Mekare and I walk toward the hangar building. Thunderous sounds of metal being pounded into shape ring out, along with the distinct noise of heavy wooden beams being bent and shaped into a hull. The heavy doors swing open to reveal a beautiful chaos, workers moving around one another like water flowing as they work diligently. I find Markus and the foreman standing in a raised tower overlooking the slowly forming wooden skeleton of the ship. They are going over large sheets of paper, which I assume are blueprints or other forms of technical papers. I dodge through the work, doing my best not to distract the many workers. I reach the tower and climb the narrow spiral stairs up to the platform above.

The two men notice me quickly and I note that Markus looks really happy here. The foreman puffs his chest out in pride and speaks to me,

"Sir! We've begun the framing process. Markus here has gone over your... well early designs and has improved upon them based on his technical know-how. He has decided to make the internal frame out of large and reinforced beams of wood rather than the steel you initially requested. Of course, the main spine and other important structural points will be made out of steel so that they do not fail.

He made this decision based on our production capabilities for steel. This decision was made after the attack as Markus and I decided that we will require this vessel sooner rather than later.

Is this decision okay with you?"

I rub my chin and ask,

"I plan to attach at least four weapons each weighing... let's say 12 tons in those turrets or roundtables whatever you call them, and along the flanks, my initial design required sixteen of a smaller weapon, eight on each side each one weighing around a ton. Of course, more weapons can be added if the structure can handle it.

Not only are these weapons important, but I came here today to come to a decision for the thickness of the armor. "

Markus looks at his designs for a moment before he responds,

"That weight is doable with the current structure thanks to the thickness of the wood I am using along with it being ironwood fir. This wood while more expensive, is incredibly tough in both hardness and structural soundness. It has the highest stress tolerance of all but the rarest of wood. It was an oversight on my part for not asking what these weapons are.

I want this ship to be my masterpiece so I will increase the structural support across the whole vessel, and add some more steel supports. Of course, this will increase costs and add a little more production time, but it is reasonable.

Now how are we going to decide on armor thickness? I need to know this so I can compensate in structure."

I am a bit surprised at how flat his tone is while explaining something he is so clearly excited about, but I take it in stride and respond,

"Have the boys produce some sheets of steel at three thicknesses that each of us believes is proper. Then we will try and destroy them."

With that, the forge masters get to work with our orders.

Two days later I drag Godiva out to one of the open fields on campus. In front of us are nine sheets of metal, each one propped up with buried fence posts so that they stand up like short walls. Each one is a meter tall and a meter wide, each one of a different thickness. Godiva is of course confused by this. I may have acted like I was taking her to see something cool...well it is cool, only to me, Markus, and the foreman. She asks me,

"What the hell is going on here?"

I respond,

"Well... Since you kinda are the strongest mage I know and have the ability to speak to as of now, I need your help. "

She sighs and asks,

"What is it?"

I explain,

"Well, we need to understand how much armor is needed for a project. I want the armor thickness to be nearly invulnerable to most common magic. I simply want you to hit each of these plates with your strongest spell that is dedicated to punching through armor. Or I guess use the spell you would use to shoot down an airship."

She agrees reluctantly and after three hours of testing, she is left exhausted due to actually going all out on the armor. We had to take a break after two panels but it was reasonable in order to keep up the intensity of the strikes. Eventually, we finished and Godiva left us to look over the work. She appeared to be a little upset after the whole thing, but I had Mekare go and buy her some sweets or a cake or something as a thank you. I mean as the princess she could easily do it herself, but it's the thought that counts and I really am thankful.

In the end, the result showed an armor thickness between 6-8 inches thick is what is required to stop her powerful spells. At 6 there is a notable deformity in the plate, and at 8 there are only scorch marks where her spell hit with barely a dent. Anything thicker was overkill and anything less failed. We discussed our findings.

We argued back and forth for a while about the many aspects of the defensive capabilities of the different armors. I argued that 6 inches was adequate because Godiva is an incredibly strong outlier of a mage and the deformation wouldn't happen with a weaker more average mage, plus we need this ship produced in a reasonable time.

Markus argued for a superheavy 10 inches of armor. This reasoning comes from him wanting to create a truly invincible vessel, but he did admit to the extreme cost and time issues.

The foreman surprised me with his argument for 4 inches of armor. He focused on mobility and cost, plus the failure of the 4 inches wasn't a complete one. While a hole was punched through, it was less than 2 inches across and the armor held for a moment. Plus the same argument about Godiva's capabilities being extreme in comparison.

In the end, we all came to an agreement on 5.5 inches thick, but with a secondary hull inside. Basically, the main exterior hull will be 5 inches thick which should protect against everything aside from Godiva focusing entirely on the ship, or a more powerful mage than her, but the second and wooden hull will be 6 inches off of the armored hull and have about half an inch of steel covering it in order to fireproof it. This should defeat most forms of attacking magic and protect the crew inside the vessel.

The deck-plating will be much thinner, at 3 inches for both the top deck and the bottom of the ship, but rather than be completely flat they will be rounded as to reduce the direct impact of incoming attacks. The decks will also utilize extra bracing from heavy beams of wood with one-inch gaps giving them incredible stability and bracing the steel against any impact. The large round turrets will have a full 6 inches of steel for their entirety, but the roofs of both will be 5 inches. The firing ports along the sides will have retractable doors to protect the crew from lucky shots, each of these doors will be 4.5 inches thick with a fairly complex pulley system used to open and shut them, with the ability to drop them entirely if the system breaks so the gun can still fire.

With the construction of the ship figured out, now all I have to do is create the armament, or more precisely, create the technology so the guns can be properly produced. My plan is for the cannons to be custom-fitted to the ship, and at a later date, mass production can be done.

I sit down inside what is slowly becoming an alchemy lab and start pouring over the various books, and creating the recipes found inside, testing their capabilities inside of cheap metal pipes with one end sealed to work as a testing "gun". While anything that burns quickly and hot can be used as a propellant in a sealed environment, I am looking for the most consistently powerful propellant. This does not mean I am only looking at the power they can create, it means I am looking for something that can be easily produced preferably in mass quantities, and is reliable. Waterproofing and other such things are a bonus.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Mekare appears every now and then to bring me food and drink but eventually, I give her some orders. The task she is given is to get a good tailor to go and fit the Schneemacher woman, and to create a lovely dress or something to her liking. I also make sure she understands that the dress or whatever it ends up being, must have at least leather bindings or straps in places so I can perform my task. She happily leaves the alchemy room to do this job. My guess is she is going to embezzle some funds for personal spending at the tailor, but my current work is far too important right now to do anything about it.

I ended up choosing a substance I like to call Inferno extract. It's a strange material that has no analog to modern earth. So first there is this tree, a rather fast-growing and softwood tree that is useless for anything else, but it produces large cantaloupe-sized fruits, it's called a hell tree. Much like eucalyptus trees, these plants rely on regular wildfires to spread their seed as despite how weak their wood is, their sap is a powerful fire retardant. I would best describe their fruits as incendiary grenades. The seeds are tough and of course, have the flame retardant sap protecting them. As the runny and quite sticky interior of the fruit rots after falling from the tree, there is a certain point of fermentation where the combustion temperature is around one hundred degrees Fahrenheit if my math is right. Prior to fermentation, the fruit is still incredibly flammable and more viscous and sticky making it like napalm. I am more interested in what a random Alchemist of old produced.

Basically, this fluid when fermented slightly to where it is more runny, it can be distilled, carefully. When distilled down to almost nothing what is left is a tar-like substance that makes for good boat sealing and is non-flammable, and then the distilled product which is apparently a pinkish and clear watery substance. This substance is stupidly flammable, an entire vial of it, which I guessed was about 2 fluid ounces, burned entirely in about a second and a half. The alchemist figured out that if you mix some powdered charcoal into it and mix until homogenous the fluid solidifies into a fairly hard crystal. Not like crystals forming in the bottom, but the entire vial of fluid solidifies. This gives it stability as the liquid stuff can burn if shaken too much. The carbon seems to change the molecular structure somehow.

While there are much more powerful powders and incendiaries available, this stuff is the best option. It literally grows on trees that produce more fruit than apples at times, only requiring a distillery and charcoal to make into a useable substance. It's very waterproof even in powder form as it is hydrophobic, but it can still be quenched if drowned enough. Not only that, but the solid form and powder form are impact-proof as they cannot be ignited, unless under extreme circumstances, by impact.

It's easy to make, cheap, and very stable and reliable. The only issue I have with it is that it smells pretty bad when burned, and produces more smoke than I'd like. Not as much as black powder from my experience, but much more than modern white powder. I would best describe the smell as that of burning marijuana but with an intense undertone of lavender. Odd for sure, but smell is going to be the smallest worry when it comes to creating firearms.

Next is to create a firing mechanism and an ignition system. I plan to skip the entire smoothbore flintlock phase of firearms. This came in the form of flashstone.

Flashstone is a fairly common rock used as a firestarter in most places. It works as both a flintstone and a match two in one. From my observations, it is a mineral composed mainly of phosphorous and carbon in some manner. It ignites when impacted suddenly or faces some sort of high temperature. It is a hard stone but easily shattered, and somehow the shattering of the stone in a certain manner causes it to combust rapidly. Luckily it is also very stable, just dropping it won't ignite it, and the striking force must be considerable. This makes it a perfect primer in my eyes.

For my idea, the weapon will be fired with a crossbow-like mechanism driving a metal spike into the primer which will then ignite the powder. For the larger cannons, a ballista-style weapon can be used. Using my metal pipes I begin creating the firing mechanism to fire my stone marbles just like testing before.

My prototype design is easily created, two short arms made of either thin metal or wood, a short length of rope, and a metal spike with a "stopper" on top of it. My best guess is the draw is around 10 lbs and pulls back to 10 inches. A simple trigger mechanism releases the spike which is connected to the string and the spike impacts the primer igniting the whole mix. For a while, it was quite unreliable, but then I created a guide rail for the spike to ride on which increased the reliability to near perfection. I then built a small handle that attaches to the spike to draw it back. It's not difficult, but not exactly easy to draw, but on a cannon-sized one there would be a crank to draw back the spike.

The final two things are the bullets themselves and the barrels. For the projectiles fired it is less important for the cannon as with a large bore I can create any manner of shells and have more tolerance on the type of projectile and create custom shots as hopefully the ship won't need many follow-up shots.

I decided on 2-piece ammo because I can't justify the creation of so much brass. All of the weapons will be breech loaded for ease of firing, but this requires specific ammo types. There will be the shot, and then the propellant which has the primer connected to it. I plan to shred the propellant for weight purposes rather than keeping it in solid crystal form, plus the powder can be packed more densely, allowing for twice the amount of the propellant to be put into a space versus a solid crystal. For the cannons, I plan to put the powder inside what is a surprisingly tough fabric container. The fabric is a highly hydrophobic material plus is flammable. It is used for waterproofing expensive carriages and other fabric-built objects. It's rather difficult to make, but its raw components are easy to acquire. I do note the production process could easily industrialized using steam power.

I spent a few days making rifled barrels with the blacksmiths figuring out the proper twist needed for best accuracy. In the end, we figured out the best twist and barrel thickness. Then I commission the first test cannon barrel. I decided on an 8-inch bore (203-205mm), as it is a heavy caliber capable of being filled with massive amounts of HE or other filler. It is also not overly massive. These 8-inch cannons will be the turret guns, but the broadside guns will be 4 inches (102-105mm). The end armament will be 4 8-inch cannons mounted in twin gun revolving turrets, and 16 4-inch guns on the broadsides with 8 on each flank. I would say this is a good armament for the first ship ever to mount cannon.

The end result the blacksmiths made is a behemoth of a weapon. It weighs in at an estimated 8 tons not including the firing mechanisms yet. It is a monstrous 14 feet long with a tapering barrel with eight rifling grooves running the entire length. At the moment the rear end is open, but they created a sealable breech that locks with two massive rotating clamps on each side. The gun is mounted on a huge wooden structure with wheels so that we can move the huge weapon around for testing. With the forging aspect done, I helped, along with twenty others, pull it into a workshop room to attach and create the firing mechanism.

Alongside multiple craftsmen, we create a surprisingly compact ballista to work as the firing mechanism. We also attached the breech cover to the guide rail for the ballista and alongside the heavy clamps we make handles on either side of the breech so it can be removed and replaced easily. It's overall a beautiful sight and all involved are proud of the weapon, now it is time to test it to figure out the proper charge load for the best performance. The barrel is more than thick enough to handle very intense charge strengths, so that's not an issue. The issue is purely what is the minimal load to cause the most destruction.

Thanks to my income through business ventures and some political leveraging allowing me to gain monopolies in regions of the kingdom I am able to hire lots of mages who specialize in some kind of useful magic toward agriculture, and I began growing the materials needed for production of propellant and its case. I also began acquiring mass amounts of flash stones and shaping them into primers. Along with this, I began making various projectiles.

I stick with three as the main types of shots. One for anti-fortification, one for anti-ship, and one which is just a solid heap of lead that can be used for general purposes. Testing will be done with the cheap lead shot. Each projectile will be 8 inches in diameter in tandem with the bore of the gun and they will be about 1 foot long. This results in the projectile being nearly 100 lbs when constructed of pure lead. Making the solid shells is easy, simply create a mold, produce 1 shell, and then use that shell to make every consecutive sand mold.

The anti-fortification shell is what I will call an APHE shell or SAPHE. Basically, the shell is made of a steel outer casing, within it is filled with flash stone, with a spacer of sand between it and the trigger. Flashstone while quick to ignite takes about half a second to truly start burning, so with the cannon, there will be a trigger pull, a heartbeat, and then the shot. The trigger for this shell is a metal spike facing inward and is held extended by the sand. The impact against a wall will drive it into the sand and eventually the flash stone, but the sand times the strike so that there isn't a detonation until the steel frame reaches the wall, and in theory, as the weight of the shell drives the hard case through the wall the spike will drive into the flash stone, but not fast enough to detonate, its when the shell hits the other wall or the floor. That drive is enough to detonate the payload. Due to the shell being sealed the thermal release will create a large pressure explosion.

The anti-ship shell is purely an incendiary shell. It works the same as the anti-fortification shell but it is made of thinner steel and less sand at the trigger, but only a small rod in the middle is made of flash stone, the rest of the shell will be filled with the sticky unrefined material from within the fruit the propellant is made from. A pseudo napalm shell.

The final step is that I hire some earth mages to build 10x10 foot walls of standard castle thickness using the most modern techniques. I have 10 of these walls made and testing is ready. I have some draft animals brought onto the flying island and all of us who helped build this prototype roll it out and to the testing fields.

At 10 AM in the morning, thunder like the world had never seen rang through the air...