"Get moving people! We are starting on the balloons today!"
'Bella's holding us together right now, she knows everything about wilderness survival, even leatherworking.'
"Alright crew, we need a solution for sails, as it stands, we have no way to make them, which means the airship won't move without constant pressure manipulation."
Devin raised his hand. "We could use alchemy to change the leather."
"Good idea, but we don't have anything with the properties that we need for a sail to combine with the leather. Plus we are stretching the leather thin as it is. Anything else?"
"Use the balloon itself? The wind will push on it just as much." Bella weighed in.
"That's not how sails work, they make a kind of lift instead, I won't get into detail because you aren't an engineer or academic, but basically, it doesn't work if you want to steer your balloon."
"We could use your engine. make some propellers."
"It's a little underpowered, but... Hmm, Dad, Teo, come with me. The rest of you go back to your jobs."
The meeting disbanded and my new group got together.
"Ok, Teo, your job is to make two purpose-built golems to turn a crank, my engine won't work, but manual labor might. Dad, we have to use our last spirit paper to control pressure in the balloons, you're going to work on that while I build the propellers."
"Aye, we can get to it now."
Dad left to go get the stacks of spirit paper while Teo started working on his one-arm golems. He had the cores from the two golems that were going to be shipped away along with one extra from Professor James that he 'stole.'
"Ok, now, time for my part."
I gathered up a bunch of the trace metals in the ground into a ball.
"I'll start with a simple, two-wheel belt. Since one of the wheels is smaller than the other, it offers a degree of mechanical advantage." I said as I worked
"What's a mechanical advantage?" Jerod had finished his work and was wandering, looking for people to help.
"It basically makes it easier to turn the machine one way than the other." I spun the big wheel and the smaller one spun faster. "Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but you wouldn't know half of the things I said if I explained it to you." A little arrogance leaked into my voice.
"Oh, ok. I'm going to watch you for a bit, I want to see what you make."
"Alright, just try to learn something so you aren't wasting time."
I started to sculpt some blades for the propellers, they were shaped like scoops so that when they turned they would deflect the air out behind them, pushing them forward.
'Considering the pressure from my old world, this propeller has to be far smaller than it would be there, but that's not going to stop me from making it bigger for the sake of speed.'
I attached my propeller to a long rod with a special gear on the end. The gear didn't have teeth like a cog, but rather had pegs sticking out, all pointing in the same direction of the rod. I made a second one of these gears and a crank.
"This will turn the force from the crank on its side, in a perfect 90-degree angle."
I put it all together and it looked like a weak arts-and-crafts project.
"Is this thing really going to push the airship?" Jerod said, "It kinda looks sad."
'Fultz, ask to be dismissed and then come to me when you get the affirmative.'
"Give me a minute and I'll prove to you what this thing can do."
While I waited, I made a casing for the propeller and propped it up on a sturdy stand. I also did some preliminary testing with just my strength. After a minute or two of me spinning the propeller, Fultz arrived.
"Good, he's here, that is exhausting." I got out of his way.
'Turn the crank.'
Fultz grabbed the crank with both hands and started turning it.
Ticka ticka ticka tick.
The propeller spun faster and faster, soon going fast enough that the stand I put it on collapsed and the engine flew thirty feet until it hit a tree.
"I'd say that it'd push the ship." I said with a smirk.
"I'd be inclined to agree." Jerod inspected the wreck and the tree that was felled because of the impact. "Although this one might need a bit of a rework." Jerod mimicked my smirk.
'Damn, now I have to remake it! Why didn't I think this through?!'
"First, let me go put the prototype to print. I'm keeping this design."
I set up a drafting table and some mundane ink and paper.
'It's a good thing that the need for spirit paper accelerated the development of plant-based paper, otherwise, it would be damn hard to get this stuff.'
With clumsy strokes, I tried to copy the blueprint onto paper. When the product was done, it was more akin to a sketch than a technical drawing.
"Hmm, must be because I always draw with matter manipulation, all the ink in my workshop ends up Eneru conductive eventually." I shrugged
"If only I could use that as a substitute for Eneru ink in enchantments" I added whimsically.
"I could draw something up for you, I was an artist before I was captured." Jerod said.
"Yeah yeah, we're all artists here." Devin interjected. "It's almost a prerequisite to be a spatial mage. Anyway, when you're done with what you're doing, you're needed in the airship group, Jerod."
"Oh, well you can draw a print later, I'll make the props right now."
I went over to the propeller that crashed and started to rebuild it piece by piece.
'Still not precise enough to make it all at once, it's even still a little crude, but it's the fastest way to do it.'
I copied the propeller and carried the twin crank-engines to the airship hull with Fultz's help. Well, more like I slightly impeded Fultz's carrying of the propellers in my attempts to carry them. I bolted them to the hull's frame and set them up so that it would be easy for the arm golems to control them and they would push on the hull in just the right spot that the hull wouldn't veer up or down while they were on.
"Alright, Teo, how are the arm golems?"
He turned around and showed me his progress. "I'm basically done, I just need to finish the fingers."
"No need, just make the fingers into a claw, the less the spirit core has to think about, the better."
Teo crudely made a claw.
"Good, now, do you want to control the ship, or should I?"
"I will so if I die you can still use the knights to get out in a pinch."
"It's settled then, put in your cores and start training the golems, there is no way they are used to being just an arm and sensory box."
I made a fake crank for the arms to use to train on.
"Oh wait! Use these too." I pulled one Telespeak amulet out of my pocket and two that were made to be integrated into golems. "The golem ones were originally going to be for your normal golems, but this way you can control the ship better."
"Thanks, Ingen." Teo got to work integrating them.