On the day when the parts arrived at the campus post office, Kiera also arrived with a new pair of eyes. She had become an oculomancer.
Kiera also seemed to have a companion as well. The same teenage girl that Quinn had seen sitting next to King Edwin the one time he visited the Spine. She, also, seems to have acquired new eyes since he last saw her. She said little, and stayed close to Kiera.
The boys began to assemble the prototype outside the campus on the same empty field where their professor taught them about the Aurascribe. The wings would be too wide to fit through the door of any of the buildings on campus. The club had to hire the services of a few professional sailors to help make sure that the rigging was solid. As for the wings, they stretched thin cloth over the wing spars and then painted them with a mix of chemicals that would make the cloth stiff.
"Those chemicals are extremely flammable," Kiera said.
"Good point," Seth said. "Quinn, please add a new item to the checklist for this problem."
"No possible sources of fire near the airplane and no flying during thunderstorms," Quinn said. He scratched a note on the checklist before returning to working on the wings.
The assembly took many hours of work. During those hours they would sometimes rest in a small tent constructed on the field. For lunch they made stew at a campfire and washed the pots with water from a bucket. They hired children to run the bucket back to campus to fetch water when it was empty. Kiera and Claire left the group for lunch but returned a few hours later, before the assembly was complete.
The final problem was the propeller. Quinn had ordered several different shapes of wooden propeller to be built in the harbor district. Bjorn and Vince were busy setting up the propeller on a post connected to the engine mechanism.
The engine was similar to that used in an ethermancy-powered boat. There was a rectangular piece of wood coated only on one half with an extremely expensive material called crysien. The opposite half on the opposite side was also coated in this material. The idea is that an ethermancer could use pure force magic to push on the rectangle, and the crysien would block the force from hitting one half. The rectangle would flip over and over rapidly as more force was applied. This was attached to a gearbox for the propeller.
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They tested each of the propeller designs and measured the air pressure coming off the propeller in various places using a small glass tube from the campus laboratories. They picked the one that generated the most pressure, which was longer and thinner than a ships propeller and could spin faster.
The team flew the plane a few times with sandbags in the seat instead of a person. Ethermancy could be used to power the engine at a short distance and they walked along side the craft with ropes holding it stable. It actually flew, even with double the number of sandbags.
Finally Seth sat in the chair and snapped on a pair of safety goggles. The ropes were removed and the team ran through their checklists.
"Time to roll the dice," Seth said as he began to spin the engine. The propeller whirled, the craft shuttered the lurched forward. It gained speed, floated up off the ground, and then flew. It was actually working, and it actually looked very easy. Seth flew a short distance, keeping the craft going straight by manipulating the three axis control system that they had designed, and then softly skid onto the grass of the field.
Quinn, Bjorn, Vince, the children and even the sailors were astonished to see this. Kiera and Claire did not share their enthusiasm. "That looks dangerous!" Kiera said.
"It is a risk, yes," Seth said. "However these are the types of risk that I love best. Brother, we should go into town to celebrate. I am thinking that we should..."
Then he started talking in a low whisper, "maybe I should not say that near the ladies." Quinn nodded.
"I think a celebration is a great idea. Any expenses you have, you can charge to my family account. I just need a piece of paper and two different colors of ink."
Quinn realized that she was serious. The woman was always flaunting her wealth with all those bobbles she wore and offering to pay for club expenses.
"Absolutely," Seth said, then whispered, "we can go to the expensive place in Hightown, a real courtesans' guild."
Kiera scribbled some lines on the paper with both colors of ink. It just looked like an incomprehensible blob drawn by a child to Quinn, however Kiera said "show this to any oculomancer, they will understand the message, and they will charge my family account for your expenses. Have fun!"