'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 4: The System

Airship 2511 Thunder

Friday, 25th November 1442

It was a glorious morning that we as well as the children, Heather and I had loggered our heads together to think and find the best possible way of how to bring the wood elves Adventurers on land since the Baobab trees were still growing on clusters around the perimeter of our lands before the 'V' defensive gorges.

The Baobab trees would take as long as another 3 months before it would be matured as an adult.

It is much more different from the orchard trees that normally take about 3 weeks to mature.

Since Baobab trees were considered as the Tree of Life, it would take that long to be able to provide the most fire-resistant trees and wood around the perimeter.

Not only that, but it would also give any incoming enemies a bottleneck there they could find it had to traverse before being barraged by our arrows...!

Furthermore, it would need some time for the wood elves Adventurers to readjust themselves and be living and socialising with the humans which they had done so once in their very lives.

We all were having our mid-morning tea when an engineer from the Engineering guild came over to our house to announce that the new airship had been ready along with another 6 more AAV.

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"Daddy, it had been splendid to know now that we have another 6 more AAV, am I right? This would make our perimeter defences to be protected at all times."

HRH JR was delighted to find out about the addition of the AAV to our military force and this comes up to 18 altogether.

I knew that HRH JR was looking into at least 24 or 36 AAV to be mobilised for the military force and I had no idea of what's on his mind when he requested this many to be deployed.

Would he be looking into taking over another territory in this lands but there are not many lands that have their own Lord and Ladies anymore.

This is because all the Lord and Ladies had brought their settlers over to our town to take up temporary residency which would be converted to permanent somewhere between 12 to 36 months time.

Ah well, as long as he knows what his little brain is up to I won't mind a bit this beats having 80 forts and deploying hundreds of militia out there like sitting ducks.

Currently, these militias would be happy to be put and about in their AAV and be working rotational shifts to keep our town safe.

"Daddy... Daddy... Let's go and see the other airship, pretty please...! We know it is going to be the same one but we haven't given it its name right?"

HRH Amy was already pulling on Heather's arm and ushered out of the house excitedly but I announced to them that I had already christened it to 'Airship Thunder'. Only the numerical code was not been issued yet.

"Honey, since its the 25th November, why not use 2511 Thunder instead? It's an additional one more digit but I'm sure they would not mind getting calling it out. The earlier one was  released on 9th November, right?"

Heather was suggesting it to me and calling the new airship as 2511 Thunder would not be so bad after all. "Two Five Eleven approaching the landing site. Bzz Bzz bzzz..."

"Daddy, not bad. Two five-eleven is a nice code and I am sure there would be people getting to buy these lucky numbers at the punters already. Hehehe."

HRH Amy and JR were laughing when they had heard about these 4 digit codes and found that it would be a good idea for the new airship to have them.

They were buzzing around the house as they clamoured on the Dragon Boat. This time it was more to their Mummy who traversed the Dragon Boat as I allowed the autonomy for Heather to bring the children around whenever she is free.

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"Your Majesty, we have already codenamed and christened the airship accordingly and now it's time to christen the next 6 AAV they would be in service by today. Would anyone like to give their names by then?"

The engineers asked as we reached there to inspect the floating airship which had a variant on the propellers on both sides of the Blimp. Instead of two on both sides near the aft, there are now 2 kite propellers near the bow as well.

The propellers were able to be manipulated in such a manner that it would be pointing downwards, giving it a kind of lift like a vertical take-off or landing.

There would be an absence of mooring ropes for the aircrewmen to rappel down to secure the airship in the future.

The new functions of the propeller giving the airship a vertical take-off or landing functions gave me an idea to upgrade the first airship as well to have similar functions.

"Great idea, engineers. You had made a new innovation that only us have them. Hahaha. VTOL — Vertical take-off and landing. Such a catchy acronym, don't you think so?"

I appraised the engineers about the new implementations and they really wanted to name the airship as Harriet since it was taken from the concept of fighter warplanes at least more than 500 years in the future...!

The designs for the VTOL was actually handed up by both HRH JR and HRH Amy when they had copied some of the samples to refer to the engineers way back in the earlier trips to the realm.

Luckily they didn't go and design an aeroplane just yet and it would even be a surprise and shocker for the Wright brothers. Hahaha.

Right now with the concept of the VTOL, the airship could be considered as a new revolution of air travel and I am sure if King Edward IV sees this, he would want for this military force as well...!

Frankly, do you think it is that bloody easy to come knocking at our doors and ask for one to serve them? Let me fart in your general direction and let you smell my flatulence... Muahahaha. Fat chance, King Edward IV...!

"Alright engineers, I do have decided on the names of the 6 AAV that you would be rolling out later and there would be as follows:

AAV-013 HMS Gallant

AAV-014 HMS Freedom

AAV-015 HMS Endurance

AAV-016 HMS Persistence

AAV-017 HMS Resolution

AAV-018 HMS Endeavour

The engineers bobbed his head as he took down the notes for the names of the new AAV that would be rolled out sometime today and the children were happy to find that the names of all the AAV were quite awesome.

Compared to the airships, we had 911 Lightning and then 2511 Thunder which would be a great accompaniment to protect the skies and also to offload the promised obsidian pieces by Doc by the tonnes and the mithril pieces that would be used to design new pieces of armour for the militia and also the wood elves Adventurers too.

Even though they would prefer the normal leather armour that we were used to wearing but right now we need to upgrade the pieces of armour for the military force since the weapons used by the enemies had also increased in formidability.

"That's great engineer. Could you summon the captain since I would like to have a word with him?"

The engineer saluted me and ran off in the direction of the Engineering guild and moments later a young lad appeared and addressed himself as the new captain of the 2511 Thunder.

"Great, we have a mission on 27th November and we would need to ferry up as much obsidian pieces as we could. There would be a patch to land at Hellsgate and from there at least 3 tonnes of obsidian pieces would be donated to us and that would be used to make more weapon pieces for our own use."

"Besides, there would be a group of wood elves adventurers that are slightly green-skinned and have all the features like a normal elf but none of their magical skills."

"Half would go on Thunder and the rest would go on Lightning. It depends since Lightning would also be ferrying about a tonne of mithril pieces. So most probably the whole elfen kin would ride on Lightning."

The new captain looked at me with a slightly confused look on his face until he gave his thumbs up and finally realised what I was talking about.

"Will do, Your Majesty. We would be heading out for a trial later and would begin our sky patrol at 1500 hours."

When we heard that, we were very delighted to find two airships would be moving out in the air and be our overwatch as well as our early warning system as what HRH JR had mentioned weeks back.

"Well guys, we are done here at the launching site for the new airship. Seems that the new airship would be faster and manoeuvrable than the earlier version."

"I guess the earlier airship would be coming in to fit in the new propellers systems to its carriage. At least with the new propellers, the airship would not need to have a mooring line and then it could easily be able to land on its own."

"The only thing is how fast would the descent be since of its too fast the impact would crush the air ship's carriage...!"

I noted of it and the engineer who was around heard about it. Too bad there was no one there to be able to make the altimeter to gauge the height and speed of the how low a or high and how slow or fast the airship was going.

The children were delighted to know of the whole process and can't wait to go and head over to Safehaven this time on a Saturday, so at least we would be able to spend some time fishing with them.

Since there was a cauldron there to boil the ears of corn, the only thing that we would bring over with us would be a chiller box which we intend to leave it there for future use.

Besides we would also remember to bring our plates and bowls on the future because Heather informed me that Aerin and Artemis pulled such a long face when they were 'forced' to cut down the broad leaves to serve as plates for the boiled ears of corn.

"Dear, maybe I should bring the steamer rack along to place on top of the cauldron. There would be monkey nuts and do you think it would be a great idea to plant them around the small island in the middle of the duck pond?"

"You can bring the steamer rack, my dear nut then I think you had forgotten they the perimeter of the small island of the duck pond had been utilised to grow the Stanspar shards that had been used to convert the poor quality gems right to be perfect ones."

It would be another week or two before I would have more than enough Stanspar shards to make those perfect quality jewels. By that time, I guess I would be able to fashion a new type of armours for the militia.

"Audemars, if you intend to make full use of the mithril pieces, you either need to smelt them down to make them into plates or you could even make either the following — standard mithril plates, refined mithril plates and even purified mithril plates."

"In order to achieve such quality mithril plates, the only thing you could do is to be a blacksmith. Just like Old Jack. You can train to be a blacksmith from Old Jack first before you conjure back the whole blacksmithing area on your realm."

"I still have the default so-called template to actually build up the blacksmithing area for you and from there you would be able to forge those mithril pieces into ingots."

"By the way, you need to transfer back the coals from the smelting area down to the blacksmithing area once you are ready to be a part-time casual blacksmith."

"The works are not easy, alright... You can only make the normal mithril pieces first. Other than that, you can progress on as you hammer on those mithril pieces."

Ceres was telling me all about the mithril pieces that need to be turned into ingots in the way like the blacksmith that my past characters were exposed to.

Besides smelting then would have a loss of at least 10% to 20% of mithril particles since it would be scooped out as slag at the end of the day.

There seemed to be nowhere for us to refine the slag in order to get the remaining particles of mithril before its being set aside for the void to swallow the slag away.

"So, the only way I could do is to actually forge the mithril pieces just like a piece of iron ore, as what my past predecessors had done before?"

I don't mind the hard work and was also anticipating the hammering of those pieces as I would be taking the matter as seriously as possible.

"Yes, Audemars. Remember, the mithril pieces are lighter and much stronger and durable than steel so you need to have the basic fundamentals of holding the hammer, the hammering process, your stances et cetera."

"The only person that would be the best  teacher for you would be Old Jack as he had many dozens of years expertise in turning ores into pig irons or ingots...!"

Right after I had spoken to Ceres, I announced to my children and Heather, "I will be a blacksmith once the mithril pieces arrive in our hands."

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Dear friends, if you spot any errors, please leave your comments in the paragraphs or the chapter section. Thank you for the POWERSTONES and God Bless.