"...we can have a working line for reloading bullets if we follow this blueprint." Dan found himself listening to his chief engineer, having a conversation he never in his life thought he would have to discuss. "We just need to get a few measurements to tweak it to our needs, but other than that it is really feasible."

  "What is powering it though?" he asked as he went through the blueprint again. He would be lying if he said that he got everything it was saying, but he got enough.

  "For now electricity," William chuckled, "I tried having my skill have a go at it, and guess what? It seems that getting it to work by magic is much easier than having it run on electricity. With the power source set as magical, my skill only had me make place for something called a mana crystal, had the metal be mixed with some weird materials that I'm sure are magical in nature, and specified measurements for something called runic paths."

  "That doesn't mean that we have the materials for it though," Dan said as he pointed at the last page of the papers given to him.

  The page gave all the needed materials, and the Voyager for sure didn't have them. Not mentioning the magical materials, which he was sure got put there by William for them to experiment with, just the steel and other metals needed for the reloading line to be built weren't available on the Voyager. That was all before bringing up the materials for reloading the bullets themselves, the materials needed for the gunpowder wouldn't be easy to acquire after all.

  "That's why I came to you," Wiliam said, "We can see about getting some of these resources from land, I doubt it would be that hard."

  "It might not be hard," Dan said slowly, "But these materials are still going to be somehow expensive, I'm not saying that we can't afford it, but it would be a gamble on a finite resource."

  "We should go for it," William said, his voice was serious, in that tone he only used when he needed to get an important point across no matter what, "If we get this reloading line going, we won't have to worry about one of our most pressing problems, our limited ammunition. Just imagine how any of the dangerous situations we found ourselves in would have gone if we didn't have any bullets? What do you think would have happened to us?"

  "I get it, I get it," Dan said as he massaged his head, he wasn't mentioning those things because he didn't see the importance of what was in his hands, but because... "If we go with this, just acquiring the materials is going to be a mission that might put all the people joining it in great danger. And honestly, I don't know how good this blueprint is, I need to have your assurance that this is worth it, that it's worth the dangers we are going to put our people through for it. Tell me that and I'm going to call Marcus and the others right this moment to plan a course of action."

  That was the problem, Dan understood the importance of ammunition, they were the main source of their safety before they got enough levels to stand on their own. Once they ran out, they could only run. But he needed to know that this would work, only after that would he give his approval.

  "You have my assurance, this is important," William said without any hesitation, "Not just for what it is now, reloading casings wouldn't need a specialised line, it could be simplified to a reloading station, but I'm going with this because if it works, this part of the design for the bullet manufacturing would be already ready for use. Hell, if I didn't think this would work, I wouldn't have sent Francis and Linda away to see if any part needed fixing before the first prototype. I'm treating this as an ongoing project already."

  "That's all I needed to hear." Dan nodded before bringing his walkie-talkie and contacting Marcus. "Hi, Marcus, it's Dan. Is Old Raily with you? Over."

  "Yes," the answer came fast, "We are taking care of the guns we used before. Over."

  "Good, can you please bring him with you and meet me at the bridge? Something extremely important came up. Over." He cut to the chase.

  "Understood, will be there soon, over." The line was cut with that.

  They didn't have to wait for long, Marcus and Old Raily soon walked onto the bridge before making their way towards them.

  "What is it?" Old Raily asked, straight to the point.

  "Something came up," Dan said as he passed them the papers in his hands, "We might have to change some of our plans."

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The pair looked over the papers together, just the title at the top made them stand up straighter, their expressions turning even more serious.

  "Is this legit?" Marcus asked before he had even finished reading.

  "Yes, if we have all the materials listed in there, we would be able to reload bullets, possibly even take the first step towards manufacturing our own," William said seriously.

  "This changes our plans," Old Raily murmured.

  "I know." Dan knew what he meant.

  At that moment, they had already made a plan for heading to the Sticky Reefs. It had them move at night and dock at the fringes of forbidden zones during mornings, till they made it to their target.

  The introduction of this meant that that plan wasn't feasible any more, they had to consider a location to hit and get the materials they needed from.

  "If we are hitting land for materials," Marcus suddenly said, "Why don't we get all what we might need? Not just these. We can see what everyone needs and get it in one single trip, even food and some other necessities."

  "I thought of the same thing before," Dan nodded, "The only thing holding me back then was how the food we have is enough for us, and going to land would be an unnecessary risk. This changes that though, ammunition is worth the risk. We will see about making a list with all what our people might need."

  "What about the capital?" Old Raily brought something Dan knew would be brought up, it was just that this time he had an answer to that.

  "We can go with what we used last time," Marcus beat Dan to it.

  "I know, and it's the first thing that came to mind when Fleta used her earrings last time," he said as he massaged his head, "I felt like an idiot for forgetting about the gold we have here, making her use her own for the exchange."

  "It wasn't just you," Marcus said as he sighed, "All of us forgot about the whole retail avenue."

  "Do you think we should go for the jewelry or something else?" Dan asked something that had been in his mind ever since he remembered the wealth of objects they had in that area of deck 8. "We can choose anything from jewelry, different clothing from fashion brands, and luxury watches, to even skin care products, shampoos and perfumes."

  As Dan spoke he really wanted to hide his head in shame, he couldn't believe he forgot all about that the first time they went to the shore. The Voyager had hundreds of brands, in every possible category. The only excuse he could come up with was that too much was happening and he couldn't think of it all.

  "Let's keep it safe for now," Marcus thought for a second before saying, "Let's just take jewelry first and some of the perfumes and other similar products as samples. That should be our safest bet."

  "So this is it?" Dan said as he looked at the people there, "This is our new plan?"

  "That's basically it I think," William said, seeming quite happy that they were getting the materials to start their project, "It seems good for me."

  "What city or town are we hitting?" Dan brought up something that needed to be considered, "If there are no big nearby cities for us to get our materials, we would be stuck moving for long distances wasting fuel we can't replace."

  "I have been looking at the map of the area around the Sticky Reefs," Marcus said, speaking slowly, "You know, after I knew that we had it as our next target, and I noticed a familiar name, Rosereef Port."

  Dan didn't know what his chief security officer meant with that name, nor why he brought it as an answer to his question. He did feel that he had heard it before, but couldn't say exactly when. As he tried to dig deeper into his memories he realised when he had heard it,

  "The place Corgan told us about," he said with a deep frown. He didn't really want to deal with the islanders again, "The possible location where there's some guy who could lead us to one of the biggest black markets of this part of the coast?"

  Dan didn't quite remember what Corgan had said, but that didn't mean that he had just forgotten it, even though he doubted they would ever make use of it, he had still written the names of the place and person in his notes app.

  "Yes," Marcus said, "It might be a risk, but we can lower the chances of anything going south by being prepared enough."

  "So what?" Dan asked as he looked at the group, "We make our way South towards the Sticky Reefs, hitting Rosereef for the black market and doing our exchange, before continuing again to the Sticky Reefs."

  "We can first see about selling the jewellery and getting our materials through other means," William said, "Before going for the black market, I mean. Who knows, we might not even need to use it."

  "Okay, in that case I don't really see any reason to say no," Dan eventually said, "Not to mention how it seems to be our only choice at the moment."

  The others all were into it. They talked some more about some of the finer details before deciding to bring it up with the others later on.