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"These are various types of self-levitating minerals, my Queen," Honeydew explained excitedly. "This one is referred to as skystone, this one as loftstone, these are cloudstone and cloud crystals respectively, this is stratite, and this is... Oh dear. BEAKER! YOU LEFT YOUR LUNCH ON THE TRAY AGAIN!"
Queen Whatevra Wa'Nabe blinked, then looked up. Sure enough, Honeydew's assistant was floating around near the ceiling of the cavernous laboratory, tumbling through the air as if he were weightless.
"Self-levitating, you say."
"Yes, my Queen. Normally these minerals are naturally buoyant in the air and will drift around with the wind, although some formations will hold a static position in the sky."
"I notice that, other than the sample your assistant apparently ate, none of these are floating."
"Oh, that's the fascinating bit, my Queen! Apparently the self-levitation is a naturally occurring form of expressed magic! Which, as you should know, the anti-magic properties of your throne automatically absorb unless they originate from a changeling. However, with even just a little infusion of changeling magic, any one of these mineral samples will levitate for hours at a time! Think of the possibilities! We could design our airships to do without those pesky envelopes!"
"And yet Equestria continues to use envelopes for their airships, despite the fact that a third of their population could easily gain access to these rocks."
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"My Queen, I feel that I should point out that some of these minerals were extracted from Equestrian airships."
"Which, no doubt, also had envelopes."
"Well... Yes, my Queen." Honeydew admitted.
"And where did the samples that were not previously part of an airship come from?"
"Oh, that's easy, my Queen! There's an area not too far from here to the west where floating islands fall after drifting into the Badlands from over the Macintosh Hills! It's been very convenient to gather samples to study since the islands tend to break apart on hitting the ground!"
"Honeydew."
"Yes, my Queen?"
"You may test small craft outfitted with these minerals, but our primary airships will be designed to be fully supported by envelopes whether or not you succeed in designing or replicating a system that can work without an envelope. One will serve as the back-up to the other."
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"As you command, my Queen," Honeydew conceded, trying not to sound disappointed. Well, at least she got the go-ahead to make small craft without those pesky ropes and envelopes that Beaker kept getting tangled up in. She supposed that would have to do.
(if it goes on small go with bigger
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Moonbeam found that she was actually starting to get used to the bug-pony appearance of the changelings, and was even beginning to be able to tell some of them apart as the days went by. Not that she knew more than a few of their names, as Captain Mayhem's company was just a bit too large for her to have memorised them all just yet, but they had a mix of the professionalism she expected soldiers to have and the casual comradery (and occasional interpersonal hazing) she had seen among various cliques back at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.
Untitled Part 97
Start from the beginning
