“Fal’Herim?” Phoebe repeated, considering. Should she go? There was still a lot to be done here. The new hospital (at the Farm) and the new, new hospital (in Kara-Goth) were nowhere near fully operational. The work of emancipating the slaves was only a little bit past half-done. But Lydia did not require Phoebe’s help specifically any more. She had a half-dozen assistants to provide her mana and run about fulfilling her every need and every whim. Remian, on the other hand, clearly did need her especially. His condition was consistently deteriorating and he still insisted on trying to live his life, flying around from country to country trying to finish some vague dream before his time ran out. Well. At least, he was interesting. To put it in simple terms, Remian was weird. Phoebe liked weird. Weird was far better than boring. At first she’d thought Remian was boring, but now she knew better. Remian was flat out the weirdest guy she’d ever met.

From that point onward, things became even more confusing. Asda sent her forces after the lynxmice, screaming that it was them who were at fault. This basically meant they went around chasing lynxmice in all directions, often without any actual lynxmice running in front of them. The lynxmice attacked the palace and chased the Crown Prince and the palace guard around in circles. The confused forces supposedly on defense duty in the city received direct orders to attack Asda. The police shut down the marketplace and imposed martial law. Two generals defected on the spot and proclaimed their support of Asda and fought against the police for control of the marketplace. Three generals opposed them and surrounded the marketplace, then attempted to seize control of the airport. The crown prince fled to the airport and found it half-controlled by military forces. Assuming the worst, his palace guard immediately began to assault the air

Days since last Beast Tide: 28. Current Kill Count: 875 (34 since yesterday). *** “Careful, now! Careful!” Arnold beckoned slowly. Mindy slowly eased the magic drive forward, carefully regulating a steady, small flow of mana. Bit by bit, she drifted toward him. They were testing the half-built prototype of the new Wasp fighter while waiting for the docks to load Fire Copper and Flaming Bronze onto the Red Fang. It was a tense day for Mindy; that batch would be the last batch she needed before she’d be able to afford the second-hand Sky Galleon she’d targeted and still have money left over to buy metals from Kara-Goth to trade. In order to keep her mind off the tension, and her teeth off her fingernails, Mindy went over to find Arnold to distract herself and eventually ended up testing the much smaller airship. The Wasp had three main sections, a forward pilot’s station, a central power unit, and a rear gunner’s station. By right, the corvette should be crewed by three people, pref

Don’t tell Mindy, but she actually botched the job. But then what happened to the horses? How did they get freed? Well, while Mindy was wrestling with anti-magic in a swinging basket, Tim had found the Underground King. Then began an epic battle, the likes of which need not be described… Oh? You want to know what happened? Might I recommend we not go there? Do we really need to go through exactly what happened and how? I’ll confess it. The fight was not actually glorious or epic in any way. In fact, I’d go so far to say it was downright dirty. I don’t think you want to know what happened… You still want to know? You really, really want to know? Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. This was NOT the kind of fight you want to tell stories about. This was a fight between lynxmice and beggars, between bandits and spies, between a crime lord and a desperate tweenage boy. There was nothing glorious, nothing dignified, nothin

Days since last Beast Tide: 32. Current Kill Count: 1065 (44 since yesterday). *** Getting a larger crew was easy enough. Unlike certified magi, Adventurers from the Guild still accepted Guild Points or Lir in payment. Mindy put up missions for round trip crews (from and back to Kara-Goth) offering 1000 lir for a week, six hour shifts, three-shift rotation. She got so many applicants, they had enough crew to manage a four-shift rotation. “Can we really put that many people on board the Red Fang?” Izhan shook his head. “Even Izak’s coming along, now.” “Both you and Talia are on board. What did you expect your brother to do?” Mindy shook her head. Fifty-two crew members were able to form four shifts of twelve each (under normal circumstances, battle situations was different). The engine room only had so much space, after all. Twelve people around the power core was already a squeeze. It went with the saying ‘many hands, light work’, but Mindy ac