Aoi's Atelier

Aoi had a very busy schedule. It was posted on a floating alarm board. The first artifact she made when Deirdre built this city sized atelier. The atelier was bigger than any building she’d ever seen on NASA’s base. She remembered that trip, long ago. On another world. A world of science, but no magik.

Now, she was bringing science to a world of magik. And she had powerful magik. Now, the floating alarm was going off like a circus calliope. A schedule board made from a piece of white and black marble, and it made music like a calliope, because the idea of a floating piece of marble making circus noises was just hilarious. In her head.

An idea she needed to seriously revisit. But she needed this board right now. She had no time to trash it and remake a more sensible board. So the calliope stayed. She had the Sinestelos shipwrights coming in early. They were to teach her how to make truly seaworthy ships that could also fly. Later she’d have to deal with Rosie’s Dwarf artisans, they called themselves Children of Kvalinn. Kvalinn being the mother of the Dwarven race. The First dwarf. That was not common knowledge. But that’s not important now. She needed to make artifacts to tame the wild seas at the newly planned harbor city, and also for at least one new port in Sinestelos as well.

After working on the airships and the designs for jetties to tame the wild seas to make usable safe harbor waters, she needed to work on finishing the Academy. She also still had to find time to make a decent carriage to distract resort guests over the more than two-hour drive under the mountain and through the maze into Shangrí.

Aoi was standing at the rail of her first floor mezzanine drinking her first cup of tea, and picking at the muffin she was threatening to eat. The mezzanine overlooked her hangar, as she called it. The whole building opened like a hangar of a telescope observatory. It was open now. A floating island top on one side, being held aloft by one of her self-regenerating wind cushions. Anchored in position against a catastrophic failure.

On the other side was a partial skeleton of a galleon. On the ground floor in the middle was a pair of stone ashlars with runes against opposite inside walls of a giant pool of water. On a table in the corner was scale size model of a carriage. Scattered around were the benches and tables of apprentices, and journeyworkers, and her own tables and design boards, and half-completed small projects scattered around in the semi-organized mess that was her atelier.

“Project alarm disable,” Aoi said. The calliope alarm quit playing, and the board crashed to the ground. The sound of clapping came from the desks of her apprentices and assistants. It was at this moment, Miadoro Ní Fíonnuala, famed Shipwright of Sinestelos, walked in with two assistants and an apprentice. A roll of blueprints under her arms. Her apprentice nervously carrying a scale ship model.

“You’re the one making these flying ships?” Miadoro said, more statement than question.

“Yes, I am. I am Takanaka Aoi. Takanaka is my family name. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said.

“Miadoro. Pleasure to meet you. So, I’m told you want to build some sailing ships that can also fly. That there ship you’re building is a real beauty. The deck you’ve got there is nice and perfectly flat. She’ll drown the whole crew and sink afore she makes her first port. But she sure is beautiful. You’ve done a fine job of securing the deck to some finely crafted knee supports. She’ll be smashed to bits afore she ever makes harbor, but fine workmanship. Fine workmanship.”

“You were wise to seek help building a sailing vessel. None of what you’ve built will ever sail the open seas. Now, let me show you how to build a sailing ship. And you can show us how to make them fly. Together we can build something new. It’s exciting times we live in.” Miadoro said, and she cleared a desk and threw down her blueprints.

“Now, the first thing you want is to throw out those weak knees you’ve created and get yourself some nice grown knees. Use the grain and strength of the natural wood, and the waves and water won’t smash them to bits. Then, the next thing you want is to camber that deck, so the water runs off the deck and back into the sea. Oh, and there are other tricks, and refinements to give you function, sturdiness, advantage and versatility.”

“Grown knee? Camber the deck? Oh, I see. Yes, I see how this would give the ship more elastic movement, and reduced stress. The camber helps the water to run off, rather than across, or in. Amazing. Oh, and you use green wood for this part. Another place to reduce the stress on the wood,” Aoi said.

“You’ve got a sharp eye. Most people would use steam to get the shape. But that would weaken the wood, and when it eventually dried, the stress would be greater, because it has a memory of its former dried shape. Whereas, with the green wood is more pliable, and it would dry out in that shape, and the stress would be far less.”

Then Miadoro walked Aoi through the rest of the design, and tricks used. They worked over the design step by step for the next two hours, with Aoi learning the art of shipbuilding. Then the crew got to tearing apart what Aoi had done wrong, and they began building a seaworthy airship.

A little after noon a party of Dwarven master craftspeople came in, led by Kragna Ní Vargá, a stern-faced woman with Jasper-red eyes and long obsidian-black hair in a pair of braids hanging down. Maps under one arm, and a basket of stone in the other. She marched up to the table with the blueprints on it. She unceremoniously unrolled the maps over top of the blueprints with a flick, and set the basket of stone on one side. She grabbed a wrench from another table and set it on the other side of the maps. She turned to me and said,

“Are you, Aoi, the one who wants to build a safe harbor among the Leviathan’s Teeth beneath the Cliffs of Ceallí? Oh, pretty little pool you have there. A mock-up for your pretty little harbor?”

“Yes, I’m Aoi, and that is a spot I plan to do mock-ups of possible solutions. It’s a pleasure to meet you miss …?” Aoi said, a little put out by another rude visitor.

“Just call me, Kragna. Nice to meet you. Pretty little mock-up. Worthless, but pretty. Now, let me show you what you’re dealing with. First, you have four problems. First, is the cliffs. Second is the currents. Third is the shore, and fourth is sea floor itself.”

“Now you see the cliffs are made of this here rock.” Kragna pulled out a chunk of shale rock and set on top of the map. “This is shale, a sedimentary rock. It crumbles. The sea is constantly eroding this rock. Above and below. Your cliffs crumble slowly away. It’s unstable, so you’ll have to do some fancy magik, or engineering, to make it think it is and wants to be stable like granite. Otherwise, it will constantly rain down debris, and cause the upper ground to collapse eventually.”

“Your second problem is even harder. You’ve got yourself competing currents. You’ve got a warm current coming in from the south. You’ve got a cold current coming in from the north pushing itself underneath the warm current. Then you’ve got the tide coming in slamming into them both. That cold water from the north is pushing the tidewater making big waves bigger, and those waves churn with the warm southern water making a chaotic surf. Then you got a very cold current from the tide and the north stream pushing up as they approach the shore, making waves ten meters in height or more.”

“But that brings us to the third and fourth problems, the seafloor and the shore. Both of those are littered with the debris from the eaten away cliffs. There is a lot of loose rock on that seafloor. The shore is also littered with loose and rocky debris. The waves crash in bizarre patterns and send that debris into the ship hulls, like stone teeth. You need a breakwater structure to quiet the tall waves, but that requires a stable ocean bed to place it. So you need to do some fancy magik to the seafloor to stabilize it so you can make a breakwater structure to tame the waves. You also need to stabilize the shore, with a similar treatment as the seafloor.”

“Now once you have all that in place, then you can deal with the currents issue. So, let us look at this map. This is what the area looks like today. You’ve got your shallow tumble of ages of erosion of the shale, sandstone, and siltstone. A very dangerous combination. Then a little further out you have a shallow sandstone reef where much of the shale and siltstone have washed away. Beyond that you have the underwater cliffs. This wouldn’t be so bad, if it was a straight sharp cliff. But it’s not, it tapers off. So the waves come in from the deep wild sea, and get shoved up over this ramp, pushing the wave to ten, twelve, fifteen meters of Ailleens. Rolling, liquid death that slam into anything in their path.”

“That sounds really devastating,” Aoi said.

“Aye, they are. And you want to make a harbor out of this? It’s insanity. But insanity is what I do. I can show you how to break this beastie. It’s going to take some awful powerful magik. Now here’s a map I made to show you a possible solution. See here we dig out the cliff, and dump most of that rock in the deep sea, it’s muddy, clingy, unstable slime. The sandstone we can use. Now we have a bowl behind a sweeping arm. We can’t leave it like that though. Those Ailleens would sweep this away in a season, and the smaller waves would just rebound inside this bay and wreck what ships are inside it.”

“Is there no solution, then?” I asked.

“There’s a solution for everything. Now, this is where the magik begins. This shallow reef is the first step. First, we have to push the water out of the way, so we can melt this whole thing and chrystallize it. But we can’t leave it after that. We add a breakwater here, and extend it out so no waves make it into our bay area. But that still won’t be the end. We add more breakwaters behind this one. Then last of all you add a jetty over here so blocking waves from the south. As a final touch we add an exit channel over here on the opposite side, to the silt can run off out of the artificial bay. Not forgetting to melt the new cliff face and shore to make them stable. Then you’ll be able to sail ships in. You’ll have to put some spells on those breakwaters so they last. You might need to monitor it all as well. It will likely need repairs from time to time,” Kragna said.

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“Wow. That will be a lot of work. I can see, I had no idea of how to tackle this design,” I said.

“None of this will work, unless you can make the strong enough magik to create these artifacts. Now here are some physical blueprints, you will need to handle make the objects strong enough. We are talking legendary scale artifacts. You will have to figure out how to add the magik without destroying the objects.”

Then we began discussing the details of her blueprints, and I began designing spells to go along with the designs of the stone works they had designed, and we discussed too, the forces and vectors of motion, and characteristics of the materials. The hours ticked away, and we finally parted ways for the day.

I went home and had dinner with my children and husband, Cathar. I was explaining the complex issue of creating the safe harbor, and Cathar made a suggestion,

“Rather than remove the water to melt the stone and chrystallize it, why not just cast a spell on the rock through the water. Maybe cast a delayed spell on an arrow or a melt and cool spell on an artifact that you shoot into the rock? Or make a golem to carry it to the rock? Like a lobster golem?”

“That’s an interesting idea! You know I could also probably cast a shield just around the rock to be transformed and then replace the water with air. We could do that from a small airship and then cast the spells directly. It’s not like we have to move all the water out of the way. Or keep extending a shield downward to push some, most, or all of the water out of the way. I think, I’d like to try your ideas too. We could put a light spell on a chrystal and try shooting it at the formation. If that works, we could then try a chrystal with the real spell. I worry about the current always changing and possibly deflecting the chrystal though.”

“Why don’t you make a wave pool and try shooting a target in the pool?”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea! Thanks honey!”

After dinner Aoi was giving her children, Keara and Katsuo a bath, and she played with little waves in the water, and her children loved it. After taking them out and putting them to bed she tried making chaotic currents in the tub to imitate the currents at the proposed harbor site. They had purposely chosen one of the least dangerous spots among a list of the most favorable land locations. There were some truly treacherous spots. The one they had chosen was also the spot the pirates had used, although only the Marquise knew this.

Satisfied with her plan to test Cathar’s ideas, she went back to the shop, and started working on finishing up the Floating Academy. The Academy was truly a wonder of engineering. The size of the project was gargantuan. A single floating Island for a full size copy of the Imperial Academy would have to be just over seven-hundred hectares. So, I made one island for the dorms, administration buildings and classroom buildings this resulted in an eighty hectare island. The military training fields got their own island of three hundred hectares. The magik training fields island was also three-hundred hectares, because I know the competition between the knights and mages required it, for the sake of peace. Then the Grand Coliseum got its own island as well. This was the smallest coming in at a moderate twenty hectares. The islands would connect with flying bridges which are also capable as escape airships. They connected to the islands with magikal locking circles, with manual release mechanisms. Due to the overall size of the Academy I had determined the lowest altitude had to be three kilometers and even then I needed to put up a shield that kept the heat from leaking away from the islands, as well as transmitting the light coming down to the ground so that plant life didn’t suffer from the shadows. The islands completely dominated the sky even at altitude. The coliseum was the central island with the other three surrounding it. There were six bridges and each island connected to each other island.

I had considered placing the Academy at a height of thirty kilometers altitude, but the air is very cold up there and the islands would need to be heated significantly. Also, the travel time to reach the Academy would be substantial. Similarly, at ten kilometers the need to heat the island outweighed the benefits. Doing this analysis was a lot of fun, because I got to ride Dee to make all these discoveries. I nearly got frozen when she took me up to thirty kilometers. No human could survive that for more than a few minutes. I don’t know how she tolerates those altitudes, but that is one of her favorite altitudes. I guess having an internal furnace helps a lot with that.

Even at three kilometers the temperature drop was significant. By trapping the light that came in it heats up the air. Pushing the Academy higher would have meant having to warm the entire island. Getting the shield to accept the incoming light, retain the heat from that light, and retransmit the visible light had been a real engineering problem. I had actually borrowed from my otherworld knowledge to make a shield which functioned just like a double paned glass window. The shield was two shields with a small air pocket in between. The inner shield reflected infrared light. This really messed with the vision of dragons and dragonkin, as well as dwarves, elves, many prey beasts and monsters, and other beings who also had some infrared vision. Those who relied solely on infrared saw a solid structure around the whole islands. For those who saw in both, it looked like a frozen and dead, or undead, world.

Miadoro arrived at the workshop in the morning and found me asleep at my desk, my mouth open, the final stabilizer for the Magik Practice Field Island in one hand, and my tuning wand in the other. She leaned in close,

“Lady Aoi, are you awake?”

“Ow!”

“Ow!” I said as I jumped, smashing the back of my head into Miadoro’s forehead. “What did you do that for?”

“Sorry, I didn’t expect you to jump,” Miadoro said.

“Anyone would jump being startled awake. Anyway, Salutations.”

“Greeting and salutations, Lady Aoi. Are you ready to build some ships?”

“Sure thing, just give me a couple of minutes,” I said, grabbing my cup to go get some hot tea.

Several minutes later I began drafting the plans for a new style of galleon, and Miadoro assessing and correcting my designs. Two hours later we had a completed schematic for a flying galleon. The Apprentice, Miadoro and myself then crafted a scale model of the ship and tested the flying abilities, and then sailing abilities on small lake near the atelier. I then modified a section of the lake to simulate the cliffs and currents.

“That’s very impressive Lady Aoi. You seem to have really captured those deadly cliffs in miniature,” Miadoro said.

“It’s important to test it in the environment it will be expected to work. I made a visit to those cliffs to understand what we had to design for.”

“You are very dedicated to your art. It is a real honor to see a true master at work. Now, let’s make one I can run through the gauntlet!” Miadoro said.

We spent the rest of the day with Miadoro’s full delegation building a full scale flying galleon. I was amazed at the efficiency of her craftspeople. I had all of my assistants and apprentices observing and taking notes.

When it was done, one of our flying crews boarded along with Miadoro’s crew, and we flew it to the Sinestelos coast. During the flight our crew taught her crew how we fly the ship, and how the helm works in flight. Then we handed over control of the ship. We had an airship escort, for protection and return of whoever was going back. Miadoro took the helm for landing, and gave the ship an initial run once we reached the harbor they planned to station the first group of flying galleons.

After a short excursion Miadoro handed over the ship to the crew she had brought with, and we all returned with Miadoro and her assembly crew. When we returned, Miadoro ordered three more ships, and the order was passed to my production plant on the other side of the city.

The next day, we packed up and went to the Cliffs of Ceallí to transform it into a usable harbor.

“Alright, our first task is to solidify the seafloor.”

I fired off an air bullet and right behind it a fuse spell that would cause a chain reaction on the seabed melting the loose muddy silt and chrystallizing it. This gave us a solid foundation to work with. Next we used move-and-fuse talismans to tear away at the cliffs to make six-pointed star shaped chrystalline blocks as tall as a dragonkin. The dwarves then added anti-wear spells, and alert spells for if they become damaged or worn down more than a seventh of their mass. Then they moved these blocks into the sea stacking and connecting them in lines to cause the incoming waves to break down, and absorb some of the incoming energy.

After the first row of this breakwater, a second row of breakwater was laid down, but this one was laid out in a wavy formation with no pattern. Then the next group of blocks were just cylinders with energy absorbing spells, which changed color by how much energy they had absorbed. These would get changed out over time and be used to convert the energy to mana and charge up mana chrystals. After this we finished extracting the cliff and made regular solid chrystal construction blocks and built out the geography for the enclosed bay. The cliff wall in the new harbor was chrystallized to prevent dangerous decay of the cliff. This completed my part of creating the safe harbor, and Rosie and the dwarves took over the remaining construction.

“Well that went quite well. The breakwater system is working quite well, The Ailleens are conquered, and the waters are manageable. It will still be a challenge for ships, but nothing a merchant vessel with a competent crew can’t handle. Thank you for letting me observe, Aoi. I know a few locations in Sinestelos that could use a similar treatment. Not on this scale,” Miadoro said.

“Her Imperial Majesty had mentioned that Sinestelos might want to have a few such manufactured harbors. Just let us know where, and we can get those jobs scheduled,” I said.

That job took three days of my attention. I returned to my atelier and began working on the entertainment carriage. I barely got that done, when three days later Miadoro got a message stating the galleons had been certified, and to go ahead and fill the order for the new fleet. So I ordered half of my staff to get started on that project. The rest of us continued on the Academy.

Then a week later, we were done. I jumped down onto the Main Campus Island, I unlocked the Central Control door, and walked down the stairs to control room.

“Retract all anchors!”

The Islands’ anchors unlatched from the ground and the Islands began floating up.

‘Altitude 500 meters and climbing’ the main control panel called out.

‘Activating Bridges.’

‘Bridges activated.’

‘Altitude 1 kilometer and rising. All systems go,’

‘Altitude 1.5 kilometers and rising. Light Shields activated.’

‘Light Shields active and within parameters.’

The islands continued to rise and then they stopped.

‘Altitude 3 kilometers, parking all Islands. Positioning first bridge.’

‘Aligning… Aligning… Aligning…’

‘Alignment Error. Repositioning Main Campus to Grand Coliseum.’

‘Reposition complete. Aligning first bridge.’

‘First Bridge Aligned. Magi-locking Main Campus to Grand Coliseum.’

‘Magi-lock complete. Aligning second bridge.’

It took three hours to align all four Islands and lock the bridges.

‘Activating Full Shields.’

‘Full Shields Activated. Synching Academy engines.’

‘All engines in Synch. Shin Shirochi Imperial Academy active.’

“Academy assume Home position,” I ordered.

‘Activating engines.’

‘Engines online, repositioning to Academy Home.’

The entire academy began to move as a single unit, and moved from my workshop to Shin Shirochi. Movement started at a crawl, and speed up to the speed of a regular old style carriage. A half hour later we arrived.

‘Shin Shirochi Imperial Academy at Home position.’

“Park and secure.” I ordered.

‘Secure Authorization confirmed! Academy Secured. Please insert security key and access code to continue.’

I left the control center and took the Academy Administration Shuttle down to the main dragon gate.

“Aoi, with Academy Shuttle seeking permission to dock at the Academy Station,” I said.

“Welcome Lady Aoi! The Academy looks truly amazing! Permission granted.”