Me, My Spirit, And I [Book 1 Complete]

"I will have the hangar doors opened and have the skyship you came on brought in here to be studied, but I started work on my own ideas already. I am honestly more interested in the enchantments than the ship's physical design," Shada said as Alister followed him into a busy part of the hangar where multiple workers were fiddling with an odd device.

"What is this contraption?" Alister was curious despite himself. Part of him felt insulted that Shada was working on things before even looking at the information he traded for, but he had already seen a lifetime of wonders on this walk so his curiosity won out over his pride.

"A finicky bitch is what it is!" Shouted one of the workers that hadn't noticed Shada enter the room.

"Shut your mouth Davey! Can't you see Mr. Shadow is here?" The foreman, Tairis said while wiping his hands and approaching Shada and Alister. "Mr. Shadow it is good to see you again. Is this the shipmaster the Dwarves promised us?"

"It is indeed foreman Trairis." Shada turned to introduce the Dwarf. "Tairis, this is Shipmaster Alister Skyborne. I imagine you will be spending a lot of time together here in the hangar." Shada then gestured at Alister. "This is the foreman in charge of the hanger, Tairis. I do hope you can get along."

Tairis was a large bulky man that towered over the Dwarven Shipmaster, but couldn't come close to the width of the Dwarf's shoulders. They clasped wrists in a professional manner. "Welcome to the Shadow Company Skyship Hanger, Shipmaster Alister. Did I hear you asking about the Essence Engine?"

"I am happy to be here, Foreman Tairis. Is that what you call that?" Alister waved at the partially assembled collection of enchanted metal and Essence Crystals."

"Aye, it is Mr. Shadow's idea, but that there is my baby. Once we work out a few kinks it will change the world." Tairis's voice was filled with pride as he tucked the rag he used to wipe his hands in one of the many pockets of his work clothes.

"What does it do?" Alister asked.

Tairis looked at Shada for permission before replying. "It uses enchantments to Conjure force to spin a drive shaft." Tairis pointed to the currently still metal shaft extending from the device.

"Like a water wheel or mill stone?" Alister asked as he looked over the device.

"Exactly!" Tairis said in excitement. "But there is no need for water or wind. The enchantments do all the work."

"What does this have to do with skyships? Also the reason no one does it already is that it is just easier to use what nature gave us." Alister was wondering if he was missing something.

Shada spoke up at this point. "By itself it isn't that useful. As you say, wind and water can be used for this." He floated over to what looked to Alister like a rimless wheel with its spokes exposed and shaped oddly. "This is a propeller. Spin it and it will produce thrust in the air. Attach it to the Essence Engine and it should produce enough thrust to push a skyship through the air without the need for sails. The same principle with a bit of modification can be used in the water as well for boats and ships."

"We are even working on using the same principals for pumps. Heck, an 'prientice got so excited when Mr. Shadow introduced us to a bunch of engine ideas that he figured out a way to use steam of all things to drive a shaft, but the damn thing blew up and nearly killed the lad. The Essence Engine is far safer," Tairis explained while looking at Shada as if he should have known better than to share so much.

"In my defense I didn't know the kid was a brewers boy and would try to turn one of the new copper stills we started selling a few years ago into a steam boiler. I would have been able to warn him that the copper wasn't strong enough to hold the pressure," Shada said this casually, but winced when he remembered the kids' horrific wounds. It was the closest they had come to losing a worker and had resulted in new rules about unauthorized experiementation.

"Aye, kid should have known better, but you still need to remember that your ideas can be dangerous…sir." Tairis was respectful of Mr. Shadow, but was the type to speak his mind. It had caused him trouble in the past, but Mr. Shadow never seemed to be bothered by it.

Alister's eyes were bouncing back and forth between the engine, Shada, and the foreman. He didn't know what to make of the interaction. "So back to this engine and propeller thingy. You think these can shove a skyship through the air? You know it takes enchantments and strong Wind Mages for that right?"

"I do now that you told me, but I had guessed this from watching your skyships coming and going for trade. I am confident that those mages will be unnecessary. The design just needs perfecting and to be scaled up." Shada launched into a more detailed explanation of his design and why he was doing things this way.

When Shada first shifted from recreating raw materials and enchanted blackbox manufacturing techniques he looked into the feasibility of recreating various types of heat engines from Earth. He had played with small stirling engines as a kid in science class and even learned to make one as a craft project. The principal was simple enough to power a tiny fan with a candle after all. These early experiments led him to wonder how to incorporate magic into the process. It turned out that force or kinetic energy Conjuring was easy enough that he could make things spin with magic alone.

It wasn't the most efficient means of using Essence, but it was pretty well understood. Material Mastery was what led Shada down a new path. Like with so many things, Essence Resonance was the key. He could create attractive or repulsive Essence Resonance that would push and pull on objects. By pulsing these he could turn wheels, drive pistons, and convert the attractive and repulsive properties of Essence Resonance into work. Hence the creation of the Essence Engine, which in some ways resembled the magical equivalent of an electrical engine.

"What is aerodynamics?" Alister asked this while Shada tried to explain how the propellers worked. " You use a lot of strange words that I have never heard of." Part of Alister was getting more frustrated as the day progressed. He was considered something of a genius among his people. He had been working on skyships for longer than some nations had been around. He was by far the oldest person in the room and felt as ignorant as a child when he had expected to be explaining things to others not having things explained to him.

"Studying how air moves and how things move through the air. If you understand that, you can understand how a bird's wings create lift and motion via mathematical formulas. I have some mathematically inclined scholars working on it."

"Birds fly the same way skyships do. They use magic. How else would they fly?" Alister said this as if he had heard someone question why water was wet. It just was and some things were beyond mortal understanding.

Shada looked at Alister with something akin to pity. "Essence is not required for flight." He picked up a piece of fresh paper from a nearby desk and quickly folded into a classic paper airplane, which he handed to Tairis. "Throw it please."

This wasn't the first paper airplane Shada had created for his engineers so Tairis knew how to throw one. In fact there were contests to see how far one could get it to go among his engineering crew.

Alister watched in confusion as the folded paper somehow defied gravity with no Essence and no life. "How?"

"Basic aerodynamic principles. The shape produces lift as it flies through the air due to the difference in air pressure created by the paper's forward motion and the force of gravity pulling it down…" Shada went into more detail as Alister peppered him with questions.

"How did you figure all this out? This was why you were so confident you could improve our skyships! Why did you even need me if you know all this?" Alister's frustration was starting to build.

"It gives me a plausible reason for having skyships of my own and I do still need to study the lifting enchantments, protective enchantments, obscuring runic work, and so forth that your designs depend on." Shada shrugged nonchalantly as he glided around to check on various projects while a frustrated Alister got himself under control.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Alister turned slightly manic eyes on Tairis. "Does the ghost pay well?" The deal had only required him to spend a short time teaching what he knew about skyships, but no Shipmaster in their right mind would pass up a chance to learn what they could from the Shadow Company.

"Aye, I am paid well and even get free healing at the local Root Clinics. There are a host of benefits to working for the Shadow Company…" Tairis had seen similar looks on the faces of scholars, engineers, and smiths after a discussion with Shada. He knew that Mr. Shadow had hooked a new devotee when he saw it. He saw it as his duty to further entice the Shipmaster to become a permanent fixture at the Company.

—

Building a skyship that combined Shada's scientific knowledge, Essence Resonance Engine, and Dwarven Enchantments was not a quick process. Shada had to redo most of the enchantments. They weren't bad, and they worked, but they were somewhat kludged together. The Dwarves were terrific enchanters by the standards of Sierrallas, but they lacked Shada's gift for languages and his experience in programming languages. To Shada the enchantments were like looking at functional code someone had cobbled together via copy and pasting from code repository. Sure it worked, but it was a bit of a mess.

"What do you think you are doing ripping out whole sections of the enchantments!? If you remove these runic sequences the entire thing will fail!" Alister shouted at Shada in disgust and frustration.

"All of this is unnecessary. You can replace this entire sequence with a three word sequence and proper connectors. It will work just fine and be more efficient," Shada explained patiently. This was a common scene in the enchanting workshop of the Shadow Company's skyship hanger. From Shada's perspective he was just editing bad code. From Alister's perspective he was destroying hundreds of years of tradition with a stroke of an enchanted pen.

"That is not how it is done!" Alister huffed away in frustration.

—

Shada and Alister stared at the cracked stone wall and the debris that had been embedded in it. "I told you that we needed to secure the engine better for testing. Those ropes weren't strong enough."

"You're right." Shada made a humming noise as he observed the result of the latest engine test. They had attached the propeller and were testing the amount of thrust they could produce. Unfortunately, they vastly underestimated the thrust and over estimated the strength of the ropes securing the engine. When the ropes snapped the engine had tried to launch itself through the wall. The impact shook half the Compound and Alister had been nearly decapitated by flying debris.

—

"You know it is a good thing you don't have a body. The dummy in the pilot's seat of the skiff looks a bit mangled." Alister's remarks came as they were examining the debris field created by their latest prototype. They were working on multiple designs in parallel. Some were more heavily enchanted than others, some depended on scientific principles, but most used both. The skiff was one of the heavily enchanted models. It was small, fast, and maneuverable. It was the equivalent of a sports car that could fly without wings.

Shada did most testing personally. There was little to no risk of his intangible form coming to harm if something failed and dummies could he used to simulate passengers. He agreed with Alister's assessment as he could see the dummy's head several hundred yards away from where the main body was mixed in with the crushed metal body of the skiff.

"Do you have any idea what might have failed this time?" Shada asked Alister. "This is the third time I have crashed a skiff."

Alister was scratching his beard self consciously while examining a piece of the skiff that held the levitation enchantment. "I may have gotten a little drunk on that distilled alcohol your company makes. Looks like I might have missed a section that controlled the Essence flows and caused a build up that fried the levitation runes…oops."

Shada just glared at the Dwarf.

—

While watching the enchantment work being done on their latest test model Shada came to a sudden realization. Turning to Alister he spoke his mind. "You know there is no reason that these enchantments have to be directly applied to the hull like this or even visible on the outside."

"That's not how it is done." Alister said half-heartedly. He had stopped trying to push traditional design principles some time ago, but still felt the need for token protests.

"You mean that's not how it was done. We could separate the entire lifting, propulsion, and steering process to a couple of nacelles on either side of the ship. Maybe even suspend the ship between them. Make them detachable for maintenance and repair…"

Alister sighed. He knew that by the time Shada was done that the skyship would look nothing like the Dwarven skyships he grew up loving as a child.

—

Why build only one working skyship when you could build multiple models simultaneously while adapting the same technology for other uses?

The first fully functional skyship completed by Shada, Alister, and the crew at the Shadow Company was more of a skyboat than a skyship. It was the size of a motor boat from Earth with limited passenger and cargo space. The official name for this model was the Shadow Skiff and it was designed more as a personal vehicle rather than something to be used for commercial work.

Most of the enchanting work had been moved to the engine nacelles that stuck out from either side of the sleek boat like design. The aluminum alloy hull had been painted a shiny black. The interior was painted in sky blue and white while the twin nacelles were also black with silver propellers. Clear sapphire glass, or transparent aluminum, acted as a windshield. The skyship had features of a luxury boater boat and fanciful flying car, though only Shada and Luca realized the inspirations for the design.

The current iteration of the Essence Resonance Engine was the most advanced to date. It was partially powered by hidden Ambient Essence Collectors based on Shada's personal designs. Extra Essence from Crystals or a dedicated pilot could power the Shadow Skiff in an emergency.

Alister sat in the pilot's seat, his tinted and enchanted goggles over his eyes as he went through a final flight check. Lusha sat beside him. This was to be the final test flight. Shada was confident enough in the design that he had chosen to experience this directly as Lusha, which was fine with Luca who wanted to experience flying first hand.

"We are good to go. Everything checks out. All indicators are green. Essence flows are steady and the engines are primed to go." Alister read off a list of statistics from an enchanted panel that linked all the enchantments together for easy viewing. He and Lusha could feel the slight vibration and hear the steady hum of the Essence Engines.

"Open the hangar doors!" Lusha shouted to the ground crew.

Clanking resounded as the large double doors leading to the hidden hangers swung open. "Ready?" Alister asked while looking at Lusha. He had learned more about Luca, Lusha, and Shada during his time at the Company. They were slowly becoming something of an open secret among the higher ups at the Company as all three took on different tasks depending on need.

"Absolutely, let's light this candle!" Lusha said in excitement despite knowing that Alister wouldn't get the reference.

Alister flicked a switch and the propeller blades that had previously been spinning idly sped up. Another switch disengaged the brakes on the three landing gear wheels. They began to glide slowly forward and through the hangar doors. Once clear and centered in the courtyard, Alister hit a switch that triggered the levitation enchantments in the nacelles. The Shadow skiff lifted a few inches off the courtyard's stone pavers and hovered in place. Alister pulled a lever to retract the landing gear that disappeared behind hidden panels on the bottom of the skyship.

The Shadow skiff floated until Alister increased the flow of Essence to the levitation enchantments which saw them rise skyward. The motion was surprisingly smooth. Lifting enchantments were well known and only the switches and automation were really new. They kept rising above the Company Compound. A twist of the steering column changed the speed of the propellers and the ship turned in mid air facing south towards the docks and river.

"Ease into it, now. No need to go too fast yet," Lusha said as Alister looked like he was bracing to shove the steering column forward forcibly.

"Now, where is the fun in that? What is the point of having all these fancy enchantments if we don't put them through their paces, eh?" As soon as he said that, he shoved the steering column forward and the skyship shot through the air at speed. It took minutes to clear the shelves and the docks and shoot across the river that ran near Westlin. The windshield blocked the worst of the air, but Lusha and Alister's snow white hair blew in the wind as the Shadow Skiff continued to pick up speed. They zoomed across forest and field at speeds normally reserved for race cars. The wind blowing past their ears was so loud they couldn't hear each other speaking without shouting.

"This is awesome!" Lusha shouted with both hands in the air in a triumphant pose. Alister meanwhile had a toothy grin as they flew faster than any Dwarven skyship ever had.

The levitation enchantments kept them nice and level and simple adjustments to the speed of each propeller allowed them to perform gut wrenching turns. They circled around the city several times performing wild turns that stressed the engines and the skyship's frame.

"Ease up Alister!"

"Aye aye, captain!" Alister responded with a wild laugh. Two fin-like sails were deployed as air brakes and the engines were allowed to idle down as they came to a stop in mid air above Westlin.

"Woohoo, wow this was better than I expected, but we have one more test…" Lusha looked at Alister in excitement.

"Up?" Alister asked knowingly.

"Up!" Lusha agreed enthusiastically.

Alister adjusted the power to the levitation enchantments and the Shadow Skiff suddenly went from neutrally buoyant to lighter than air. The nacelles rotated and the propellers were turned to face the ground. With a mad grin, the duo shot towards the heavens and ascended above the clouds before the air got too cold and thin to go higher and the engines seemed to struggle to keep going. They dropped down to a more reasonable altitude and looked at the world spread out below them.

"How much is it going to cost me to buy one of these?" Alister asked as they admired the view with Lusha.

"More than you are getting paid, that's for sure. This thing wasn't cheap to build. I think I actually need to buy land outside the walls and build a proper shipyard to make them viable for anyone that isn't filthy rich to buy, but I will give you one as a gift if you stay on with the Shadow Company for a few years longer," Lusha said this last bit with a sly grin. Money wasn't really a problem for him and the Shadow Company was outgrowing their Compound in Westlin.

"I will think on it."