3 - Empty]

[Skill #4 - Empty]

[Skill #5 - Empty]