Elevation of Mana Chapter 187 Blimp

We walked through the workshop, Chien's eyes drawn up to the blimp above us.

“It's massive,” he said under his breath.

“Not really no, a full one should be several times this size.”

“For what possible fucking reason?” he asked.

“Moving across landscapes full of explosives,” I informed him.

My blimp was still massive by any scale, but they really all were. I was also pushing what I knew more than a bit, since I'd never actually been on one before. These things weren't exactly common in my day in age, with only a few still in service anywhere in the world. Turned out planes were a lot better by basically every metric for almost every use case. Then again I was also pretty sure I couldn't make one of those, so blimps it was.

Filling the thing with helium had been a chore, as I'd had to make a spell to make the stuff myself, and that was not at all easy. For some reason magic didn't really like doing fusion, and it had taken quite a bit of time and effort to get it to agree to. That seemed odd to me, but there were decidedly some underlying rules somewhere that I'd not quite sussed out yet. Even after I'd managed to get it to make helium it still hadn't produced any energy at all, odd since I'd really worried about that possibility.

“Planning to erase forests?” Chien asked.

“If we need to, but I surely hope we don't.”

“With enough of your crystals we definitely could...”

“We're not using those either, too powerful, too dangerous. I've been working on bombs though, things like I used in the war, only a lot less nasty, well most of them are less nasty.”

I'd prepared some good old fashioned powder bombs, simple, easy to understand, non-toxic. This contrasted to what I'd used against Cino when he'd come to our city to raze it, and while I still could pull some of those things out if I needed them things like chlorine trifluoride and chlorine gas would hopefully be woefully overkill for anything we needed to fight again.

“The council might be alarmed if you brought those back out.”

“The council can deal with it if I do. They're too concerned with what I'll do to defend this city and not nearly concerned enough with what they can do to defend it.”

“I see the cannon too, just the one?”

“Limited amount of room for ammunition, we're actually quite under-armed.”

“That I do not believe.” Cheeky bastard.

“Come on, let's check go in,” I told him, with a sigh.

We got a small ladder into the cabin, which honestly wasn't all that large, two little rooms and a pair of chairs. The controls were... well manual, levers that could be pulled and a system to light any bombs that was frankly a bit embarrassing with all the magic I had at my disposal. I really would have liked something better, but better would be more complex, and harder to make, and even with all I'd done I still hadn't perfected too much.

“Just the two?” Chien asked.

“Like I said, we're very undersized. If my calculations are right then we'll be able to keep up with two safely, but if we went too much heavier...”

“People don't weigh that much.”

“No, but food, water, and the things they need do. This vehicle is made for a trip of over a week carrying as much ordinance as I could manage. If I brought even one more person it would cut that amount of firepower down significantly.”

“So only one other.”

“Only one, you I hope,” I told him with a half-smile.

“Who else would you even choose boss?” he joked.

“I don't know, some of the new recruits are doing pretty well...”

“And here I thought you were going to hold off on any adventures until Adia was grown,” he said, shaking his head.

That made me frown a bit, that had been my promise to my wife. After our last little disaster of a trip I'd told her I'd be holding off on any adventures until our first child was fully grown, but could I? Would I have the time?

“Hopefully we'll not need it, or we'll just need to go within a day of the city. If we can manage that I'll have kept my word.”

“And if we can't?”

“I've spoken to Isha, she's not pleased with it, but if the reports are true those things are a real threat to us. Again, we'll hold this for defensive actions just in case, but if we need to, really need to, she's given me her blessing to go.”

“Seems a bit worried for some monsters, even if they are nasty.”

“We've gotten more reports while you were away, they're not public yet but our current guess is that each of those creatures can fight an elder.”

“Shit.”

“Indeed. I think Rolan may be trying to organize something, we'll know more after his summit, but until then...”

“Until then we get as ready as we can. Honestly I'm surprised they didn't try to get you to go to his summit.”

“They did, but I managed to convince Shorin to volunteer. He's older than I am, and I need to finish this anyway, so it wasn't too hard.”

“He should manage.”

Shorin was an old... friend may not have been the best word but ally perhaps. He'd been here in Atal when I'd first arrived, grandfather to one of the guards I ended up knowing quite well, and he was here still. The man had more respect than I did, and more clout with the other elders for his age, but I also liked him. Sure, he was out for himself, but he also looked after his family, a staple here in Atal, so I could trust that he would do the best he could.

“I hope he does.”