Subtlety

The **Subtlety** was a fuel-and-electricity-powered land vehicle, in appearance a self-driving two-storied locomotive/landship monstrosity running on tracks. For a short time, it was Ascension's lead vehicle.

## History

After the overland escape from Vestvall across a forested and hilly wilderness, Ascension arrived at the open plains which held the salt flats. To cross that area in a timely fashion, Ascension made a stop for over two weeks to reconfigure their marching order. Tallheart was tasked with building what was supposed to be essentially be the second forgewagon project, at first. The much larger landcraft was then built in a concentrated, collaborative effort with only one major incident when Ava and Dust were nearly run over during a test run with non-functional brakes.

Once completed, the Subtlety served as the lead vehicle pulling a long trail of smaller (wooden?) carts across the dusty salt flats. This configuration necessitated a comparatively slow speed of merely 10 km/h. Fear of the machine may have been a factor why it was only crewed by Ameliah, Rain, Staavo and Tallheart upon departure.

Within six days, the Subtlety arrived at Three Cliffs where it first was parked some distance away from the actual cliffsides, where it still served as the most secure room of the company for some days. Rain had no idea how to lower the machine to the shorelines, while Tallheart's solution was simple: driving it off the cliffs at high speed and trusting the enchantments. After moving it into the sea, the Subtlety was cannibalized for parts: The engine went into the Temerity, and replaced the destroyed Journey Core of the former Fist of Progress. All other parts of the Subtlety were also reused; the turbines powered the twin Force Steel propellers of the salvaged vessel.

The land vehicle had only been operational for two weeks before it was disassembled.

## Concept phase

An initial attempt in creating a second forgewagon was dismissed by Tallheart for not being big enough. He also determined that the transmissions wouldn't work due to being overcomplicated. Instead, the new plan was for a steam engine functioning with a turbine instead of a piston. The smelter was to be combined with a boiler, and then pipes should move the steam to two separate turbines to power the land vehicle. A mere handful of valves would be used for steering. Ephemeral Oil, a fuel discovered by Reason, was going to power the vehicle. This fuel turned out to be the opposite of the Everfluid, and Rain dubbed it a "magical gasoline". This drove Rain towards suggesting a internal combustion engine or better a Stirling engine.

Tallheart then created a prototype in his soul, and afterwards copied the finished design in the physical world. The whole creation was a collaboration between Tallheart (main crafting) with assistance from Rain (ideas and plans), Staavo (mechanical aspects), Ellis (smithing apprentice), Romer (runework), Myth and Reason (grease and Ephemeral Oil), and even the unawakened workers from Ascension and Vestvall (glassblowing for the headlights, moving earth for the refining and smelter).

## Description

The vehicle measured twelve meters from bow to stern, eight across, and six in height. Each of the two stories of the vehicle was roughly three meters tall.

It was propped up on three pairs of treads, or six wheel-pods. Each of the pods held three wheels, a Durability-enchanted steel track, and Force Steel suspension. The central wheel of each pod was driven by a gimbaled drive shaft connected to one of six drive turbines in the main body of the vehicle.

The first structural layer was an inverted trapezoidal box, housing six turbines all connected to a main engine with pipe plumbing. The steel frame was enclosed by thick aluminum plates, forming a sealed compartment. The aluminum was enchanted with the same necessary runes as the steel, although Durability and Lightness were less effective on the lighter metal.

A ladder on the side of the vehicle lead through a sealed access hatch to the control platform on the upper deck. From there, the drive and the engineering compartment could be accessed. The upper deck had the engineering compartment, which was the largest internal room in the vehicle, and well-illuminated. The room, twelve by eight meters, was dominated by the "main reactor", a highly complex and single-piece multi-purpose engine: Furnace, forge, smelter, boilder, turbine, generator. It also had mana capacitors, intakes, and tanks for water, steam, and fuel. The most critical runes were deep within, worked in Thermalitic Bronze and designed for the careful shepherding of heat. Others were for vibration dampening, noise suppression, strength, mana—intake, mana-distribution and mana-storage. Rain's Engine-capabilities were needed to keep it working, and several runic chains were distributed all throughout the vehicle, requiring individual charging.

The remainder of the engineering deck was functional workspace: Anvil, workbenches, tools, dedicated storage space, and even a vault for the more valuable materials. It was outfitted with a periscope.

The drive compartment was at the bottom deck of the vehicle and only accessible from the upper parts via the control platform. It held the six drive turbines connected to the upstairs main reactor, with little room to navigate between, had a low ceiling, dim red electrical lighting and heavy braces to prop up the upper compartments.

The entire vehicle was shielded with Muffle, Obfuscation and Facade runes, to discourage too many questions.

On the outside of the vehicle, Staavo had mounted the two ballistas from the Sale estair atop the control platform (also called the "cargo deck"), which were more of a statement than any real defense against actual threats against real threats: Gold-level enemies would easily tear the vehicle apart.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 180
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Chapter 181
3. ↑ Chapter 183
4. ↑ Chapter 190
5. ↑ Chapter 189
6. ↑ Chapter 195
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 182