Next morning, in the hangar of Colonel Rotterdam where Kat was going, it was crowded by an entire regiment loading supplies onto the ship. Though mostly armored soldiers, one woman came into the hangar though with gear that stood apart from the others. It was a sun elf with bright orange hair, wearing a tank top with brown gloves, leather pants with a knee pad and a musket on her back.

  Her skin was pale with piercing yellow eyes, a mark on her right cheek. On one side of her hip, she had a couple of pipe bombs, with a whip on the other. She rushed in in an attempt to stop one of the soldiers to acquire some information, waving around her profile alongside her contract. After a while, Kat stopped her. “Are you a soldier too?” The woman initially glanced around, avoiding eye contact, before detecting Kat and squatting in front of her. “Hah, well... no. I'm not a soldier but a mercenary. Quite a cut above these losers too.”

  “Who hired mercenaries for a military expedition?”

  “That’s probably classified. But why don't you go back home, little one? This is no place for kids.” She talked down before standing back up again.

  She wandered around, shouting the name of the Colonel before running into an apparently familiar Majolkkrat. The humanoid armadillo looked up as his friend addressed him. “Bernard, have you seen Rotterdam? He has given me zero intel on who this ‘Kat’ is.”

  “Ah, Keya! Good to see that I got some decent aim covering my demolition convoy again. He should be on his airship carrier bu-”

  “Excuse me! You were looking for Kat?” Kat ran up to the two mercenaries, getting their attention right away this time. “That’s me! I'm Kat! What are your names?” Bernard and Keya looked at each other in bewilderment before erupting in laughter. The Majolkkrat made his way to Kat, still in laughter. “My name is Bernard and that beautiful elf over there is my lover Keya. We met on a beautiful pearly white beach during sunset and it was love at first si-”

  Bernard was interrupted by Keya slamming her fist on his head, which prompted him to fold up into a ball - a defense mechanism the Majolkkrat had with their half-mole and half-armadillo anatomy. Once in a ball, he promptly got kicked away by Keya. “Don't push your luck, Rodent!” She yelled at him in tunes of his mocking laughter before turning back to Kat. “I don't think you’re the one I'm looking for. I'm a mercenary, not a babysitter. Why don't you get yourself some cotton candy?” Keya tossed Kat a coin before wandering off into the crowd. “But miss!”

  “If you want to watch the soldiers that bad, keep your distance, sweetie. Elites are at work…”

  The elf wandered onto the ship to find the Majolkkrat there, this time pulling a cart that he crammed full of explosives. “Found him yet?”

  “I haven’t checked the bridge yet, I’m going there next.” Keya nodded at the mole. “Don't unpack yet, I'm going to negotiate a bonus.”

  “Why’s that? They already double dipped.” Keya walked over to Bernard and presented him with the contract, revealing the nature of the mission. “He’s looking for that bedtime story treasure trove. I'm not going on a fairytale hunt again at anything approaching my usual prices and neither are you.” She bossed, walking off into the control tower. “Fairies are real, you know! They commonly live in Chey’non? Your tattoo was placed by one... Ach never mind…” He continued pushing his cart grumbling to himself.

  The moment Keya held the doorknob to enter the tower the door was swung open in her face by one of the soldiers escorting Rotterdam. “Have the mercenaries arrived yet? I need to introduce them to Kat and her crew.”

  “I’ll tell the announcer to signal them to come to the deck, SIR!” The right hand of the Colonel shouted proudly, before saluting and running off into the foreman’s office in the hangar, while the colonel wandered over the deck of the ship. Behind him, the door slowly swung shut and Keya, no longer stuck to the wall, fell to the ground while Bernard walked past her with a grin. “Found him yet?” He asked mockingly, before snatching the contract from her hand and walking away laughing, leaving Keya to turn red from anger as she got up and dusted herself off.

  While she did so, a loud beeping noise sounded, along with the voice of the announcer... who sounded like they were inexplicably called back to work from retirement. “Attention, Hired mercenaries… Report to the primary mast. Rotterdam is waiting for you. Miss Kheylana, he is expecting you too. All other hands: Launch is in 90 minutes. Over.”

  When Kat arrived, she saw Colonel Rotterdam and his Lieutenant along with the hired mercenaries, including Keya and Bernard, who looked at each other again once they saw Kat approach. “You’ve got to be kidding me, it is her…” Keya whispered to Bernard, who snickered in response. Kat ran to the Colonel and the Lieutenant, who greeted her with a smile. “Kat! I’m Lieutenant Breda, but you can just call me Sander. I’d like you to meet our mercenaries for the journey.” He walked past the mercenaries, standing in line.

  There was a Veer holding a few 24 pounder cannons strapped together as his weapon, a human with a large crossbow on his back, Keya, and Bernard. “This here is Lorkill, he’s your heavy weapons specialist. Orcs have a reputation for favouring heavy weapons, and Lorkill is no exception.” Lorkill remained silent, tipping his metal helmet at Kat before picking up his massive cannon bundle again.

  “This here is Abdone Diller, your hunter. He’s forgotten more about survival than our scouts will ever know.” Abdone smirked upon hearing his reputation from Rotterdam, giving Kat a dismissive wave. “Bernard Pedren, he will be your demolitions expert. We usually put him at the front of our formation so we can keep moving smoothly. Oh, and word of advice: When you see him curl up in a ball, cover your ears.” Bernard snickered, twirling a stick of dynamite between his claws. “Hello again, junior.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “And this is Keya Gildas. The sharpest shot this side of the ocean. She will be your scout, because if she doesn’t want people to see her, they won’t..” Keya rolled her eyes and just picked up her bag to throw it over her shoulder. “Are we done here? I want to get this babysitting mission over with.” Keya grumbled, turning to the living quarters.

  “Actually Keya, you will be staying on her ship.” Lieutenant Breda added with a smirk, before she even had the chance to go below deck. She stopped dead in her tracks and glared over her shoulder. “You’re joking, right…?” Rotterdam and Breda were unresponsive while Breda just raised an eyebrow, smirked and turned around. “Why don't you show them to your ship, Kat? Your science crew is there waiting for you.” He suggested before walking off. Keya begrudgingly followed the rest of the mercenaries to Kat’s airship. “Great… We’re going on a camping trip with nerds…” Keya grumbled while Kat led them to her ship, where the other fair contestants were setting up their own inventions, except the Cykx. He was leaning on the side of the ship with a frown. A sore loser, it seemed. They didn't have much time to properly settle in however, with the announcer horn blared again just as they arrived.

  “Attention all hands! We’re leaving in 20 minutes, report to your post as soon as possible. Initiate launch startup sequence. Final loading in process.” Right after the announcement, soldiers on the ship rushed to their post. Nets with supplies were hung under the carrier and furnaces for the engines were stoked. The chimneys on the side of the ship puffed out large clouds of black smoke and the sails were set. In a few moments, the F.A.N.S Skybaron was ready to take off. Then, to send them off the announcer horn blared one last time.

  “Ready for launch in 3… 2… 1 Liftoff, try not to scratch the gate when you exit…” The announcer added, as the ship initiated its launch. The mercenaries on Kat’s ship were all either laying on the deck or holding themselves by the handrail, because once the Skybaron took off it shook the whole ship, effectively throwing those unprepared onto the ground. Slowly, the ship flew out of the hangar. As the ship ascended, Kat ran to the front to take in the view. The sunlight lit up the ocean, millions of sparkling lights floating on top of the surface. Meanwhile, the ship rose higher and higher, now reaching above the clouds. “Pretty impressive, isn't it Kat?” Dexter smiled, finally crawling out from under her ragged cloak. “It’s like a dream coming true!” Kat stayed at the tip of the airship for a while. “The view or the fact we're going on that expedition?”

  “Both!” Kat and Dexter spent some time admiring the view. Kat still couldn’t believe that she was finally going to search for her dad. About 30 minutes later, once the ship reached its cruising altitude, the announcer horn blared again. “Can Miss Kheylana report to the bridge, please? It’s the top floor of the biggest tower on the ship, in case you couldn't guess…”

  “That’s you, Kat. Hey, do yourself a favor and don't mention you’re a thief. These are all men of the law… except for maybe those cutthroats that are on your boat…” Dexter muttered, going back to hiding under Kat’s ragged cloak while she ran to the ship’s control tower. It was a large tower, for a ship at least, with easily 5 floors or more. Once on the top floor, Kat was greeted by a guard who let her into the map room. Unlike the rest of the ship, which was made of light metal, this room was mostly made up of wood, glass and even cardboard, with only the helm and its surrounding areas matching the style of the rest of the ship. There was a large world map of the mid-altitude layer of Jeslore, with strings connecting a few key points, seemingly implying that whoever owned this ship, presumably the Colonel, had been looking for the thieves’ vault for a while. The Colonel stood leaning over the world map table with his Lieutenants trying to plan a route. “You wanted to see me, Colonel?” Upon hearing her voice, the Colonel stood straight. “Yes, I called you here, come take a look at this.” He beckoned Kat to the map table.

  “Since you wanted this expedition, I'm sure you have an idea of where to go? Or at least a direction of where to go. Right now we are here and if we were to keep moving forward in a straight line, we’d be here in 14 minutes.” On the map, there was a miniature version of the F.A.N.S Skybaron that Colonel Jack pushed into a direction with an indicating stick to demonstrate which direction it would be headed. “Well actually, I have a map that looks like it shows the way.” Kat chortled, pulling the map out of her shirt again and putting it on the table. The colonel excitedly looked on, while Kat kept turning it about, trying to figure out which way was North. “Where did you get this thing…?”

  “I found it in the attic of my old home!” The Lieutenant looked over Kat’s shoulder. “Not really a mapper, are you…?” He asked as he watched Kat struggle trying to figure out where to go. “No, not really… I'm more of a mechanic, I never traveled a lot…”

  “I can tell, you’re doing it all wrong. Here, let me show you.” The Lieutenant took the map from her and held it up. “Instead of looking at the shapes of a shoreline and trying to compare them to those of a commercial map you need to look at the general shape and compare it to cities, countries or a continent. Maps are drawn by different artists so they’ll never be exactly the same, but it will always represent roughly the same shape.” He explained, studying the figures depicted on the map.

  After carefully observing the map and comparing them to the countries on the commercial map, he could make a good guess. “What a coincidence, Colonel... the one place we never explored.” Rotterdam nodded and shouted orders into the room. “Helmsman, set sail to Ragnarock! There are enough updrafts there to gain the altitude we need to get to the Mystic highlands.”

  “Ragnarock? But sir!”

  “No buts! A colonel keeps his word. Oh, and Eugene? Tell the crew to keep the cannonades ready. There’s a reason we never explored Ragnarock simply because I wanted to…” The Lieutenant handed Kat her map back while Eugene, the announcer, spoke into the horn. Several moments later, Kat walked out of the tower, clearly confused. Once they were on the main deck, Dexter popped out again. “What’s wrong about Ragnarock?” Kat asked. “I don't know, but I vaguely remember that something drove the giants out of there, probably some war. Let the colonel and his soldiers worry about that.” Kat went back to her ship to meet with the mercenaries and scientists there, neatly grouped on opposite sides of the ship. It was clear they weren’t fond of each other.

  After about ten minutes, the ship stopped gaining altitude and the announcer horn blared again. “Attention everyone: We are now at an optimal altitude and speed for travelling. don't go near the edges of the ship without a fuse or a parachute. Our insurance doesn't cover stupidity and/or self-inflicted harm, so there will be no compensation when you fall. Supper is at 8, be there or enjoy the leftovers. Also no brawling, bloodstains are a pain to clean off of the metal and the janitor will be the one found making the mess. That is all.”