307 307 Design Ideas
The second day of the festival started out relatively calmly. Mostly because everyone was hungover and afraid to make noise, however, it lent the village a peaceful atmosphere, with only the chirping of the Flame Winged Sparrows in the morning air.
Even the wind had ceased its perpetual flow through the Fae Redwoods this morning, giving the scene an eerie calm under the rising sun.
Wolfe contemplated how he was going to get Cassie and Ella off his arms without waking either of them up, but he was hungry, and he could smell the food being served in the kitchen down the hallway.
Fortunately for him, the smell was enough to wake up Ember, and he wasn’t a patient one when it came to food. His climbing onto the bed to nudge Cassie awake got everyone moving and earned the eager Hellhound a swat across the snout from Stephanie, who was not ready to get out of bed just yet.
Not that she had been drinking, she was just enjoying the extra body heat with everyone else in the bed.
“Alright, we’re getting up. If you’re a good hound and get off the bed, I will give you an extra slice of bacon this morning.” Cassie offered.
It was a festival week. Surely a few treats for the Familiars wouldn’t spoil them too much, she hoped.
Reaper gave Ella a hopeful look, and she laughed.
“Yes, I suppose that there might be something fun for you to do as well. We’ve got the haunted house all set up for the kids. It will open in the later afternoon.” The small witch informed her Familiar.
That would keep the floating undead entertained all day. Most of the haunted house was just magically created puppets that looked like monsters, but little Reaper was planning to use his magic to make it feel creepy and scare some kids who went through it.
Security detail here was more than a little boring to the Reaper, but he was getting used to the pace of the village and had accepted the explanation that the killing came in waves, so the next time the area was under attack, he could join in and get all the entertainment that he wanted.
Janet was waiting for them, or more specifically Wolfe and Ella, when they reached the dining hall, and she had roped in one of the Noxus Elders as well.
“Perfect timing. We were just going to come looking for you. We’ve got an idea to improve the transport trucks so that they can make safer trips through the Frozen Wastes.
They are almost done already. We converted one of them to run off Fire Magic the other day so that we didn’t run out of fuel, but we need your expertise with the other spells, and we need Ella and her mechanical experience.
We got some new Mechanics, but they don’t start work until after the festival, and we want to get at least one truck ready before then. There are a lot of things to be moved, and some of them have to go out into the villages beyond the Forest.” She explained, gesturing wildly with her hands as she talked.
Wolfe looked to the Elder for an explanation of his presence, and the man shrugged.
“Like the Mariel family, I run a mechanics shop. We got talking, and she wants me to help her with some improvements on the trucks before we go. I take care of the heavy delivery trucks for the family businesses, so I should be able to find my way around a military truck from the human nations.”
“Good enough. Let’s see these trucks and what you have planned for them. The river starts at a natural spring in the mountains not far northwest of the Forest, so in that direction, we can’t use boats, but we should be able to use them headed south.” Wolfe reminded the excited Engineer.
“We have lots of requests from the East as well. They’re not in the forest, but they were in the routes that the Mundane Army took all winter, so they’re pretty familiar with witches already and know the routine for dealing with us without being able to speak.
The local scouts have been relaying their requests and orders for us, but it’s time to make a larger delivery route for the spring and get all of the backlog cleared out, or so Priya says.” Janet explained.
ραΠdαsΝοvεl.cοm
“Do you think that you could put one of those mana arrays on the plane as well? We’ve got it as good as we can with the new spell you showed us, but it still uses a lot of mana to move such a large craft through the sky at airplane sorts of speeds.” She sighed.
The Elder gave her a strange look. “What do you mean, airplane sorts of speeds? If you make a high-wing plane, it can traverse the swamps at less than thirty kilometres an hour while you hunt and scout for rebels.”
“Wait, what?” She asked, startled, then grabbed him by the hand to drag him into the garage that was doubling as their workshop.
As soon as he saw their design plans for the plane and the assemblies that they had finished so far, he began to laugh.
“You’re trying to build a cargo plane in the same design as a military bulk transporter but with rotating wingtips for the propellers? Oh, sweet girl, did you never read a book on the history of flight?” The Elder asked.
“History of flight? We don’t really have a lot of books about human technology in the town I come from.” She explained.
Wolfe smiled at the interaction. It seemed that, like the airboat, the solution was actually easy. It was just specialized knowledge that the Covens didn’t deem necessary to keep.