Malek looks taken aback by the news of the Qara-Suu invasion, but Captain Amr appears to have more important things on his mind. He pats the speechless Malek on the shoulder and says “I’ve got captain duties to attend to.” Amr walks to the far end of the table and picks up the pile of money that had formed. Before any of the sailors can protest, Amr says “Seeing as you all lost the bet, it falls on me, as your captain, to collect the winnings.” Captain Amr smiles and puts the money in a bag. With a few sighs of defeat the sailors go back about their business. Em, about to form his own protest, was quickly shut up by a sailor beside him.

Amr sits back down in his seat, kicks back and rests his feet on the table, like he was about to take a nap. Malek coming back to his senses asks “I won’t bother asking why I was not informed about this either, but are you not going to respond to the Khwarezm?”

“What!” Amr says, sitting up straight again. “You mean he finally talked? Hmm...” Amr considers, “must have missed it; so many more interesting things going on. So what the boring little guy say this time?”

Malek responds “He wants us to come to him-”

“Of course he does,” Amr interrupts, “he’s in the middle of a desert, no water there!”

Malek ignores the interruption and continues, “He also spoke of the battle-”

“He calls fighting those land-lovin’ peasants a battle! Wait, wait, wasn’t that fool from the old Imamate leading that rabble. I heard those idiots went running for the hills after they heard of the Khwarezm’s castle crushing ballista. Surprised the Khwarezm could even find them. Sure is unfortunate we had to destroy that ballista, though, would have been a nice addition to my ship. Imagine a powerful piece of equipment like that on a ship; probable punch through a ship’s hull with a single shot. Wouldn’t even have to bother with boarding any more; could be sinking ships before they probably even knew we were there...” At this point Malek just tunes Amr out, as the Captain continues to imagine all the possibilities of such a wondrous machine.