After a less than ideal evening with Tamrie, I prepared to face Conflict's next trial. There hadn't been a chance to talk with her, not about anything important, but we'd at least spent time together.

Even if most of that time was her arguing with the Master Shapers about what was and wasn't acceptable 'sabotage' of other teams.

"-and I'm saying, if'n you keep sabotaging what little progress you're makin', not a one o' you will have a bomb to drop on the Sahevin."

When that failed to impress them, I cleared my throat, adding, "Any sabotage that prevents us from dropping even a single bomb will count as a hundred Sahevin deducted against your score. Starting this second."

Master Shaper Stand was the only one to take this with any grace, nodding simply as the others argued that sabotage was a time honored part of competitions in the Shaper's guild. Something Stand scoffed at. When I looked towards him, he explained, "Sabotage is not, in fact, something that's allowed in the Shaper's guild. And can be considered a red crime, especially when related to devices as dangerous as these."

Several of the other Shapers protested, with one elf who was missing several patches of his beard proclaiming, "Escaping those restrictions is why I even left in the first place."

I looked towards Tamrie, who was digging her fingers into the palm of her hand. Her face was smooth, but I got the feeling she wanted to reach across the table and throttle the man.

"Well, unfortunately, this isn't the place for you then," I said, which got most of the Shapers to shut up immediately. "Spellford gets a lot of things right. And endangering not just our efforts to defend ourselves, but the people around you…"

"Mayhaps I've an idea could solve some of it," Tamrie said with a sigh. "None of ya need to be setting foot within a hundred paces of each others workshops. Only reason we put 'em so close together was on account of thinking you might want to cooperate."

To my surprise, the suggestion was met with even more vehemence than the idea they stop sabotaging each other.

"Well, if'n you can't work together, and you don't wanna work apart, not much left you can do, is there?"

The Shaper who'd spoken up earlier huffed as he leaned forward. "We'll do it your way, for now. You're right that this isn't the time, at the very least. That said… surely there must be some allowable disruptions. Our work would grow far too stale without the opportunity to remind some people that the biggest enchantments aren't the best."

His statement was met by several protests, though Tamrie smiled, squeezing my hand as she leaned forward. Despite my own belief that the matter was solved, there was still hours of negotiating allowable behavior and penalties for all contests going forwards.

It was honestly a complete mess, just like Tamrie had warned me.

Still, we dealt with it together. And that simple face meant that come the morning, I felt ready for the next of Conflict's trials.

Bevel and Arizar were both with me, as was Xelinda, each of them having missed their last opportunity for various reasons.

Obviously, Bevel and Arizar had both delayed theirs on account of our little trip.

Xelinda… I didn't know what she'd been up to. That was normal. I rarely did.

Conflict stopped us.

Well, not all of us. Conflict basically ignored Xelinda, who returned the favor as she made her way to her trial door.

But the three of us? Yeah, the being sent its chains reaching down over a hundred feet to interpose between us and the doorways as it descended the metal stairs.

"Interesting," it said, chains still circling but pulling back as it got closer and walked around us.

"What? Did we break something?" Bevel asked, turning to face Conflict as it paced.

"It is too early to discern the details but your next trial shall be quite interesting, if the three of continue as you are. Return together once more and you shall forge an alloy that will be nigh unbreakable," Conflict said, nodding, its chains settling back into place and allowing us to pass.

"What do you think that was about?" I asked as it turned away and ascended the metal steps, each step rattling the air.

"I'm not certain. Perhaps… no, I have nothing but wild guesses. I have not interacted with the devil enough to know how it thinks," Arizar replied, glancing behind us.

"I think he knows we're family," Bevel said, grabbing each of our hands and pulling us along.

"That… seems unlikely," Arizar said with a soft laugh, glancing in my direction. "I'm uncertain it understands the concept of family."

I shrugged, chuckling along, glad she hadn't poked holes in Bevel's declaration. Bevel clearly saw Arizar as important.

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"You have a good trial, auntie Arizar will see you soon, okay?" Arizar said, as she moved over to her door. One I recognized well, scattered peaks with the Kaiju beneath them.

Bevel nodded, though her face was scrunched up. After Arizar stepped through the portal, Bevel turned to me. "She doesn't get it, does she?"

"Uh, get what?" I asked.

"Nothing!" Bevel said, giving me a quick hug, then hopping over to her door which showed a giant Kaiju chained to the ground and a floating island above it.

The heck was she even doing in her trials?

Before I could ask, she turned back towards me, hand in the air with the other against the doorway. Then her head sagged.

Letting out a soft chuckle, I turned to my own door. Once more it showed the Dauntless, though this time the flagship was looking pretty rough. If it was as bad inside as it looked, it seemed I'd be finding out how accurate that estimate about being able to fly with only half its leaves remaining was.

I pressed my hand against the door and appeared. Not on the Dauntless this time. Instead I was in a smaller vessel that was flying towards the Dauntless's smoking form. There were several scorched sections of the superstructure and the leaves around each were little more than a few thin strands of blackened wood.

If they weren't completely missing.

Turned out, the damage was even worse.

I swore softly to myself under my breath. There was no way I was leaving in a week. Not if we needed to fix all that.

"Yeah, it's bad, isn't it?" an unknown elf in the seat next to me asked. "And they want us to get her back to Terra Centra in one piece? This month? We'll be lucky to have her running well enough for that after a year."

Get it back to Terra Centra, huh?

That wouldn't be that bad. The elf in the seat next to me was clearly a scripted character. His limited dialog was revealed as soon as I asked him where the rest of the support was. I doubted he'd have been much more help if he was real, if he'd been giving his accurate assessment of the Dauntless.

Just the fact she was still in the air meant it wasn't too terrible. Even if the engines were a complete write-off, it wasn't the end of the world.

With half the leaves missing anyway…

Yeah, I could work with it. Assuming Kezil was still around, and he approved my plan, we could be back to Terra Centra in… well, I was certain we could do less than a month.

I had to be.

Unfortunately, it didn't take me long to find Kezil. The old elf had picked up some new scars and one heck of an injury to boot. In addition to his half melted face, he was now short a leg and seemed to be struggling to maintain consciousness.

He'd been left to lay in a still smoldering crater, buried beneath a large hound-like monster with wings twice as wide as it was long. Pretty massive, considering it looked to be at least twelve feet.

"Hold on," I said, ensuring he was stable and breathing, glad to see that whatever had cost him his leg had cauterized it at the same time. Then I ran off to grab materials for a Restore Form enchantment. Shouldn't he have already been seen by a healer? He was the head enchantineer on the ship. Was the chain of command out of action?

The heck had happened after I left?

Twenty minutes later I was sitting next to Kezil again, hastily carved rod in hand. I'd used a tier-3 material to allow me to carve only the most critical part of the spell, sacrificing efficiency and longevity to get it done so fast. Kezil let out a scream when I hit him with it but I took that as a good sign.

At least he was in good enough condition to feel the pain.

I started enchanting a second rod while I waited for the first to recharge, drawing in the plentiful mana of the ambient manastream. By the time I was done with the second, the first had recharged. Seemed the mana was even thicker than I was expecting.

Using both earned me another scream from Kezil, his leg starting to regrow through charred flesh. Interestingly, his face remained completely unhealed. I wasn't sure if that was a limitation of the trial, or some deeper issue of the actual man.

"By the divine dragons, kid, what'd I do to deserve that?" Kezil asked, gasping as he beat his chest then turning to vomit out a considerable amount of black and red gunk.

"Divine dragons, huh? Didn't take you as particularly religious, old man," I said, offering him my arm. "Let's get you somewhere more comfortable."

"Forget that, get those rods of yours to the bridge. We need command up and running again," Kezil said, shoving at me. I wanted to object, but Kezil shut me up with a calloused hand pressed against my face. "Don't give me any of your backtalk. You know we need the Captain to keep things from spiraling. Leave me one of those and I'll copy the design. Tried getting something similar approved for ages, but was always told there were a waste."

I nodded, glad he'd decided to keep one of the rods, at least.

Then I started threading my way along the Dauntless's charred surface. It was brutal.

I'd seen violence before, but never at such a scale. And for all that I told myself it was simulated, I couldn't help but remember that it had actually happened. The Dauntless had been damaged in its attack on the Warwalker, I'd known it. But there hadn't been any details. Simply a line that had read 'six months in drydock to affect repairs'.

Those seven words failed to even hint at the devastation before me.

Several times, I found myself stopping, tempted to use the rod on an injured elf. Except none of them were who I needed to save most. Even if it had been real, getting to command as fast as I could was the most likely to save the most lives.

Still, each one tore at me as I passed, cursing the fact I didn't have my full arcane might. Seriously though, where were the healers? I knew that Dauntless had them. Nearly half the ensouled crew had some form of healing spell.

And I hadn't see a single healer.

Then again, other than Kezil and myself, I hadn't seen any ensouled either.

There were a dozen of the winged hound corpses between me and the bridge, and each one lay in a crater. Sometimes with a single body, sometimes with dozens. Never alone.

I felt like there was something there, and half a dozen theories flitted through my thoughts. But I didn't have enough information to confirm them, nor the time to dig into it.

When I got to the lift leading to the bridge, I realized I was going to have to take the stairs. One of the beasts was wedged into the elevator entrance. Instead of a crater, it had left a destroyed elevator shaft.

"Thanks bud," I grunted as I made my way to the stairs, only to stop and let out a sigh when I saw another beast laying in the ruins of said stairs.

With a shake of my head, I jogged towards the maintenance ladder hoping it hadn't been destroyed too.

Thankfully, it was intact.

Climbing up, I got to the top, only to find that the hatch was wedged shut.

Instead of attempting to lift it with my relatively mortal strength, I retrieved my Shape Metal rod and traced the edges of the hatch, warping it away from the outside. When I was done, I gave it another shove, but it remained stuck.

Something was probably on top of it.

Removing the hatch entirely only took another minute of careful readjustment. When it started to creak I did my best to shift to the side of the shaft but I still got clipped as it shot past.

It wasn't the only thing, as dozens of pieces of scrap followed it, along with what I was pretty sure had been someone's arm.

Not a great sign.

Favoring my right leg, I climbed upward and ascended directly into hell.

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