“I noticed that your crew is completely female,” he said as they entered the stern hold.
“Yes. It certainly is,” Alex replied.
“And is there a reason for that?”
“Why, what reason do you think I'd have?”
“You know what, forget I said anything,” Shane said.
Alex laughed. “Ah, it's not a problem. And I see your point, but there's nothing like that going on here. They were just part of the crew that formed when the guild started. Actually, we only had eight members to begin with, and two of them ended up quitting.”
“Oh?”
“Likely the same story you've run into. The one that everyone runs into. They tried to continue after the guild started clamping down on trade, but eventually they gave up and quit. A pity too.”
“I miss those days,” Shane agreed. “And I lost a lot of friends I used to run with to the guild. I want to get them back into the game, but I don't think it's going to happen until things change.”
“In that case we'll do whatever we can to make some changes,” Alex said. He led him over to the middle of the hold and leaned down. “Here's something that might help us.”
He pressed something, and the floor panels suddenly parted. Shane found himself looking at a sizable hidden compartment.
“So, that's how you're getting the valuables past the blockade, I'm guessing,” he said. “You put them in there, seal it up and then fill the hold with fish so they don't think to look?”
“That's about right,” Alex said. “And there's more compartments than that. What about you?”
“We don't have anything like that,” he said.
“Then how do you deal with the Iron Guild patrols?”
“We've only had one run so far,” Shane said. “Our plan was to get the best engine we can afford, make it as powerful as possible and then use it to outrun the patrols.”
“Not an easy task.”
He shrugged. “I have faith in Bailey's engineering skills. And my helmsman abilities. Not to mention Kelvin's navigation and Brandon's eyes.”
“Sounds like you have a very solid crew.”
“Yeah. We do. But it's not all of us. We're missing members that should be with us.”
Alex clapped him on the shoulder. “Which is why you should stick with us. We've gone through that too. Lost players that should still be here. And we're not going to let the guild have their way any longer.”
Bold words, Shane thought, but did they mean anything? What could a small guild like this do against the sheer power of the Iron Guild? The sheer disparity between the two seemed insurmountable, and made Alex's statement seem ridiculous.
But was it really any more ridiculous than what he had been trying to do? One ship against an entire sprawling organization would do absolutely nothing. At least this way they'd have a few more on their side, even if it paled in comparison to the Iron Guild.
“Anyhow,” Alex said, “we can't risk having you get stopped. So you'll be carrying loads of fish in your cargo hold along with the rest of us. Don't worry, though. We'll spring for a steam cleaning. And we'll be splitting the profits from this trip. You're part of this guild now, and-”
“Hey Alex,” Jocelyn said, ducking her head through the hatch, “our guests are here.”
“Well then, I think we'd better get to it,” he said.
“What are we smuggling today?” Shane asked.
“Blue Adamant.”
He must have made a face, because Alex grinned at him.
“Surprised about that? Like I told you, we have our contacts and our strengths. And if you're with us then they can help you as well.”
Shane nodded.
“Come on then,” Alex said, clapping him on the shoulder again. “Let's make the exchange.”
Chapter Six
The rest of their expedition went off without a hitch. After making an exchange with another vessel and loading the merchandise into the Egret's secret compartments they finished fishing, loaded up their holds and headed for Beylan.
A guild patrol stop them as the neared safe waters, but after seeing the contents of their holds they let Rho go without any further trouble. And after selling their haul on the market they had a decent amount of cash to work with, even after dividing it up amongst the other crews.
Bailey had come back to the ship along with Jocelyn and Teresa to go through it and look for possible ways to upgrade the vessel.
“Nice engine you've got here,” Jocelyn said. “Must have cost you quite a bit to get one like this. It's not modified, is it?”
“It's not,” Bailey said. “And yeah, it cost us quite a bit. It's why we don't have any deck guns. That and we didn't think it was wise to spend our money on them. I'd rather outrun the enemy than stand and fight with them.”
“I'm that way too. Though Teresa likes to make things go boom, so we had to compromise.”
“Hey, running around while they guild's taking shots and you and not being able to fire back really sucks,” Teresa said.
“Does it really do you any good?” Bailey asked. “If you're being chased around by a bunch of ships, are you really going to be able to fight them all off?”
“I dunno. Are you going to be able to outrun them all?”
“Don't mind her,” Jocelyn said. “I'm with you. I think that better engines are the way to go.”
Bailey nodded. “Anything you can think of? Any way to make these better?”
Jocelyn moved through the engine room, looking at the components and lightly tapping pieces of machinery. “Well, what are your thoughts?”
“Adding a secondary hopper for fire crystals would be one thing. But then I have to reinforce the furnace and pretty much replace all the piping to handle the extra stress.”
“That essentially means that you're going to have to replace the entire engine, and do you really want to do it after you just bought it? Especially since it's not going to help you during regular use.”
“That was just an idea,” she said. “I'd like to add it so we have a little something extra if we need it, but I agree. It's cost-prohibitive.”
“Isn't that the truth,” Teresa said. “Same story for every cool toy we want to add.”
“So is there anything else you can think of?” Bailey asked. “Anything that we can do on a limited budget?”
Jocelyn walked over to the boiler unit and looked at the expansion chamber. “Hm, looks like there's only one of these. A pretty big one too. Guess that's how you can get so much power out of it.”
“Yeah.”
“But that's what I'd improve,” she said. “You're only using a standard steam engine. The easiest way to get more performance out of it is to alter the unit and change it into a compound engine.”
“Won't that take a lot of work?”
“It's actually relatively simple, if you know what you're doing. The biggest thing is changing the expansion chambers and the crankshaft. You have one big chamber, like most ships. What we'd do is to turn that into three or four separate chambers,” Jocelyn said.
“I'm not really all that familiar with steam engines, other than the info they give us in the guidebook. What's the difference?”
“The designers weren't really thinking of it either, but that's where the free crafting system comes in. Bringing in some real world knowledge helps. The difference is efficiency. The way a steam engine works is to use the expansion of the steam to drive the piston and make power, but as it expands and contracts the temperature fluctuates.”
“She majored in physics, just so you know,” Teresa said. “That's where she's getting these long-winded explanations from.”
Bailey nodded. “So that means you're an expert?”
Jocelyn shrugged. “Not really. Steam engines always interested me, though. I liked seeing the old trains as a kid. And that just snowballed into me trying to learn about steam engines.”
“Ah, makes sense.”
“So anyhow,” she continue
d, “The temperature fluctuations reduce the efficiency of the engine, and a single chamber can't get it all, so some of the power is wasted. What you can do to stop that is to create a compound engine with separate chambers. Instead of trying to get it all out in one chamber, you gradually extract it over a series of them. That means there's less temperature fluctuation per chamber, and each chamber can be calibrated for a certain pressure.”
“That sounds really complicated,” Bailey said.
“It isn't once you see it all in action or written down. You can see it inside the Egret. That's why we're able to carry such heavily loads and maintain a good speed.”
“We had to slow down to keep from getting too far ahead,” Bailey said.
“Who says we were going at full power?”
She smiled. “OK. So a compound engine. Anything else?”
“That would be the main thing I'd be looking at. Looks like you have the space to add another engine as well, so I'd do that too. It's going to take some time, and we'll have to tailor it for your boiler, but it should be doable with limited funds. I have a schematic for our unit back at our office. We can go from there.”
“Sounds good.” Bailey paused. “It's good to have people to talk with this stuff about.”
“Likewise,” Jocelyn smiled. “It's always fun to talk about the engineering stuff. And tinkering with stuff is fun.”
“That's one thing this world has going for it,” Teresa said. “The realistic physics. Or relatively realistic.”
Bailey agreed. There were numbers running underneath everything, but they integrated seamlessly into the world. The only thing that had hard and fast numbers were the weapon tiers, and that was for simplicity more than anything else. Health bars and stats existed, but they normally remained hidden to preserve immersion.
“Being able to see the numbers would make things easier. But I like tinkering,” she said. “Trying to squeeze out little bits of extra performance out of things. That's where the fun of being an engineer comes from.”
“Till the rest of your crew starts screwing around and ruins all your hard work,” Teresa smiled.
“They know better.”
“Must be nice,” Jocelyn said. “I don't know how many times I've had to repair the engines after Alex put too much stress on them.”
Bailey smiled. Despite any initial misgivings she might have felt about joining Rho, she felt like they were fitting in nicely. It felt like a good change, more like the larger groups they ran with during Age of Steam's heyday. And she wanted to keep it that way.
“So that's one of the ways we get our goods,” Alex said as Shane and Kelvin sat in his office. “We'll travel out to remote locations and make the exchanges there. Of course, that only works for small goods. If we want to ship large quantities we have to load up in port.”
“How far can you reach?” Shane asked.
“As far as our ships will let us, of course. Arnel and the desert are stretching it, but we can get there if we plan our refueling stops. But no, we can't make a continuous journey with the ships we have on-hand.”
“Here's a question for you,” Kelvin said. “I'm not sure it's going to be an easy one to answer, but I'll try to make it as simple as possible.”
Alex leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Oh, that sounds foreboding. Very well, I'll bite. What do you have for me?”
“What's your goal in all of this? Your smuggling, your net of agents, trying to recruit more members. That kind of thing.”
“It's a simple answer really. We're trying to fight back against the Iron Guild, the same as you,” he explained. “There's not much more to it than that. We want to break the power the guild has over the trade routes. Over this world, really. You're right in saying that things changed for the worse. We've lost too many good players, and I want to bring them back.”
“But how are you going to do that? What's your endgame?” Kelvin insisted.
“I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.”
“People can talk big about taking down the guild and all that, but does it mean anything? There were plenty of makeshift alliances that tried to do just that, and what happened to them? They had no plan, no clear goal in mind, so when the time came to challenge the guild no one had any idea what they were doing and the entire thing crumbled,” Kelvin said. “That's what I'm talking about.”
“We have a clear goal, of course.”
“Care to share it?”
“Of course I am. Our goal is to break the power of the guild. To do that we'll amass funds, build our networks, recruit more, until we have enough to challenge them.”
“And then what will you do? Challenge them, crush them, and then take their spot?”
“That's the goal of everyone, isn't it?”
Kelvin shook his head. “What's the point of this if all we're going to do is to replace one cartel with another? I don't want to be in charge of a reskinned version of the Iron Guild.”
“Then what do you want us to do?”
Kelvin looked over at Shane, who shrugged, then turned back toward Alex.
“What do I want? I want to go back to the time when everyone had access to the trade routes and could make their fortunes they way they wanted, without the Iron Guild forcing them to pay tribute and holding guns to their head. That's what I want,” he said. “It's not fair to the traders, and it's not fair to the players that need high-level materials to use their weapons and equipment. The marketplace was designed around supply and demand, so for one group to have a complete stranglehold on it isn't fair.”
“No. No it isn't. And I see your point about us possibly becoming the monster we're fighting against, but for now that's out of our reach. First we have to think about establishing ourselves.”
“But just putting it off until later isn't going to help either,” Kelvin said. “I know that we're new to the guild, but I'd like to think I'm part of something with a clear sense of direction.”
“Don't pull any punches man,” Shane commented.
Alex put his hands up disarmingly. “No no, I understand where you're coming from. And I see your point. But you're also new to the guild, so it might be a good idea for you to gain some experience working with the rest.”
“Do you have another mission for us?”
“Of sorts, yes. This is just a trade run, though. Not one of the NPC quests.”
“What are we doing?” Shane asked.
Alex was about to give them more details when someone knocked on the door.
“Excuse me,” Miranda said, “but Jocelyn and Teresa are looking for a schematic they built, and they think it was stored in here.”
“Well, they're welcome to look,” Alex said, standing up. “Did they say what they were looking for?”
Miranda stepped back as Jocelyn, Teresa, and Bailey walked past.
“We're looking for the compound engine schematic. The one we made while we were upgrading the Egret,” Jocelyn said.
Kelvin saw him smile. “Ah, giving away all our secrets, are you?
“What secrets? You could go to a library in the real world and find books on steam engines to copy from.”
“Finding a design and actually making that design work in here is two different things,” Alex said.
Kelvin caught Bailey's attention as the others continued to banter. “So, I guess you found something promising?”
“Jocelyn seems to think so.”
“A new engine?”
“An upgrade to the current engine that should make it more efficient and increase the power we can get from it, or at least that's what she tells me.”
“That would be good to have,” Shane said. “Think you can do it?”
Bailey shrugged. “I'm not the expert on this thing. I have a lot to learn still, even with my skills maxed out.”
Kelvin grinned and leaned back in his chair. “Isn't that the truth? Getting your skills maxed out and picking the right perks is only half the battle. Then you spend the rest of th
e time figuring out how to use them best.”
“I guess it's an equalizer of sorts,” Shane said.
Kelvin could see the comparison. Stats and perks were only one way for a player to make their mark, especially in combat. High-level weaponry and bunches of perks could only go so far, and a skilled player with subpar equipment that knew what they were doing could win, often decisively.
He liked that about this world. The most important thing wasn't a player's numbers, or whether they were lucky enough to get a powerful random drop. It was their wits, their ability to think on the fly, to use what they had to their advantage that determined the outcome of fights.
And that extended outside of combat to other spheres, especially economics and intelligence. Resources and materials weren't the only commodities. Information could be a powerful tool, and thus remained very valuable, enough for people to pay large sums for the right tidbits. In the shadow war between the Iron Guild and the disparate bands of smugglers, it paid to be careful. Eyes were always watching, ears were always listening, and even those who had no real motive to take sides would do so if it profited them.
Beylan might seem like a safe harbor, but it crawled with its own dangers. Kelvin kept a constant lookout on the streets for people that might be tailing them. Maybe it was paranoia, maybe it was justified. But whatever the case, he wanted to take precautions.
And he wasn't alone. Brandon kept his eyes peeled at all times, and once they had mentioned it to the others Shane and Bailey had picked up the habit. They had far too much at stake to become careless and run afoul of a spy.
“Ah, there we go,” Alex said after a few minutes of searching. He handed a large book to Jocelyn. “That should have all of the Egret's schematics in there, including how you configured the engine room.”
Rising Tide: A LitRPG Novel (Age of Steam Book 1) Page 6
