This time, the old Commander couldn't help asking for confirmation, "The General wants to recall all our forces? Has the situation escalated that much?"
"Not exactly," Farah corrected herself, "There's no need for an immediate recall, just have those who are returning from their current patrol missions remain on standby in the camp for now."
Pursing his lips, Hubert wondered just what had changed for their current orders to be rescinded, but upon recalling the appearance of the Sixth Order Zocam earlier that day, he had a faint inkling of what was going on.
Nodding in understanding, the old Spirit Initiate returned to the camp to get started on the task assigned to him.
"We should get a wagon ready," Lucas suggested, not wanting to waste time just standing around waiting.
"Good idea," Farah agreed as she began looking around for something they could use to carry the rather large harness and anchor.
Roughly an hour later, as the night was getting dark, the fires of Drake's new forge burned bright. After examining the saddle for the Tartans and comparing them to the harness from a standard carriage, a plan soon came together among the couple dozen craftsmen who had been gathered.
Inside the forge, Drake and a handful of other blacksmiths kept the bellows blowing hard as a suit of armour and sword made from Meteor Steel, which had been 'donated' by a recently deceased Riley Baker, was being melted down.
None of the blacksmiths in Redwood Town was actually capable of precisely shaping this Mid Tier 3 metal, but there was no need for them to create well-fitted works of art. As long as they could forge some large, heavy loops the leather and ropes could be attached to, that would be sufficient.
For blacksmiths in the Body Tempering and Vein Opening Realm, working with Tier 3 metals was a huge challenge; but, fortunately, one of the Sea Establishment Realm Captains who had come with Celestina had dabbled in blacksmithing as a hobby.
This man wasn't capable of forging proper tools, but he at least knew how to swing a hammer, so with Drake and the others guiding from the side, the group hoped the combination of experience and muscle somehow got the job done.
Whether a single sword and suit of armour would provide sufficient metal for the task was another question, but even if it wasn't, there was another volunteer in the town from the Harold City Garrison who could be asked to gift their weapon and armour if necessary.
As for modifying the actual harness for the Tartans, a separate group of tanners and tailors were currently laying out large strips of the toughest leather and cloth they could find in the yard outside Drake's smithy.
After studying the problem for a time, the craftsman determined that a standard horse carriage harness wasn't a good example to follow for what they were trying to do. Instead, they took inspiration from a yolk and rope setup used to attach plows to draft animals.
Of course, several more adjustments would be required, such as reinforcing the harness to handle the extra strain, as well as adding extra cushioning to lessen the discomfort the Tartans experienced, but once again, it didn't have to be pretty, it just had to work.
Spirit Lamps were brought over from the Sunchaser and placed around the yard to provided bright, steady illumination, turning it almost as bright as day.
Under these lights, thick rivets were being driven through the leather pieces as the team of craftsman, with input from Farah and one of the Aerial Cavalry members who had arrived in town with Vanessa, began modifying the Tartan harness and saddle.
All the while, Lucas was busy running back and forth between the two groups of craftsmen, coordinating their efforts while making various suggestions and changes to the design, surprising all the professionals with his knowledge and ingenuity.
It was only after they learned that this whole proposal was the young boy's idea that the various craftsmen settled down; if Lucas could come up with such a crazy idea, making some small modifications to its implementation suddenly didn't seem so strange.
By the time the first rays of sun appeared the next morning, the two teams had managed to create two different prototype harnesses, and despite feeling exhausted, with bags under all their eyes, they were also quite eager to test out their new inventions.
…..
Over the course of the night, most of the hunting and scouting parties Celestina had deployed returned to Redwood Town, with those still out in the field expected to be back before noon. Now that more force had been concentrated in one place, the General could reassign more Spirit Initiates to the defence line, freeing her up to observe the harness test for the Tartans and Sunchaser.
A couple hours after sunup, the installation of the new towing system had been completed.
Using the two front anchor slots of the Skyship as attachment points for the prototype harnesses, 100-metres-long ropes were strung between two Tartans and the Sunchaser before slowly being stretched taut.
With such limited World Qi reserves in the 100-Weight Spirit Crystals, Celestina simply wanted to see if these two Tartans could even move the floating Skyship, so after boarding the ship alone, she set the Levitation Spirit Array at the minimum necessary output to raise the Sunchaser off the ground.
As soon as the Skyship had cleared the surface and risen to a height of roughly 5 metres, Celestina leveled off the Levitation Array's output so that the ship maintained a constant height before signaling to the two Tartans to take-off and begin pulling.
Receiving the signal, the two Aerial Knights urged their mounts into the sky before instructing them to gradually accelerate.
The two connecting ropes quickly tensed and a creaking sound was soon heard coming from the attachment points on the Sunchaser. At the same time, the two Tartans looked to be struggling a bit.
This was clearly an awkward experience for these beasts which were used to flying freely through the sky, but with the continued urging of their riders, they kept flapping their giant wings hard and a moment later, the stationary Skyship actually began creeping forward.
As the Tartans continued tugging, the Sunchaser slowly but surely accelerated until it became obvious to all those gathered that it was moving. Its pace was quite slow, barely faster than a Body Tempering adult could walk, but it was undoubtedly advancing.
With proof of concept in hand, Celestina gave the signal to stop and the Aeiral Knights had their Tartans ease up.
Ironically, it was only after what could be called a completely successfully test that the first problem appeared.
Although the pair of Tartans had stopped pulling the Sunchaser, that didn't mean the Skyship just stopped as well. Fortunately, the speed of the ship was slow to begin with, so there was no risk of it colliding with anything or anyone. However, it was also a fact that it kept moving when everyone wanted it to stop.
At first, there was a bit of confusion and panic, with no one knowing what to do, but by the time Celestina took charge and got the two Tartans to turn around and pull the Sunchaser in the opposite direction, the ship had naturally lost most of its momentum and all but stopped on its own.
A short time later, Celestina lowered the Skyship down to the ground and landed it before jumping off its deck.
Teams of soldiers, volunteers, and craftsmen then moved in and began unhitching the Tartans from the ship while inspecting the anchor points and harnesses for any signs of stress or damage.
Meeting up with his Master, Lucas commented, "This could work."
"I agree," Celestina nodded, "There's obviously a few things left to figure out, but the test just now is enough proof-of-concept for us to move forward with the plan."
"En," Lucas agreed, "While stopping the ship will be a bit of an issue, the fact that it can coast without the Tartans even pulling it is an unexpected boon."
"Indeed. I should have anticipated that, as something similar happens when we cut the Propulsion Array on the ship mid-flight," Celestina mused.
When this point was brought up, Lucas couldn't help taking another hard look at the Sunchaser and asking, "Speaking of which, how exactly does the Sunchaser move, or even float for that matter?"
Turning to look at her ship, Celestina explained with some pride in her voice, "The Sunchaser has two different Spirit Arrays, a Levitation Array which allows it to float up and down, and a Propulsion Array which can move air from its bow to stern, or stern to bow, allowing it to travel forward or backwards."
Hearing this explanation, Lucas frowned deeply, as it was far less informative than he was hoping.
Included in Lucas' inherited knowledge were concepts like lift, thrust, gravity, and many others related to flight, and there were plenty of ways to make a ship float in mid-air like downward force, magnetic levitation, or spatial manipulation.
The Sunchaser, however, didn't seem to use any method Lucas was familiar with. As far as he could tell, when the Levitation Array was activated and World Qi began flowing through the hull of the Skyship, it simply floated up without producing any wind or disturbance in space.
From the young boy's perspective, this was as strange and impossible as a human willing themselves to float and then flying up into the sky!
Lucas mulled over the 'explanation' his Master had given him, but ultimately had to ask more precisely, "Do you know how those Arrays actually work?"
Celestina opened her mouth to answer, but was suddenly at a loss for words. Now that she was thinking about it, she found she didn't really know how her prized Skyship flew, only that it did.
Wrinkling her brow, Celestina took another look at her ship and sank into silence for a time. It was only after a minute that she spoke again, "Skyships are built exclusively in the Empire, and the exact techniques and technology involved are highly guarded secrets of a few powerful forces. As for how the various Arrays onboard work, I have my guesses, but I have no idea if they're correct or not."
"I see…" Lucas muttered as he continued to observe the Skyship curiously.