The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 543: Prototype Sold

The warhorse was going to be a lovely addition to the Manor, and Dominic could use it to get around in style, without needing to run all over town anymore.

For the next few minutes, he focused on clearing the old links, and realigning them to himself so that the horse would properly obey his commands, and not simply follow when ordered, as it would for a stable hand.

Then, the ride was his. His own personal warhorse.

“You know that your wife is going to find a way to steal that from you, right?” Gully joked as Dominic finished bonding the horse to him.

“That’s fine. I will find her another one and customize the exterior for her. That will make her much happier than a repainted Dagos warhorse. Really, we should buy a whole bunch of them for the Barons and Knights, as they were all trained as cavalry.

But that is expensive, and we’re spending everything on renovations to the city.”

That made the Dwarves laugh. They were spending far less than any other city on renovations, as the Infrastructure team was doing most of the work, and they were paid directly by the King. Even if Dominic was topping off their wages with bonuses.

“Talk to the Merchants, they can arrange for a whole new set. If the Princess has one, then her Guards need them as well.

Then, after the guards have them, we will start needing them for the delivery teams, so they don’t need to use a tractor to pull wagons of supplies.”

Dominic nodded at the mechanical mules. “Those should do just fine for pulling delivery wagons. Even the Palace uses them to deliver supplies to the troops.”

“Good point. I was thinking about how they’re so useful in the fields, but I forgot that they are also very useful for deliveries, as they never get tired.

You’re likely going to need more tractors, too.”

“Fortunately, we have that covered. The carriage maker has started making magitech tractors, and they’ve moved to a larger warehouse to use as a factory.

It was the Merchants’ idea, in case a steam tractor was too damaged to be quickly repaired, and the merchant in charge of the caravan had the money.

But it will also do very well to make the smaller tractors for use in individual fields.

Pops has started making a lot of implements on top of his usual tools, so they’ll have something to pull behind the tractors, and as it happens, the small ones are surprisingly affordable to make, now that we’ve managed to get nearly everyone magitech orbs for materials creation.

The only issue I see is that so many of them transmute clay, and not just any sort of earth.

If we start running low on clay, we could be in trouble.

We are also using it for the airship materials, and those definitely need the best quality clay. But I will figure something out.”

“Well, there is plenty of clay-based soil in the region. I’m sure that they can come up with another clay pit somewhere that’s not suitable for farming.

At least it’s just the products and not the buildings that need it. Being able to just construct buildings like this is a real cheat. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a city going up this fast before.

We might feel overcrowded right now, but the lads have heard that there are other specialists just waiting for somewhere to settle before they set up shop.

Not all of them want to be in the city, I suspect that they’re looking to be the personal artisan for one of the Barons. It’s great job security to do it that way, and they don’t compete directly with the shops in the city.

It will also spread out the wealth some.” Gully agreed.

The last of the goods from the airship were moved to a warehouse, where Dominic was certain they would be claimed to replace damaged items in a Barony or Knightly estate.

Then, a pressure washer was brought to clean out the bedding and droppings from the goats, so the airship could be deployed again.

“You’ve got this down to a science. I will leave you to your work, just let me know when you want to turn this over to the Guild, who has already offered to purchase it. Once they take over, you can work on the next one, with any refinements that you might want to make.”

Gully laughed. “With the changes we’ve made to this one, I’m not sure that the next one needs to be different. We’re averaging well over a hundred kilometres an hour in the air with only the steam turbines.

If we add wind magic to the mix, we can push that closer to a hundred and fifty. That’s more than enough. By air, it’s only about sixteen hundred kilometres to Cygnia City. That’s under one day.

We might not be able to make a round trip in a day, but we can load in the morning, unload at night and repeat it the next day, with only a minimal loss of sleep.

We’ve altered the crew section of this cargo layout to have six rack style bunks in it, so everyone who is not actively on duty can sleep.

That lets us run continually, and we’ve fitted floodlights for landing and loading.

Truly an all-hours vessel.

Now, if these insane storm winds will calm down, we should be ready to go. The only things we can’t properly handle are winds over sixty kilometres an hour, as it’s impossible to hold course, or lightning.

For some reason, the magitech turbines seem to attract it, and even flying near a storm will generate enough static that your hair will begin to stand on end.”

As they were talking, a finely dressed man with a growing belly and multiple gold chains around his neck made his way over.

“Did I hear right? This one is nearly finished initial testing and ready for sale?”

Dominic nodded. “It’s already been sold to the Guild. It’s just waiting on delivery, as this is the prototype, and we don’t want to deliver an airship with issues.”

The Merchant smiled. “Oh, I’m well aware. We’re all eagerly awaiting the day that we can get our hands on this new style airship. There is a five point supply run that we would like to put it on.”

“Oh?”

“Wistover to Witheton in Axbridge, then Mitfield City, to Cygnia City, and finally Northinta in West Keria before returning to Wistover.

With its speed, the only leg of that which is more than a day is Witheton to Mitfield. But that is also a route that is horribly under served, as there are so many cities in between.”

If they went over land, and crossed western Stansia Province, there were at least six major cities along the road between the two capitals.

By the time that they got from one to the other, their entire cargo was likely to have been replaced at least once.

Dominic turned to the dwarves, who nodded in agreement.

“Alright, I think that we have tested enough, and the major bugs have been worked out. Gully, have you trained a technician to go with the airship?”

“Of course. The Guild sent one of their lads along with us every day. He’s got a good grasp of it, and he was already a journeyman Techno Wizard.”