Luck be Damned

3

^^ the Ballistae ^^

— Alice —

Dragon Tendon turned out to be some of the best tension-holding material that ever existed, in my opinion.

Perhaps because it was used to hold together the mighty wings of the dragon, it could hold full tension indefinitely, without even the slightest bit of stretching; and speaking of tension! The amount of weight that a 2-meter section of tendon could hold was easily 8 Tons, but I couldn't test any higher than that, because I didn't have anything heavier!

All in all, it was perfect for the Ballistae I'd had an idea for.

The first prototype took me almost a year to finish and test, and it was strong enough to both crush and even pierce through the toughest scales on the dragon's hide, (the chest-plate, over the heart,) so if it was aimed properly, it could easily pierce the eye, abdomen, or mouth, or simply wound just about anywhere else even with a glancing blow.

Still, it was big and a little too slow, so I needed a smaller type that wouldn't lose out on stopping power.

So, the smaller model used dragon sinew, instead of Tendon, which was much easier to get ahold of. It could hold just as much as the tendon, if properly tensed, but only once; after being stretched taut in that fashion, it would be either distended or broken. Still, the faster, more lithe model would work very well against the agile creatures called Dragons.

It took another year to finish that one, even with a little help from an engineer in the city, the one who'd made the elevator. He used magic in his designs, and while that was interesting, it was of little use to me.

Another two years went into making schematics that would be able to be built en masse, because I needed a few thousand of these, to protect the cities in the forest and also the roads to and from.

During that four year period, however, I put forward my plan to the council, and left it to their deliberation with nary a worry or care, which confused my parents, but I had no fears; either they rejected it, and I did it by myself, or they took the idea and cut me out of it, and I got to use the roads anyway, or they accepted the idea and I got to use the roads.

There was no option in which I failed to eventually gain a trade route to the other cities and bolster the economies of all three, as well as increasing our tourist revenue, considering we were the closest city to the north border, and the first stop on anyone's journey deeper into the forest. If there was a path through the forest without taking a three-month carriage ride around the forest to enter from the other side, effectively reducing the travel time and the collective dangers of bandits on the outer roads, people would take it.

Merchants were opportunists, at heart, and as such would pounce on the opportunity to import and export goods in a target-rich environment, full of people who were moderately rich, but without foreign luxuries or goods.

Still, four years of hard work paid off, and I had blueprints and working items of my Ballistae, and I'd even secured a contract with the council to place them around the city, near all the edges and open observation decks, as well as on the elevator, pointing at the front entrance, not into the city.

Most people knew how to use a crossbow, I found, so thankfully no one needed serious training in anything but accuracy, and I made sure that the mounts for the Ballistae were limited in that they couldn't target the city itself, to prevent them from being turned against the city itself.

I was eight years old, now, and something about that last day passing let a huge weight off my shoulders; I'd only made it to seven, in my last life, which was one of the things I used to convince that goddess/administrator to allow me to be reincarnated again without slicking my memory.