The chanics greeted Ella as they ca in, and nodded politely to her two excited shadows. Monika was a master smith, and her well-trained eye could tell that the smithy’s arts had nothing at all to do with this place.
Most of the vehicles here were crudely built, and the magic was added afterwards. It was like they were designed to be as cheap and easy to produce as possible, like they were disposable, and not a rebuildable tool.
But the others were created with magic, and while they weren’t forged by a smith, they were at least decently made.
"I can see that our Dwarven friend doesn’t approve. But that’s no surprise. Every smith that cos to the transport bays ends up day drinking to forget what they saw here.
These are the ones with the issue. The joints on the driveshaft and the rear differential gears are both wearing far faster than they should, and we can’t tell why.
So of them have already been updated with parts from our supply house, but they’re still wearing out faster than usual." The tech sighed.
The reliability of their vehicles was important to the drivers, and while the base of the trucks was foreign made, they had been retrofitted by the Witches, and should have been reliable.
Monika reached out for a creeper, and one of the techs passed her the wheeled platform to roll under the truck and take a look.
As their route was underground, the trucks didn’t get as dirty as they did above ground, but they still built up a layer of dust and gri, as well as excess grease and the occasional oil leak.
She was only under the first truck for about fifteen seconds before she rolled to the second one. Then about the sa before she went under the third in line, which was in for a tire change, and not a full rebuild.
"I see the problem. As I thought, it was a matter of the mine being played out. The tal quality on these is absolute crap, and it’s flexing with the power of the new motors that you installed. The transmissions on the ones that are wearing fastest have slightly deford, and that is changing the angles of everything.
If you replace the transmission housings on all the retrofitted ones, it will be better, but you really should get so smiths in here to make you decent parts." She declared.
Ella frowned. "The power is limited on them, it shouldn’t be more than the original motor’s maximum output."
Monika shrugged. "I don’t know what the original motor was like, but I can see the bends and stress cracks from the shock loading of sudden power that they weren’t intended to take."
For a mont, everyone was confused, but then one of the witches snapped her fingers and pointed at the trucks.
"The old fuel burning motors, they only make full power at maximum rpm. Plus, they take like five seconds to wind up to full speed before shifting. The new magical electric ones give you the sa output power all the ti, depending on the throttle position.
So, if you stomp on it to get a loaded truck moving, you’re giving the transmission full power all the ti, right from the start." She realized.
The young mage looked baffled, but Monika had a look on her face that said she simply must see what they were talking about in person.
"Do we have one torn down right now?" Ella asked.
"Yeah, a couple, actually. But now we have to check the transmission mounts, and the motor mounts to see if they’re allowing excessive twist, or if they’re bent out of place. You can take your helpers to see the rebuilds, and we will get back to work." The chanic agreed.
"These are actually two of the new Pentacle Candidates. One will be all Fae, the other will be human mages. So, if you see one of us wandering around with a pair of new faces this week, that’s what’s going on.
Monika and Jessica, et Alicia, Jenna and Calypso, our resident day shift chanics."
The chanic team waved before going back to work, and found Janet, their lead magical Engineer, staring at the broken transmission parts with a frown on her face.
Monika chuckled, and Ella gave her a confused look.
"She’s exactly the sa colour as used oil should be when you change it in the forge. Lighter, and it’s good, darker and it’s overdue. It’s like she was made for this job." The Dwarf explained, and held up a glove that was dyed the sa deep chocolate colour as Janet’s skin.
Janet laughed as she dipped her finger in the oil and held it up.
"I don’t think that matters this ti."
The oil was shiny silver with tal fragnts from the worn surfaces, and it was obvious that the transmission was unsalvageable.
"Well, stick a fork in it, that one’s about done." The Dwarf laughed, before heading across the room to start tossing parts out onto the counter in a precise order for reassembly.
"There isn’t a single good gear in this thing, they’ve all got chipped teeth, and the input shaft is twisted from the torque. You know, with a bit of work, I could make one that would last a human lifeti without anything more than regular oil changes." The Dwarf declared.
"There might be a market for that, but I think that we can leave it for the resident smiths, and not the Pentacle mbers. Just ask Ella, she’s already too busy to spend more than a few hours a day in the workshops here.
I will assu that the two of you don’t know, but it’s not a secret here in Forest Grove that the two of us designed about half of the magical vehicles that everyone uses, and Wolfe did the final Array construction for the more complex ones.
Have you gotten a chance to see the airplanes yet? Everyone loves the airplanes when they see them for the first ti." Janet asked.
"Air Planes? Why would I want to go to an Elental plane?" Monika asked, confused.
"Oh, right, the na might be confusing. That’s what the humans nad the flying vehicles that they use, which glide through the sky. We have redesigned a number of them, plus a version of flying machine called a helicopter, that uses a horizontally mounted rotor to generate lift and move through the sky." Janet explained.
"But why?" Jessica asked, already pushed to the limits of her understanding by the trucks going down the road at three tis the speed of a runaway carriage.
"Because flying is fun, of course. Even those who aren’t strong with air magic want to do it."
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