Finally, the Prince turned to Dominic. "You must be the Gunsmith. You’ve become a living legend in the Capital in your absence."
Dominic bowed politely in greeting to the Prince, but only nodded his head in acceptance of the praise.
"No, I’m not joking. The daily reports of the Natural Sons have been the talk of the Palace since the siege started. There was great fear that Duke Albroles would manage to take the city and capture the Princess, then force her into a marriage contract in order to spare the residents.
But with every day that they sent back massively lopsided casualty reports and the city of Burton still held, the gossip got more dramatic." Alex explained.
"And that is why the youngest Princess is so eager to hear more. She’s been confined to the Palace for a month, hasn’t she?" Dominic guessed.
The Prince nodded. "It was deemed too dangerous to send her back to the Academy until hostilities near the city ended.
You should both think of what you’re going to ask the King for. You’re in for quite the reward for the defence of Burton, and the success of the Airship Plan, which has been attributed entirely to Advisor Dominic.
How did that come about, anyhow?"
Princess Alexis began to laugh, and Dominic nervously rubbed the back of his neck.
"Oh, now I really need to know." Alex continued.
"You see, the Techno Wizards had an idea about making battleships out of airships, but the weight didn’t work out. So, we negotiated and halved the number of cannons. But that still left no cargo weight for munitions.
The solution was to make a Magitech Orb to load the cannons, but nobody wanted to take the blame if it didn’t work.
So, I volunteered to take all the blame for wasted resources, and we came up with something functional within a single evening. It worked better than anyone could have anticipated, and even with eight cannons per side, the flying gunships have had few problems shooting down the enemy." Dominic explained.
"Ah, the scapegoat theory. Many gamblers will be upset to hear it. They were wagering that you were hiding a secret recipe to try to get Journeyman Rank. But how did you manage to make a Magitech Orb that could load cannons?
The mana expenditure must be horrendous with eight cannons at a time. No crewman should be able to operate that." He replied.
Alexis continued to laugh quietly. "That’s true. They can’t. The Techno Wizards went up with the airships. They haven’t set foot in the city since the battle started, other than on the airship docks when they resupplied.
All of the city defence was done by the mages in Marquis Burton’s employ."
"What level did the Magitech Orbs need to be brought to in order to be functional?" The Prince asked.
"That’s the best part. They are effective from level one, even without attunement. The first few days, the mages on the airships were sharing one Orb between two of them because they left the extras for the city defenders." Dominic explained.
He held up a spare copy, which was still level one and not attuned.
The Prince gave it a greedy stare, and Dominic tossed it to him.
"Keep that one, I’ve got another, and I know how to make them." He offered.
"Thanks. I can always use more magical options, especially if they are viable right away, and I don’t need to dump resources into them to make them useful. I actually have a [Create Munitions] orb at a high enough level to perform the same task, but this one makes an explosive cannonball, right? A second option for me."
"Yes, the rounds are stone, designed to turn to shrapnel, and they’re loaded with black powder. They were exceptionally capable against everything that they faced, except for a few armoured vehicles with a plow on the front.
Getting past the door breaching plow was much more difficult, and one was lost to a lucky shot through the viewing window. The other was slowed by shrapnel, but still reached the city gates.
The defensive measures held with its reduced momentum, but it might still be better to have solid shot cannonballs for that sort of situation.
Or perhaps a different munition entirely?
I don’t know enough about munitions to say for certain what the most efficient design for armour penetration would be. There are certainly better options than the stone shot, though." Dominic explained.
The Second Prince nodded. "I’m sure there is. But we can leave that up to the other engineers. They will find the answer with some time to research."
Five thousand kilometres away, in the Dagos Royal Palace, a dark haired young Prince stood in the middle of a destroyed throne room.
"What the hell do you mean, Father refused to name me heir? Did he think that any of those other idiots were competent to lead the nation? Put any of them on the throne, and the Noble factions will have a puppet for life." The Prince shouted.
"My Prince, the whole nation knows that only Kaizon could be a competent heir. But you know how your father was. He didn’t approve of your other proclivities, and he was entirely too soft on the commoners.
Once you told him of your intention to reinstitute slavery across the nation, he flatly refused to ever speak your name again, or you would surely have been the Crown Prince." A blue robed advisor replied gently, as if trying to calm a wild animal.
Prince Kaizon huffed in annoyance. "Start gathering all our loyal Nobles and call the envoys from Axbridge and Skiple. Dagos won’t stand for this insult to our lineage. If Cygnia wants war to eliminate a Royal Family, we will show them who the real experts are.
Only a true Royal is worthy to rule, and those blonde mutts don’t deserve the title."
"Of course, Your Highness." The advisor agreed, before hurrying from the room.
The Royal Guard shared incredulous looks.
The Prince claimed that only a true Royal was fit to lead? But his mother was a commoner girl that the King’s eldest son had impregnated just to see if the child would have her beautiful green eyes. He hardly had the standing to call himself a true Royal.
But he was a useful idiot, and the military would support him if he tried to claim the throne by force.