[center][b][i]Kyne's Tear[/i][/b][/center]
[hr]
The sky was burning. 

Gustav thought he'd seen the end of fire, but the ballista shot was merely a spark compared to the massive inferno burning above. He saw the devastation caused by the bolt, how several mercenaries were engulfed in flames, and how one of them was completed incinerated. It did not bring joy to Gustav in the slightest, though he also did not despair for Ashna's death. He was a pragmatic man in both business and life. Gustav understood making choices in a world of scarcity; choosing one death over many.

But now, everything he had done would have been moot if the golden airship, situated above [i]Kyne's Tear[/i], crashed and destroyed everything beneath it. They had to move the ship, and even though fire still burned on deck (and some personnel were still seriously injured), they had to get away. It did cross Gustav's mind that certain members were still up there, but he had just witnessed one of them falling back down with...whatever that thing was. This meant that the rest of them were either dead or dying; surely no one survives these fiery explosions.

On the bridge, Karena was doing everything she could to pull her ship out of the cove. The airship had powerful engines stronger than momentum generated by the [i]Kyne's Tear[/i]'s sails. As much as she hated admitting it, the task would have been easier with Hargjorn here helping her. That man knew [i]Kyne's Tear[/i] like the back of his hand, and loved it even more so. Sometimes Karena wondered if Hargjorn had some sort of weird passion for this ship, the kind of passion he spat out in their arguments, and the kind of passion in their late night "discussions". Whatever the case, Karena knew that it was better to go the wrong way rather than arguing and going nowhere at all. It would be easier just to let Hargjorn and his followers fail, learn from their mistakes, instead of fighting to drill the right decisions into them every single time. 

She had just spent the last fifteen or so minutes fighting against the airship's pull; what if she let the airship pull them in? 

Karena explained her plan to Gustav. They would rearrange the sail so that the ship sailed into the cove instead of out. This would allow the change in momentum to swing [i]Kyne's Tear[/i] on the chains, and hopefully past where the airship would be crashing. In addition, this maneuver would rock the chain anchors within where they burrowed into, allowing for them to be loosened enough for extraction. The chains had to be extracted soon, for if they were not by the time the airship sunk, the [i]Kyne's Tear[/i] would be risked getting dragged down with it. Of course, Karena had to be up there on the bridge, carefully piloting them through the maneuver so that they wouldn't crash into the cliffs surrounding the cove. 

Upon hearing the plan, Gustav set out to rally the mercenaries. Edith and several sailors had already made progress prying out one of the starboard side chains from the lower decks, and with mercenaries there to lend a strong hand, this one and the other starboard chain was removed. On top, in addition to rearranging the sails, Karena now wanted to shift all the weight starboard, in order to counter the imbalance caused by the port side chains. Thankfully, moving the dead dreughs and crew members starboard should do the trick. That was, if everyone could avoid being crushed from an increasing amount of descending wood, brass and gold.

With a lurch forward, the [i]Kyne's Tear[/i] threw itself just beyond the airship's shadow. During the brief process, the ship rocked so violently that a few of its passengers were thrown overboard. It was just in time for the airship balloon to blow up spectacularly. The remaining chains on the port side crumbled down from the top, as whatever attached them to the airship no longer held. One half of the airship split from the other half, thus quickly plummeted into the sea. The other half didn't wait long to crash either. Somewhere in between, the surviving mercenaries jumped. They might have dropped into the water like pebbles, or settled for a hard landing on [i]Kyne's Tea[/i]r's deck. No one knew for certain as the airship husk touched down near [i]Kyne's Tear[/i], creating tall waves and a screen of particles that blanketed the air. The fires that burned on the ship were suddenly washed away.

"Man overboard!" Gustav screamed. It would be impossible to survive that kind of fall, he's certain, but he's also certain about recovering personal equipment (and possibly bodies) before they sunk forever. He marshaled those that still stood to rescue those that were flung over (or jumped from the airship). As he had done so, Gustav tripped on a piece of debris; it was a gold bar the size of his leg.

"What are you looking at?" Gustav scolded at a nearby mercenary. "Go fish our people out!"

"I have more important things to deal with." Gustav declared to no one in particular, and began hauling the gold bar, perhaps the biggest of many that had fallen onboard, back to his own cabin.