Reynard's Engineering Life. . .

[deathmetus 152]

Day I: The Notes

*A tall human with dark hair tied off in a ponytail, is swimming towards a group of ships, many of which are wrecked. He climbs onto a large ship that like a few is completely untouched by the rocks. He climbs on in his dark grey uniform with a sleeveless ring-mail shirt*

“Damn I should’ve worn my mage training gear. . . oh that’s right I had to leave it in Aegis. . .”

*He stands and looks at the ship, he sighs remembering the last few days of Aegis. He walks to the officer’s cabin and breaks open the door. He looks around and finds his chest still intact. He opens it*

“Damnit! Looters got everything. . . I wonder if my notes even made it through. . .”

*He presses a small button in the bottom of the chest underneath a few damaged papers and cobwebs. A small compartment opens revealing two intact leather bound journals and a large steel embossed book*

“It’s all here! It’s all here. . .”

*The man stuffs the books into the now dry bag. The he speaks a few quiet words and his shadow surrounds him, then he disappears into the void*

[deathmetus 152]

Day II: The Translation and Discovery

The notes following are from the desk of Reynard Lycian who gave his notes to Royal Scribe Josef Timothee for archival.

*I stand now in my blacksmith after a week of translation. My old master’s book was written in a combination of Dovah and Latin, supposedly the languages of Dragons and Magic. Unsure if dragons ever had a language but he has recorded much in his book that has been lost to time, perhaps if I delve deeper I may discover such. For now my needs are for the defense of our nation. Tarus wishes for us to have siege and other architectural means to defend our nation.*

*The first page was part of the index for the book. I then have gone to the various pages that I needed to translate, many of which contain formulas for alchemic, magical, and engineering that is far beyond any of what we have known, except some of the advances by the Dwarves and Alras.*

*The pages I have finished translating contained more than I could have hoped for, they had a way to make cannons unlike those of Alras. They were those of the undead, I wonder at where my master discovered such weaponry.*

*Suddenly Tarus bursts in*

“My liege,” I say bowing, “what do you need of me?”

*I quickly push my master’s notes under a pile of engineering designs*

“Reynard, we need catapults as soon as possible, we need those weapons!

“I –I would need proper time to make sketches, I need to make sure that they can work. We cannot allow us to make defense that do not work.”

“Then do so, those Orc raiders have attacked us far too often for my liking.”

*Tarus leaves and I lock my smithy and head towards the square. I see Throdo along with some of the members of the military.*

“Throdo, Tarus wishes for us to design and test defensive and offensive catapults. He wants them as soon as possible so that we may have a way to defend against the Orc raiders on our lands.”

*He tells me it will be done soon and I head back to my smithy. Perhaps my master had notes on such weapons, perhaps we may be able to replicate such things to defend our homes, I only hope we can do so before it is too late*

[deathmetus 152]

Part III: The Trebuchet Defense

*I left for one month to go meet with my fellow mages on the council and when I returned I was very surprised. I came back to find several large test siege engines lying around the city. We had a siege tower, a trebuchet, and a large redstone powered siege ram. At first I was happy, but then I thought, ‘What if they weren’t tested properly? Could we harm our own?’ I ran to find Throdo. I found him sitting near the huge Trebuchet.*

“Throdo, did you test this Trebuchet at all?”

*He points to a large hole in the wall and near its base. My eyes widen in surprise, it was huge, a large circular hole about 5 meters all around*

“Why is it so large?”

“Our smaller models broke, so I thought bigger would be better”

*He smiles and I nod, but I think that we need to make a smaller model, one we can make much more of.*

“Can you make smaller versions? We need these on our walls for defenses.”

“Yes but it will take a week or so for us to develop them.”

“Then do it, and quickly, remember we have that new siege factory in our industrial district.”

“I know, I built it.”

*I nod and walk back to my shop. Unlocking the door I find that little dust has collected since I left. I had hoped my apprentices would run the shop, I am glad they have since I have been away. I walk up into my study and reopen my books*

“I need to find the chapter on Nether Fire and Ghast Weapons. . .”

*I turn through the chapters I have translated and find the siege weapons chapter. I read through the formulas and I found it, the secret to Nether Fire, a weapon of most useful abilities, and Ghast Weapons, I may need to contact Alras or the Mages Guild for help on this. . .*

[deathmetus 152]

Day IV: False Hopes

*Sadly a few days ago Eze’kiel stepped down as King and has left me as Regent to the land. The Hanseti violence has stopped for now, however we must change for peace and make a better defense for our homes.*

*Alras contacted me and I was able to discuss the building of a few cannons on our walls for our safety. I placed areas for him to build them, then I secretly told my guardsmen to watch and record how and what they use to build these cannons, perhaps we may be able to use their technology to help enrich our own.*

*What surprised me most is the next even that happened. Mogroka of the Warnation of the Orcs and Pok of the Ugluk clan were in my city. Mogroka even said he would allow peace and so would Pok so long as we continued to change and become a better nation. He left in a peaceful manner atop his large, fearsome, and uncontrollable War Boar.*

*The next day*

*Damn all my guards must have drank with King Syrio, I found them drunk in the streets and they had no information to give me, even worse the entire Alras contingency had left after they were finished. They left me only with the simple instructions on how to operate said cannons. ‘Load the gunpowder, load the shot, pull back the lever, push the button to light the cannon and then it will fire.’ Perhaps testing these cannons soon may prove somewhat useful to my research even if it is lesser than seeing how to build them.*

*A few weeks later*

*After a fearsome offense by spiders and their skeleton friends which we believed to be sent by the Mori I have decided to test these cannons from Alras for defensive purposes. Ambros is here as he appears to be a cannon expert in his own right and is helping us with our defenses for future attacks on the city. A young Navy Midshipman loads and fires the cannons for us.*

*Boom!*

*Every cannon from Alras that we used blew up whether a normal amount of gunpowder or not. Alras has tricked us!*

“Ambros perhaps can you help us with designs of our own? I hear you have the knowledge of siege engineering pertaining to cannons.”

“Perhaps, let us go to the warehouse.”

*We met in the warehouse and discussed plans over the long night, and I shared some of my designs copied from my master’s notes. Perhaps a prototype can be made*

[deathmetus 152]

Day V: New Beginnings

*I wipe off the dust from my sweat stained gloves and look at my third version of the weapon. After the stone one blew up and the obsidian one failed to produce any flame I may have finally found my answer. In my notes the weapon known as Nether Fire was a small cannon type object that could fire a large round that would create a giant pillar of fire burning all within its flame. My first prototype blew up my entire new workshop and I had to rebuild from scratch. *

“The formula better work now.”

*I mixed in the formula of redstone dust , gunpowder, and crushed netherrack. The recipe called for magma cream or other various parts of a blaze, but it was hard to come by such objects. Then I placed it into my steel cannon. I made sure that the vents were checkerboard and not slots so that the flames would not escape out. The shot had to be carefully made so that the effect would work. A hollow, thin, steel or clay ball and fill it with the formula. The issue with the steel balls is that they require a greater kick and require an obsidian not steel cannon. For now clay would do the job well.*

*I load in my round and pray to the gods for mercy, then I fire.*

*Instantly a roaring flame appears where the ball hit and set fire to the whole target. The width of the shot was about 7 or 8 meters round! I was ecstatic, but I knew not the range. I tested the cannons on level ground with a 180 degree angle for firing. A range of almost 50 meters!*

*I gather my team from the fort boot project and explain a plan, to get our cannons to the boot. . .*

[deathmetus 152]

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[MediocreGamer 838]

Day IV: False Hopes

*Alras contacted me and I was able to discuss the building of a few cannons on our walls for our safety. I placed areas for him to build them, then I secretly told my guardsmen to watch and record how and what they use to build these cannons, perhaps we may be able to use their technology to help enrich our own.*

Before we even started construction of the cannons we told everyone to get off of the walls whilst we were constructing them. We made sure no one was watching my engineer build them as he was intentionally sabotaging them. I stood watch as Kalen Forseth my Royal Engineer built them.

*Damn all my guards must have drank with King Syrio, I found them drunk in the streets and they had no information to give me, even worse the entire Alras contingency had left after they were finished. They left me only with the simple instructions on how to operate said cannons. ‘Load the gunpowder, load the shot, pull back the lever, push the button to light the cannon and then it will fire.’ Perhaps testing these cannons soon may prove somewhat useful to my research even if it is lesser than seeing how to build them.*

“They left me only with the simple instructions on how to operate saidcannons. ‘Load the gunpowder, load the shot, pull back the lever, push the button to light the cannon and then it will fire.” That is a blatant lie. We showed no one how to construct nor fire these cannons, they were not fired on sight as they were sabotaged and would’ve exploded. We stated once we were done that we would be sending trained engineers to come teach your men how to fire these cannons, these engineers were never going to come obviously.

*After a fearsome offense by spiders and their skeleton friends which we believed to be sent by the Mori I have decided to test these cannons from Alras for defensive purposes. Ambros is here as he appears to be a cannon expert in his own right and is helping us with our defenses for future attacks on the city. A young Navy Midshipman loads and fires the cannons for us.*

Ambros cannot be a cannon expert as the only ones who knew anything about these cannons were a few selected engineers working within the engineers guild, my high constable, and myself. “A young navy midshipman loads and fires the cannons for us.” You had no idea how the mechanism worked.

“Ambros perhaps can you help us with designs of our own? I hear you have the knowledge of siege engineering pertaining to cannons.”

An Adequate response would've been "What is a cannon". The undead never had cannons.

[Acornlad 206]

I am the navy midshipman. I traveled along with the orcs on their ship to Asulon, they used cannons which I learned the basics of how to build cannons, how they work and how to load and fire them. Also Magnus Loken, Throdo Therving and I (Tolem'Var) built the cannons, Reynard gave us the orders to build one and helped come up with the plans to build them. I told Throdo how the cannon needs to be structured in order that it does not break, also I saw a mistake in the Alrasians cannons that when fired the barrel cap (A trap door at the end) did not open, so the cannon would blow itself up. So I just started messing with a redstone mechanism to open the trap door when the fuse is lit and eventually figured it out. Of course I am missing a ton of other details, if you want to know them just ask me. Hope I could clear things up. Written from an IPod

[Hiebe 2493]

Cannons this cannons that.... seems to taken out of control already :/

[MediocreGamer 838]

I am the navy midshipman. I traveled along with the orcs on their ship to Asulon, they used cannons which I learned the basics of how to build cannons, how they work and how to load and fire them. Also Magnus Loken, Throdo Therving and I (Tolem'Var) built the cannons, Reynard gave us the orders to build one and helped come up with the plans to build them. I told Throdo how the cannon needs to be structured in order that it does not break, also I saw a mistake in the Alrasians cannons that when fired the barrel cap (A trap door at the end) did not open, so the cannon would blow itself up. So I just started messing with a redstone mechanism to open the trap door when the fuse is lit and eventually figured it out. Of course I am missing a ton of other details, if you want to know them just ask me. Hope I could clear things up. Written from an IPod

The Orcs had cannons on their ship along with Renatus. That wasn't in RP obviously. They put them on their ship to merely have them. They had no means in RP. Therefor your character knows nothing of cannons, and the trap door at the end was trimming around the barrel, it vary's from texture pack to texture pack but it isn't what was faulty with the cannons thus also proving that you did not know why they exploded.

[Sagwort 833]

[[Oh...when I said I was a cannon expert I assumed you meant redstone cannons, not rped cannons. Never the less I contributed little to the cannons rply because..Ambros as a character knows nothing about them.]]