Grath dried the gizzards in salt and stored them deep in the heart of the Flounder's hull balloon. It was a good haul. They had been incredibly lucky. The next step to acquiring Elixir 8 would require luck as well. But to Grath, luck was just rolling dice, and if your first roll goes poorly, you can roll again so long as you are alive. Of course, in gambling, you would run out of money before you might make it back, but in adventuring... he was low on money there too... At any rate, Grath needed to get the gizzards processed by Prattian laboratory brewers. Hopefully, the two organs would produce a light golden-colored oil, aka Elixir 8. Statistically, it had a success rate of 1 in 5, so the odds were Grath would fail and have to come back to the Eathean Prairies. But that was a risk he was willing to take. This quest had been a lifelong dream, but with Trarn's help, it became so much more real. Braving the pirates, bringing down the elusive burrowing owl. Grath was excited, trying to contain himself. Trarn was still skeptical of the owl gizzards, but Grath held out hope. It might take a few tries, but they could do this!!

Grath dropped a little weight from a bag of galena gravel in the mid-deck cabin, urging the ship up slowly. The Flounder dragged skyward. If his wind map was accurate, he should be able to catch the northern winds again and then ride them up until they reached the northern jungle. From there, the great dividing line of the winds and seasons, known as the "Middle Gap," had to be crossed. There were other routes, but if he passed the Midgap, Grath could ride the west winds back in a quick loop back to Prattia.

Up the ship drifted and north it floated. Clear skies held up, then storms rolled in like waves over the prairies. Grath and Trarn avoided the worst of the rolling thunder. They pushed the limits of their lungs to top some of the giant rain clouds. On one such trial, Grath lay sprawled by the controls. The smallest lift balloon, he gripped grimly with one hand. The balloon had an overlapping flap, and any minute now he would release some stuffing from it. He eyed an altitude meter near to him. The little silver liquid in the device's vials expanded as they rose. Every few hundred feet, it would rise past another tick mark in its little glass tube. There was a red line not too far from where it was now. If it reached that, Grath knew his breath would fail him shortly. The hull balloon was misted slightly with tiny water droplets. They formed together on the Flounder's water-rejecting surface. Occasionally, one would grow too big and slide down the side of the ship to tumble into the depths below. Grath's head ached, but he pressed on. Trarn was sprawled not far from him. The two spoke no words but suffered in silence. At last, Grath cocked his head suddenly, looking through the misty air of the cloud top. Barely visible in the cloud-mist, a ship drifted not 300 digits from them. A pirate hulk! Grath leapt to his feet. Stars immediately spun in his vision, and he collapsed back to the balloon top. His vision blackening sharply at the edges, Trarn looked up quickly and gasped. Rolling over, he scrambled like a lizard towards the top deck tent. He scurried past Grath, wincing repeatedly as he did. Trarn had some kind of back problem, Grath had determined. It stiffened his spine and sent him into spasms on occasion. Right now, Trarn ignored the pain as best he could and crawled into the tent to load his crossbow. Grath finally regained his breath and focused his mind. The ship was huge. Its black flags matched large black ribbon tails floating from its lower balloon. Ribbon tails, modeled after goldfish tails, are semi-rigid ribbons constructed of cloth and rods woven to a singular thin shaft. The ribbons run along the ship's side until they connect directly to the ship's deck. There, the flexible shaft is secured to a vertical pole built into the ship's skeleton. The shaft continues well past the securing pole and now acts as a massive handle of sorts. Crews of trained men pull and push the long handle back and forth, causing the ribbon to ripple and undulate. This drives the ship.

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Right now, the pirate ship did not move. Working their slaves or crew to drive the ribbons at high altitude would kill the hapless rowers. So, in this moment, it hung there, a gargantuan mass of water and fire-rejecting cloth and lumber. A small town could be built from its skeleton. What's going on? Grath wracked his brain for several perilous moments as he slowly moved his fatigued body into a crouch, then it came to him: The odds of us running into a single fortress-class pirate ship in the sky are basically none, but when a fleet of ships, pirate or otherwise, goes through clouds, they spread out to avoid bumping into each other. It's very likely we are inside a swarm of pirate ships! We are doomed!

In the year 756, two rival empires, the Grons and the Rieghlightons, went to war. Few towns existed in those days. The cursed fog had forced early man to the skies in terror, and who could blame them? So, the empires boasted massive fleets. For the Grons, their fleet ships operated as both their homes and fighting vessels. Whole families crewed one ship, raised for war. Riding their ornately carved ships on the cold air of the winter southern winds, the Grons advanced towards the north, and the Rieghlightons brought their military’s heavily armed vessels on the eastbound winds to intercept them. The cold front of the southern winds formed a massive blizzard of unparalleled proportion called the "Heavens' Frost Gale." All ships were caught in the gale. The Grons' ships were believed to have outnumbered the Rieghlightons by 50% and their total crew members by double. So, as the ships careened in the lower reaches of the storm or floated in its frigid heights, Grons harpooned, grappled, and boarded the heavily armed and armored Rieghlighton ships. Their formidable long-range ballistas rendered useless by the storm's blinding snow. When the blizzard cleared, the Rieghlighton empire was bereft of its fleet. Their empire fell not long after. The Grons were victorious, but... due to the loss of Grons mothers and daughters in the battle, the next generation of Grons was heavily altered by the relations of Rieghlighton concubines and wealthy Grons warriors. This spawned the white-haired tan people that, after many civil wars, conquests, and name changes later, became the Cloudkin empire.