The first Lynx Mice reports started trickling in that evening. Remian summarized it in his head, then glumly sat down at the far corner of the Guild Hall mumbling to himself for ten minutes straight. Mindy, George and Tim tried to give him privacy and space to think at first, but after a bit, Mindy’s concern and curiosity got the better of her and she went over to ask, “What happened?” “It’s like this.” Remian squared off and spoke to her frankly. “The Lynxmice have thoroughly covered the entire East Side and divided it into four regions. The first region is the safest, where they need only worry about cats. There’s not much there, they say, just a lot of flour and old rations.” “Uhuh.” Mindy nodded, still a bit blur. “The second region is a little farther in to the East Side. There, they say that the humans drink more burning water than eat. There are a lot of humans in that area, and they like to chase Lynxmice around for no reason, or sometimes try

“Heave!” Markus called. “HO!” Ten trainees and forty workers chorused and tugged at several long ropes. With a crashing sound, boulders were dragged away from the mine entrance and two trainees with prospecting experience clambered into the re-opened tunnel. Remian watched them from where he sat atop Carrie. She and the wolfcats were running guard duty around the site of the nearer mine they had targeted earlier. Early scouts had reported that both mines had been sealed up, but could easily be re-opened. One mine was a Fire Copper lode; the other contained small deposits of jade. Both had previously been mined by the Kara-Goth family, who then sealed them up upon leaving the Frontier. They never came back. More than five years (more like fifty!) had passed since they left, thus all claims to these mines had long been forfeited. There were other mines, other claims, all over the Wildlands. Many of those mines had been claimed by different natio

Charlie brought the Roving Albatross in for a landing at the Frontier Town temporary airport. Ropes were dropped; workers began to tug his airship down from the sky and maneuvered down next to a long platform. Boarding ramps were extended and attached as the ship was tied down. “Nice ship!” Remian complimented, looking over it. Charlie grimaced. “Not as nice as I would have liked, but it’s all ours. You have a 40% share.” Now Remian grimaced. “How much do I owe?” “Eight million.” Charlie didn’t pull any punches. He showed Remian the bill and the loan receipt. “Bank interest rates are 10% per year.” Remian felt the blood drain from his face. 800,000 Lir in interest payments every year…! He suddenly felt like throwing up. “Relax. You’ve already made hundreds of thousands in a couple of weeks. At the rate we’ve been going…” Remian handed him a wooden box. Charlie sneaked a glance inside. “More mana potions? How many of these thing

The demonstration went well, with an abundance of cheers and applause. Mindy, Candice and Denise showed off the performance of the Foresight in motion, the XL Ballista, and the height advantages of a crossbowman on an airship. The important thing was, the Foresight could fly and could shoot. There were a few unexpected wobbles, but the XL Ballista proved capable of accurately spearing wooden targets from 300 meters away. The shots not only hit the targets, they struck with enough force to tear right through them. At 400, the accuracy dropped and the targets were hit off-center, but still tore through the wood like nothing. At 500, half the shots were glancing blows, but even they managed to knock the targets over sideways. At 600, Candice began to miss, hitting three out of five, and there the demonstration shifted over to Denise. Shooting one of Candice’s high-powered crossbows from 100 meters in the air, Denise actually managed to hit a target 500 meters away. She

The wise and brave self-proclaimed ‘king of the Wildlands’ peeked his head out of his private den to witness a scene of absolute chaos. People, his people, were running around everywhere. “Aiiieeee!!” There in front of him was Abdul, garbed in only his underwear, running down the street yelling at the top of his lungs, being followed most earnestly by a Darkbok Antelope with its head humbly down and the pointy ends of its horns targeted most faithfully upon Abdul’s hinter areas. “Auuuu!!!” Beyond Abdul, the captain of today’s guard shift ran the other way, shrieking as he was similarly followed by a ‘faithful’ manticore. One ran left; one ran right – the pair of them crossed each others’ paths and did not so much as greet each other in passing. At least their pursuers were polite enough to pause and greet each other before pouncing upon their prey and… CHOMP. RIP. The ‘king of the Wildlands’ turned away, grimacing. The following scenes of nature in action were a little too natura