It was getting on towards winter when I turned the sketches over to Veirania and Dalluse. The ships for Veirania came in four flavors. A small launch that could travel from ship to ship, a destroyer class that was fast and agile, a cruiser that was not quite as fast but mounted four good sized cannons in paired turrets and a battleship class that mounted two triple large cannons in turrets in the front and two in the rear, along with three of the smaller four barrel guns on each side of the ship. The battleships would be the largest ships the world had seen to date.

  The Dallase ships were along the lines of the PT boats that I had seen back on earth. Fast and very agile they sported the four barrel guns on the foredeck. By spring, there would be a small navy on Torgos as well as Calalistos. The shipwrights of Calalistos had me expand the harbor once more and made an entire shipyard that specialized in both the merchant ships as well as the naval ships. They had already turned out two PT boats and a cruiser. The cruiser sat just outside the harbor watching over the flow of traffic.

  Each of the towns and villages had at least four of the four barreled guns on towers. The nobles didn’t care for them, but after we had talked it over, they had seen the worth of having them. They had heard the news of the dragon at Dallase and there was little argument. There was a new building now outside my lair. It had multiple archways with strange crystals set in each capstone. They were linked to each town in the Dragonhaven Empire with a master that led to a similar room on Torgos. Nobles, their advisers and ranking military were allowed access. The stones were inactive otherwise. The Torgos hub held the map room as well. My enchantments refined, the crystal keyed to select few that were to be the watchmen. I had worked overtime to make the communication crystals and there was now a network on the ships, towers, towns and of course, the dragons.

  It was about that time that the smiths had figured out that the engines could power wagons as well. I simply stayed out of that one. I was getting used to seeing things change as they started recreating the industrial age before my eyes. I had cut down my meetings to once every two weeks and my visits to the pub down to once a week. Mostly I stayed in my caldera and prayed that we survived what was coming.

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  Just before mid-winter, three very ragged looking adult dragons showed up at Calalistos. I met them at the landing pad and interviewed them. They came seeking asylum. Viennarinia had tried to take over the dragons that were not attached to the empire. She was not being nice about it. From what they said, she had killed a couple of ancients for suggesting that they wanted to join us. The adults and juveniles lived in fear of her and there were several ancients that had joined with her. I called a meeting at the arena the next day and had them relate their story to the other dragons. Tirreg took all three under his wing in his lair group after the meeting ended. The somber feeling spread throughout the dragons.

  Late winter had several more ports and towns join us with stories of dragons landing and demanding they serve them. By spring, they were armed and were part of the empire proper. It would be late spring before their portal rooms were in place. By mid summer, the entire continent was empire. We also notice that trade had slowed to a trickle from the over seas lands.

  We had found an island and placed the portal to the mountain world there. None of the dragons were willing to go face Viennarinia, however, so the dragons were still trapped. An ancient and two more adults came in early summer and their stories had chilled the empire dragons. A few weeks later, we had a group of juveniles come in. They were in bad shape and two out of the fourteen died before we could save them. After that, we had them trickling in by ones and twos. Dragons now patrolled the borders and escorted any in that could make it. The dragons also rotated to keep a presence on Torgos.

  Meetings with the other lands had stepped up and there was a new building outside my lair. It sported several map rooms, planning rooms and a meeting hall. The dragons now all had communication crystals and they were all determined to protect the people of the lands. Funny thing was, none of the ones who had shown up had rejected the empire’s stand that people did not have to have wings to be equals. Maybe all of this would be worth it. I prayed it would be worth it.