Silver Moon Fifth Year, late January.
Southeast of the continent, the vast sky and sea.
In the distance, an airship slowly approached, its huge body painted white, its cabin gray-brown. Four goblin engines at the rear chugged along, intermittently puffing out thin black smoke.
Clouds drifted slowly above.
The entire airship was composed of three parts. On top was the massive gasbag, the largest structure of the whole airship, providing buoyancy. If the gasbag were to break, the airship would "sink." So, in a way, airships were quite fragile and not suitable for warfare. Even if spellcasters capable of casting protective shields were arranged inside the airship like in the Battle of the Yadesi River, it wouldn’t help much due to the large size of the airship, which would cause magic power to deplete rapidly.
At the rear of the airship was a small engine room, generally managed by goblins responsible for burning coal to power the engines. Although there were four engines, the speed was not particularly fast.
Of course, compared to ships and land travel, it was much faster. However, generally speaking, if the ship didn’t have a powerful mage on board, no one would use an airship to cross the sea, not even goblins.
If a storm struck on land, the airship could still find a place to land. But on the sea, where would you dock? Moreover, storms on the sea were far more severe than those on land.
The last part was the cabin below. This was where passengers and cargo were transported. Although the airship looked large, the cabin was actually about the size of a few ordinary rooms combined.
For instance, in this airship, the front parlor took up two-thirds of the cabin space. It couldn’t hold much, just a circular sofa in the center and a few cabinets containing drinks and miscellaneous items.
In the cabin, Jones stood quietly in his Silver Moon Armor, gazing out through the porthole.
Accompanying him, apart from Dora, who never left his side, were Lich William and Belle, responsible for protecting Jones.
*Why did Belle come along instead of Adelle?*
*It was simple. Jones relied on Belle’s family connections for negotiations with the Blood Elves. Her father, Count Rizzo, had been trading with the Blood Elves for many years, occupying a significant share. Although the trade between the Blood Clan and the Blood Elves wasn’t large-scale, having connections within the extremely exclusionary Blood Elf community was essential to trade with them.*
*This kind of trust couldn’t be established overnight. It wasn’t about strength, but about trust. Without trust, how could there be cooperation?*
Since Belle came along, her entourage, familiar with the ways of dealing with Blood Elves, also joined. Jones, meanwhile, only brought Dora and William. To outsiders, though, it seemed Jones arrived with the entire Silver Moon Knight Order, as everyone other than William was from the Blood Clan and had to wear Silver Moon Armor in the daylight.
The scene appeared to be... two young knights, accompanying a Lich, a female knight, and a large entourage of Silver Moon Knights. That was roughly the lineup.
Jones turned around and asked softly, "Are we heading straight to the port?"
"Yes," Belle replied, "We’ll go to the port first and disembark from the airship. They will meet us there and then take us to their sanctuary." For original chapters go to NoveI★Fire.net
"Why not go directly to their sanctuary in the airship?"
"Uh... that’s impossible. The Elf Clan does not permit anyone to use airships in their sanctuary, including themselves. Landing at the port is our only route. We’ll probably have to go through many procedures along the way."
"Procedures?" Jones was puzzled, "What exactly do you mean?"
"I’m not sure how to explain. You’ll understand when we get there. It’s a lot of complicated procedures."
The Elf Forest was not actually a forest. More accurately, it was the name of a large island and a peninsula. The Silver Wing Peninsula connected to the mainland, and the island of Luo Ge Xian Ni lay across the sea from it.
Wood Elves and Flower Elves lived on the Silver Wing Peninsula. Blood Elves, the target of Jones’ negotiations, resided on Luo Ge Xian Ni.
They were an extremely exclusionary race, very hard to deal with. If possible, Jones would have preferred negotiating with the Wood Elves. However, known mineral veins were only on Luo Ge Xian Ni, leaving Jones no other choice.
After a long voyage, dusk finally began to fall.
The sunset was exceptionally beautiful, and the waves sparkled with golden glimmers.
"We’re almost there." Belle stood up from the sofa, looking out the window, "I arranged our arrival for dusk so that by the time we disembark, it will be night. Blood Elves are highly exclusionary and very wary of outsiders, so we should avoid wearing armor to appear friendly, which will benefit our negotiations."
As she spoke, Belle cast a special glance toward William, who stood not far away.