Ryan panted, as he carefully set a crate next to an engineer who was carving a channel into the wall with a slow, methodical intensity.

  “Almost… done…” The engineer spoke aloud, his voice strained as beads of sweat dripped down his face.

  “How the hell do you keep your jacket on when it gets so blasted hot down here?” Ryan asked, as he tugged on the sleeve of his own red jacket, tightening the knot that held it around his waist.

  “Because… it’s expected of me.” The engineer responded curtly.

  Ryan’s head was still wrapped in bandages that managed to hold their position in spite of his similarly sweaty state. He took the small strap of his sleeveless shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, although it didn’t help much.

  “Lemme guess, being able to tolerate the intolerable… that’s a noble thing, Lord Brighton?” Ryan teased, before pulling a fresh mana crystal from the crate. He began to toss it from hand to hand.

  “Not… Lord…. I’m the fourth son… now please, shut up, I am trying to concentrate!” Lord Brighton continued. His brown jacket, further darkened around his pits and wrists, particularly accentuated the red flush on his face from continuous exertion.

  “Ohhh, I see. I see.” Ryan mused. “So I’ve never had the chance to ask ya, how did a bright, young lord such as yourself wind up in this line o’ work?”

  “Its Jeffery! How many times do I have to say it?!” Lord Brighton Jeffery spun around, as his lips twitched in exasperation. “Again, fourth son! Of a baronette no less, I’m no more a Lord than a merchant is a warrior! And, again, it was expected of me!” The young lord man heaved after his tantrum.

  Ryan reached over and patted his friend on the back, as he emptied what little food he may have had onto the floor. Judging by how little came out, he may have pushed himself a little too hard.

  As soon as the heaving stopped, Ryan tossed Lord Brighton Jeffery a canteen. “You left this two halls down, ya twat. Being a noble won’t protect you from dehydration and heat stroke, no matter what anyone expects of you.” Ryan chided him, before taking another stab. “Your Lordship.”

  Lord Brighton Jeffery coughed mid swig, splashing some of the water into Ryan’s face. Then both of them fell back laughing.

  “All done. Messy, sloppy, and not reviewed as much as I’d like… but done.” The young lord man continued, once he regained his bearings.

  “Are you sure this will work? I’d hate to crash again… even though we’re in the water this time, there are still tons of boulders poking out. Sinking would be even worse than crashing on land…” Ryan mused, his voice tainted by not-so-subtle hints of concern.

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  “Best chance I could come up with, since it was E.K. who made the original design. I’d feel some proper relief if we could just snag a dwarf to review this, though. I just wish I could figure out how the hell that little monster figured out we were overloading the mana cores without seeing a damn thing on the ship.” The young lord man continued.

  “Just cuz he’s smarter than you doesn’t make him a monster. And why the hell do we need a dwarf? It was a human, like me, who figured all this out in the first place, so surely a wise young lord like yourself can handle it.” Ryan smiled innocently, and played dumb to the lord’s man’s glare.

  “First,” Lord Brighton Jeffery began, “that’s not it. It’s his words… how he speaks… it isn’t like us at all. I hear our language, but it’s like… he wasn’t speaking our language. His lips don’t match, and the sounds… something is off about them, I feel like they change in my head…” His eyes stared forward, as if trying to recall something distant.

  “I think you might be listening to the ship too much. Hearing all the little things turning in the engines got ya going crazy, ‘specially with ears that sensitive. Plus, if it really bothered you that much, you wouldn’t have agreed to let him tour the ship for that little piece of advice, huh?” Ryan gave Lord Brighton’s Jeffrey’s earlobe a little tug, with a laugh.

  His hand was swatted away, before his friend continued. “Second, he just snagged the tech from the dwarves. Maybe improvised a bit. Its just… nothing like this has ever been done before! Just thinkin’ about it gives me shivers.”

  The young lord man began to count down on his fingers rapidly. “If my math is right, all our airships are liable to blow in under thirty years from overloading their mana crystals! And that is with all the mana flow being hogged by the engines. Of which, we’re down two. Thank-god we could repair one of the clogged engines in time and replace the blades. And I’ve got no idea how to reduce the output from the engine, so if the cannons don’t offload enough mana…”

  Ryan swallowed, and his voice tingled with real nervousness. “H-hold up. So… we might just blow up again, are you for real?”

  Lord Brighton Jeffrey looked nervously back at Ryan, and shrugged a little. “We didn’t have much time, and the capítán… well, you know how he is, so I just…”

  “Did what was expected of you, huh?” Ryan finished, his eyes cast down with a slight sense of dread. Then his eye twitched, and he stared dumbfounded at his friend.

  “Noooo…” He began.

  “W-what?” The lord engineer replied, taken aback.

  “Don’t you start… Its bad enough with Lady Carmilla, you can’t do this too!” Ryan stared in mock horror, and covered his mouth with his free hand.

  After a moment of confused silence, he mouthed the word “Captain”, to which his friend started cackling.

  “Look, I–” he began, before Ryan chimed in simultaneously. “–am only doing what’s expected of me!” They both laughed.

  Lord Brighton Jeffrey cocked his head slightly, and then put his ear to the wall. “Sounds like were about to find out how well it works anyways, they’re back.” He said with a sigh.

  Ryan huffed in disappointment, as if he hoped nobody would come, and then stood up. He took his coat and quickly tried to squeeze it on, before it made a ripping sound.

  He stared daggers at the wall, before flinging it off again. “Damnit, I knew it was too small! And it’s a loaner too! The capítán’s gonna kill me!”

  Lord Brighton Jeffrey’s mouth opened wide, and he pointed at Ryan, before saying an accentuated “Ooooooh.”

  “W-what?! I… oh, oh no. I said it, didn’t I?!” Ryan’s face turned aghast in visceral horror. Then, another horror dawned on him, as he heard the angry breathing of someone else behind him. Still, he wasn’t sure which sin was worse, but he knew that one sure as hell was gonna hurt a lot more than the other.