For a frozen moment, I was sure we were all about to die, the sylvani cruiser overhead slowly lowering itself towards the air docks, it’s strange magitech living weapons pointing at us to wipe us from existence… and then I realized I was over reacting. The dock workers weren’t panicking, and if they wanted to kill us, they would have fired from much longer range.

Come to that, were those even weapons? I don’t really think-

My thoughts were interrupted by Eshaan grabbing me by the arm and hauling me into the Sparrowhawk’s cabin.

“Lily, get inside! What if they see you?!” He shouted. “We’ve got to do something!”

Lakshmi casually leaned against the hatch, her arms crossed, a picture of indolence. “Relax, crew.” She flicked her finger against the brim of her hat, tipping it up to look at us. “If they were here for us, they’d have opened with weapons fire. That is a standard sylvani cargo ship. Not a warship.”

Eshaan scowled at her. “How can you be sure?”

Lakshmi jerked her head towards the hatchway where the sylvani ship was settling into its berth. The massive hatches on its belly and sides were already opening, and what was obviously crates and packages of various sorts wrapped in sylvani woven plant matter were revealed. Lakshmi smirked at Eshaan.

I heaved an enormous sigh of relief, and promptly felt my cheeks flush in embarrassment. I had been worried for nothing.

“Any more questions?” Lakshmi asked.

Daniyel spoke quietly. “How long do you think we have until they report our craft to their council?”

Lakshmi’s grin turned to a sour scowl. “Gotta ruin my fun with the facts, Danyiel.”

He smiled calmly and shrugged. “It is merely a question, my captain.”

Lakshmi heaved a sigh and pushed herself off the hatchway. “Alright, fine. About as long as we had already with the illusion. It’s a cargo ship.”

“With a sylvani crew!” Soriya pointed out.

“Why is that important?” Lakshmi asked with irritation.

“Because it will provide corroboration, which will ensure that they know we have escaped their trap.” Camaxtli said. “People who have tried to kill us over political and religious differences, do not seem likely to simply ignore that fact.”

“Actually,” I said, my heart finally slowing down enough that it was no longer loged in my throat “I’m not sure that’s so. The sylvani nation is very large, and we traveled a long time. And not every sylvani cargo ship docks at the sylvani capital.”

“The sylvani ships are much faster than we are.” Daniel said calmly “And gossip spreads faster than the fastest airship I’ve ever heard of.”

Eshaan grunted. “That’s true enough. Nothing else to talk about when you’re cooped up on a ship.”

Lakshmi threw her hands up in the air. “Ok, fine, but the truth is…” she sighed. “The truth is we’re going to be here for a while. I’m installing the sylvani tech I picked up at our last stop, and it’ll take a while!”

Eshaan furrowed his brow. “Why can’t we just install it later?” He asked in confusion.

I sighed in sudden understanding. “Because it’s growing. Right, Lakshmi? Like a plant?”

She nodded reluctantly.

I threw myself into a nearby chair. “So we’re stuck here for… you know, I bet it’ll be about a week.” I smiled wryly at Camaxtli. “So we’ll be doing some of those tasks.”

Camaxtli nodded, his face a conflicted study. “It appears that the story has threads that need to be tied together.”

Lakshmi shook herself all over. “Spirits, but it’s creepy when you do that!” She accused me.

Daniyel folded his arms across his chest again. “We should find out if this will truly cause an issue. Do we know if the sylvani nations hold sway here?”

“Why would that matter?” Lakshmi snapped. “We’re not criminals. And we can’t ask that, without looking like criminals.”

My eyebrows rose at her statement. She’s right! That’s actually pretty sharp political thinking. I guess she was a princess after all.

“So… we can’t ask, and we can’t run.” Eshaan summed up.

“Pretty normal for us, really.” Soriya chipped in. “But it does allow us to go shopping, and maybe make friends and influence people!”

I smiled at her. “That’s a very nice way to say side quest.”

She looked at me and grinned sharply. “Don’t tell me you don’t like helping?”

“I don’t like helping?” I said, my whole expression making it obvious how much of a lie that was. The others burst into laughter.

“Dragon’s breath, Lily, you are so bad at that!” Eshaan laughed.

I shrugged. “I’d say it’s not my fault, but… well, it’s a promise that I made, a long time ago.”

“To who?” he asked curiously.

“To herself.” Soriya said. “Back when we were children.”

I nodded. It was still a little strange to remember something that only one half of me had promised, but it was still very real.

Eshaan nodded gravely. “Promises are important. Especially promises to yourself.”

I tipped my head to the side, looking at Eshaan curiously. That sounded… important. Like he’d made a promise to himself. I wondered what it was. Probably something silly and heroic, grave and determined. He doesn’t have many other modes.

“Well, even if it is just a ‘side quest’, it can be a lot of fun to go shopping and help people. Plus, it’ll let us get a really good price on those goods in our hold.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Our plans settled, we set about tracking down a series of odd jobs, lost pets, missing socks, and other various tasks. It was silly, but it wasn’t like I could ignore these plotlines. If I came back in three weeks, these same tasks wouldn’t be here, like in a game. Time happened, it didn’t freeze just because we were in a hurry, or there was a larger plot thread. It was an uncomfortable reality. Our story, such as it was, was happening at the same time as the shopping list of trivial tasks and lost lunches. It put an entirely new spin on the idea of side quests that could wait until the end of the story mission.

A nice side effect, the buying and selling gear and equipment from the Sparrowhawk got me my 10th level of Orator, Which meant I had just broken 30th level. My capstone skill was {Disarming Rhetoric}, which potentially could let me talk people into surrendering before they even fought us, as well as doing some downright cruel things to Merchants when I was negotiating. I would have been more than a little uneasy with this power if I hadn’t already sworn not to lie. It did make the merchants underestimate me though.

I giggled quietly to myself. I’m just a simple peasant girl from far over the ocean after all.

Lakshmi cackled quietly to herself as she flipped through the wad of zeni bills that I’d added to our company treasury.

That, and the fact that everyone in the group had leveled in their own tasks, put her and everyone else in a very good mood indeed, even with the hammer of the sylvani hanging over us.

By the third day, the sylvani upgrades to the Sparrowhawk were starting to become obviously visible, and a few of the sylvani freighter crew dropped by to ask us about it. I was worried that I’d have to do some horrible lying, but Lakshmi’s tongue was silver of the purest variety.

A quick yarn about experimental growth, connections with the royal court, and some impressively believable political gossip from the court, and the freighter crew were nodding along as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a ship from over the ocean to be installing integrated organic technology.

After all- I thought wryly everyone knows that sylvani tech is superior. At least the sylvani know it.

Regardless, it was obvious that we’d gone from a mild object of curiosity, to pretty much the only thing they were going to talk about the whole trip back. With 3 days left to go on the Sparrowhawk’s upgrades, the sylvani cargo carrier lifted into the blue sky overhead and vanished into the southern horizon.

“I don’t suppose there’s a way to speed up the growth?” Eshaan asked nervously on the fourth day.

“Probably, but I don’t know it.” Lakshmi answered. “Look, it wasn’t supposed to be like this!” She said defensively. “We were supposed to have plenty of time to vanish into the mist!”

Daniyel said calmly “And you really wanted to play with your new toys.”

Lakshmi was silent for a long moment, then looked down and nodded. “And I really wanted to play with the new toys.”

“So what exactly is happening anyway?” Soriya asked.

“That’s the fascinating part!” Eshaan exclaimed with excitement. “Some of the integration is clearly going towards speed, but there’s a subtle inweave with the hull! It’s like the plant is eating the metal, making itself into some kind of organometallic composite!”

I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t realized just how excited Eshaan was about this.

I guess it’s not just Ancient’s technology that he’s interested in?

“And how long until the wings finish growing in?” Camaxtli asked, pointing to the half spread skeletal moth wings that were slowly unfurling from the ship’s sides.

“I told you, about three days!” Lakshmi responded.

“So we’ll be ready to go then?” Soriya asked. “Because I suspect we’re going to be leaving quickly. We should probably pay our docking fees and inn costs, so we don’t have even more angry people after us. It would be nice to not leave somewhere a flaming wreck with a mob of debtors behind us.”

“Not very piratical though!” Lakshmi protested.

“We’re running at top speed from a nation we helped save from its own abducted war machine. I think we’ve got ‘adventurer’ nailed down tight.” Eshaan said dryly. “There’s no need to add airborne theft and grand larceny on top of that. Besides.” He added with a grin. “Our captain has already kidnapped the royal princess of the Empire, and subjected her to horrible tortures. We don’t need to buff up our resume any further.”

“Alright, alright fine.” Lakshmi agreed with ill grace, though I caught a quickly concealed smile as she turned away.

By the end of the week, the Sparrowhawk had twin wings of green and bronze gold, and her hull was a swirling mix of wood and bronze gold color.

Soriya and I had taken care to keep all our bills up to date, so it was with a sense of annoyed frustration that I greeted Daniyel’s solemn report to us on the morning of the 6th day.

He dropped down from the upper turret we were using as an observation port, and said calmly “It appears there is a sylvani armada approaching from the south.”

“Then it’s clearly time to go.” said Soriya.

“Aye!” Lakshmi raised her fist in the air. “Next stop, Bekent, northlands!”

The Sparrowhawk slowly rose up in the air, her wings unfurling as they cleared the dock.

“hold on. Why are we heading to the northlands?” asked Eshaan.

I looked at him in confusion. He’s not that stupid… is he?

“Eshaan… we’re after the Arcanum.” I said patiently

“Yes, I know, of course we are. But why the northlands first? The queen said there was another one in the Canyon of the Stars, and if the northlands are going to be a pain?” He said.

I blinked a few times. “Well… I suppose that’s true! We were going north first because we’d promised to get them the crystals to repair their defense grid. Before they blew us up and all.”

“Whichever direction we’re going in, can we please pick one?” Lakshmi said. “There’s the armada behind us after all!”

I bit my thumb in indecision. “We don’t even know if they’re coming after us…”

“Oh come on. I know you don’t want to believe they’re after us but-”

“No, hang on! What if they’re not?!” Eshaan said excitedly.

“Uh, Eshaan, it’s pretty obvious-”

“Yes, sure, but what if they were wrong?!” He grinned at me, then slapped his fist into his palm. “Bam! Right?”

My mouth fell open. “You mean… an illusion? Again?! One of us going north?”

He nodded excitedly. “Exactly! And then we sneak away! Can you make us invisible or something?!”

“Well… no.” I squirmed uncomfortably. I truly did not like lying with illusions… but this was a really good idea. And the idea of a skyship with a stealth cloak…

Lakshmi gave a huge disappointed sigh. “Aw, man! An invisible skyship?! What a pirate thing!”

“Well… actually, I think we could do something like that…” Soriya said thoughtfully. “It’s not true invisibility, but it’s close. Just an urge to look elsewhere, look away. And if they’re chasing the illusion…

“This will serve double duty as well” Camaxtli said. “If they are not in fact searching for us, but here for other reasons, we will learn that quickly.”

I bit my lip, then nodded uncertainly. “If you think this will work… sure.”

Soriya and I hurriedly set up the ritual circle in the common area, and got to work. Lakshmi pushed the Sparrowhawk’s engines forward, and through the portholes, I saw our new wings flush with magical energy. We shot forward, throwing us hard against the bulkheads.

“Ow.” Said Daniyel with grave understatement.

“Sorry!” Lakshmi grinned in embarrassment. “But did you see that?! Our acceleration is unreal!”

The five pairs of eyes staring at her quelled her excitement somewhat.

“it’s not my fault!” She protested.

“Indeed.” Said Daniyel. “Who could possibly know the outcome of such modifications without a test of the systems.”

“Exactly!” Lakshmi nodded enthusiastically. “Wait. That sounded negative.”

Daniyel raised one eyebrow. “I am merely observing the outcome of the events as prescribed.”

Lakshmi stared at him, frowning. “I can never tell with you.”

Daniyel shrugged. “Perhaps Mistress Soriya and Lady Lilyanna will engage with the spellcraft now that we have some breathing room?” He asked laconically.

“Oh! Right!” I hurried back to where our ritual materials had scattered, and we got to work once more.

Within an hour, we were ready to try.

“But which way are we going?”

“Well, west, right? It’s the closer one! And they’ll be expecting us to follow the northern route!”

I gave a dispirited sigh. “But… my barbarian cat-girls…” I said sadly.

To the eyes of the pursuing fleet, the image of the Sparrowhawk shimmered like a heat haze, and then suddenly shot forward towards the north at speeds that far exceeded the sylvani ships pursuing her.

A faint rippling heat haze in the air turned to the west, and proceeded at a sedate pace as the sylvani armada ripped past, in a desperate hurry to catch up with the fleeing airship.