A rudimentary course of action decided on, they made to leave. But just then, something came to Dan's mind,

  "Marcus, Old Raily," he called the duo responsible for security, "Let's find a time later to talk about the coming operation. We need to prepare for everything that could go wrong."

  "We've been thinking about that already," Marcus answered, "Let's talk about it at lunch."

  "Great to hear, see you later then," With that, the two groups went their separate ways.

  Once they had moved a bit away from each other, Dan turned around, giving the two one last glance before sighing.

  "What's wrong?" William asked, looking back to see what Dan was looking at.

  Dan didn't reply straight away, he first organised his thoughts and considered if this was something he should bring up to them. Falling back on how getting more opinions was always a good thing, he went for it.

  "I'm just worried about the few we have as guards," he finally said, "Marcus and George seem to be doing well, this has always been their work. But the others weren't even doing something remotely close to this."

  "I had that same thought too," Robert nodded, "They must be under a lot of pressure. They did have some experience with the guns, and some of them were even in the military, but the others just volunteered to protect everyone here, and I don't know how that would affect them long term."

  "The one I'm most worried about is Old Raily," Dan sighed. The old man was the reason he'd brought this up in the first place, "He's changed a lot since all of this started. He's still the same man, but there is this kind of intensity to him that wasn't there before. The jolly old man he was is almost gone."

  "I get what you mean," William nodded, he then sighed, "What can we do about this though? We need someone to man the guns and work as guards."

  "Let's deal with the islanders first before deciding on what to do," Dan finally said, "We will try and see how they feel about this then. As for Old Raily... If things get worse, I will try and talk to Mrs Raily and see what we could do about it."

  They walked while talking and not long after, they made it to the bridge. Dan nodded to Keith once they entered, and the first officer headed to one of the blacked-out screens on the bridge. She then looked blankly into the air for a few seconds before the screen she was in front of started flickering, and eventually came back to life.

  "What is happening?" Freddie suddenly came and stood in front of her, "Did you find a way to fix the screens? And what kind of reading is this?"

  "No," Keith answered, her eyes still on the screen, "It's just a skill I got. It lets me link one of my skills to the ship's screen."

  What the screen showed was mostly a blue circle with what appeared to be the Voyager at its centre. There were a few dots here and there in the circle. Some were green, and some were orange. They seemed to be just going their own ways. What was weird was how there seemed to be a smaller circle inside the big one, and none of the dots, no matter their colour, seemed to be able to get past that smaller circle.

  "And the reading seems to be a live feed of the Voyager's surroundings," Keith continued, explaining what she had found out about her skill so far, "The feed I get through the system is a bit more accurate, but this here is still good. The dots represent living creatures. And the colours seem to be some sort of reference of their danger to the Voyager. Green is harmless, orange is somehow dangerous but wouldn't be able to do any serious damage to us, and red... The sea serpent that we met as soon as we were transported here yesterday was red, deep blood red."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Her words reminded everyone of that memory that they just wished to forget. That monster they saw was something else, everyone would love to never be reminded of.

  "Don't worry though," Keith seemed to see how her words affected the mood of the group, so she hurried to calm them down, "That was the only instance where something like that ever appeared on my skill. I doubt monsters like that one are common, if they were, normal ships would never have been a thing in this world."

  "Exactly," Dan advanced to back her up, "From what I found out, those are called Behemoths. They are monsters that live deep in the ocean, far away from the routes we are on right now. What we faced yesterday was a freak accident, we don't have to worry about it happening ever again."

  His words along with Keith's comfort finally calmed them down. Seeing that, Dan released a sigh of relief. Aiming to move the conversation along, he said,

  "This is great, Keith. With this we will have a way to keep watch over our surroundings before we bring the Voyager's systems online."

  "Yes," Freddie nodded, the second officer seemed to be quite fascinated with the skill, "I also have a skill that can work quite well with this, hope I can get something that would allow me to link it to the screens too."

  "Well," Keith gave Dan a look, "Who knows, you might just get it with your next level."

  The conversation then moved along as people started talking about their skills and what would happen if they could link them with the Voyager. Dan sighed once he saw that the conversation had moved from the Behemoth they had met.

  The rest of the day went just as usual, if not for the heaviness in the back of their minds about being in a different world, it would have been just like any other trip they had been on.

  Just before lunch, and while Dan was looking over their inventory, Robert came and sat next to him,

  "How are you doing," he asked.

  "Good," Dan nodded, "Just going over some things. With all the achievements we had and other skills, I think that we have enough fuel that we won't have to worry about it for quite a while."

  "Actually, that's what I approached you for," Robert said as he brought his seat closer.

  "Oh, what is this about?" Dan gave him a questioning look.

  "It's about what you said when we met with Old Raily and Marcus," Robert answered.

  "Hmm, you mean hoping to get another source of fuel or the like?" It took Dan a second to realise what he was talking about.

  "Exactly," Robert nodded, before appearing hesitant as he asked, "Do you really think that something like that is possible?"

  "I don't know," Dan would be lying if he said that he was sure, he barely knew anything about this world and the system that governed it. "Honestly, if it was just my class, I would have said no. I wouldn't have had any hope for this. But with the Voyager in the equation, that changes things a lot. The skills she gets every 3 levels are hers and they change and affect her. I don't think a source of fuel would be out of the question if we take that into account."

  Dan knew that he might be grasping at straws, but he didn't give up hope. He felt that they had a fair chance with that.

  "I hope you are right," Robert sighed, and Dan was able to see a weariness that his chief officer kept hidden, "I really don't want us to take our chances on land. I think our best chance of surviving this new world we found ourselves in, is if we use the Voyager as our home. That way we won't be under the control of anyone. I doubt if we went inland that we would have much control over ourselves, I fear that we would be nothing more than slaves, at best glorified prisoners."

  Dan fell silent at his friend's words, he didn't want to consider such a dark and gloomy future, but he knew that they couldn't just run away from it or ignore it, they would have to be forced to make a choice eventually. Either remain on the Voyager, or go inland. And Dan wanted them to have the ability to choose on their own, not head inland because they ran out of fuel.

  "So what do you mean by all of this," Dan asked. He knew that his chief officer didn't just bring this up for no reason.

  "Even if there's a small chance for a fuel skill or whatever it is, being real," Robert said with seriousness and determination, "I think we should push for it. We shouldn't just wait passively, we should give ourselves the biggest possibility to get it."

  Dan frowned as he heard that, he had a hunch about what Robert meant, and he wasn't sure if he liked it.

  "So what do you suggest?" he asked, hoping it wasn't what he had in mind.

  "I think," Robert said, his determined expression shining even brighter, "That we should be more proactive in gaining levels, no matter what it takes..."

  Dan didn't let anything show on his face as he just listened while his heart skipped a beat. Not knowing how to react to his friend's words, he could only watch as he finished his sentence,

  "Even if it means hunting monsters for them."