“That was worse than the goblins,” Copperfield said when they were alone after their delve into the Ruby Estate.

  Emerald grunted their agreement.

  “Great loot though.” He triple-checked the hover dolly onto which Betsy had been loaded once the Swashbuckler had finally de-armored.

  “Great loot,” Heath echoed.

  “Sorry everyone. It said castle and I didn’t think it would be so….” Jenny Mae shrugged. “Clump up for a photo. Emerald! Stop walking away.”

  “I’m taking a nap and you can’t stop me.”

  “Please? My cousins have been following and rooting for us, we need a pic so everyone knows it went well.” It was the pout that did it. Somehow, Jenny Mae corralled them all like a few confused hippobreams on her family’s ranch, and a pic was snapped and uploaded to Gatewayz before the rest of them could mount a defense.

  They returned to the Wandering Loon, this time with a sack bulging in valuables. The local guild made up for their dungeon being in the middle of a swamp by following Empire standards for their cut of the loot. Not to mention one of the dungeon monitors smiled at their team, something Heath had been beginning to think was physically impossible for the Classers assigned the job.

  It was easy to decide they would sell the lot, all except for a few scales, a feather the length of Heath’s entire arm, and a rusted sword. Nothing else was individually useful for any of them, and the credits would be a welcome bonus to their collective accounts.

  The flight to the on-planet spaceport was a short one, and they arrived at their designated field within an hour of leaving the dungeon.

  “Okay, we’ll split it up like we said. Copperfield you take the organics, Emerald and I will take the rest, meet back here in 3 hours. Jenny Mae you can confirm the cargo. Ekaterina, umm, how about you see if there’s a training hall we can book?”

  With that they departed, he had no desire to stick around and see how Ekaterina handled being given orders outside the dungeon.

  Heath paused before they entered the city, taking a moment to look over the Loon. He winced at what he saw. Ship-wide shields were great. The peak of magitech. Awesome. But they prevented anything from burning off upon atmosphere entry or departure. Which meant the Loon needed a wash. Cargo ships weren’t really meant to hang out in swamps, or get splattered with monster goo from space battles, which then dried into a filthy crust over the more inaccessible parts of the ship.

  He resigned himself to an evening of repeatedly draining himself with applications of [Ship Maintenance]. No time like the present. After expending his whole mana pool, a patch of the Loon near the cargo hatch was once more gleaming.

  That done, he made his way back to Emerald, and they wordlessly left the port and entered the city proper. First stop was a job hall. This one was all gleaming white marble. It looked cold and Heath wasn’t sure why they had gone with that choice. It wasn’t like the clientele was different from the usual Spacers, but he felt distinctly out of place as he sat at the bar next to Emerald.

  Both of them ordered an ale and Heath struck up a conversation with the bartender, after transferring the credits along with a healthy tip. They were pointed towards an out of the way shop, which the bartender assured them the rank two Classers in the system were known to frequent.

  Far from anywhere either of them had been before, it was their best lead. The shop itself was clean and understated. Only a few items were on display, each backlit on their shelf, with a small plaque displaying information about the object. Notably, none of them included a price.

  Heath felt so out of place his skin was crawling with terror. What if he knocked something over? There was no way he was paying for any damage.

  He shoved that anxiety down where it belonged and approached the counter. A pot of tea was sitting on an engraved hotplate, the shopkeeper calmly sipping his cup as the pair approached.

  “How can I help you?”

  She was a Classer, and a strong one, from what Heath could tell from the pressure she gave off. Maybe stronger than Emerald, who usually kept themself well-hidden, but not as strong as Uncle Walt. What she was doing in a low-rank cluster he wasn’t sure, and he for damn sure wasn’t going to ask.

  “Selling today, if you buy raw materials?” His voice went up at the end, turning the statement into a question.

  “That depends on the materials themselves. Let’s see.” She took a bolt of fabric from under the counter, laying the smooth white silk across the surface in clear invitation.

  With careful hands, Heath obliged. Crystals, a whole pile of them glittering in every color of the rainbow. Not empowered in any interesting way, but the clarity would be perfect for enchanting, as dungeon loot usually was. Next were the weapons. This shop was too high end to sell them as is, but sometimes the dungeon-made weapons were used in crafting. Something about the way the metals were created took to manipulation better than naturally mined ore.

  Then came everything else. A tapestry, a pair of boots Ekaterina’s staff insisted were important, even if the appraiser called them trash, and a painting. Perfectly mundane, but dungeon-made art was rare and sought after. Rich people liked to debate over whether there was any artistic merit, and if the System was conscious enough to actively craft the artwork, or if something else was at play. Heath didn’t get it, but he was more than willing to accept the money for it.

  After a rapid fire series of appraisal Skills Heath couldn’t follow, the Merchant made an offer. “Four thousand for the lot. No haggling.”

  Jenny Mae had done the research for all of them, and Heath recognized the offer was fair enough, at least when he took the resale value into account. And it meant he wouldn’t waste time running around the city.

  He moved to accept, but before he felt the transaction finish, the shop owner held out her hand. Heath paused, gauging how much he could grab and run if she decided she was going to try to steal from them.

  “I’ve heard of your crew. Making a bit of a name for yourself in the Cluster, what with the Trellis vines decorating your ship, and a speed run through the local dungeons.”

  “Oh, um thank you.”

  She snorted, pressing a lock of slate-gray hair behind her ear. “Not what I meant.” A box the size of his palm appeared next to the pile of dungeon loot. “I’ll make it five thousand if you get this to a friend of mine. Should be at your next stop if I don’t miss my guess.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Anyone with regular cargo went through the job halls, rather than risk getting slapped with the fine for going outside the imperial system. He looked down at the box. He should say no, take the original deal and walk out. Even if it was practically money for nothing.

  Walt wouldn’t have done it.

  Heath’s [Personal Bank] pinged with the transfer while the pair left the shop. By agreement, Heath spent a small slice of their earnings buying ramen for everyone, before making his way back to the ship. A days’ trading for five thousand creds deserved a celebration.

  *********

  Five weeks. Five dungeons.

  Heath was exhausted. Not just from the dungeon runs. The whole lifestyle balancing cargo and dungeoneering was brutally exhausting. Constant jumps, training sessions, and recovery. He felt like a worn out cleaning rag, limp and ready to be tossed in a dark corner for a few months.

  But the plan had worked. Heath was now a level 34 Captain. All of his skills had shot up, including [Unarmed Combat], which Ekaterina had beaten him into learning through long hours in every training hall they could find. On top of that, he had been able to select his next Class Skill. Considered one of the main reasons to have a Captain in the first place, [Ship Link] was considered a classic for a reason. It would let him deepen his bond to the Loon, and feel out any problems and how to fix them. Once it reached a high enough level, he would allegedly be able to apply his own Skills to the ship, and vice versa.

  The others had reaped the same rewards. Levels and Skills, they were beginning to resemble a real crew. All except Emerald, who waved them off whenever they asked. Their high level and crippled Class meant the Disgraced Captain’s rewards would mostly be limited to loot.

  And the loot was impressive. Heath stared at the pile on their mess hall table. The large chunk of argo was still there, along with the mana heart and some other materials they had picked up that Copperfield had a use for. Not impressive on its own, but Heath could see the pile of credits sitting in his [Personal Bank] at the same time.

  “Does everyone still agree? We can have it all valued officially and split the cash if we need to.” It would kill Heath to do it, but he would if he had to.

  None of the others were bothered. In fact, Copperfield and Ekaterina were sitting coiled, muscles tensed as if about to run a race, waiting to snatch up their shares.

  “Alright.”

  Ekaterina and Coppefield snatched up their own loot and bolted. With a thought, money was transferred to Emerald and Jenny Mae’s ship accounts so that they could access it right away if they wished. Both left, almost as quick as the others, off to do “some light shopping” as Jenny Mae put it.

  That left Heath with a chunk of argo. “What do you think, Loon, the three we talked about or did you have other ideas?”

  “No Heath, your arguments were strong. I am growing, if slowly. It makes sense to create several improvements we can add to after. I must admit, after recent adventures it will be nice to have some more options for defense as well. The rest of the team has advanced and I must grow with them.”

  “Let’s do it then.”

  Heath entered the bridge and locked the hatch, exposing the Loon’s core and the argo matrix within. As always, the view was entrancing. And it was getting more complex. Strands that hadn’t been there before were connecting disparate parts of the matrix into a stronger whole. And in the places he had already improved, more argo was coalescing, making them that much faster, their jumps that much smoother.

  This would be the biggest improvement he’d made to the ship himself, and his hands shook as he placed the argo in the Ship Core. A Jeweler in their last port had broken the pieces apart for a small fee and the Class growth, and Heath was left with enough argo for three very minor improvements.

  The first was a momentum-permeable tether. Simple but imminently useful, it would make external ship combat, or routine maintenance, far safer. And it would let the Loon make use of its speed without flinging anyone outside off into deep space.

  Next up was a gun. They had gone back and forth with the weapons systems. Cargo ships didn’t usually need to defend themselves beyond blasting apart a bit of debris, but at the rate they were being run out of space stations, it was only a matter of time until someone – or something –decided they looked like easy targets. They chose to invest a little more of the argo for a weapons module with advanced firing options. In the base mode it would fire plasma bolts, a standard armament for small vessels. In the second, for an increased mana cost, anyone manning the weapons station could channel offensive Skills into ship-level weaponry. Ekaterina was still a mystery, but Heath figured it would be useful no matter who his crew was. Eventually.

  Finally, the last improvement, which took over half of the argo they had earned across all five dungeons. Plus a bit extra that Heath had purchased with most of their cargo profits. He took a few moments to calm down before placing the final pieces.

  “I am ready, Heath.” The Loon’s voice echoed around the empty bridge, the sound richer and more resonant when the Core was exposed.

  Gently, he slotted the final pieces into place, letting the wall panel melt back over the opening. He sank into his [Ship Link] Skill to watch the process. The sensations were indescribable. In this state he wasn’t quite the Loon, but he wasn’t entirely himself either. He could feel each change, not happening to his own body, but as though it was only a hair's breadth away.

  The tether didn’t exist in the same way as the rest of the ship. To Heath it felt like coiled potential, ready to be activated at his command. For the gun, swirling power coalesced onto the hull, first forming the main shape, then adding more and more detail until it became real. Through their connection, Heath felt the Loon give a mental command, and the feather motif was continued over the sides. That would help it blend into the rest of the hull, though Heath was very aware the ship had done it more for a firm sense of aesthetics than any other reason.

  The training room was its own adventure entirely. The space inside the Loon stretched, breaking away from the rest of the universe with the help of the argo, until a new room was formed. It was tiny. Some might call it a generous closet, but that didn’t matter. It would grow as the Loon flew through space and absorbed argo until the whole crew could practice their most destructive skills all at once.

  Heath raced off the bridge, the Loon pre-empting him by having the hatch slide open on his approach. He skidded to a halt in front of a door that hadn’t existed before, in a stretch of hall that shouldn’t fit inside the Loon. With all due pomp and circumstance, the Loon commanded it to open.

  Inside was plain, but to Heath it might as well have been the imperial palace. There was one wooden dummy hanging at the far end of the narrow room. The floor was a springy wood, so different from the metal composite of the rest of the ship. Perfect for taking a fall without getting too injured. The air tasted like argo.

  Training rooms were the mobile versions of training halls, and one of the reasons a delving crew would sign onto a ship in the first place. Access to the areas with their concentrated argo and System-recognized benefits was the best way to keep Skills sharp, and pick up levels on the trips between dungeons. The argo concentrators were a potent benefit on a planet, or a station. But on a ship that moved through the deeper energies swirling out in space, it could be game-changing. Not to mention the cost savings of not having to rent time in a hall every time they made port.

  That was all in the future. For now, any benefits would be modest at best. He was itching to try it out, fingers twitching as he contemplated which skill to practice.

  “It’s incredible, Loon.”

  “Thank you, Heath. I find myself more and more understanding why a Classer might fight to achieve ever-higher levels. Surely anyone having once experienced the satisfaction of true, quantifiable growth, would seek it out at every turn. I do not know if I will ever return to my former glory, or if I would even wish to be such a ship again, but this step is one I am glad to have taken. All thanks to you, Heath.”

  “You did most of the work, Loon, but you’re welcome regardless. Now let’s see, let’s see. What to start with.”

  He hadn’t come to a decision yet when he heard footsteps behind him.

  “Finally. Perhaps we can achieve something now beyond a waste of time on every trip.”

  “Thank you, Ekaterina.” Heath wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that their standoffish shipmate had been more willing to interact socially since they started delving. He had already broken up two shouting matches in the last leg, one of which included Jenny Mae, a woman Heath hadn’t thought would be able to yell if needed. There would be more, he had no doubt.

  “Let’s begin. Take a stance.”

  Heath gave in without arguing. He wanted to practice, and now here was an opportunity. Even if [Unarmed Combat] was his least favorite skill. With every bruise he liked the Loon’s suggestion of a personal hull more and more.

  Battered and aching, with another level in his combat skill to show for it, Heath called a halt to the practice and left to find Copperfield. His trainer was more than happy to let him, sitting down to meditate in the corner of the room where a small mat was set up for the purpose.