"Oh, so you know him then?" Sariah asked.
"I've only met him when he showed up for my father's birthday in the past, but I didn't know he was a part of the Leybound Crucible Knights." Chronos said
Lyla nodded, "I recognize him as well. He's very loud in the capital and often assists in distributing food to the slum areas."
"Aren't you going to come greet me little wolf Chronos?" As his laughter carried across the grove.
"Sigh, let's get this over with." Chronos said as he jumped off of the bridge.
The others didn't understand why Chronos seemed to have an issue with this man. He wasn't the first person to call Chronos by a teasing nickname.
Approaching the ship, they watched as men filed out of it and lined up on both sides of the large man.
Seeing the big man's smile Chronos sighed again, "What are you doing here you big oaf? Shouldn't you be running around the capital's noble circles?"
"Hahaha, not to worry, my brothers can handle the capital. Besides, I don't want to miss seeing your clan in action. Now introduce me to your friends." He said far too loudly.
"Riight, this is Lyla a priestess of the Goddess of order, Gregory of the Leighla Assassins, and Sariah his girlfriend and Curse Master." They bowed one by one until Sariah was mentioned, she blushed but didn't disagree with him this time.
It looked like they were getting closer faster than Chronos expected.
"And this man is the third prince of the Leighla Kingdom, Magnus Leighla the Golden Oaf."
"Lion! The Golden Lion!" Magnus shouted but his smile showed he wasn't actually insulted.
Magnus was nearly 8 feet tall and broad enough to rival Uncle Bruar. He had blue eyes framed by golden hair and a short, trimmed beard.
The armor he wore was a golden layered plate with veins running through it that made the armor look like a refined ore vein. The right gauntlet was slightly larger than the left and around his waist were small spikes and round discs that had magic pulsing off of them.
Instead of a sword he wore a handle at his waist with a spine extending out where the blade should have been. When he walked forward, they could see spikes on the bottom of his boots but there was no damage to the ground he walked over.
Other than the sword handle the other knights had the same setup on their armor with the sword handle being replaced with a proper sword and gray layered plate instead of gold. They honestly looked like a cross between mercenaries and knights.
Putting an arm around Chronos Magnus said, "Nice little place you have here, mind showing me around later."
"Only if you promise to be quiet. Your voice is too loud. Are your ships alright after travelling through the storm?" Chronos asked.
"Of course, they're the newest design created as a joint project between us the Leybound Crucible Knights and the Archivists column. Come let me show them to you, I can guarantee that you'll want one yourself." Magnus's smile grew wider as he proudly turned back to the ships.
His knights groaned at having to listen to Magnus boast about their new ships again.
"Now when it comes to flying ships, we use spells like levitation and decrease weight to allow them to fly but that is just the basics of the basics.
The sails have wind spells applied to them for forward movement which makes it impossible to place them on top, the last time we did that the ship wouldn't stop flipping over itself," He muttered,
"So, we choose to place three sails on each side. The sails have a full range of movement allowing them to be horizontal or vertical as needed. When they are horizontal, they give lift to the ship allowing it to take off from the ground and forward motion when they are vertical."
"Is there a reason why you didn't just put spells on the back of the ship for movement?" Sariah interrupted him.
If you wanted to move fast, then giving the rear of the ship a pushing force through wind or flames would definitely work better.
"We tried that at first but flying monsters learn fast and once they figured out that they could knock our ships out of the air by hitting the back we had to scrap the old versions of the flying ships. Unfortunately, we haven't found a method of moving faster than monsters who are specialized in aerial combat yet.
And with three sails on each side, it gives us time to replace any damaged sails midflight. For safety we have also built arcane crossbows and small ballista's that can be loaded with pre-charged bolt cartridges along the sides. Each cartridge can be given a different element or spell depending on what we are facing but it takes a bit of time to change the spells."
Magnus had been walking down the ship's side as he explained everything, but Chronos had noticed a potential issue.
"How do you get the shots through the barrier? I can sense it extending from the ship a few meters in all directions."
"The barrier is synchronized to allow arcane magic to pass through it which means the arcane crossbow and specially made ballista cartridges can both pass through.
Right now, there are not very many people using arcane magic which gives us an advantage in combat. We can also change which element the barrier is synced with once people start using more arcane magic." Magnus explained.
"So, they can attack without being hit and can change the barrier as needed? That can't be easy, it must take some time to sync the barrier with another element, and they probably have a specialist on board just for that." Chronos thought.
As they entered the ship Magnus started showing off all of the amenities.
"Here we have rooms for meditation, down there are training rooms for both martial arts and magic and we have supplies down in the hold. The hallways and personal rooms are a bit small but that was deemed acceptable when the crew started growing crops on the lower decks.
We never know how long we'll need to spend in the air so having a renewable food crop is very important. The men also like eating fresh food over the hard tack they send us out with.
Other than these rooms we have a sauna in place of showers, a game room for card games and some tabletop games, and the mess hall is down that corridor. Now here we are at the main deck."
Looking up they saw a dome of light blue energy above them; it was transparent giving them a clear view of the lightning flashing above. On either side of the deck were more arcane crossbows and at the stern and bow of the ship were four small ballistae just like the ones on the ship's sides.
At the bow was another smaller dome of blue energy.
"Up on the bow we have the helm with an additional barrier for safety. We were forced to put the helm there as trying to drive this ship from the stern was found to be several times more difficult than from the bow. This concludes the tour of the first aerial warship of its kind, the Skyward Vanguard. Any questions?"
The weapons they had seen could cause some real destruction to any fortress or army without any issues and being able to fly placed them outside of most forms of attack. Combined with the living conditions that let them stay airborne for months at a time made the Skyward Vanguard a nearly unassailable fortress.
But there were several points of concern that needed to be addressed.
"This place is practically a flying castle, but why doesn't the deck's dome extend all the way to the edge of the main deck?" Gregory pointed out.
"If the enemy can reach the ship, we gave them an area to land on as a trap. Most enemies that can reach us can't stay airborne for long but once they land on the outer deck traps built into the deck go off killing or displacing them." Magnus proudly declared.
"I see, but the power source is in the keel of the ship, right? Isn't it kind of dangerous for it to be accessible from ground-based attacks?" Chronos asked
"How do you know that?" Magnus looked at him in shock.
"Sources of great power subtly bend space and with my new abilities I can somewhat see and feel the core area where space is being bent. There's so much power moving through the keel of the ship that space is bent all along it." Chronos explained.
"Hoh, I had heard about the Beklaedning clan awakening a bloodline but if you can tell that much maybe our ship isn't as safe as we thought it was." Magnus mused.