Several hours have passed by and during that time Violette was able to write a letter for the mage's camp emphasizing that she discovered an unusual flux in the weak magic of the planet and was going to investigate it for another few days before returning. The letter is sent to the mail drop and the Eee resumes helping Envoy fine-tune her acceleration sleeves. At least this time Envoy doesn't come close to killing someone. The end result is actually better than Envoy first theorized. The power curve of the overlapping cylinders is an order of magnitude greater than she thought it would be.

With the 'engines' finished, the pair of mages return to the main hangar so that they can be fitted and the remaining work be done on the skin of the vehicle to aid in dealing with collision concerns as well as dampen the effect of inertia on the occupants.

Back in the hangar Envoy and Violette find Icarus and Thorndike hard at work. Thorndike is busily welding the skin in place while Icarus is holding it firmly somehow. His hands are on it to be sure, but it doesn't look like he's actually holding it by grip. There's also the oddity that he's upside down while holding it. His feet are firmly planted on one of the temporary supports that stretch above the ship. Granted it is easier with him upside down since it keeps him out of Thorndike's way but it sure looks strange.

"Uh," Violette says, wide-eyed. "Magnet boots?"

"Just a variation of the Glue spell," Envoy suggests, and asks the Apprentice, "Don't the student Earth Mages still use it for walking up walls?"

"Usually to glue each other to the walls," Violette mutters. She shrugs and walks towards the ship-in-process.

Icarus pulls one hand off the panel and waves to the pair. "I hope you didn't break the kitchen too much!" he says.

Envoy also checks to see which direction Icarus' hair is falling – up or down. "Nothing I can't repair," she tells the boy. "We have the gravitic motivators ready, Walter," she tells Thorndike, without getting too close to the welding equipment.

Icarus' hair is … falling upwards, which makes him look like he's just walking normally … well, beside from being inverted from her point of reference.

Thorndike cuts the arc-welder and unhooks the line to ground from the panel. "Great!" he says as he pushes up the face plate of the welder helmet. "You're sure they work and won't kill us?" asks.

"Well… they work," Envoy claims. "As long as the holding frames are sturdy enough, and we aren't standing in front of them… "

"Well, what is the maximum force generation?" Thorndike asks. He tosses the welding helmet to the side and turns to look at the rotating harness he built earlier for containing the drive assembly. "The frame should be able to support several foot-tons of force without deformation," he claims.

"Do you have some sort of force scale we can use to test it?" Envoy asks. "Just moving itself it generated a lot of force – more than I expected."

Thorndike thinks about that. "Are there any large springs in this mess?" he asks as he waves towards the hangar. "Or do the old lifts still work?" he adds and points towards one of the old ceiling lifts.

Icarus rotates smoothly in mid-air and returns to standing normally. The visiting Eeee thankfully was looking at the machine at the time and didn't seem to notice the movement.

"I never tried them," Envoy admits, looking up at the crane assemblies. "I figured we could just tie one to something heavy and see if it can pull it… but that probably wouldn't be very quantitative." She points to what she thinks is the control panel for the cranes.

"Well, if they work, we can probably use them to test how much 'weight' they seem to generate as they pull on the crane unit," Thorndike explains. He heads over to the controls and once there scratches his head. "I still have problems with your language," he complains as he tries to make sense of it.

Envoy translates the controls as best she can. To her, it's just a bunch of hand-wheels and levers though.

In the end, Thorndike gives up and just tries stuff. The crane overhead whirrs around and the cable descends and ascends seemingly randomly. About ten minutes later he seems to have figured it out enough to get it to move to the center and lower the main lift cable. "Okay!" he says, "Hook up the drive unit and get ready to slowly increase its output."

Bringing the charged up cylinder-and-sleeve assembly out of the lab, Envoy connects one end of the central cylinder to the main cable as tightly as she can. "Okay, ready?" she calls back.

Thorndike takes control of one of the wheels and watches one of the gauges. "Okay, increase force now. Target ten percent output."

After figuring out how much displacement that would come to, Envoy starts pushing on the sleeve to move it slowly, and keeps looking up at the crane to see if it's about to be torn loose or anything.

Thorndike taps the gauge a few times and hmms. "Forty percent," he says.

Envoy pushes further, since the roof isn't falling on her yet – but she still keeps an eye on the crane.

The cable starts to creak, but the crane remains where it is as does the ceiling. Thorndike spins one of the wheels a few times and declares, "Sixty percent!"

"That's over one-quarter gravity of acceleration," Envoy notes, and pushes past the half-way mark while tensing herself.

The cable starts to vibrate and a few of the steel strands snap with a loud twang! "Wow," Thorndike remarks and taps the gauge a few times. "I think I need to add some reinforcements to the drive frame. At full power it will likely deform. Sixty percent is its limit now. Power off!"

Pulling the sleeve back to neutral, Envoy keeps a close eye on the fraying cable.

The tension on the cable visibly eases. "Okay … so the sled will go a lot faster than I planned for," the human admits as he scratches the top of his head. "No matter! It's for science! I'll go get more rebar."

"The inner gravity field can only compensate for so much too," Envoy notes. "And until I can get the aluminum sheets to form into the final layer of armor we have to be very wary of dust and debris at high speeds."

"Why not use a secondary field that deflects debris away?" Icarus asks from where he's checking the welds.

"Show me how to integrate it?" Envoy asks the hybrid as she unhooks the cylinder from the crane cable.

"On the cylinder?" Icarus asks as he looks up. His ears even perk. A master mage asking a supposed apprentice also earns some interest from Violette as she peers between the two.

"On the hull," Envoy says, gesturing to the steel plated nose of the vehicle. "I'll still want to cover it all in sapphire to protect from corrosion, of course, but a deflection field is something I haven't had a chance to study." Of course, that's probably what Icarus used when the drone attacked, but she can't mention that in front of the visiting mage.

"Okay, hm," Icarus says as he scratches his cheek and thinks. "You can hear what I generate, right?" he asks, "I'm not sure I can explain how, I can just … show it."

"Not right now," Envoy whispers, even though the Eeee can probably hear her anyway. "There are other parameters to work out first, since we don't want to deflect everything – otherwise the view will be distorted and our air will get stale. Too much added dilation can introduce temporal and tidal shearing forces on the vehicle as well."

Icarus nods. "Well, being specific is … a lot harder," he admits and smiles weakly. "I guess if … oh, okay, I think I know how to allow air in. It's just resonating to allow stuff with a specific structure through only. I think I can do it. Maybe."

Violette continues to look between Envoy and Icarus. Her ears splay and she takes on a rather pensive furrow of her brow.

"I have the proper equations for it," Envoy says reassuringly. She turns back to Violette, and says, "Sorry if that sounded confusing. If you haven't realized, we're pretty much inventing a new sub-sphere of Earth based entirely around gravity effects."

"Yes I … " Violette says and wrings her hands nervously. "He's really special isn't he?" she finally asks and nods towards the hybrid. "No mage I've ever seen can just do things like that."

"He's an Exile, like me," Envoy reminds the bat. "Exiles often have special knowledge and abilities that seem strange. Icarus' people have a certain facility with energy and gravitational fields. Just like how you can navigate in complete darkness."

"Oh," Violette says as if that made perfect sense. "He must see a wider 'spectrum' then! Just like how we Eeee hear higher pitches. That makes sense! That … wow. He would be valuable to Caroban."

"Well… messing with gravity on a sky island probably isn't very wise," Envoy points out. "The standard gravity spell won't work at all on a sky island, that's why the enchantment had to be developed – and that was a real power sink and not very efficient. Otherwise we wouldn't need Air Mages on airships anymore, right?"

"I wouldn't drop an island!" Icarus claims.

Violette nods, though it is a bit hesitant. "I won't tell anyone about him," the bat finally says, "If you are claiming him as your apprentice, then it's up to you to introduce him to Caroban."

"Thank you, Violette," Envoy notes. "I also have to make a good impression on the High Council myself."

"I do have one condition, though," Violette adds with a sort of Babelite sly grin.

"Does it involve candy?" Envoy asks suspiciously.

"No. I want him to go with me into the city sometime to sight-see. Maybe people won't stare at me as much if it's obvious I'm not part of this 'Confederation' group," Violette states.

"Oh… well we were going to take the Gravy Boat to New Zion for its shakedown cruise," Envoy notes, gesturing to the metal craft. "And because I need to get a lot of aluminum."

Icarus just blinks a few times and looks confused. "I feel oddly important," the hybrid remarks.

"Why oddly?" Envoy asks the teenager.

Thorndike finally returns with an armload of rebar. "Icarus," grab this and get it into position to reinforce all primary struts on the assembly. Remember what I taught you, triangle structures are the strongest, so cross and split the current supports to form them," he adds.

"I'm not sure. It's nice to be wanted, I think? But … the reason is weird," Icarus says and shrugs. He heads to Thorndike and collects the rebar. He then looks to Envoy and raises his brow, then nods towards Violette and bounces his arms a bit as if asking if he can do something to put the rebar in place.

"You still need to work on your regular muscles too," Envoy reminds him. "So try not to depend on… magic… too much."

"Yes, but there are lots of things to hold and I only have two hands," Icarus points out. "I can't position the rebar all at once and be out of range when Thorndike starts up that metal melter… "

"Fine, do what you have to, but don't wear yourself out," Envoy notes, mainly because it will make things go faster. "Ready to help me with a few more enchantments, Violette? These will be on the inside and outside of the ship."

Icarus nods and throws the rebar up into the air. His fingers spread and it stops as if frozen in ice. His head tilts and he rolls his wrists and the rebar arranges itself smoothly in air as it lines up then glides over to the engine frame. As his ears splay, eyes narrow, and he even bites his tongue in concentration, the rebar begins to settle into the points where it should reinforce the assembly. Thorndike is already heading over to it, welder in hand. "Back into the land of sparks and foul smells!" the human declares, snaps his helmet down, and resumes welding.

"Oh, sure," Violette agrees as she walks back to Envoy. "What do you need? What are you trying to accomplish on the outer and inner surfaces?"

"Hmmm, I should talk to him about showing off like that," Envoy notes. Then she explains about the inner gravity enchantment to counteract the acceleration of the vehicle, and the outer enchantment that handles the basic levitation and surface-contour following. "The latter is the tricky one. The ship is heavy, but when loaded up the center of mass can change and that will need to be compensated for by the enchantment… "

Violette's ears splay as she listens. "The first one seems pretty straightforward in terms of the forces that will be at work. But … yes the latter one will be complicated. It's more a collection of effects than a single effect," she offers, "I think anyway. It's like you want pivot points at defined locations on the vehicle that act as fixed-distance levitation spells. Don't you need a team of mages for that?"

"A team?" Envoy asks. "I've got you. Two mages are a team, aren't they? I already have the fixed distance enchantment worked out, so that should be easy," she notes, and gestures to… the hovering bathtub near the entrance to the lower level ramp. "Calibration of multiple placements is the tricky part."

"And they need to compensate for weight variations," Violette adds nervously and chews her lower lip. "Oh, I know how you could do that. Secondary enchantment that acts as a compression boost spell. Basically just a helper spell that supplies 'boost' to the primary spell when it is put under greater stress. Kind of like how ritual helpers boost the primary mage. That's right in my area!" the bat beams.

"Perfect! I just need to figure out how to work it into a permanent enchantment and we can get started," Envoy says, and smiles at the Eeee. "Have you ever had to help out on something this complicated before?"

"Only when Professor Bumblegrump tried to make an automagic burger maker," Violette admits. "They had to strip and re-plaster the walls after it decorated his laboratory in meat. A bit too much boost on the patty press… "

"Oh… well… we don't want to flip our boat over, so… uh… you know how to control the boosts now right?" Envoy asks.

"Oh yes. It's a matter of monitoring the right aspect of the spell to know when to apply support. In this case it should just be monitoring the defined distance between the surface and the ground. If it compresses too much, boost," Violette chirps. "That shouldn't be too hard. If you can do your enchantment first, I can apply the boost wrap to it and then maybe you could see how to make it an enchantment."

"Just be aware that the gravity enchantment is very economical on power, so boosts need to be slight to be safe," Envoy notes, and heads for the open back of the ship, where the Perambulator is eventually supposed to be secured. "Let's do the easy one first though."

"Okay," Violette agrees and follows Envoy towards the open back. The inside of the ship is rather spartan: bare metal and framework, with a few control cables here and there. No inner skin, containers, or seating have been added yet.

"Steel is difficult to work with, so I may need you to boost me," Envoy notes, as she sits down in the center of the empty space. Once more, she doesn't bother with a circle and uses the crystals instead to create a more efficient three-dimensional control structure.

Violette sits a few feet away from Envoy and closes her eyes. The young apprentice begins chanting softly to herself. As expected it takes some time before Envoy feels the latent magic in the air around her increase as the chaos mage tries to increase the overall power available. "Quantum flux increase detected," the crystals chirp, "Counter increase and eliminate source?"

"Enhance increase if possible," Envoy sings back to the crystals.

"Attempting. Enhancement difficult. Localized interface detected nearby. Draw from interface?" the crystals ask.

Envoy blinks at this. Do they mean the power crystal? she wonders. "Identify localized interface," she replies.

"Localized interface is thee meters from current position, near gravity gravity distortion field," the crystals answer.

Icarus! Envoy realizes. "Negative, do not draw from interface or attempt enhancement or countering of increased flux."

"Confirmed," the crystals report.

Envoy focuses back on the enchantment, waiting until Violette's boost peaks before trying to engrave it into the steel plates.

As expected with just an apprentice, it's near an hour before her boost work reaches what seems to be its maximum. "Localized quantum flux at three hundred percent of norm," the crystals around her report. Area of effect extends ten meters spherical."

"Begin encoding," Envoy replies, singing out the gravity enchantment to be engraved into the inner hull.

"Confirmed," the crystals around her report in Aelfin. "Encoding difficult. Latticework of target alloy reflective of quantum state realignment. Targeting enchantment to flaws in latticework instead." The crystal then reads off numerous 'coordinates', presumably in the inner hull, where there are 'flaws' in the distribution of elements in the alloy. She can actually feel when parts of the hull start to take on the 'hum' of her enchantment.

Envoy keeps singing, and thinks that next time she should create the hull from scratch to avoid the problems of dealing with worked materials.

Working with steel is hard. Even for Envoy it ends up being another hour before she feels confident the inertial dampening spell is ingrained deeply enough to be permanent. By the time Envoy's song ends, poor Violette falls over on her side and pants.

"You need to develop your stamina more if you're going to advance to Novice," Envoy tells the exhausted bat. "When we were constructing Caroban, I had to do ritual support for eight hours or more."

"It's harder on this planet," Violette complains.

"Oh? Haven't you been training on Caroban or Rephidim?" Envoy asks. "The magic here feels at about the same strength… but then I'm told Abaddon favors Earth and Life over other spheres."

"It's different overall here. The flow is a bit more erratic and takes more to focus," the bat tries to explain. "Which since life is erratic, it would make sense those are easier to work here." She finally pushes herself up and adds, "Plus your breakfast is getting its revenge on me." The bat hiccups.

"I'll treat you to ice cream in the city," Envoy promises, and then energizes the inner enchantment to make sure it works. "Are you sensing any anomalies in the enchantment? I had to shoehorn it in."

Violette rubs over her face before focusing on the 'feel' of the spell. "It's imbalanced," the bat states after a bit, "The right side is stronger than the left and you have a hole in the front upper left about the side of a melon."

Envoy hmms, and goes to examine the steel to see where the enchantment didn't get added. "Do you think it would take better if I heated up the steel first?" she asks the bat.

"Doesn't heat cause the structure of metal to change?" Violette asks. "It may make it easier to apply an enchantment to that way."

To test it, Envoy applies a simple Heat Metal spell to a blank area where an enchantment rune should go, to see how it responds.

Envoy isn't certain, but it feels like she could impress the spell on that spot now.

Using the crystals, she attempts to embed the enchantment into the heated spot.

This time the spell seems to place a bit easier. "The hole is gone," Violette declares.

Next, Envoy repeats the process on the left wall to reinforce it, waiting for Violette to let her know when the enchantment is properly balanced.

Fifteen minutes later Violette declares the spell is much more balanced now.

Envoy rubs her throat, and says, "I think we can take a break now and check on the mens' progress, don't you think?"

"I'm not complaining about a break," Violette admits and grins. She heads back out of the spartan ship.

Thinking about how to finish the ship's interior, Envoy follows the bat-girl. But she also can't help but wonder about Icarus being identified as an interface. She decides to experiment more with the crystals salvaged from number twelve when she has a chance.

Thorndike is currently installing the last of the drive-cylinders as it turns out. "Almost done!" he calls down to the two women. Icarus is sitting down on the floor near the ship with his back up against it. His eyes are closed and he seems to be sleeping.

Envoy kneels down and pokes Icarus in the shoulder. "Did you wear yourself out?" she asks him.

The hybrid startles and flails for a second. "I was just a little tired!" he claims, "But I feel a lot better now."

"Did you feel anything odd while I was working in the ship?" the Aeolun asks.

"Yes. It was … tingly? Tickly? It was odd," Icarus says as he stretches in a rather cat like way. "Like an itch inside my head."

"Hmmm," Envoy muses, standing up again. "In your head, but not in your hands or feet?" she asks.

"Head," Icarus confirms. "Like I said, it was odd."

Envoy pokes a finger in the middle of Icarus' forehead, and says, "You may have a Lesser Interface element in there."

Icarus goes cross-eyed as he tries to look at Envoy's finger. "Is that bad?" he asks, "Will I grow horns or something?"

"I hope it doesn't grow," Envoy notes. "We'll have to examine the other one we have," she says, and then looks over to where Walter is working. "It looks we're almost ready for testing too. What do you think the inside should be done in, by the way? Wood paneling? Smooth white ceramic? Velvet?"

"Wood?" Icarus asks and looks momentarily confused. He blinks and then adds, "Oh, plant matter. I've never seen wood, I don't think. I … hm. I'm not sure what to put in it. Something comfortable I guess?"

"We'll have to shop around for chairs," Envoy notes. "And I don't know what Walter will need for the control systems yet."

"One that will fit this I hope?" Icarus asks and waves his tail at Envoy using his hands. "It's entirely too fluffy and gets in the way all the time. I want at least a chair that doesn't cause me problems."

Violette covers her mouth and giggles.

"At least you don't have wings to worry about," Envoy points out. "Hopefully the interior gravity will make it unnecessary for reinforced chairs, so we can go with comfort. We just have to get the vehicle to the city so we can have it all fitted out properly. There are just the ground effect stabilizers to add and the magical part should be done."

"I need an altimeter, external and internal pressure gauges, a mercury balance, about a thousand feet of lubricated cable, and another few hundred feet of copper tubing for building hydraulic control lines to manipulate the doors, they'll be heavy. And oh yes, I need a vacuum booster too." Thorndike calls out from where he finishes tightening the last bold on the drive frame.

"I think… we need to head for the city and rent a truck," Envoy notes. "Violette and I can fly, but you two may have to ride together in the tub."

"Ride into the city in a bathtub?" Thorndike complains, "That would be ridiculous! I'm a famous explorer, we do not ride in bathtubs!"

"But… I don't have any hot air balloons or jet packs here," Envoy explains. "Not even a bicycle!"

"Ooo, I could take Icarus clothes shopping," Violette suddenly claims. "He really needs better clothes."

"Eek?" goes Icarus.

"Not even a bicycle with a really big front wheel?" Thorndike asks, sounding disappointed.

"We've got the old Titan and some broken vehicles," Envoy suggests. "Or I can fly there and just having someone come out… "

"Aha! We could ride the titan!" Thorndike declares. There's a pause, then he adds, "No, they would attack us. Okay, so … tub it is."

"Well, we can always dress it up to look less like a tub," Envoy suggests. "Or just stick the disc to something else. Do you have an inflatable life raft in the Perambulator perhaps?"

"Of course I have a raft! I also have a portable ornithopter … but it hasn't really been tested yet," Thorndike claims, "But I'm sure it works now! The last test flight only had one minor explosion."

"Oh," Envoy says, and then smiles. "We have a Chaos Mage (in training) though now! I'm sure it'll work fine this time!"