Eternal
Everyone’s got his or her place and Warrick is needed where he is. Perhaps another time.
You bid Warrick goodbye and in a week you make your way over to Elam’s factory where you can board the new airship.
It does look rather impressive. Just looking at all the cannons stick out of the sides, makes you wonder how the hell it lifts off the ground with all that weight, but then someone probably also wondered how the hell a regular ship can float with the same amount of weight on it at one time too.
“This is a minor thing my Emperor, but I was wondering what did you want to name this ship? I figured you’d want the honor of doing that.” Elam asks.
“Name? Oh yes, I suppose a name would come in handy. Let’s see…call it the Storm I guess. Raining down destruction on our enemies and all that. Sounds good to me.” You reply to which Elam agrees.
You board the Storm with Elam and meet the crew who will be flying this thing. All of them stand at attention when you arrive. a man dressed in a standard Empire engineer uniform walks up to you and salutes. It looks like his uniform has been crudely altered.
“Emperor on deck! It is an honor to meet you in person! My name is Tavis…” he starts to say before you interrupt.
“Why the hell do you have small metal cogs on your shoulders?” you ask.
“Oh…yeah that well when we started this project nobody knew anything about flying so Elam picked me for a lot of first tests. It was dangerous, but exhilarating at the same time! In time I became the most proficient at commandeering this technological marvel, so Elam made me captain.”
“Glad to see Elam’s taken it upon himself to completely ignore all military protocol and just arbitrarily assign ranks and such. So I’m guessing those little cogs you put on yourself are supposed to represent your new status?”
“Erm...uh…yes my Emperor. I meant no offense!”
“Calm down, I don’t care that much. In the future though, assuming this turns out well. We really need to get you proper uniforms for airship crew rather than this poor attempt of altering old ones. Anyway, take me on the grand tour before we lift off.”
Elam and Tavis both take you to various parts of the airship and explain various things mostly involving technical talk, eventually you grow bored and decide you just want to get on with getting this thing to the battlefield where you can see its destructive capabilities.
“Alright I get the picture, let’s get this thing to the front lines and blow up some Torites.” You say.
“As you wish my Emperor, I’ll leave you in the hands of Captain Tavis here, uh he’s still a captain isn’t he?”
“Yes, since it’s as good as a designation as any for now. If he proves competent, he may very well keep the rank.” You respond.
Elam and some of the other engineers that were testing the safety of the airship soon leave it so that the rest of you can get on your way. The airship takes a moment to warm up, but soon you’re lifting off and high in the air. The experience isn’t that bad and a fairly smooth ride. You honestly half thought you’d go crashing down to the ground, but it really looks like your engineers came through. You give some praising comments which seems to put the crew and Tavis in good spirits.
You explain you’ll be head towards the south where General Ackerson’s command is located. You figure you can meet up and see what the situation is and have the Storm assist accordingly.
Along the way one of the lookouts see a group of the centaur Torites galloping across the plains. There are actually quite a few of them. Enough to be a raiding party probably. When asked if the Storm should try to take them out, you say of course.
“We’re too far away to use bombs and the cannons aren’t angled in a position to fire at them yet. We could use the repeater prototype though. It’s located over there and it has terrific range! Would you like to do the honors my Emperor?” Tavis asks.
“Well I don’t usually use firearms and I could probably hit some of those horse beasts from here with a few fireballs, but what the hell.” You say and walk over to the repeater prototype.
You turn the mounted gun towards the centaurs who are now quite away that the “big machine” in the sky is heading toward them and means to do them harm. They begin to scatter and you press the trigger…
And the gun promptly explodes spectacularly. Enough so that it sets a large part of the ship on fire which then in turn causes more minor explosions.
As the surviving crew runs around attempting to put out fires and move away gunpowder, you find that you are several feet away from your original location and your arms have become bloody stumps. Your body is in bad condition as well considering you can see out of your one remaining eye that your organs are exposed to the air now.
Healing magic wouldn’t be of too much help even if you could concentrate to use it. The explosions aboard the airship are deafening and you’re barely conscious as it is. Someone goes over to help you and then you pass out.
You are not awake to experience the Storm’s fiery crash to the ground.
You bid Warrick goodbye and in a week you make your way over to Elam’s factory where you can board the new airship.
It does look rather impressive. Just looking at all the cannons stick out of the sides, makes you wonder how the hell it lifts off the ground with all that weight, but then someone probably also wondered how the hell a regular ship can float with the same amount of weight on it at one time too.
“This is a minor thing my Emperor, but I was wondering what did you want to name this ship? I figured you’d want the honor of doing that.” Elam asks.
“Name? Oh yes, I suppose a name would come in handy. Let’s see…call it the Storm I guess. Raining down destruction on our enemies and all that. Sounds good to me.” You reply to which Elam agrees.
You board the Storm with Elam and meet the crew who will be flying this thing. All of them stand at attention when you arrive. a man dressed in a standard Empire engineer uniform walks up to you and salutes. It looks like his uniform has been crudely altered.
“Emperor on deck! It is an honor to meet you in person! My name is Tavis…” he starts to say before you interrupt.
“Why the hell do you have small metal cogs on your shoulders?” you ask.
“Oh…yeah that well when we started this project nobody knew anything about flying so Elam picked me for a lot of first tests. It was dangerous, but exhilarating at the same time! In time I became the most proficient at commandeering this technological marvel, so Elam made me captain.”
“Glad to see Elam’s taken it upon himself to completely ignore all military protocol and just arbitrarily assign ranks and such. So I’m guessing those little cogs you put on yourself are supposed to represent your new status?”
“Erm...uh…yes my Emperor. I meant no offense!”
“Calm down, I don’t care that much. In the future though, assuming this turns out well. We really need to get you proper uniforms for airship crew rather than this poor attempt of altering old ones. Anyway, take me on the grand tour before we lift off.”
Elam and Tavis both take you to various parts of the airship and explain various things mostly involving technical talk, eventually you grow bored and decide you just want to get on with getting this thing to the battlefield where you can see its destructive capabilities.
“Alright I get the picture, let’s get this thing to the front lines and blow up some Torites.” You say.
“As you wish my Emperor, I’ll leave you in the hands of Captain Tavis here, uh he’s still a captain isn’t he?”
“Yes, since it’s as good as a designation as any for now. If he proves competent, he may very well keep the rank.” You respond.
Elam and some of the other engineers that were testing the safety of the airship soon leave it so that the rest of you can get on your way. The airship takes a moment to warm up, but soon you’re lifting off and high in the air. The experience isn’t that bad and a fairly smooth ride. You honestly half thought you’d go crashing down to the ground, but it really looks like your engineers came through. You give some praising comments which seems to put the crew and Tavis in good spirits.
You explain you’ll be head towards the south where General Ackerson’s command is located. You figure you can meet up and see what the situation is and have the Storm assist accordingly.
Along the way one of the lookouts see a group of the centaur Torites galloping across the plains. There are actually quite a few of them. Enough to be a raiding party probably. When asked if the Storm should try to take them out, you say of course.
“We’re too far away to use bombs and the cannons aren’t angled in a position to fire at them yet. We could use the repeater prototype though. It’s located over there and it has terrific range! Would you like to do the honors my Emperor?” Tavis asks.
“Well I don’t usually use firearms and I could probably hit some of those horse beasts from here with a few fireballs, but what the hell.” You say and walk over to the repeater prototype.
You turn the mounted gun towards the centaurs who are now quite away that the “big machine” in the sky is heading toward them and means to do them harm. They begin to scatter and you press the trigger…
And the gun promptly explodes spectacularly. Enough so that it sets a large part of the ship on fire which then in turn causes more minor explosions.
As the surviving crew runs around attempting to put out fires and move away gunpowder, you find that you are several feet away from your original location and your arms have become bloody stumps. Your body is in bad condition as well considering you can see out of your one remaining eye that your organs are exposed to the air now.
Healing magic wouldn’t be of too much help even if you could concentrate to use it. The explosions aboard the airship are deafening and you’re barely conscious as it is. Someone goes over to help you and then you pass out.
You are not awake to experience the Storm’s fiery crash to the ground.
