"So," William said in deep thought, "This is a muzzle-loaded cannon, as the name suggests, the gunpowder is put into the cannon from the muzzle and pressed down. The projectile is then also pushed through the muzzle and secured atop the gunpowder. From the thin sharp spikes we found in some of the cannons, this hole here is probably used to make a cut in the powder bag, and then it's also used to fill it with a faster-reacting gunpowder, working as the primer. After all that, fire is used to ignite the primer, maybe on a long stick or something like that, and then, boom! I doubt anyone would want to be next to something like this when it gets fired, the kickback should be quite considerable.

  "We can do much better," William finally concluded as he walked around the cannon the Voyager had got from the Deepdark.

  "Yes," Francis had to agree with the old engineer, "But at least the runes are interesting, they are doing a lot of heavy lifting."

  "Yes." William nodded. "Without them it would have been quite a disappointing piece, needing cleaning and cooling after each shot."

  Francis understood what the Magical Engineer meant, without those runes, a piece of wet cloth would be used to clean and cool the cannon after each shot. With them though, those steps didn't need to be carried out, just activate them and the cannon would be ready to be used again.

  "Okay," he said as he dragged himself from his thoughts, "We have this, what are we doing next? I know that you don't need me to tell you, but we can't have the Voyager use a cannon such as this garbage, it's too old school and hard to use."

  "Next we just need to work from this and come up with something better and less cumbersome to use," William said with a smile.

  Francis then watched the old man walk to one of the whiteboards in the workshop, got a pen and started drawing. He first sketched a cannon on the board before circling its rear.

  "Our first upgrade would be changing it from a muzzle-loaded cannon to a breech-loaded cannon," he explained as he drew, "It's going to be hard to make it so the seal is strong enough to handle the pressure of the explosion, but with the skills offered to us and the many runes we can use, it should be doable."

  Francis just listened, not interrupting the man as he spoke, just going over the feasibility of such a design in his mind.

  "The next thing that needs to go is the ammo," saying that, William drew the cross-section of a bullet on the whiteboard, "The powder and the projectile being separate makes the reloading too slow. Let's just go with the same principle as our normal ammo, both the projectile and powder should be in the same body, plus the primer."

  "Wouldn't that make them too heavy?" Francis brought up something that came to mind.

  "The Voyager herself is going to be using these." William shrugged. "So I doubt how heavy they are is going to be much of a problem for her."

  "This is going to have us make everything from scratch," Francis said, "I can see how useful it's going to be though."

  "It has to be done," William said. He then continued as he focused on the board again, "With that change, we would also need to rework the firing mechanism."

  Francis looked at the changes that needed to be implemented, they didn't seem that much, but putting them all into work was going to be quite the project.

  "It's going to be really hard," he murmured.

  "And that's-" William turned to him with a big smile. "What makes it fun!"

  ***

  Walking to the Skyline, Nulara looked behind her at the young man who seemed to be almost skipping, he truly seemed to be as carefree as they could come.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Not that she herself was worried about the coming meeting with Captain Dan, those days were beyond her. They had been on the Voyager for days, got to know the people and how good, if a bit weird, they were. She even made a close friendship with the ladies there.

  She glanced towards the far island, knowing that the ladies were there at the moment. They had asked her if she wanted to join them, but she didn't feel like it. Truthfully, she didn't want to see the situation those poor slaves had been in.

  Feeling stressed aside, she could even guess what Captain Dan wanted of them, after all, she did know about what had been happening on the ship the last few days and how they were trying to save some slaves from a mining island. Captain Dan needed them for something about that for sure.

  She was even dragged by the young man to go and visit Marcus after he got injured, she never saw the stoic man show as much emotion as when Fleta said that they needed to leave. Nulara guessed that even the Healer felt sorry about how much the young man talked and how Marcus didn't seem to want to.

  "We are there," the young man said as he sped up ahead of her and entered the Skyline.

  Looking around after entering, she soon saw Captain Dan waving at them, a gentle comforting smile on his face. He always seemed to be trying to be welcoming and comforting with them, and everyone else really. Even a bit too gentle maybe, she had thought at first, but seeing how he had dealt with the pirates many a time and how he had sent the guards to deal with the island, he seemed to know when to leave his smiling face aside and go for the throat.

  After a short greeting, and inviting them to sit down, the man looked at them and asked:

  "How have you been doing?"

  "Things have been good," Nulara said, "We did pass by a few interesting and scary days, but all in all things have been great."

  That was an understatement, in the few weeks she had been on the Voyager, she had seen and been part of events she never would have even dared to imagine. She was sure that just having a huge Behemoth like Sticky Reefs chase the ship you were on would beat whatever crazy story anyone would put on the table.

  "Same!" The young man nodded excitedly. "I have been learning so much with Mr William and the others, the projects we are working on are also quite interesting. I'm looking forward to what's coming next!"

  If there was one thing she was a bit uncomfortable with, it was how she had almost nothing to do. Even the young man was helping, which was to be expected, skilled blacksmiths were welcomed wherever they went, and from what she had heard, the young man was truly talented as a blacksmith, quite a surprise really. She hoped that this truly was about helping with natives coming to the ship, at least then, she wouldn't feel so useless.

  "That's great to hear." Dan smiled at them. He then added as he looked at her, "I actually called you here for two reasons, the first has to do with the natives that are on the island, you know about that, right?"

  Nodding at him, Nulara almost couldn't hold a smile, it seemed that things were truly going how she had expected them to.

  "I need you to help lead them and make sure that everything is alright when they are here," Dan continued once he saw them nod, "You would have our help of course, but I just feel that it might be best for them to have someone from their homeland to lead them through all of this. Not that all of them are from the Empire, but the majority are. So, what do you think?"

  "I'm happy to help." She nodded without any hesitation, she had been hoping for this after all.

  "Me too, I'll do my best!" The young man was clearly excited.

  "Actually." Dan smiled awkwardly as he looked at the young man. "I know how busy you are, I can't ask even more of you. Plus, William will have my head if I steal you from him."

  Nulara frowned a bit, she wondered why the young man was called if only she was needed for this?

  "Then why did you call me?" The young man was clearly confused too.

  "Well, as I said, I called you here for two reasons, that was the first and here is the second," Dan explained. His face then turned serious as he said, "Do you want to be part of the Voyager? To join and stay with us?"

  Nulara's mind paused, as if freezing for a few seconds. No matter what she had expected to be brought up by Captain Dan, it wasn't this. She looked at the young man next to her, unsure of what to say.

  "You have been with us for quite a while," Dan said sincerely, "And you've even put yourselves in danger to warn us at first, we appreciate that, so we are extending this invitation to you.

  "Of course," Dan added after seeing no reaction from them, "You don't have to give your answer right now. Take your time and think it through, there's no reason to be rash about it. Take as much time as you need."

  Watching Captain Dan leave, Nulara couldn't help but glance at the young man next to her, even he seemed to be in deep thoughts, not as fast and eager to agree as the last time they were asked to stay on the Voyager. Things weren't the same after all.

  Looking at where Captain Dan had disappeared, she couldn't help but wonder about what had brought that matter up.