The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 501: Send Aid

Dominic examined the airship, then looked out the window at the weather.

"You know, despite the weather not being great, this would actually be a great time to test the airship. We could send it to Darden or Burton to pick up some Nobles and supplies.

That’s a twelve-hour round trip at cruising speed, plus loading time. It certainly isn’t optimal, leaving this late. But Causter might not have what we need." He suggested.

The dwarves frowned. "Actually, loading it with food and sending it to Castle City would be a good test as well, and they still need it, as the fields are regrowing from the attacks, and they’re still flooded with refugees."

"Should we move it to the airship loading area near the Merchant Guild as the test of function, and then send some of them along on the trip as observers?

You can show them what it takes to fly the thing, how much magic and skill.

Testing it in poor conditions might convince them that we’re extremely confident in our design, to the point that we don’t feel the need to test in perfect conditions first."

The dwarves laughed. "You know that is a safety thing, not a confidence matter, right? Everyone on a test flight equips a parachute, in case things go catastrophically wrong due to an engineering oversight.

We are all confident that it will be fine, but the Guild might not appreciate us overlooking basic safety procedures. Especially when they were the ones who created them."

"Fine, we can wait for the storm to pass before we send it out.

But excellent work getting it ready so fast. There isn’t anything like this in the sky, and with all the evacuations that are being called, we might actually have a good use for it very soon."

The dwarves waited for him to continue. The airship would be in huge demand, of course there was a good use for it.

"You see, all sorts of farms are getting flooded out in Dagos territories. Wouldn’t it just be properly humane of us to go rescue some of the livestock before they drowned?"

Team leader Gully grinned and poured an ale. "Now you’re talking. I suppose that for a humanitarian emergency, there is no reason that we couldn’t deploy the airship before it has finished testing."

"Goats? Are we going to get goats?" Dave asked from the door.

Gully smiled. "Yes, I think that we are. We will inform the Guild that we ignored safety protocol in the name of saving lives. They don’t have to know that we’re only going for the livestock.

If we head northwest to the Skipton River, it will take us half the day to get there, but we should be able to find some livestock to rescue with the amount of flooding that has been reported in the area.

It’s all Dagos controlled, though. So, we might get into the ugly stuff earlier than planned.

Everything that Dagos controls seems to be getting hit with monster storms right now, like the old King is taking vengeance on them for his death. But I reckon that if we happen to find livestock with a farmer, we could relocate them all as a group."

That was fair. The farmers were all Wavemates locals anyhow, folks who had been here for generations. There was no good reason not to rescue them, just because they were on the wrong side of the current border.

If they were questioned about it, he could just call it humanitarian work by the Guilds, and nothing to do with him other than supplying the airship.

No harm, no foul.

Well, there could be some fouling. Picking up an entire herd of sheep or cattle in the airship would require significant cleaning when they returned.

"Boys, start preparing to depart. Open the hangar doors, prepare the guide chains, and the ballast bags. The wind isn’t too high to get out of the dock yet, so we should make our move." Gully ordered.

The airship hangar broke into action, with everyone scrambling about to get the last bits of preparation to fly done, and finishing preflight checks that weren’t scheduled to be done for a few more days.

Picking up people in the cargo hold was easy, and there was plenty of room up front, even in cargo configuration.

It was all about how many head of livestock they could load into the cargo compartment.

In theory, they could get over a hundred head of cattle in the hold, given that they usually weighed about five hundred kilos fully grown. But Dagos had been in drought a long time, so there was a good chance they would be underweight compared to local beef, and they would run out of space before they hit maximum weight.

The turbines were powered on as the steam vessel came up to temperature with fire magic, and the thrust nozzles were tested and adjusted so it was mostly moving on its own at a slow walk.

The extra thrust helped keep the wind from smashing it into the building as they led it outside, and Dominic realized that he had made an oversight when he designed the warehouse.

It would have been better to have the cranes move fully out of the way and the roof open than to have one end open, so the airship could be led out.

It would be faster, with less chance of damage.

However, they did manage to get it out without incident, and every one of the Dwarves loaded on board, along with two of the Trolls. The prospect of rescuing a whole flock of goats was too great for them to allow the Dwarves to go alone.

They wouldn’t have any updates on the rescue until later in the day, the northern border of Stansia Province was five hundred kilometres away. But they would have performance numbers right away.

Dominic watched in satisfaction as they got ready to depart, and was so intent on the spectacle of the giant airship that he didn’t even notice the frantic Merchant running his way until the man started shouting his name.

"Duke Dominic! Are they testing the new airship? Please ask them to hold. We have an emergency shipment to go to Lympsbury, and none of our airships can fly in headwinds over fifty kilometres an hour.

That one can, right? It’s got a mostly rigid envelope, so it should be able to."

Dominic nodded. "It’s going out for a first test flight, and a humanitarian rescue of farmers in the border region who are facing flash flooding. It’s not cleared to carry cargo for hire yet."

The Merchant shook his head. "I don’t think that matters right now. There is a caravan outside Lympsbury, coming from Kinewen, and the Count escorting them has been infected with a highly lethal virus.

The medicine for it doesn’t grow anywhere else in the region, but the Witches had some prepared.

We need to get it to him and the Noble Ladies with him before someone has to explain to the King of Axbridge that we lost them to bandits en route."

Bandits using virus attacks? That was not something that Dominic could overlook.