There once was a ship that put to sea
The name of that ship was a Billy of Tea
The winds blew up, her bow dipped down
Blow, my bully boys, blow
Soon may the Wellerman come
To bring us sugar and tea and rum
One day, when the tonguin' is done
We'll take our leave and go
Raven ignored the song echoing in the ship's intercoms, not even acknowledging the way his foot tap at each beat. The song's catchy and good in the ears, especially in this long voyage.
As for the origin of the song, it came from their new addition in the crew.
An alien Nasod, the concept alone would make someone laugh but he's no ordinary person. Clearly, the little Nasod is hiding something. Something that it's holding close with the way they made a story about a grand mission upon the stars in the seas of cosmos.
It was more akin to fantasy than fact.
He had suspicions but prefer not to dig deep. Not like it would benefit him in the long run. Still, a simple alliance was made between them.
The Black Crows will take the little Nasod as refugee from it's fellow brethren that the thing feared so much. Meanwhile, the little Nasod named Haro, will be in charge in the ship's defense and sailing, allowing more personnel to be used in the Nasod King's goals.
Speaking of the King, he's rushing him for more resources. Whatever spooked the massive monster, it had made the king hasty in the creation of it's army. More resources are needed. That mean more El shards and raw materials for the foundry.
That meant they had to hit Bethma and Fieta once again this month. Very risky by doing it twice a month. It would definitely gain the attention of the Velder knights if they haven't acknowledged the Black Crows as threat to the realm.
Although, he hadn't heard any news yet in Velder. His spies and contacts aren't responding his letters too.
Did something happen to the kingdom?
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I got my ship!
Well kinda? I'm now part of it. I'm now the Black Crow's automation manager. That meant I'm charge of all the ship's systems from sailing to intercoms, basically automating every aspect of the ship to maximize crew efficiency and manpower.
Cause believe me, they need a lot to reach their bi-weekly quota of materials needed to deliver to the Nasod foundry.
The Nasod King, the robot's leader, is really making a huge army and they needed tons of raw materials and El shards. Finding out that magic exist in this place is shocker with how advance the tech the Nasod have.
But when I scanned the Nasods in the ship, mindless aerial drones, they're pretty primitive in design compared to earth design.
Why?
Because the Nasods only rely on these El shards as their power source, nothing else! No alternative power source nor conversion of energy. They just straight up milking these magic stones to power their tech. No wonder this Nasod Kingdom fell to ruin, with the El shards as their primary power source, might as well drop dead when they got cut off from the source.
And now, I'm temporarily working for said kingdom!
It ain't so bad though. The mutual benefits I gained in my negotiations with Raven, the captain of the ship, was far more insightful for me. Like for one, the kingdom I landed on was actually a floating island!
How cool is that!
Two, I can now scout and gather proper resources to rebuild with the Black Crows. They have numbers and a many pairs of hands ain't something I would pass by.
As such, I decided to go well far and beyond in my task.
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"Haro has arrived on Bethma! Haro is deploying the Seismic Bits!"
Raven looked up from chair, having nodded off while resting on the Captain's chair in the command bridge. He was just time too as he watched multiple missiles launch out towards the mountains of Bethma.
"Are you sure those will work? We can simply hit another Lizardmen cave for more ores." He said to the tiny Nasod using the command bridge as it's terminal. The robot itself is embedded on a new terminal added to the room to accommodate and connect the robot to the entire ship systems.
"Haro is sure. Stealing depleted veins from Lizardmen is too inefficient! Haro's seismic bits will find rich nodes in time!" It said.
Raven hums, watching as the missiles discard their outer shells midair, revealing the spike-like payload strike to the ground, digging deep to the earth. In time, a large portion of the Bethma mountain range are covered in these spike protrusions on the earth.
"Seismic sonar bits planted! Activating sonars! Locating and mapping nodes!"
Then in astonishing display, multiple holograms began to appear in the bridge, displaying multiple rich veins in the area. Raven smirked at the large bounty waiting for them.
"Set course on the largest node! Prepare equipments and engineer corps! Black Crows, gather your weapons for landing!" Raven ordered, scrambling the crew to move immediately to secure the bounty.
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Not long enough, the Black Crow ship float above a plateau housing the biggest vein of ores. Heavy Nasod digging equipments are dropped and assembled by the engineers. A contingent of Black Crows also began to patrol the area for Lizardmen activity, securing the site.
The whole area became busy.
Spots are marked for digging, some have areas has already began excavating the site. Meanwhile, Black Crow mercenaries ran around for chores or patrolling the area.
Already, they attracting attention from the local Lizardmen who didn't like the presence of the Black Crows, especially when the latter is digging religious sites.
For the Lizardmen, Bethma is a religious sites as it was once home to the extinct dragons, the ancestors of this race. These foreigners digging and soiling the holy grounds of their ancestors cannot be tolerated.
Unfortunately for these primitive Lizardmen, the Black Crows outgunned the local defenders. What is the use of weapons made from wood and stone against guns and automated turrets?
Lizard meat.
On the plateau, Raven watched the ongoing operation. It's going too smoothly for them. Normally they would be already neck deep in Lizardmen blood and six feet underground in the tunnels used as home by said creatures. Lizardmen has this habit of making their homes in tunnels with rich veins, depleting the entire vein mostly for their culture. The yield on such cave dives are minimal, taking multiple cave dives to even reach the needed quota and lasting weeks.
But with this new method, they would take one week at best.
It looks like they can multitask for once.
"Drop some supplies. Food and shelter." Raven ordered to the intercoms.
"Sir?" One of the commanders asked in question.
"We're leaving most of the engineers and a defense force here to mine the veins. Meanwhile, the rest will sail to Feita. We need more El shards." He replied to the commander.
Up high, the Black Crow ship dropped down the said supplies to the waiting miner group. Meanwhile, a small force of the mercenaries detached to form the defense group of the miner group. Soon, most of the Black Crows have returned to the ship to set course to another destination.
"Where to Captain! Captain!" Haro asked in the terminal as Raven walked inside the bridge.
"To Fieta." He simply said before taking his seat.
Time to see what's truly happening in the outer valley of Velder. Maybe he can find some familiar faces.
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