Chapter 9: Ch.5.75: Some Assembly Required Part II

Augeo ;this is intrinsic magic also known as augmentation. To bring about its intended effect, it first has to act upon a mage or an artefact upon the mage’s person before something is realized. There is a blurred line between such magic and skills and this is covered in depth under Introduction to Battle Magic for those undergoing such specializations. All Skills can be considered Augeo but not all Augeo can be Skills. From: Introduction to Arcane Workings, Curricula of Magecraft, Xzerion Institute and Arcanum.

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Despite putting his entire oomph to it, smoothing the wood wrung him out. The ironwood was very resilient. Whatever blade the plane had been made of, it was a surprise that it hadn’t gone blunt

‘Another [Eversharp] rune,’ Arthur noted as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Woodwork, at least was straightforward―he didn’t need a tome for that. As for the design, what he was aiming for was a longboard slightly south of 8 feet which would put it at least 2 metres or its equivalent in the dwarven metronic system.

There was no steel tape but notching new measures on a piece of dwarven steel with extraordinarily sharp chisels was a piece of cake. The deviations and errors would not encumber him so.

Arthur then hollowed out the board a quarter ways to the back to make an engine emplacement and drilled a hole for the mast slot. He also made another slightly shorter board with some allowance that he could just rivet to the main body―it was halfway done because chiseling out wood was harder than it was worth.

Would he have shaped a sheet of steel, things would have gone quicker but he cared for aesthetics. He took his liberties with it because, unlike actual wood, there was no danger of the worked pieces splitting along the grain in ways he didn’t want

The engine would be distributed halfway inside the main body and half in the lower then secured with rivets. Heating up the bolts and letting them cool was a great way to get things sealed up snugly.

When done, the board was going to be thicker at the back, bulging underneath but maintaining the overall dynamic shape instead of making the board look like a shoe sole or a ramjet. He’d worked around plane wings way too many times to forget.

The front portion of the board also had to undergo the same treatment so that he could sandwich the aerostat floats in between

‘Joy, more woodwork,’ Arthur mused.

By the time he’d gotten to a level satisfactory to down his tools, it was already evening. The next phase would take closer to a nundine because it was finer work. He’d also have to spend some of that time reading the beginner material on smithing just to start using the arcane forge too.

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“ You have been busy,” Aeskyre said as she took in the scene in the workshop. The floor was covered in metallic gray wood chipping and Arthur was just about nursing his wrists as he set down the tool chest. He’d used the rest of his time to organize the tools he’d want in one place by emptying one and making his choice picks from others.

“ That I have,” Arthur replied as he took off his gloves. He dragged a heavy stool and slumped on it before massaging his temples. “ Looks like it will take forever to get things done,” he smiled wryly.

A plethora of tool chests lay scattered around him. Every tool chest he rummaged had the eccentricities of its uses, sigaldry and names that he’d grown to associate with the dwarves. Goldfinger's tools had to have been a jeweler’s while Irontooth had the heavy duty tools that couldn’t have been anything but maintenance tools for the ill-fated ship from which Aeskyre had gotten it.

“ Hmph!, “ Aeskyre snorted . “ I can tell you’re too proud to ask for my assistance.” the woman added. She sauntered between the work tables, right up to the two parts of the board that Arthur was still fabricating and then peered at the blue print alongside seeming to read his notes as if she’d known the language all along.

Before Arthur could respond―

“Allow me,” she said as her eyes glinted. Her aura became palpable, thickening the air with static charge so much that Arthur thought a storm was brewing. Metal flew off the supply crates, toppling some in its flight as it came to levitate above her head. Some of the ingots halted mid-flight. With a twitch of her fingers, Arthur watched the dwarf-steel groan and buckle, contorting into each shape he’d drawn up before flying into an empty crate. He’d have to check those for stress. However, Aeskyre wasn't done—

“ Avert your eyes,” she warned. Arthur had the barest of breaths to slap down the dwarven goggles before the air exploded with eye-searing brightness. More metal flew into the air. The heat was a literal furnace burning in the middle of the workshop. In spite of the goggles' tinting , it took shielding his eyes to chance a squint at what the brazen woman was doing.

Aeskyre was manipulating molten metal like putty, shaping several things at once. Lightning was arcing through them, maintaining its liquefied state as she molded it with telekinesis.

Props large and small formed, accompanied by condenser turbines with their fine toothed tilted blades. Beads of isolated metal coalesced into ball bearings, bolts and the smallest components which would have required precision work and trial and error to make.

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Larger specimens turned into shafts condensing chambers, the main thaumic reaction chambers and the nozzles. It was then that he realized she'd made most of the components of the first and the second iteration of his engines.

By the time his skin had gotten uncomfortably dry and the air harder to breathe, the light died out and Aeskyre's aura retracted. Arthur blinked the spots from his eyes, peering towards the storm of metal floating around the draconic woman. He recognized the metal that had been used; most had a copper tinge—red mithril, a few had blue accents for blue mithril the rest had a sterile sheen of an unknown metal—

' Is that aluminium?!' Arthur gasped as he removed his goggles. “Never would I have guessed—I couldn't find its name or likeness anywhere!” He exclaimed as the fabricated material floated down, wrapped in a telekinetic field to ensure it held its shape while cooling.

“Ah, yes yes…the elusive faeriesteel. Strong and light yet not as inexpensive, but no less cheap than svartanite steel.”

Arthur paused at svartanite steel before he realized his thoughts were a tangle of knots—

“But why do this?” Arthur asked. He'd thought the dragon would just leave him to his own devices after showing him to the workshop and be done with it.

”Watching you bumbling about is like looking at grass grow—after seeing these blueprints you speak off and the smell of smoke and fire, I thought you already an accomplished craftsman,” Aeskyre sniffed. “Imagine the disappointment—”

'Ouch,' Arthur felt the jab at his pride. He wanted to blurt out the first thing that came to his mind, perhaps explaining that Earth had different standards of professions and people were specialists rather than generalists. And had no cheats like the World Skills—

“Ah, I see why that might be the case. I was just an avionics tech—not much of an engineer. I am what a [Rune Scribe] is to a [Rune Smith],” Arthur said, smiling deprecatingly.

“Hmm, is that so? And the smell of smoke and fire is not from a forge?”

”Ah, combustion I guess? I didn't know it was that bad.” Arthur shrugged noncommittally. “In my world, we substitute what you have as magic with combustion to drive vehicles, on the roads, seas and in the air and factories.

”Intriguing—” Aeskyre hummed. “ It is no surprise of mine that you are so taken with aerships then,”

“Ah, thanks I guess,” Arthur replied. He cast about to see how much work had been brought forward and revised his plans. From there, the only thing standing between him and his first engine was assembly. He shelved that for the following day—he was too wrung out to carry on despite the excitement.

“Seeing as the day is at end…shall we have an eve repast? Come—while we eat ,you shall regale me with tales of Earth [Lost-Worlder]...” she said in a tone that brook no refusal.

“Eh, even with a little amnesia there's a lot to go over…where shall I begin?”

“Hmm, perhaps how it came to be that the amount of work done by a horse came to be a measure of power.”

Arthur could only shake his head in amusement.

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The rune scriber was like an antique tattoo machine, meant to scribe the runes under the skin—or in this case, the leather. For metal, the etching was carried out differently, only the binder was used or not at all because the runes would readily stick wherever it was etched.

For metals, the rune scriber was a gem tipped stylus been cut to a point like a pen's nub. Another gem at the top of the stylus glowed like an indicator whenever the scriber was in use. It could also be used as a tester of sorts to see if the runecraft worked.

Etching runes while visualizing their matrices was akin to drawing with one's eyes closed. He had to visualize the matrix and hold it in his consciousness while also imbuing mana through the rune scriber in his fingers. And that was done while simultaneously fighting against the metal’s resistance to set the rune.

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