After my meeting with Sidhe, I got word the grave carver wasn’t something Vaserra’s Frost Riven could bond. Incompatible spirits. None of the other clans she trusted could either.
If I wanted to risk having one of the serpent lord’s people try, it might work.
I didn’t.
Sadly, that meant they were herding the poor thing towards the ocean with the hope of getting it to chew out a new waterway. I figured that even if it ate it’s way there, there’d still be a lot of work to make the idea work, but Vaserra had her own stoneworkers now that we’d built the tools. I trusted her to know what she was doing.
While moving to visit Inertia, I caught sight of Calbern soaring out of the industrial sprawl that had sprung up around Tetherfall. The upgrades to Fang meant I was even more hesitant to ride alongside him. At least I didn’t have to worry about the skull-turned-bike ending up getting tossed by a storm and ending up busted in the bottom of a chasm again. Good chance it would survive a drop from orbit at this point. Not that we were ready to test that yet. Was holding off suggesting the possibility of a space program until things had settled.
At least he wasn’t racing right on top of Tetherfall. I’d convinced Inertia to move operations further from our residential area after a particularly devastating chain of explosions knocked half the mats loose from the cliff face. Probably should’ve done it earlier, but we’d kinda been focused on not getting eaten by Sahevin or conquered by the clans.
A cold wind cut through, making me pick up my pace even as I pushed it away with the shield I’d forgotten to cast. I let the shield drop once I’d crossed the empty space, basking in the warmth of the forges. Though now that I was so close I’d probably need a shield to keep from getting too hot.
Walking past the new skeletal framework, I ducked past a group of engineers fitting a beam in place. The framework for the second Shield-class airship was coming along faster than I’d expected. While it was similar to the first, Inertia had insisted on upgrading several components. I got the impression that was going to be a theme. There was something about pure assembly line construction that seemed antithetical to her.
While it might slow production somewhat, it also meant every airship would be the best we could build at the time. That’s what she used as her excuse, and it seemed like a fair trade to have her lending us her expertise. It’d been a long time since she’d served as a guide or scout.
When I found her, Inertia was on her hands and knees, wings splayed for balance, head tilted to the side. Seemed she was inspecting the underside of the frame, one hand dug into the edge of the newly sculpted platform as her eye whirred and clicked.
I squatted beside her, looking over the workmanship. Someone had decided to incorporate leviathans into the design. While aesthetically pleasing, it did make it harder to check the welds were done right.
“Clean,” Inertia hissed, her eyes whirring back into their normal configuration before pushing to her feet. She followed up with a series of hisses, whistles and rattles about her dissatisfaction with the work. I was getting better at translating Forgespeak, though it was a less precise language than I was used to.
Unless talking about math or mechanics, of course.
If I was understanding her correctly, Inertia was grousing about the amount of material they’d used for the panels. Apparently they were a millimeter thicker than we’d designed. Across an entire airship, that would add up to a lot of extra weight.
We could fix it with metal shaping, but that was extra work we wouldn’t have needed if they’d used the right panels.
I wisely didn’t note that this was the price of re-designing the airships every build.
After a quick tour of the airship, we made our way towards the train assembly section of the production plateaus while discussing which materials she could spare for bridge building without slowing production.
My eye was drawn to the three engines being built side by side, each one a different beast. If the airships were being modified, each of the train engines was a full custom job. Only the core of the engine and the car connectors were standardized. Every one of our trains had personality in spades.
Thankfully, the cargo cars were being built to a template. Never would’ve had enough otherwise.
Despite each train engine being a bespoke design, they were still assembled faster than we could build routes for them. It was a nice problem to have, but I suspected it wasn’t one that would last.
Touring the airship and train yards was in no way something I needed to do. I could’ve easily delegated it, but honestly, I already felt like I was sacrificing so much by not getting to work on either directly. Sure, I did a lot of designing and testing in Memory Palace, but almost none of the crafting was mine. Not even the enchanting, now that we had so many Shapers coming in to take advantage of the mana lake.
Might’ve been part of the reason I intended to build the bridge instead of delegating it too.
While Inertia talked to Nails and Bolts about what could be spared, I inspected the newest engine to be completed. It had the visage of a snake’s head with its mouth stretched wide, the front of the engine emerging from within its stretched jaw. No points for guessing whose territory the snake-headed train was destined to serve. The serpent clan had been encountering unexpected difficulties convincing their people to return. Hopefully a properly themed train would allay their fears. Or pride. Whatever was keeping them in place.
Once Inertia arranged the materials, it was time to get back to work. With a full load of structural steel, I took the train back out to the chasm that had blocked it off in the first place train.
Then I built a bridge.
Not across the thousand foot gap. Nope. It was easier to adjust to a narrow portion a half-mile away. A mere two-hundred feet span.
It took me two trips to complete, the first dedicated to building the structure that would support the full bridge after. It was absurd that I could build a train bridge by my lonesome in a single afternoon. Almost as absurd as being able to fly by flexing a mental muscle or being able to lift a steel beam as five times as tall as I was with my bare hands. It did require a bit of grunting and a spell to support one end, but still.
With my high neural dynamics, designing a bridge strong enough to resist gravity and wind forces was even easier than building it. The grave carver had even conveniently put several jags in the chasm, keeping the wind from simply whipping through.
Having restored the route, I boarded the train. This one resembled a charging… I wasn’t entirely sure. I wanted to say deer, but I was pretty sure it was some other type of wild animal. It had plenty of pointy spikes on its antlers, either way.
If it hit anything, it would easily shred it. And then have to spend hours cleaning the bits off the horns, since they were only enchanted to improve their durability. Assuming they didn’t pressure wash it with magic, of course. That was a big assumption, with so many people awakening. The engineer running the train was one of many who’d awoken naturally in the couple weeks since the mana lake had stabilized. The Golden Hall’s diagnostics told me it was because people were getting mana perfectly attuned for their consumption. While having more ensouled was nice, it also meant we didn’t have control over who was becoming a mage unless we kept them away from the lake. Which, considering everything passed through Mount Aeternia, made logistics tricky.
There’d already been several incidents. Luckily, most of the new ensouled didn’t have combat spells, so the damage was limited. And the number of people capable of using healing magic was growing fast.
With the route restored, it didn’t take long for the train to reach its original destination. While we were twelve hours late, there was still a welcoming party waiting for us when the train pulled up to the stronghold.
The stronghold itself was built into the side of a mountain, a block of pragmatic, inelegant, blocky stone with a single road leading up. The train arrived at the bottom of that road, the engine releasing a blast of steam as the wheels squealed. The latter was entirely unnecessary, given our mastery of noise-muffling enchantments. Those weren’t popular with the engineers.
My welcoming party consisted of several large figures. Their ears were nearly round, only a hint of the point that most folk in the region had, though they were bigger than most. It almost made the group look like oversized monkeys. They all stood without any upper body clothing, despite the ice cold winds whipping the embarking platform. Either they wanted to show off those tattoos or said tattoos were imbued with enough mana to ward the chill away.
Given that they were known as the runemarked warriors of the Seven Celestial Chains, a non-bonded clan of warrior-crafters who seldom left their mountain homes, I suspected the latter.
The tattoos only occupied one side of their body. If not for Vaserra informing me that the preferred side was chosen based on a social contract, it would’ve seemed entirely arbitrary. Even after having the rules explained, it still seemed arbitrary.
It was a tradition, one they didn’t understand the purpose of. Or if they did, it was a secret that wasn’t shared with outsiders.
They let the steam venting from the engine wash over them without flinching, further increasing my thoughts that they had enchantments to protect them woven into their tattoos.
When I stepped down the steps carved into the crude train station, a man old enough to be my great-grandfather stepped forward. His back was curved so harshly his chin was barely higher than his hips. Despite the bow in his back, his eyes met mine with a calm certainty. “You’re the boy-emperor then.”
Despite being warned, I still felt my eye twitch at the description. The boy didn’t bother me, not from a man so clearly my senior, but emperor felt like a poor title, especially since the train I’d arrived on was full of food and other supplies for these people. “And you’d be elder Kaoshin.”
“Least you’re not stupid as you are arrogant,” the man said, turning and waving at the people behind him. “They’ll move your goods. You’ll come with me.”
“And our deal?”
“Yes, yes. Assuming everything is as promised, we’ll shelter anyone who comes to our door and ship them off to your little empire. Assuming you complete the ritual.” Elder Kaoshin waved his hand dismissively in the direction of Mount Aeternia. “Now come along, my blessings don’t hold back the cold quite like they used to.”
The next few hours were spent taking part in another tradition of their people, one that mostly involved ingesting increasingly indigestible substances. If Vaserra hadn’t warned me, I would’ve thought they were hazing me. As it was, it had taken Ari nearly a day to convince me it would be worth enduring the tradition to build ties with their people.
Despite how they dressed it up, it was a drinking contest.
I’d remained adamant until Ari convinced me to return to Spellford to acquire Clear Waters, a 3rd order spell that would purge toxins and their damages. It would allow me to become sober in an instant.
If the Seven Celestial Chains didn’t have dozens of strongholds scattered throughout the Frigid Peaks, I doubt I could’ve been convinced to partake anyway.
Of all the things I had to do to save the people of the Frigid Peaks, taking that first drink had been one of the most treacherous.