Their apprentices had taken the revelations remarkably well, even when they found out that there were many more worlds out there. Fire supposed that unlike Jack, who had more or less been thrown into cold water, his friends had plenty of time to get used to the supernatural.

Shortly after Shadow returned everyone went back to sleep, they needed to be well rested for their journey. The fastest way back to the base was the underground railway, this time they could take the direct route without a detour to Drandin. Taking the train would also mean that they had a few days of walking ahead of them, there was no station close to Rockhaven. While that was inconvenient, it was deliberate. It certainly helped hide the existence of the railway from the public, there were just too many people travelling near Rockhaven to build the station any closer.

It didn't take long for the others to fall asleep, Fire on the other hand was still awake, if a bit lethargic from the after effects of the silver.

Shadow asked him quietly: "Do you think that was enough?"

Fire nodded. "I think so. Maybe we'll finally find out Q's true intentions, so far he kept them well-hidden but if Jack reports even a small fraction of what he saw and heard, Q might reveal them to him. The only question that remains is what Jack will do with that information."

Shadow said: "I suppose that is left to be seen."

With that their conversation was over. Fire lay back down and tried to fall asleep. Shadow would probably stay awake to make sure nobody else disturbed them. After all, sleep was optional for her.

They were woken up by the sound of propellers and shouting. Fire opened his eyes and was met with a familiar view. Above them floated the airship they had come to Rockhaven with, only now it looked a little different. Next to its big central balloon it had four additional spherical ones that were attached to the central balloon and the cabin with firesteel struts. The propulsion unit had also been upgraded, now sporting two propellers instead of one. The space between the cabin and the central balloon had been filled out as well, Fire couldn't see what exactly was in there but logically it had to be the redstone gyroscope and the overflow capacitors that he and Brad had talked about during the storm.

Brad was naturally also the one piloting the ship, he shouted: "Hey! Get up! I'll give you a ride. I heard about the delay so I thought I should help you out."

With those words he threw a rope ladder down to the ground, the clearing was too small to land the airship.

Once everyone was reasonably awake, they climbed up one after the other, the only exception being TehLulz, who had to be levitated into the cabin by Shadow. Once up, Fire noticed that Brad was not alone, on the second seat in the pilot's cabin sat a woman with short, red hair. Judging by the green and brown colors and the style of her light clothes, Fire assumed that this was the circuit maker from Treetop that Brad had mentioned.

Fire went to the front to greet her. When Fire shook her hand he felt that she was Eye-and-Claws, as expected. She held the highest ranking mark and, according to the tree of the hierarchy that now unfolded in front of Fire's mental eye, she was one of Drandin's liaisons in Treetop.

Fire said: "You must be Laura Dustsmith, we haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet. I'm Fire."

The Dustsmith family had been one of the earliest allies of the Mencur-Besh, predating even the founding of Drandin. Laura was the youngest in her line of redstone engineers.

Laura replied: "Likewise. My father told me quite a bit about the outlandish circuits you commissioned. I'm curious, what was the one with the energy crystals for?"

Fire said: "Right, that one. I have a first-era food machine in my base that I'm quite fond of. The main control circuit finally gave out after thousands of years so I had your father build me a replacement."

Brad returned to his seat and pointed to the console, which had gained a considerable amount of controls. He said: "Can you believe that she built and wired all of this in two days? I don't want to discredit the people we have back in the workshop but honestly, they should take notes."

Laura blushed. "Honey, you…"

Shadow interrupted her: "Did I hear 'honey'? So you two finally got together!" She turned to Brad: "How'd you ask her?"

Now it was Brad's turn to get flustered. "Well, first of all I avoided everything written in the books."

Ambigious had also stood up, he asked: "Books?"

Brad said: "You know, Rose Ebonsnow's books."

Ambigious asked: "And who is Rose Ebonsnow?"

Shadow said with a grin: "That's the pseudonym I use to publish sappy and wildly unrealistic romance novels. I'm not one to understand love, but I do understand what people want to read about it, fortunately those two are almost entirely different things."

Fire said: "Her books managed to top my alchemy journals in revenue within the first year."

Fire clearly noticed that both Brad and Laura were glad that the focus had shifted away from them. Brad had sat back down in his seat and was now flipping through what looked to be a manual for the new controls.

He said: "Alright, everyone sit down, we're taking off."

After everyone had gone back to their seats, Brad took the airship straight up. Then, once they were at cruising altitude he engaged the propellers and they started moving forward at a rapid pace.

Fire was sitting close to the pilot's cabin since he suspected that Brad wanted to talk to him, which was indeed the case.

Brad said: "So, as you might be able to see I added some stabilization balloons. They work in tandem with the redstone gyroscope to keep the ship upright and stable. They're mostly autonomous but I can override them if I need to."

Fire said: "I see you also upgraded the propulsion system."

Brad said: "Sure did, partially because the increased mass and drag required it but also because of a new trick the ship has up its sleeves. The overflow capacitors are primarily here to protect from any sort of power surge, but I can also charge them while not moving and then use the stored power to fully use the expanded engine capacity. Quite handy if you need to go places quickly."

To demonstrate, Brad pushed up a lever, as he did the noise from the propellers got louder and they noticeably sped up.

Fire asked: "How much time of higher speed do you get out of a full charge?"

Laura replied: "According to calculations roughly a day, but how long it actually is still needs to be tested. We also theorized that the capacitors could be used to fuel some sort of weapon system."

Brad said: "The active component of that system would be a blaze core probably, especially now that we have your new activation ritual for extra safety and firepower."

freeZe said: "Careful, those things can get out of hand quickly, I would know."

"Weapon systems aren't priority now anyways. We're just speculating, we'll start thinking about those once we have much larger airships." Brad said.

Their conversation seemed to be over, Fire shifted his attention back to his friends and his sister, who apparently were already engaged in a card game. If everything went according to plan, and this time there was only one plan, they would arrive at the base in the evening at best, around midnight at worst.

Once they arrived they'd have to spend some time recovering, Fire would be fine within a few days, how freeZe and especially TehLulz would fare was a different story. Their next destination was the dragon and they needed to be even better prepared than for their previous journey.