The initial sea trials of the ferro-cement boat were problematic. Its inherent heaviness and deeper draft, a consequence of scaling up, led to sluggish turning and an inability to contend with strong currents. Furthermore, its semi-submersible design resulted in significant leaks on deck during heavy waves.

  Alex's demand for a bow deck that could invert to deploy a ballista complicated the sealing process, making the second modification feel like a step backward. Despite these challenges, their first warship was completed after a week of trial and error.

  To support the burgeoning military, Alex established a replica of her brass gear-making apparatus for material stockpiling. This fueled the creation of a small army of clockwork dolls and machinery, necessitating the expansion of the smithing quarter.

  A new assembly line was also created to produce ballista bolts. A second concrete boat, equipped with a 50-foot crane and bucket, was built for salvaging operations, with Merumeru and Tidea-Alex responsible for filling it. While there was hope that isnders could assist with diving and salvaging, concerns about the safety of their air pipes prevented this.

  Another hull was completed and they set up a 3rd concrete ship for the purpose of ferrying supplies and people. With the help of the crafter, Alex created a cute looking pile driver that could take steel pipes and drive them into the harbor’s floor. They extended the docks so the new boats could have a pce where they could be loaded and offloaded more easily. The masons filled the pipes with concrete for extra sturdiness.

  “I think that we are about to get more boats than we have sailors to run them.” Ariel commented when they started on the 4th hull in the dry dock. “Should we take these out and see how we can practice functioning as a flotil?”

  “It is worth a shot.” Alex agreed. “The only way to learn is to practice.”

  With all sailor-css personnel assembled, they ventured into the open ocean, intending to use a nearby isnd as a target for their new, charmingly adorned, primarily metal ballista.

  “This is not as big as the one at the temple.” Alex, with the help of some sailors turned the bow-deck around with the turn of a couple cranks before deck. The ballista sat on the ceiling when they were underway, and then on the deck after they deployed it.

  “Target rock is about 1 mile south.” Funi flew back, reying an estimate of the distance.

  “Fire!” Ariel ordered.

  The sailors fired their first shot, which went wide, thanks to the unexpected strength of the magical enchantment. It took them a minute to reload the ballista.

  Their second shot struck the rock with a loud cng, and a piece broke off into the sea. This process continued until they determined the maximum effective range was about 3 miles. Beyond that, shots had to be arced high, sacrificing accuracy and making it more akin to firing a mortar. Lining up accurate three-dimensional shots required a specialized skill set.

  “It looks like it didn’t tear itself apart.” Alex inspected the ballista for damage.

  “I bet we can get some demons with this.” Ariel sounded excited. “What do you say? Ready to raid some demon nds?”

  Ariel's infectious eagerness to confront the demons uplifted the sailors' spirits. They steered towards the target-practice rock, salvaging usable bolts. Most that struck their mark were too misshapen for immediate reuse, necessitating reforging and redecoration. Conserving metal was paramount; they needed to maximize their finds to prevent depletion of the scarce metal reserves.

  “I think we could try to raid some of the smaller ports.” Alex cautiously agreed. “I don’t know if we are ready to steal a ship out of the capital's harbor though.”

  With the two magical girls in agreement, word got around that they were going to raid the kingdom. Most everyone from the tribes with a combat css wanted to get in on the action. Apparently, they had been frustrated that their csses had been stagnant for months because they missed out on the liberation of the Yvne barony.

  “Some of us will need to stay here and guard the isnd.” Cecil doused some of the tribal people’s fmes. “Besides, we don’t have enough boats for everyone. And I’m assuming that they are going to rescue people from the demons.”

  “Espically shipwrights.” Ariel pelted out in her high-pitched voice, fluttering around in the air.

  It would be at least four days of sailing to reach the continent. Two days there, and two days back. Ariel made it her purpose to drill everyone with a [sailor] css that wanted to brave blue waters on all the tasks they would need to stay on top of. Everyone would have to take watches. The ships needed at least two people on watch all the time, one person to wind up the clockwork engines every 10 minutes and another to keep an eye out on the ocean.

  They equipped each ship with a dinghy and practiced deploying it, rowing to the shore, securing it, then untying it, and setting back to their ship. First they practiced during the day, and then at night. She made everyone practice swimming in the ocean enough to get a swimming skill that didn’t have one already so long as it was css allowed.

  Of course, mister skeleton wasn’t left behind. Alex made sure to keep him in the hold of her boat, the one with the ballista, along with his giant weapon and the hero doll.

  Certain combat cssers that couldn’t get a swimming skill were asked to stay behind. These tended to be those with tank csses. After another week of training, they headed out for real. Some of the [sailors] got skills like dead reconing, and celestial navigation with Ariel’s help.

  Two days ter…

  “Land ho!” Whispered a scout who was keeping watch.

  Ariel, who had turned the toy flying cloud into balloon mode, mooring it to one of the rear ships came to investigate.

  “If the nereids are to be believed.” Ariel flew at one of the maps near the helm. “Then we should be coming up on the town of Somnum.”

  “Meru, ru ru me.” Merumeru expined, but only the former sea elf understood.

  “I know,” Ariel nodded to the slime girl. “There is some kind of emergency there. Society has broken down and the whole popution only has days left before they all start dying.”

  “That sounds serious.” Ariel tried to lower her voice, but it still sounded high and squeaky. “Lets find a pce where we can anchor unseen and scout the pce out.”

  Marina hopped into the water, Merumeru readied her sub. Funi and Ariel took to the skies to get a bird’s eye look at what they were dealing with. Alex danced to activate all the sailor dolls and get the ship switched from flying mode back to sailing mode.

  Everyone had already taken off before she got the toy ship’s rigging set right. Alex stayed below deck and used possess doll to get the sailing ship headed to the shallows. Funi could only get so close because of the king’s barrier so if they wanted to sneak in then they’d have to leave the fmingos behind.

  With the three concrete ships moored off shore, in an area that didn’t have line of sight to the raiding party the scouts would pass the message along to Alex’s doll on the toy ship, and she could wake up and give the combat cssers the go ahead to proceed with the raid.

  Marina would be the spear’s tip. She could swim into the small harbor and look around the closest without being spotted.

  About an hour passed where Alex waited impatiently.

  “Something funky is going on.” Funi nded in the water by the toy ship, and the tiny ice fairy hopped onto the boat. “Marina should have come back by now. And all I see is a sleepy town with no one outside doing anything. A handful of cerulean skinned demons are wandering around, finding a good cultivation spot, but there are fire cn demons sprawled out in various pces around the town.”

  “What kind of cultivator is a cerulean one?” Alex asked.

  “I’m not quite sure.” Ariel sounded concerned. “I’ve seen water and ice cultivators, so have you but the color is not the same. It is probably some weird esoteric cultivation technique.”

  Alex nodded. “Should we send people in to attack the demons? Maybe the captured Marina.”

  “I think that decision has already been made.” Funi commented. “I saw mister skeleton leading the first group on shore. Some of the other people took that as the go ahead to start the attack.”

  “I suppose that I should have just expected him to go straight for the demons as soon as he woke up.” Alex grumbled. “I’m going to switch to Tidea and see if I can retrace Marina’s steps.”

  “If everyone is going to attack.” Ariel only gave it a moment of thought. “I’m going to back up our overly aggressive dark knight.”

  Alex led her little sailor doll down to the hold where the circle for the possess doll was. After that, she woke up in her real body in the orca.

  “Welcome back Magical Girl Alex.” A sailor who had been tasked with watching her body greeted her when she stirred.

  “Looks like all the combat csses left.” Alex wanted to confirm.

  The sailor nodded. “Yes, when our metal-cd skeleton was willing to risk jumping in the water and wading through the ocean to get to shore someone took pity on him and rowed him to the shore. He said that he knows exactly where the strongest demon was and headed out.”

  “Did he tell them to follow?” Alex asked.

  “No ma’am.” The sailor answered. “But he always talks so cryptically, so maybe they just thought that was the go ahead. No one wanted to see him fight the enemy alone.”

  “He’s got the hero doll with him I assume.” Alex drank some water and ate a snack.

  “Do you need anything else?” The sailor asked.

  “Marina is missing.” Alex reported. “I’m going to take Tidea and swim into the harbor to find her.”

  After taking a break to relieve herself and inform Fufi, Alex used [possess doll] on Tidea. She waddled off the deck of the boat and plopped into the water. Going full speed, she only took a couple minutes to speed past the toy boat and into the harbor.

  She found an odd sight under the water. Merumeru’s sub was sitting on the bottom of the harbor. The slime girl asleep at the wheel. Alex tapped on the gss. “Wake up Merumeru, now is not the time to be sleeping.”

  She tried to push the mini-sub but Tidea didn’t have the ability to get it unstuck from the grounding with just her propellers.

  Thinking that Merumeru would be okay there for a little while, Alex headed further in to find Marina. It took a lot of zooming around but she eventually found the scout under a dock, also taking a snooze. She tried to rouse the woman-transformed-into-mermaid but nothing worked. So Alex decided she was just going to pull Marina back outside the borders.

  After checking that no one was watching, Alex wrapped Marina’s arms around her, held them to her chest, and buzzed off out of the harbor. When they got pelted by ocean waves, Marina finally stirred.

  “What?” Marina started thrashing her tail. “Where am I? What happened?”

  “That’s what I want to know.” Alex let the mermaid girl go now that she had woken up. “What do you remember?”

  “I remember going into the harbor, finding a good hiding spot. Feeling a bit tired.” She trailed off. “But then everything gets blurry after that.”

  They swam back to the toy ship.

  “Marina and Merumeru fell asleep in the harbor.” Alex expined to Funi. “Merumeru is stuck in the mud, snoozing.”

  “Oh dear.” Funi sounded concerned. “I think we know what kind of demons we are dealing with. They are sloth cultivators.”

  melchi