The interior of Greyspire Tower was, as one might expect, basically stairs stacked on top of more stairs. In fairness, the lower portion of the tower was built more or less like an actual fort, complete with rooms and wings and such, though to Kaelis’s disappointment they didn’t have time to explore them. Instead she and Sheah had gone straight for the central stairwell, which had little to see other than the occasional window. About halfway up the tower the stairway transitioned into a dense corkscrew, traveling up the length of the hollowed out spire. Every few stories a floor was laid in to break up the climb and to distract from its dizzying height. Kaelis hadn’t been keeping track of how far they’d ascended, but she could only assume, based on her aching legs, that it had been quite a ways.

  “This watchtower was constructed in the mid-400s, back during the early days of the Unbound invasion,” she lectured as she bounced up the steps, both to teach Sheah about the exciting history of the area and to keep her mind off her sore feet. “After the northern territories were lost, the consolidated Egaellean Empire built a series of towers along the mountain range to safeguard what are now the Deadlands. This particular tower is among the last to survive.” She turned around to see if Sheah was even listening. “Pretty nifty stuff, eh Boss?”

  To her surprise, Kaelis found Sheah was no longer at her heels. Instead she was lagging behind by several paces, breathing heavily. She pushed her hand against the stone wall, struggling her way up the onslaught of steps.

  “Having trouble there?”

  “No… I… I am fine…” Sheah panted. “I think… I think we are almost at the top. I can do this…” She inched her way past Kaelis as the stairs funneled into the next doorway in the series.

  Emerging through it, Sheah groaned wearily at the sight before her. They had arrived at yet another landing: an old barracks, the splinters of wooden bed frames blown into the margins of the room. Another set of stairs coiled up the outer walls, winding above a trio of large, paneless windows that let in streams of light and gusts of thin air.

  “You sure?” teased Kaelis, craning her neck up.

  “Well… Perhaps we should take a quick rest…” Sheah wobbled over to a squat upended chest and plopped herself on top of it.

  Kaelis leaned against the wall and removed her canteen from her belt. She took a sip and then tossed it at Sheah with little warning. Sheah fumbled the flask in her arms and then threw back a deep chug, small driblets of liquid splashing down her jaw. Thirst quenched, she daintily removed a handkerchief from her frock coat and dabbed at her cheeks. She motioned to toss the canteen back to Kaelis, but decided awkwardly at the very last moment to walk herself over and hand it back to her personally instead.

  “…What?” asked Sheah, noticing Kaelis’s tickled expression.

  “You’re so hopeless,” Kaelis chuckled as she latched the flask back on her belt.

  Sheah crossed her arms indignantly. “You know, you shouldn’t talk to your employer like that.”

  “Sorry. You’re so hopeless, ma’am.”

  Sheah sighed. “Let’s just move on.”

  The two women continued their way up the tower, the walls and stairs growing narrower and narrower as they climbed.

  “So, miss hotshot adventurer—” grilled Kaelis, never one for silence. “We get to the top of the tower, and there’s an Unbound. What’s the first thing you do?”

  “Oh, is this a test?” asked Sheah. She pondered the question. “I… would…”

  “Uhp—too late. It got you. You’re dead.”

  “What?” Sheah protested. “That’s not fair!”

  “There’s no such thing as fair out in the wastelands.”

  “But it is just a hypothetical question!”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Fine,” huffed Sheah. “I… subdue it.”

  “Yeah, with what?” asked Kaelis incredulously. “You got a secret pea-gun in your bra?”

  “N—No!” stammered Sheah, her cheeks turning a dark red.

  Kaelis laughed and pointed to the rope slung over Sheah’s shoulder. “Then what, you gonna rope it to death?”

  “A good length of rope is the most versatile tool an expeditioner can have!” Sheah retorted.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “It has offensive, defensive, and support functions.” Sheah straightened up with pride. “My dad used to say that a good rope is the first thing any proper adventurer should invest in.”

  Kaelis shook her head. “No offense, but wasn’t your dad, like, a ship designer? I doubt he’d know anything about bein’ a good adventurer.”

  “Don’t speak of my dad like that!” demanded Sheah, offense decidedly taken. “The Ziedler Motors brand became what it is because my father and grandfather knew what was important to expeditioners. Instead of the raw power of a Verloren model, our ships are simple, elegant, and designed to cater to the needs of the explorer.”

  “Uh huh,” shrugged Kaelis.

  Sheah pursed her lips. “You wouldn’t understand. You lack finesse.”

  “Well, I just don’t think you’re not gonna do a whole lot of damage without a good six-iron at your side. Not that you know anything about shooting.”

  “I most certainly do!” asserted Sheah.

  Kaelis lightly chuckled, amused at her fiery spirit. “That so?”

  “I’ll have you know that I am actually quite the accomplished shootist,” Sheah revealed, speaking with the utmost pride. “I have been competing ever since secondary school.”

  “Really?” asked Kaelis. “You serious?”

  “Is it truly so difficult to believe? Distance shooting is essentially just maths, really. I do confess that I initially picked it up as a means of extracurricular credit, but I soon found I had quite a knack for it. I even received a silver star in the regional finals, just before I was forced to withdraw from the Academy.”

  Kaelis whistled to herself. Admittedly, she was a little impressed. “How come you don’t have your own rifle then?” she asked.

  Sheah squirmed. “Oh, well, I was forced to sell my competition rifle to help pay for the Red, and since then I simply… haven’t found an opportunity to replace it.”

  “Alright, well, good to hear you at least know your way around a gun,” said Kaelis. “Still, you’re only halfway there. Being able to hit stationary targets is one thing, but it’s not gonna do you much good when everything is always moving around and in your face. There’s still a lot you’re gonna have to learn if you wanna survive out here.”

  “Then why don’t you teach me?” asked Sheah, exasperated.

  Kaelis lifted a finger. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  Sheah thought about it for a moment. “…I don’t find your methods effective.”

  “Noted.”

  The pair filed into the topmost part of the stairway, coming to a squat wooden door embedded in the wall, different in design than any of the other doorways they’d encountered thus far.

  “Okay, this has gotta be the top,” Kaelis surmised, throwing open the hatch.

  Blinding daylight and a strong gust of wind immediately slapped her across the face, catching her off balance.

  “Ah, I shoulda brought my helmet,” she muttered. Steeling herself against the gale, she made her way over to the lookout’s iron railing.

  The top of Greyspire Tower was a featureless stone catwalk circling its central turret, offering a clear vantage in every direction. Kaelis gripped the railing and peered over the edge, taken in by the incredible view. The falls and the settlement sat some thousand feet below, just a small blot on the vast canvas before her. The world stretched out for hundreds of miles in every direction, wisps of rolling clouds casting serene shadows on the quiet earth.

  “Wow…” she breathed, awestruck by the sight. Her eyes and smile shimmered brightly.

  Sheah’s face, on the other hand, was frozen with a look of pure terror. She stood pressed flat against the wall, her long hair tossed around violently by the vicious wind. After a moment, she inched her way out of the stairwell, gingerly tapping her feet across the catwalk floor, her fingers tenaciously latched onto the doorframe.

  Kaelis sighed. “What’re you doing?” she asked.

  Sheah angled her body, sliding her feet closer to Kaelis, keeping her hands glued to the wall all the while.

  “I am… coming… to you…”

  Kaelis extended out her palm. “Grab my hand,” she offered.

  Reaching out gingerly, Sheah wrapped her fingers around Kaelis’s wrist. She peeled herself from the wall and shimmied out towards the railing, her legs wobbling fiercely beneath her.

  “I got you,” Kaelis assured her with a calming smile.

  Sheah scooted towards the edge of the lookout, one hand on the railing and the other wrapped around Kaelis’s wrist in a vice grip. She did her best to ignore the immense drop below her and instead forced herself to gaze straight out upon the limitless horizon. For a brief moment, the fear in her eyes seemed to blow away on the wind.

  “…Incredible…” she whispered.

  “It’s like we’re in an airship.” Kaelis wistfully sighed. “Probably the closest I’ll ever get to bein’ in one…”

  “Well, with the steady march of technology, airships may become quite ubiquitous in the near future,” stated Sheah.

  Kaelis turned and shot her a skeptical stare.

  “…So you never know!”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Right, well,” Kaelis began, pulling the binoculars from her pouch. “Let’s scout this thing and get outta here.”

  Spying down at the arrows of the plaza, Kaelis oriented herself to the cardinal directions. She moved to the tower’s northwest side and peered straight out. In the far distance she could see a miles-wide gap in the mountain range, years of landship use having carved a distinct road into the valley.

  There it was—Richter’s Pass.

  Kaelis adjusted the binoculars, zooming in as far as they would allow. Immediately, she spotted the small shapes of several scout ships dotted across the valley floor, a few of them patrolling, shooting up dust. Even at that distance, the ships’ makes were distinctly discernable due to their unmistakable viridian paint jobs. In the middle of the pack, hulking over all the rest, was a single commanding vessel: a monstrous brick of steel plastered in guns. It remained parked lengthwise across the pass, its dozens of cannons pointed due south, laying in wait with militant diligence.

  “Oh. Hmm…” muttered Kaelis.

  “What is it?” asked Sheah. “Are they there?”

  Kaelis handed over the binoculars. “See for yourself.”

  Sheah brought the lenses up and spied on the pass, an alarmed frown promptly appearing on her lips. “Oh my,” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” agreed Kaelis. “And I’m pretty sure the one in the middle’s a dreadnought. There’s no way we can slip by one of those. We’d get absolutely shredded.”

  Sheah slowly lowered the binoculars, her frown transforming into a giant, gloating grin. “I… knew it!” she proclaimed. “I knew Verloren was waiting for us!”

  “Yeah, you were right,” Kaelis admitted. “Good call. Glad we came up here.”

  Sheah thrust her hands on her hips. “I guess I’m not such a bad leader after all!” she declared.

  “…Who says you’re a bad leader?” asked Kaelis, cocking her head.

  “Oh, um…” Sheah looked to the ground abashedly. “Nobody, I suppose…”

  Kaelis shrugged. “Anyway, we got what we came for. Let’s call this in.” She pulled the two-way radio from her pouch and pressed down on the button. “Captain Sirroza? You there?”

  “…What’s the report?” crackled Jira’s voice through the transceiver.

  “So yeah… It looks like Sheah was onto something,” she said, Sheah beaming triumphantly behind her. “Verloren has the pass locked down tight.”

  Static poured through the radio for a moment.

  “…Understood,” Jira finally said.

  “We’re coming down. Be there in a few—”

  Drrrrrm!

  The distinct call of a landship horn suddenly trumpeted out from the fields below the tower. It carried through the air, cascading across the mountains.

  Kaelis and Sheah shot each other panicked glances. They flung themselves towards the catwalk’s southern edge, desperately scanning the world below for the source of the sound.

  “What was that?!”

  Jira snapped alert, the blast of the far-off horn ringing in her ears. Running from her position at the top of the switchback, she crossed the plaza and planted her feet at its southern rim. From her new vantage point she had a clear view of the sprawling fields below.

  Traveling along the plains in the distance, kicking up dust in its wake, was a thick, sleek landship, decently large and painted steel blue with white highlights. It drove away at a high speed, sounding its horn in erratic bursts.

  “Verloren?!” asked Dez, racing up to Jira with deep distress etched into his brow.

  Jira shook her head. “Expeditioner.”

  “A Union ship?” Dez took a step closer to the edge. He leaned in, shielding the sun from his eyes. “Oh, yeah, look at that. Ambassador-class… looks like a Ziedler Messera… That’s gotta be the Lost Harmony.”

  “Siegmar’s ship?” grunted Jira. “Hm.”

  “They’re a ways from the road. Must be cutting across the desert to save on fuel.”

  Drrm-dr-drrm-drrrm-drrrrrm!—The Lost Harmony’s horn continued to bark as it sped by.

  Jira tensed her jaw. “They’ve definitely seen us.”

  “I, uh… yeah…” Dez nervously agreed. “But—looks like they ain’t stoppin’…”

  “Hmm,” Jira grumbled.

  “Captain, what’s going on down there?” asked Kaelis from the radio.

  Jira brought the transceiver to her lips, hesitating. “…It’s nothing,” she decided. “A passing ship.”

  “Roger that,” acknowledged Kaelis, lowering her radio. “It’s just a passing ship.

  “Yes, I heard her,” said Sheah. “Have we been spotted?”

  Kaelis looked out over the plains, just barely able to make out the streak of dust with her naked eye. “Prrrrobably…”

  The landship’s horn let out one final blast before silence settled back over the mountains.

  “…Was there something defective with their horn?” puzzled Sheah.

  Kaelis raised the radio. “What’s with the horn?” she asked.

  “It didn’t sound broken,” said Jira. “They might’ve been hailing us.”

  “Uh, sure, okay,” said Kaelis. She turned back towards her comrade. “Captain says maybe they were hailin’ us.”

  “I said I can hear her!”

  Dez watched as the landship disappeared into the haze of the dry plains, the tension lifting from his shoulders as it did. With a relieved breath he wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Phew. That coulda been bad,” he breathed.

  “Hm,” agreed Jira.

  Dez ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Wonder why they was tryin’ to get our attention. Ya think they was just sayin’ ‘hello’? Maybe Siegmar’s on our side, showin’ his support.”

  “Or it was a warning,” said Jira.

  “I dunno… If it were a warning, it were a pretty vague one.” Dez rubbed his mustache, mulling it all over. “It’s weird, it were almost like…” His eyes suddenly swelled with alarm, a fearful frown tugging at his lips. “Like some sorta distract—”

  A rush of heavy footsteps interrupted his thought. Dez gasped. He whipped his sights towards the switchback just in time to see four fully-geared expeditioners charging across the plaza, weapons drawn, heading straight for them.

  “Yaah!” Dez yelped, nowhere to run.

  Jira wheeled around to face her attackers. She raised the transceiver to her mouth, yelling into it seconds before a pair of armed adventurers tackled her to the ground.

  “Vintra, we g—!” Jira’s voice cried through Kaelis’s radio before abruptly cutting to a lingering silence.

  “Captain?” replied Kaelis, her eyes growing wider with every responseless second. “Captain? Captain?!” She smacked her hand against the transceiver, desperate to regain the signal. She was answered by nothing but static.

  “What is going on?” asked Sheah, her voice cracking with worry.

  Kaelis pocketed her radio, biting her lip. She looked over the edge of the tower, down towards the plaza.

  “Something’s wrong.”

  “Look, Finch, we can talk this ov—uph!”

  Dez winced as his knees hit the cobblestone, pushed to the ground by a pale, austere woman with piercings surrounding every hole in her bald head.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Albrech,” said Na-Adira Finch, her monotone voice making it difficult to tell if she was being sincere or not.

  Dez squirmed, tugging against the binds that chafed at his wrists. They’d tied him up good. Captured by his own union… for some reason, part of him was still surprised. Whatever Verloren’s bounty for them was, he hoped it was substantial—at least then he might understand. As the expeditioners stood triumphantly over him, Dez turned his head to check in on Jira. She knelt on the ground beside him, hands bound but otherwise unharmed. Staring straight ahead, she remained impressively still, her eyes locked in a rage so intense it almost looked like she was meditating.

  With a rigid, reserved motion, Finch stepped back to join her comrades. The other three members of the Lost Harmony’s acquisitions team were more or less strangers to Dez, having somehow never made his acquaintance. One was a young man dressed in an impractically chic suit, while the other two looked to be even younger fraternal twins with getups dyed in inverse colors. In Dez’s defense, he’d never seen them at any of the Union meetings—fledgling members did tend to avoid them for being too ‘boring’. If only they had shown up, though—if they’d have gotten to know him, then maybe they would’ve been a bit friendlier.

  Before Dez could soften his captors with some light conversation, the Lost Harmony team all turned their attention over to the top of the switchback. At that moment, a hulking man drenched in plate armor stomped up the final rise, speaking a few final orders into his radio while glancing over the cliff’s edge. Who else could it be but the one and only Siegmar ‘The Tower’ Volff, his signature tower shield strapped to his back. Pocketing his transceiver, he marched across the plaza towards his two captives.

  “H—heya, Siegmar,” greeted Dez as affably as he was able to, given the circumstances. “Funny runnin’ into you out here. What, uh, what brings you up Greyspire way?”

  Siegmar ground his boots into the stone and folded his beefy arms. “Dez,” he replied with a sterile nod. Crouching down, he looked Dez straight in the eyes, his face steeped in displeasure. “Where’s the Ziedler girl?” he asked calmly.

  Dez attempted to mask his nerves with his finest poker face—at that point, he figured his best option was to delay Siegmar long enough for the girls to escape and come save him, which he was absolutely counting on.

  “Z—Ziedler girl?” he replied.

  Siegmar stared back, unamused at Dez’s not-so-subtle evasion. After a moment, he glanced away, casting his eyes up towards the top of the spire. “She in the tower?” he asked firmly.

  “What tower?”

  Siegmar hissed out a beleaguered sigh. Standing tall, he stewed for a moment. Finally, he thrust out a burly finger towards the sharply-dressed man. “Thresher,” Siegmar decided. “You and Finch get up there, find ‘em.”

  “Aw, why me?” Thresher protested. “There’s like a million stairs in there!”

  “Uhuph—Fusspot—!” coughed the male twin. The pair snickered.

  “You’re the fuckin’ fusspots!”

  “Come.” Finch strode onward, adjusting the pair of swords slung above her hip. “We go to combat our equals. It is a great honor.”

  Thresher perked up at the word ‘combat’. “Okay, yeah, whatever…” he groaned. He slunk off behind his comrade, and together the pair moved across the viaduct towards the tower’s entrance.

  Siegmar and the twins remained in the plaza. They stood over Jira and Dez, watching them closely, their hands gently resting on their weapons.

  “You’re, uh, you’re not gonna find ‘em up there,” Dez stammered.

  “Hmp. We’ll see about that,” said Siegmar, turning his eyes to the tower. “I just hope your crew cooperates. For their sake.”

  “Hand me the lenses.”

  Sheah did as she was requested, slipping the binoculars from her neck and placing them firmly in Kaelis’s hand. Kaelis planted herself at the railing and spied down on the settlement below. After fiddling with the binocular’s knobs and dials, she locked in on a spot on the ground. Her frown deepened.

  “Oh, ass…” she muttered.

  “Ass? Ass what? What is happening?” Sheah asked, jittering with worry.

  Kaelis pursed her lips as she adjusted the zoom on the lenses. “Another team found us. They got Dez and the Captain.”

  “What?!”

  “…Uh oh.”

  “And now there’s an ‘uh oh’?!”

  Kaelis stepped away from the railing. She stuffed the binoculars back into her pouch and threw Sheah a dramatic look.

  “They’re coming up to get us,” she revealed.

  “No!” fretted Sheah. She paced around in tight circles, her mind racing into overdrive, desperately attempting and failing to construct a plan of any kind. “Oh dear, oh dear. The stairway is our only exit. What shall we do? We’re trapped!”

  Kaelis rubbed her eyes, clearly racking her brain for a way out. Suddenly she lifted her head, as though a very clever idea had sprung into her mind. She looked at Sheah, then at the rope slung around her body, and then back, her brows lifting dangerously high.

  What was she getting at?

  Oh… oh no…

  Sheah clutched her hands around her rope. She shook her head vigorously, sheer horror draining the color from her face. While she didn’t know exactly what Kaelis was planning, she was positive that it was nothing sane.