The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 460: Frivolous Magic

The thought of using magic in such a frivolous way was shocking to the engineers.

Magic was powerful and sacred, it was for grand projects, the betterment of society, removing the monstrous threats to humanity and... The dragon had a point.

There really wasn’t any reason not to just give tow truck drivers magitech to lift stuck vehicles out of the mud other than the mages’ pride.

"That’s actually a good idea as well. Tow trucks to bring back broken down carriages and tractors, so they can be repaired in the shop instead of sending a mechanic into the fields to do it.

It would save trips and time." Gully agreed.

"I will recommend it to the tractor maker and the shops at the cargo docks. They will be the ones that need one, and they could just fit a crane to an existing piece of equipment, I think." Dominic suggested.

"Or a service truck. You could load up a specialty truck with a crane, a forge, spare parts and such, then send out a team of repair technicians. It would be glorious. And, it would let us repair the tractors right where they were without the need for mechanics in every Barony.

There are only a couple here, according to the Guild, but they say that Wistover is supposed to get twenty more Barons once the war is settled.

That’s a lot of territory to cover, and a lot of specialized training to keep all the equipment running. No blacksmith wants that sort of hassle, going to make small repairs, or having broken down equipment dropped in his yard.

Not when he could send an apprentice with a truck to do the work."

Dominic laughed at the thought. He had been that apprentice once, sent along on a trip with a merchant caravan so that he could fix what inevitably broke. But now, they were sending magitech tractors to every field, so they would need more repair workers.

"This really is a vicious cycle. The more we improve things, the more trained workers we need. But the more trained workers we have, the more stuff we need for the lifestyle they can afford, which means we need more skilled workers to produce what the last batch wants to buy.

A good problem to have, I suppose. Yet still a problem."

Gully sighed as he looked at the factory space, and then the design in front of him.

"Gentlemen, we have one issue. The factory is not large enough for the design that we have. It’s a truly cavernous warehouse, but this design, scaled up to the level where we can confidently carry fifty tonnes without magic, is too large to fit."

Everyone frowned as they stared at the room. How had they overlooked that?

"Well, we can make a slightly smaller one first? Or reshape it. The warehouse is long enough, it’s just not tall enough."

"Or we can skip on the nonmagical version."

"No, that’s a safety feature, so it doesn’t crash immediately if the mage has a medical issue. That wouldn’t be good for our reputation."

"Back to the drawing board, gentlemen. Let’s make a design that fits in the factory."

The dwarves were laughing as they added a box for the factory to the designs, and then began the work of redesigning the airship without losing significant volume.

Flat on the bottom, oval in shape with a narrower top. That was the best compromise to fit in the warehouse as they made it, and it would generate lift as it was flying, which would make it easier to control.

In theory, this was an improvement on the original, and they added enlarged rear control surfaces, as well as fully adjustable thrusters mounted to the sides of the lower cargo area, where they would be easily accessible, instead of the rear of the ship, which had been the standard to avoid hitting anything expensive when they were loading.

"This is going to be a monstrosity of a vehicle when we finish." Gully sighed, then drew a new draft which put two of the thrusters on the lower corners of the envelope, and one at the back of the cargo compartment.

That was better, and it put the line of thrust further from the centre, for easier manoeuvring.

For an airship this size and weight, it would be slow to change directions, even with the largest of control surfaces, and the location of the thrust was as important as the amount of thrust that you could generate.

The one at the rear of the hold would be the primary forward thruster, and it was a stationary mount, while the other two could swivel to face whatever direction they needed, even straight down, to force the airship onto the ground while it was unloaded, so sudden shifts in weight didn’t strain the mooring lines.

"Do you think that’s enough? Or should we make the rear of the cabin thruster variable as well?" One of the engineers asked.

Gully gestured to a set of airflow notes on a discarded page. "It should be fine. In motion, there is plenty of airflow both from movement and the thrusters, so it won’t struggle to stay on the ground.

However, if we put chambers in the ballast compartment, we can adjust back and forth as they unload the airship."

What had been a simple concept was quickly turning into a highly developed piece of magitech technology. Compared to the airships that came before it, this one would be a true marvel of engineering, and even the double containment for the helium was all about safety and redundancy.

Now, they just needed to make another model, and then perhaps bring it to Rill so that he could confer with the other senior members of the Merchant’s Guild about the design specifications before the first unit was built.

Having the right customer input could make or break the project when it came time to spread them across the continent.

And they would spread, given the speed and capacity that they should have. They might even be capable of leaving the continent entirely, to do trans ocean shipping much faster than a standard cargo caravel or merchant cutter.