If I had a single line to describe our present situation, I would say that we are fucked right now. Right now, we are hiding in the forest under the cover of trees. I have to be thankful that the mayfires are not pyromaniacs, or we might as well have given ourselves up to the enemy. The forest here is the only thing that is ensuring that we are not caught already.
The forests provide us with the opportunity to camouflage ourselves. Right now, this little bit of camouflage is the only thing that is keeping us alive. The sensory formations used by the enemy are useless. The skill of the people using these ships must also be quite shitty. Otherwise, our camouflage would not fool anybody who knew how to use a sensory formation.
Well, I shouldn't be too critical of my troop. This is all that my soldiers are capable of at this moment. To speak about the ship, things are pretty bad. Our little trip in the forest has nearly wrecked the ship. The fact that there is anything to fix at this moment is proof that my ship is way more durable than the average ship.
That is the reason that we managed to escape from the other side. They would have been destroyed completely trying to follow us in the forest. Their sensory formations are not good enough for them to follow us from up there. Still, I had to travel a hundred kilometers at my full speed to make sure that we left them behind.
Right now, we are hidden in the forest. Another thing that I should be thankful for is that the trees here are old and strong enough. If this were a new forest with trees younger than a few decades, this would have been pointless. I would be leaving a trail of destruction that would have made taking such a risk pointless. The trail I would have left would have been enough to tell the people that I was here.
Well, the present situation of my ship is also because these were not new trees. If it were new trees, they would snap from simple contact. The old trees here recoiled the force with which my ship had hit them. Most trees that I have collided with have managed to leave pretty significant cracks on the ship. The trees themselves are fine, though. (I will have to work on a defensive formation for my ship as well, it looks like.)
The cracks are still fine. The ship will lose quite a bit of its durability, but it will be able to fly at least. The main problem right now is the holes in the ship. Airships are designed to make sure there is no contact with the environment outside. After all, without a suitable environment, we will end up in the very uncomfortable position of being dead. Environmental formations will help out a bit in a situation like this. They are not going to last when you have hundreds of holes in your ship, though.
Without patching those holes, we will only be able to fly for five minutes. After that, the environment of the ship will become too dangerous for us. We are trying everything to fix up the ship. Right now, my troop is focusing on repairing these holes. They are cutting down the surrounding trees to make makeshift planks. They are going to use these planks to cover those holes.
Once that is done, flying the ship is still going to be pretty risky. At the very least, I will be able to stay in the air for an hour at least, though. Also, there is a risk that the cut trees might be noticed, but Trevor is out there supervising the other two. He has assured me that the trees will be cut at enough distance from each other. Nobody will be able to see the cut trees from the sky.
You would need a mana sense at least as strong as mine to even attempt something like that. (Before my injury.) Even then, you need to be experienced at using a sensory formation to catch something like that. With the skill level they have shown, I will only be worried if they are a few kilometres away.
Other than that, there has been quite a bit of damage to all the other formations of this ship. This is especially the case with the sensory formations. I will be able to manage these repairs, though. Right now, my major problem is the formation room. The shot on it has greatly reduced the integrity of that wall.
That means that any shot at the formation room that will connect is going to lead to the entire wall giving way. No amount of reinforcement is going to help with that. If that sharpshooter were to attack the formation room, we are going to fall instantly. That means we have to stay as far from conflict as possible.
I have to ask Trevor about that. The man has all the detailed records on the soldar plains. All the documents with sensitive information have been given to Trevor. This seems to include all the detailed notes on the many pirate gangs that exist in the area. At least that seems to be the case.
Even without that, I assume that it would be possible to find out about whoever shot us. After all, a person who is so precise with a cannon has to be famous. I am sure that Trevor would be able to give me pretty detailed information about him. (Or her) Let's just hope that the man doesn't decide to keep me in the dark.
Right now, I have completely shut down all the formations on the ships to hide ourselves from our enemies. This includes the ambient mana gatherer. To explain what that is, I will first have to explain how my ship runs. Most ships run using mana stones. Mana stones are consumed to run every aspect of the ship.
My ship is powered by ambient mana-gathering formations. These formations can absorb the ambient mana around us and store it. This mana is used by me to power up our ship and our cannons. They tend to have the benefit that it barely costs anything to run the ship.
The main problem with these formations is that they tend to be very obvious when active. It would be like a black spot on a white sheet. If I were to leave them activated, the enemy would be here in a matter of hours.
It is a bit of a risk to leave it deactivated like this. If we are discovered, we do not have enough reserves to run our cannons. I have enough to try and run away, but that is something that I will only try as a last-ditch effort.
I am pretty sure that Trevor doesn't approve of this, but it is for this reason that I am the captain. He doesn't have any idea how airship battles normally occur. If we were to follow his plans, we would be discovered in half an hour. At least that is what I am telling myself. Any second now, I am sure that our enemies are going to make their way here and kill us in moments.
Well, there I go sending myself into a panic. It is not like these what-ifs are going to be helping me. The only thing that I can do is focus and work on what I can work on. I have done enough recording for now. I will continue this log when Trevor makes his way here. I have quite a bit of work after all.
(After about half a day)
Well, we are yet to be caught, so that is a positive at least. Not that it is helping with my anxiety. The troop is halfway through the process of patching the ship up.
Trevor is right now in the formation room with me. I was about to go and meet him in his office, but the work with the formations has taken longer than I had expected it to take.
"So who was it?" I ask the man.
"Who?" he asks.
"You know what I am talking about. Who has attacked us?" I ask him, a bit more fire in my voice than I would have liked.
This was a pretty embarrassing defeat after all. If it were a brawler, it still would have been fine. I am in such a situation due to a mere patroller.
"Well, I will be frank, we don't know who it is.", he replies. "We have a record on him, though it is not very helpful."
"How can we not know? We have a near-constant presence here.", I interrupt him. The scholars not having a record of somebody so close to home is pretty surprising.
"Well, this particular ship has never attacked a black mountain ship.", he replies. "All we know comes from their allies and their victims. We guards have never fought them. As you can guess, this particular enemy of ours has quite the ability in stealth...."
"Get to the point.", I reply, snapping a bit. The man was about to go off on one of his tangents.
"Well, you were the one to ask.", he replies. "It is a pirate gang, one called the Bloodfire gang. The person who attacked us is called the archer, called so due to his legendary aim. This archer is confirmed to be a captain of the Bloodfire gang."
"So speak about the Bloodfire gang. I don't know what a captain means for them." I command him.
"Well, the Bloodfire gang is a pirate gang. They are just like any pirate gang out there. The unique thing about them is that they have a very clearly defined hierarchy. Even more well-defined than the chaotic mess that such gangs usually have.", he speaks. "They start with the recruits, newbies that have never gone on any mission for the gang. Then there are the soldiers, who have gone on at least one mission and can hold their own in a fight. Then there is the sub-captain, a soldier who has been given control over a patroller. This is followed by a captain, who is given control of a brawler, and lastly, we have the leader of the Bloodfire gang."
"To return to the archer, he is a captain of theirs. The people that we have captured claim that he has never missed a shot in his life. We don't know how true that is, but with the performance that I have seen, it can't be very far from the truth." He continues.
"Well, such a precise shot is very hard to believe. The man would have made a killing in the bone pits. Why would he be here?" I ask. "And if he has a brawler, why was he in a patroller?"
"Well, nobody knows why he is in the soldar plains. As for why he was in a patroller, that is his usual strategy, it looks like." Trevor speaks. "He ambushes people using a patroller. After all, nobody is expecting a patroller to be capable of dealing such damage. Any other ship would have been destroyed with that first shot. That is why he calls his ship the Shadow, it seems. Because it is so rarely seen in use."
"If that is one of the captains, what about the others?" I reply. "If one of their captains has come into action, it must mean that we are facing the Bloodfire gang in some way or the other."
"I can give you all the information that you need, but I need the guarantee that you won't speak about it unless you need to." he says. " You must know the reason that you weren't provided with these documents is that you are too free with your mouth. We can't have you leaking them without reason."
"Fine, I will shut down the log now, and I swear that I won't speak about them unless we have to fight them." I reply, a bit more snappily than I expected.