log 002

Well, it has been nearly a day since the incident of the first log has occured. I had wanted to land immediately and start working on the formations which I know are clearly on verge of destruction, but I have been "adviced" that it was not a risk that we could afford. The pirates could still be following us, so I had to run the ship for one full day taking it to a place where we could be confident that we won't be attacked again. Somehow all of this tends to become more dreadful when the ship you are doing this in can fall from the sky any moment.

Now comes the crappy part. Right now I am in the formation room, and I will now have to inspect the entire room and every formation here to make sure that it is not damaged (or atleast won't suddenly catch fire without me knowing or cause a medium sized hurricane). Well, I can feel the damage in the formations in front of me.

The propulsion formation in front of me is on the verge of breaking apart and this time I do not know how to solve this problem on my own.

Now normally the purpose of a propulsion formation is quite simple, to convert mana into some kind of spell that would be able to push the airship forward. That means that they are usually simple formations that have a single core and a control stick. The core is any material inscribed with the spell runes that will be the thing that will run the entire formation. The control stick is where I can link my mana string to the formation from which anyone can take control of the entire thing.

Right now the problem that I am facing with this particular formation is that the formation core is on the verge of collapsing. The material used for the core of this particular formation is a piece of sky bamboo, which as far as I can tell is inscribed with some form of a wind spell. The thing with sky bamboo is that it is pretty good at boosting the power of wind spells but it has such low durability it is a stupid idea to make use of it for any kind of formation that is meant to be used as continuously as the propulsion formation.

Right now the runes that are inscribed in the sky bamboo are becoming darker and darker, burning slowly due to the mana that is flowing through it. After pushing this formation to its limit after yesterday, It has reached a state that The runes are physically visible due to the soot that has accumulated on top of the core. That means that the mana passing through it has begun to affect the materials. With enough mana you never know what can happen, it could burst into flames or create a hurricane in the middle of the room. Still, with either the propulsion formation will stop working.

The problem with the propulsion formation Is that I cannot really predict when it will fail and if it were to do that in the middle of flight we would plummet straight to the ground. Well, now that the material has begun to burn up there is simply no way for me to accelerate the ship like yesterday unless I want to crash to the ground.

Well, other than changing the core of the formation I have no more solutionsa. Changing the core would be essentially be creating a new formation. Even if I get a material that will be enough to behave as the formation core, I will still have to create the formation, which will be the first time that I will be doing it practically for such formations.

The only thing I can do right now is to rearrange the runes that are supporting the core of this formation, to reduce the strain on the core, which I hope is enough for me to keep this thing flying for a bit longer. If I were to do it though, our speed will only be roughly sixty percent of what it is now and it is only a stopgap measure not dealing with the actual issue at hand. Well, stopgap measures are the only thing I seem to have.

I should go and inform this to trevor. He is one of the soldiers under me, though it is clear that he has been placed here to ensure that I don't screw up anything too bad.

He essentially holds the command of this little group that has been sent this far north, even though I am the ranking officer in position and power. He has the one thing that I certainly lack, which is experience. Without his suggestions we would not have made it this far especially with the number of pirate attacks that are happening nowadays. It is actually pretty abnormal the number of times we have been attacked.

Enough that Trevor has begun to suspect an outside enemy.

(A couple of minutes later.)

One problem with Trevor is the fact that he is a stickler about uniforms. I am actually thankful that captains do not have any uniform of their own, otherwise I would be worried of not having the correct uniform in fear of my subordinate. He wears his own uniform so perfectly that he just does not seem like a soldier, you know.

That was the state of the other two people that reported to trevor, Andrew and Jacob. They always seemed to be in semi state of panic, running around fulfilling Trevors orders. Maybe that is why those two bastards enjoyed the scene of whenever the old man would chew me out. The old man is quite indiscriminate when it comes to scolding you know. The problem with the old man is that his scolding is always correct, so there is little that you can do other than get scolded.

As usual, I can actually hear those two idiots scuffling in the above floor, unless it is the scholars though that seems unlikely( I do not think they have left their rooms since the beginning of this journey, even during the attacks and I do not think that they will leave until we land.

As for me, I am standing outside Trevor's quarters, which is also his office. Entering into the room is an experience. To paint a scene, Trevor's room has a bed to the side, something that never seems to be used. His table though is the exact opposite, full of papers and documents that it seems to be cracking under their combined weight. He is always sitting in that chair, doing whatever he does. I do not what it is and I do not dare ask. Opposite to him he has two chairs, which are empty. Even right now, he is so focused on this work that he has not noticed my entry. It might also be the fact that he seems to be partially deaf, though I certainly won't be the one to say that to him.

Somehow in this scene, I did not feel like the superior officer. If anything, I feel like the junior officer reporting to the superior officer.

"Soldier Trevor, I have something to enquire of you.", I begin, trying to bring out some form of authority in front of him. I am quite thankful that I failed though.

"When did you come in captain", the soldier replied with an annoyed tone.

"Well, I need your advice Trevor", I begin, quickly standing next to him.

"Go on, young man and do not come any closer. I can hear you plenty clear from there. Any closer and we would be close enough to kiss.", Trevor began, though I interrupt him before he continues. His lectures could go on for ages. This man certainly enjoys the sound of his own voice.

"I have told you of my worries with the propulsion formations before as well. Most of them are coming true at the moment. The formation core is too fragile to handle this kind of strain again. If we were to go at our present pace, I believe the formation core would burn out in a couple of days at the minimum and a week at the maximum." I spoke.

"Well, there must be something that you can do to prevent it. Otherwise we would not be sitting here talking. A bit of patience at the beginning would have made things so much better for you." The old man replied.

"I can mess with the formations to reduce the speed of the ship, that would reduce the strain on the core by a lot.", I speak, sitting in one of the free chairs "if that is done though, the speed of the ship will be reduced permanently. We can't outrun another pirate attack at that speed, especially the kind like yesterday's."

"Well, how much time would we take to reach and how much time will the formation last then?." He asked.

"I think that we can take a fortnight to reach now and this way the formation will last a month or even two if we are lucky." I say.

"Then it is a risk that we will have to take. Don't forget, Even If an attack does happen, you should be enough to deal with them. do as you will. Right now we are pretty close to the frozen peaks. There will be no sky pirates here. Even if they are, they should be the variety that we can handle. I will keep Jacob and Andrew on a patrol." The old man spoke after a minute of pondering." You will also be have to be ready though, we might need a foundation stage mage to help us if need be. anyway, If we are attacked, it might end up helping us. It will be easier to deal with the snowwind bastards if they think that we suffered in the journey. They should be escorting us to the base. As for the issue of the formation failing, dont worry about it. This is something that the folks in the head office also know is pretty likely. They will provide us a new one or with the materials for a new one atleast."

"Are you sure about that, Trevor. I mean won't they consider us to be weaklings if they were to see us running from the pirates.", I ask.

"Well, that would normally be the case, but you do have to remember that at the moment we are not going there as diplomats. We can essentially be considered to be part of the apology the black mountain is sending to the snowwind empire. That is why they have sent you instead of a more experienced person from the guard corps." Trevor replied. "If we were to do too much of a show of force, it will most likely back fire on us. Right now is the time to do the opposite. A show of vulnerability means that the opposite side will underestimate you and whatever they will ask of you shall be easier."

"oh I guess that makes sense, then why have you made me start making my armour. With that and the ship I have barely been sleeping in the last couple of weeks.", I ask him.

"Well, just because you must seem vulnerable doesn't mean that you have to appear weak. Remember the snowwinders are vultures. If they feel that you are weak for even a moment they will eat you up.", the Old man spoke, giving me what I hope is a bit of clarity." anyway, What is more disarming then a little kid trying to look like a adult in front of the adults."

Hearing that I am left flabbergasted, how the fuck am I even supposed to reply to that. The old man seems to be thinking that I am ten-eleven years old the way that he talks to me sometimes. I am almost seventeen you know, give or take a few months.

"Well, if you do not have anything else left to say I would advise you to leave the room. I am pretty busy you know.", Trevor speaks that and returns to his work with such ferocity that he seems to have forgotten my presence here.

I do want to ask him about a lot of stuff but the old man is not likely to reply to anything that I ask of him anyway, so I leave wondering not for the last time who exactly is supposed to be the boss here.