We were ready to depart the next morning. The airship had been loaded up with enough food and ammunition for a month. Grimmington insisted we should pack more than we needed, so he could compensate for the added weight with extra hydrogen.

“All aboard!” Grimmington announced. “Anchor, up!”

Mike didn’t fail to unhook the anchor. At least he wasn’t totally useless.

“Set sail!” Grimmington pulled the middle lever himself.

The town shrunk below us, and it didn’t take long before we were up above the sparsely scattered puffy clouds.

Emily interrupted my gaze across the endless desert: “We didn’t really get a chance to talk for long yesterday, how you doing?”

“The fresh air is nice,” I said.

“I agree, it’s very liberating to be up here,” she replied. “You know, I was like you many years ago.”

“Not much of a talker?” I asked.

“No, no, I meant a survivor.”

I gave her a questioning look.

“A little over a decade ago, I was taken from my family. It took me a whole three years before I was able to run away, during a trip with my ‘master’ to Yellowport. Since I was already ruined, I figured why not make some quick cash at the brothel, I resorted to alcohol to drain away my miseries. It led me to realize I never wanted to be with another man ever again. On my seventeenth birthday, Mike’s mother found me huddled up under a rag on one of the benches. She refused to leave me there, and eventually Mike’s father gave in. They took me home, that’s how Mike and I became siblings.”

“Oh..” So I wasn’t the only one with a sob story.

“Look at that!” Emily pointed at some orange animals around an oasis far down below. Grimmington came over.

“Are those what I think they are?” Grimmington was intrigued. He quickly hurried over to the control panel and pushed the button. We slowly but surely descended. As we got closer, I could make out the animals’ large white teeth. Sabre tooth tigers, just like the one in McDowell's office.

“Didn’t know these still existed,” I said.

“They’re quite rare, I don’t think I’ve come across so many in one place before,” Grimmington told me. “Their teeth and hide are valuable enough to be worth our time though.”

“How valuable is ‘quite valuable’?” Bò asked.

“Enough to hire some mercenaries of our own over in Yellowport, I’d say.”

“Well then what are we waiting for? Let’s get shooting!” Emily pulled out both of her flintlock pistols and aimed at one of the tigers. I took off the VRC that hung on my back.

Grimmington turned the ship on its side. The rest of us stood on starboard, only a few meters off the ground, raining bullets upon the beasts. They scattered. Grimmington chased after one of the tigers with the ship. I remembered the unique function of the VRC, and flipped the switch. I braced myself for the recoil.

The tiger tumbled in a cloud of sand. A lot easier to kill now than back with father, maybe the shotgun spread played a part.

“Welp, there goes the hide,” Grimmington sighed. “We should still grab the teeth, though.”

He looked at me: “Would you like to do the honors? It’s your kill after all.”

“Fine,” I climbed down the rope ladder, leaving the VRC on deck.

“That Kodachi should slice ‘em right off!” Grimmington yelled at me once I had reached the bottom.

The tiger’s eyes were closed, the beige orange hide had been stained by red little spots where the shotgun pellets had hit. I unsheathed my Kodachi and held it perpendicular to the tiger’s right tooth.

Slice. The tooth landed in the sand. Much smoother than the blunt axe in Harald’s tower.

I swung for the left tooth.

Shit, stuck. Tugging was no use, it was stuck halfway through. I noticed the tiger was looking right at me. Huh.

The beast rose, I held onto the Kodachi and no longer felt the ground beneath my feet. Its head shook from side to side, tossing me off. My back hit a rock, I couldn’t breathe. The beast moved towards me, growling.

It took a leap, I grabbed the left tooth with both my hands and pushed my feet into the tiger’s face. An uneven match, I struggled. Then the tooth broke off.

BANG.

I got some tiger brain in my mouth. At least the blood blended in with my new dress. When the beast fell over, I saw Emily with a smoking barrel pointed at me. She lowered the pistol.

“Whew, that was a close one,” she said. “Make sure it’s dead next time, you can never be too careful in situations like these.” She helped me up.

“Thank you,” I was panting.

I grabbed the two teeth and went back to the ladder. I could already hear Mike arguing with someone on deck when I had climbed halfway: “Why did you make her go down there alone?! She nearly died!”

“Come on, she can handle herself. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Grimmington said. “If she hadn’t survived this, she wouldn’t have stood a chance on Banana Island anyways.”

“If it wasn’t for Emilia, she would’ve been dead by now!”

“We don’t know that..”

“Come on stop it you two, we’re all friends here, let’s not dwell on the ‘what if’s. It all worked out, didn’t it?” Emily interrupted.

Wouldn’t have needed help if I hadn’t made the mistake of not bringing a backup weapon: “Give me a sidearm and I’ll be fine.”

“No worries, Leah, my good friend Isaac sells the best firearms in Yellowport. We can swing by his shop when we’re there.” Grimmington seemed appreciative of me taking his side. He went back over to the control panel.

“What’s so special about this ‘Yellow Port’?” I went with him.

“It’s a trading community governed by nobody. Everyone trusts each other not to steal or do harm, and so far it has worked,” Grimmington replied. “It’s the cheapest unregulated marketplace for anything otherwise difficult to get your hands on.”

“What kinds of things would that be?”

“Drugs, weapons, prostitutes, rare animals, anything really,” he shrugged.

Prostitutes? Sounded a lot like another place I knew of.

“How’s it any different from Haraldstown??”

“Oh it’s veeery different,” he tried to assure me. “All transactions are voluntary. Nobody is forced to do anything against their will, and therefore there’s nothing unethical about it, unlike Haraldstown.”

Didn’t know how voluntary I’d consider Emily’s time in Yellowport.

“What if someone buys drugs for the sole purpose of using them on helpless girls?” I argued.

“Then that’s a different, independent problem. We cannot ruin the fun for everyone because of a few bad seeds. Which is why we’re at war with Haraldstown rather than making new laws.” He had a point.

Grimmington wrapped his hand around the middle lever, and twisted. We slowly ascended back into the sky.

 

After a few hours of standing around doing nothing, I spotted the Great Lake over the bow of the ship, and there it was; Yellowport. There were a number of jetties with multiple docked ships. The town itself wasn’t impressively large. A main street along the bay, lots of little market stands, and some square wooden buildings that had pretty facades. It reminded me a little of Cripple Creek, where father once had taken me. We anchored to one of the jetties, then climbed down.

We passed a brothel. Two girls, a few years older than I, stood outside: “Come in, come in, we have the finest girls in all of Yellowport.”

“Sorry, not today ladies, I have other business to attend to,” Grimmington told them. I frowned at him.

“Voluntary,” he reminded me.

We stopped by a butcher's stand.

“Meet me back at the docks, I gotta pick something up from the Tobacconist’s shop,” Bò said and walked off.

“How much will you give us for these?” Grimmington placed the two teeth on the butcher's counter.

“Wowie,” the butcher felt one of the teeth with his finger. “Two thousand.”

“For each.”

“Get outta here,” the butcher laughed. “Three thousand in total, that's the best I can do.”

“Good enough.”

The butcher placed a sack of coins on the scale, it measured 300 grams. Grimmington took the sack and nodded at the butcher. We moved on.

Fielder's Weaponry laid nextdoor to a pharmacy, we entered.

“Isaac,” Grimmington said.

“Christoph!” Isaac replied from behind the counter. He had blond curly hair.

“I have a little girl in the need of a sidearm. Mike here got a little worried when she almost got eaten by a tiger,” Grimmington chuckled.

“Naww, sounds like someone's got a crush.”

“Dude, I was just looking out for her,” Mike rolled his eyes.

“Alright, well I have a wide selection of revolvers that may be of your interest,” Isaac told me. He pointed at one of the glass display cases in the shop. I had a peek at the revolvers inside. They came in all shapes and sizes, from ones the length of my pinky to ones bigger than my forearm. One caught my eye due to its colors; blue and gold.

“That one,” I had never before seen such a pretty gun.

“The Schofield? Excellent choice,” Isaac unlocked the case and took the gun out. “That’ll be two hundred fifty silver coins, holster included.”

Isaac handed me a holster. I lifted my dress and tied it around my right thigh. I put the Schofield in the holster, my dress concealed it.

“Here you go,” Grimmington placed a sack of coins on the table. It was significantly smaller than the one he had received from the butcher.

“Thank you, I’ll let you know if there are any coins missing.”

“There never is,” Grimmington said as the door closed on our way out. “Keep walking, I’ll catch up with you,” he went to the pharmacy.

Mike, Emily, and I met up with Bò at the docks.

“Do you have some to spare?” Emily asked Bò.

“Most certainly!” Bò handed Emily a tin from his pocket. She opened it, then took a pinch of the brownish tar-like substance, and stuck it under her upper lip.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“This? It gives you a nice rush,” Emily presented the tin to me. “Try some.”

“Naw, she doesn’t need to get hooked on that stuff, it’s bad for you,” Mike intervened.

“Says who? You?” Emily laughed. “It’s not opium, that’s all you need to know.”

Didn’t see a downside of trying it. If I didn’t like it, I’d just not try again. I scooped some up with my finger and placed it under my lip.

“Fine, then I’ll have some too,” Mike firmly said.

I felt a burning sensation in my gum.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” Emily smiled. My facial expression must’ve given it away.

A tall, well built man with short blonde hair approached us. He had attire similar to that of Emily.

“Is that aeirshep yers?” his accent was so strong that he sounded drunk.

“Indeed it is!” Grimmington had joined us.

“Well, we’re about tu hed out en hunt doun ol’ Nessie, it woud be grate if we coud haf som aeirsupport,” the man explained.

“Sure, but then we’d have to ask a small favor of our own.”

“Olrite, wut kind of fevor ar we talking about?”

“You see, we too have a ‘Nessie’ of sort, that we could use some help with.”

“Nu problem maet, we’ll taek caere of yer ‘Nessie’ as suun as ye help us. I’m Cunno; Cunnor Clerke,” the man, Connor, shook hands with Grimmington.

We boarded the airship and trailed along behind Connor’s ship. It was medium sized with three tall masts and red flaking paint.