The Mimic Becomes a Merchant King

With little over a week to go before Coin's 'trip' to meet Colony, Coin was invited by LeBon to meet at a lake only a modest distance from Sentinel's walls. Lake Imperial was a popular spot, a myriad of docks dotted about the shore.

Coin had had a pair of guards tow Albus' invention lakeward, hitched to one of his mushiens with a flatbed cart. When Coin arrived and saw the men carefully easing the boat backward into the water, under Albus' panicked instructions, he had to admit that the man had done a damn good job in the short amount of time he'd been given.

It was slightly larger than a cutter, with a broad deck and a dark wood hull. The sail was folded in on the mast. On the port and starboard quarters were bolted two brassy-looking turbines, unlike anything to be seen on any other boat.

There it floated, and Coin's guards took a moment to catch their breath.

"Well," Coin said, grinning. "It floats! And the hull is waterproof."

"That?" Albus waved him off. "Oh that's the easy part. I'd be a damn fool if I couldn't make a buoyant ship. The weight ratio and balance of the paddles, that was the tricky part." he said, motioning to the rear of the ship.

"So... those big metal things."

Albus nodded. "Propulsion. Once the steam engine is active, the interior mechanisms will start to rotate the paddles. Once they rotate, they continually gain momentum in the water. No need to rely on the wind. But, of course, I hope you studied rigging and sails. Just in case."

"I've been reading up on the matter," Coin said. But, if it came down to it, he probably would be better off just grabbing a compass, map, and sextant, and using his magic to fly back to Arcadia. "You did some amazing work here."

"Well, don't say that until we're certain it works. Ordinarily I'd be much more rigorous in my testing, but you've put me in a bind with limited time on my side. Still, I could get the turbines spinning in isolation." LeBon huffed. "Right, let's-"

Albus yelped as Coin gripped him by the waist. A small gale of wind rose up beneath their feet, lifting and carrying them onto the deck. The ship swayed a bit but promptly righted itself.

Coin winced. It was an odd sensation, the deck beneath his feet feeling simultaneously solid, and somehow not. And he could tell already that that sensation would get stronger on the sea, where the waves would be stronger and more unpredictable.

"Oof..." Albus grimaced. "We have a gangplank, you know..."

"Aha. Sorry, this just felt a little more efficient. So, er, how does this thing work?"

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The artisan made his way to a small cabin behind the mast, populated by a wooden wheel affixed to a broad post. "This wheel is connected to the rudder. Turning it will shift it, altering your direction."

Coin nodded, following LeBon to a set of stairs that led under the deck. There, past a few smaller rooms that stored provisions, coal, and a hammock, stood a complex network of brass tubes and containers that were affixed to a large, furnace-like contraption. Coin squinted at it, trying and failing to decipher where all the lines and tubes went.

"This, as you can perhaps guess, is the engine," LeBon said. "Fortunately I had one that was at least partially complete when you commissioned me. Had to do a lot of tinkering and fitting, but it certainly spared me an excess of work."

He proceeded to explain the different components of the engine. Where the water went, where the coal went, and the various gauges that were to be checked regularly. The engine was powerful, able to keep the paddles going in perpetuity on only a modest amount of fuel. But if left unattended, without the excess steam being vented, or if the tank began to overheat, it could well blow the boat to smithereens.

Coin listened and took notes. Doing this solo would be a challenge, but he reasoned it was doable.

Once the tour had ended, LeBon loaded up some coal and set it alight. Heat blazed from within, and the two men stood back to watch as the heat started to build. "It can take a little time to get started," he said. "Best orient the boat lakeward while we have the time."

They ventured on deck, and Coin got his first feel of the ship's wheel as the first spurts of movement began to rise from the paddles. By now the strange boat had drawn a bit of a crowd along the coast of Lake Imperial. They pointed and gawked, chatting excitedly amongst themselves as the paddles began to move in earnest, kicking up twin trails of foam once the boat started to move.

"This stick here," LeBon said, pointing to an area beside the wheel, "controls the power of the paddles. But given that this is a test run, and we are in an enclosed space, I would... advise caution. Let's keep it to the low speed for now."

"Low speed. Got it," said Coin, poking his head from the small compartment. The view wasn't great, but he could still largely tell what was ahead of him.

They ran a lap of the lake, and then a second. The engine had picked up steam by that point, and every mechanism seemed to be moving smoothly. LeBon took notes throughout, regularly dipping under the deck to ensure all was well with the engine and boiler.

A manic laugh escaped him as he emerged topside. "By the Goddess, it works! It really, truly works!"

"You do incredible work!" Coin told him, flashing the man a grin. And as he beheld the excited crowd on the coast, an idea came to mind. Would people pay for boats like this? And, if so, how much?

"May I ask... what's all this about?" the older man asked, giving Coin a sideways glance. "I'm proud of my work, and I'm thankful for all you've done, but this is all... well it's strange to me, you know. An odd request, no matter how hard I try to puzzle it out in my head," he said.

"It's..." Coin briefly pondered how to put it into words, but every sentence in his head started along the lines of 'a giant talking island is communicating with my brain', and he reasoned that such sentences would make him sound like a maniac no matter what he said after that point. "It's a bit of a long story, and an odd one too. To put it simply, I need to make a trip solo over the ocean. It's... pretty important that I do, as soon as possible."

"Oh, is that all?" LeBon scoffed. "You are an oddball, my good friend."

Coin smiled and shrugged. "It's been said."

"Very well... I won't pry. But, please be careful. While this ship is functional, I really haven't tested it nearly as much as I would like. Something could go rather wrong."

"Maybe. But I need to take my chances."

They doused the flames in the boiler, and Coin vented the excess steam through a switch at the side of the wheel. Gradually, the boat came to a halt by the coast, and they promptly dropped anchor. "My," said LeBon, "that went far better than my tests usually do. Perhaps you're my good luck charm, chum."

"Ha. Maybe... but don't sell yourself short. This invention really is incredible." Coin grinned. "Just think what you could do if you could somehow get it to move across the land, not just the sea."

LeBon fell silent. He got a distant look upon his face, his eyes clouding over for several seconds. "Oh my, yes," he eventually said. "Just imagine the prospects."