The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 718: And Check The Hangar

“Ah, that is a relief. We were worried that we might not get another airship for most of a year, but it should only be a few months before we have another,” Rill sighed.

“Exactly. I can’t guarantee that the balance will remain. But the army is willing to take its time to get airships from us. I suspect that they’re working on a similar design at the Capital City airship factory.

They’ve already started making the magitech cannons for the existing airships, so it wouldn’t shock me if they made a lighter and faster version of our cargo airships loaded with guns for intercepting smugglers and invasion forces.

The age of the airship is just getting started, I suspect.”

The Merchant shrugged. “I’ve heard that there might be alternatives to the airship. Winged aeroplanes.”

Dominic smiled. “Well, that’s an option. But they have their own issues. Like, where are you going to put the cargo if all the fuselage space is taken up by the steam boiler and everything else? You could directly drive the propellors on magic, but that means powerful mages to be pilots.

We thought of using them to intercept Dagos airships during the invasion, and ended up going for magic assisted gliders.”

Rill shrugged. “I’m sure that there will be a solution eventually, even if it does involve some loss of cargo space. That’s not really the point, though. Don’t be afraid to let your people keep innovating, and I’m sure that Wistover will stay on top of magitech development.”

Dominic laughed. “We’ve actually got plans for that, a program to keep top students at the Academy as researchers and teachers.

It’s how the Mage Sects have always done it, but we’re going to give it a little tweak to have them focus on things that the Duchy could use, or ones that might help the businesses in town, instead of focusing on the Sect.”

The Merchant smiled. “Alright, I won’t get upset that we’re going to have to wait a bit for the next airship. It will be enough to keep our merchants happy.

I deliberately set the delivery timing standards low, in case there were delays or changes of design now that there have been a few thousand hours of airtime on the first few. It doesn’t look like they’ve got any surprise structural flaws, though.

That’s actually pretty surprising from a new design.

Normally, we expect them to have to come back to the shop a few times to alter small glitches before they’re truly good to go. It just comes with purchasing a new design.”

Dominic shook his hand and made his way over to the airship factory so that he could check in on them and ensure that everything was going to go smoothly.

The Earl had been informed that his airship was ready, and his Captain should be here soon.

It would take some adjustment before the crew was ready to be left unattended.

They had to go over the functions, controls, features and limitations of the airship before it was safe to send a crew out on their own. Especially if they weren’t hiring one of the Wistover Techno Wizards as their Engineer.

Everyone who had taken delivery so far had hired one of the Techno Wizards that they had taught the basics of repair and maintenance, but Dominic didn’t know if that had been brought up with the Earl.

He certainly had forgotten to mention it.

By the time that he made it across time, Dominic was regretting not going to grab his mechanical horse. Walking through town invited everyone he passed to stop and say hello, or give him a short update on how things were going on their farm, or the various Baronies.

Now, that was all valuable information, which was why he didn’t try to stop them. But it did slow things down quite a lot.

He knocked before entering the shop, but he could tell that nobody would hear him over the sound of hammers and cursing.

“Gentlemen, anything that I can help with?” He called as he walked in.

“Yeah, teach the new guy how to hold a fucking lantern.”

Dominic laughed. “Sorry, that is outside the scope of my abilities. However, it’s good to see that you’ve been productive even while waiting to make a delivery.”

Gully, the airship design team leader, laughed. “Nobody will ever hold a light well enough for a dwarf, which is ironic, considering how well we see in the dark.

Now, are we ready to make this delivery? We’re about set to let it out of the hangar and have our lads teach the Earl’s Techno Wizard how to maintain and operate the systems to their fullest capacity.”

“Oh? I’m surprised that he sent his own. I may have forgotten to tell him that we had some in training. However, we’re going to run out of them again. We’ve got orders for dozens of airships, and I don’t think we have that many trainees.”

Gully winked at him. “We do if we count the apprentices. They can operate the machine well enough, and by the time that we finish our training they’ll be eighty percent of a journeyman anyhow.

After that, they can just learn on the job and cry themselves to sleep until they learn the rest of what they should have picked up already.”

The younger people in the room sighed in defeat. Clearly, they had been the target of the Engineer’s training for some time now. They were all Techno Wizards, though low-level ones fresh out of their respective academies.

But the academy had not prepared them for working directly under a Dwarven master engineer. Gully was extreme in both his techniques and his knowledge level, which made him immediately assume everyone else should be as well.

“I’ve informed the Merchants about the schedule. Go ahead and launch, so you can get the airworthiness testing done. I’m sure that the Earl will appreciate the good news.”