—Several Days Later—
"Good Morning, Queen Mylene.", I said, as the maids pushed into the King's Study.
Having arrived yesterday morning, after several days of travel, I spent the entire day reviewing proper etiquette with the Head Butler and being vigorously scrubbed down by the maids in the bath. While they did not outright say anything, they greatly disdained . Uncertain if the Cabinet Ministers instructed them to do so or if it was because of my rural background, either way, it was completely unacceptable.
'I hope the Queen is reasonable with this morning. After being ripped from my bed at the asscrack of dawn, thrown into my business suit, and dragged here, my patience is frayed.', I thought, ready to blow a gasket.
"Good Morning, Leon Fou Bartfort. I see I am not the only one upset about our early morning eting.", Mylene said, with bags under her eyes, "Let start by saying that we did not ask for the eting to be done so early, the Cabinet Ministers did. I…I an we are equally as upset about this as you are."
"I beg your pardon, but it is just the two of us here.", I remarked, seeing no one else here, "Does that an King Roland will be joining us soon?"
"He…he is unfortunately busy at the mont.", the Queen stated, clenching her fists.
Noticing her facial expression begin to sour, I realized I had stepped on a landmine. Vaguely rembering that the King had a harem, it was clear where his priorities lay outside the public view. Feeling bad for her, as she was unwanted by him, I tempered my anger as she was undeserving of it.
"My apologies, forgive my inconsiderate question.", I stated, bowing my head slightly, "If I may be so bold, did the Cabinet Ministers want the eting this early to try and throw off? I suspect they doubt my Father and the Guild's reports and want to see my skills in person."
"How keen of you to pick up on that.", Mylene said, nodding her head, "As you suspect, they want to test you before entrusting you with many of our Kingdom's most treasured relics."
'If they wanted proof, I could have flown my boat here to show them…', I thought, "Shall we proceed then? I assu this concerns the hanger beneath the capital where the Holfort Kingdom keeps its strongest weapon."
"You…you know about that?!", she gasped, surprised that I knew about the secret hanger, "Yes…the Cabinet Ministers would like you to look at the Royal Airship as it is inoperable. Given your findings several years ago, we need the ship to be operational in case we go to war with the Principality."
Nodding my head in acknowledgnt, Mylene rose from her seat and motioned for to follow her. Making our way to the palace dungeon, the Queen led down a series of corridors till we ca to a dead end. Pulling on the last torch on our left, a secret door opened revealing an elevator inside. Stepping onto the lift, the Queen hit a button and began to speak.
"While I doubt you would say anything, everything you will see today is strictly confidential. Under no circumstances may you disclose anything you see or hear to anyone outside the Royal Family.", Mylene commanded .
"Understood.", I agreed, 'Not like anyone would believe anyways.'
Reaching the underground hanger several minutes later, the lift doors opened revealing a massive man-made cavern. Chiseled out of solid stone, Old Humans had created a gigantic airship port beneath where our modern capital sat. Easily capable of holding thirty or more ships, currently only two ships were docked here.
"Wow, this place is enormous.", I remarked, taking a second to admire the place.
"Indeed, it is a marvelous sight to behold.", Mylene agreed, motioning to the hundreds of staff mbers running all over the place, "As you can see, we are in the process of restoring this place to full operation. It fell into disrepair several generations ago, but with the recent threats, it felt prudent to bring this place back to functional use."
Motioning for to continue following her, Mylene led along several catwalks that ultimately brought us to the Royal Airship. Noticing several older n in sixteenth-century garbs looking over the craft, I assud they were the Cabinet Ministers. Stopping their examination as we drew near, they turned to the Queen and gave her a respectful bow.
"Good Morning, Queen Mylene.", one of the Minister's said, stepping forward to greet her.
"Good Morning, Pri Minister Jacob.", Mylene replied, with a polite smile, "This is Leon Fou Bartfort, the young man called the Holfort Prodigy by the Academy and Guilds."
"Ah…I see. It is a pleasure to you…", Jacob said, giving a disgusted glance for a fraction of a second.
'It is definitely the Cabinet Ministers, these motherfuckers!', I thought, "Cut the crap, I am no fool you old fart. You are the ringleader behind the mistreatnt I have endured since my arrival yesterday. Ordering the maids to scrub raw last night, and telling them to deny my access to a bathroom this morning is unacceptable. All of you called here for this eting, if you want my help do not treat like dirt!"
Opening his mouth to chew out, the Pri Minister quickly shut his mouth as Mylene began to speak. Looking at first, she wanted to clarify what my accusations were.
"Wait a mont, are you saying the castle maids have been mistreating you?", Mylene asked, looking at with remorse.
"Yes, that is correct. I was forced to sit through a several-hour lecture on etiquette by the Head Butler, the maids rubbed my skin raw last night cleaning , they denied access to a bathroom this morning, and refused to let eat anything before eting with you today.", I told her, "I understand their suspicions about , but they have crossed a line. If this is how they want to treat the only person who can repair Lost Items, I will happily leave and go to the Adventurers Guild."
Taking at my word, Mylene turned toward the Cabinet Ministers to confirm if my accusations were true. Crumpling under pressure, a few n began sweating profusely all but confirming my statents.
"Do you deny his claims?", Mylene pressed them, her icy gaze burrowing into their minds.
"Your Grace, we did this to protect our Kingdom from yet another potential fraudster!!", one of them proclaid, unable to withstand her pressure, "There have been dozens of individuals that have claid they could repair Lost Items, and every ti they were found to be frauds. After the last man stole a priceless artifact from the treasury several years ago, we chose to treat all claimants in the future like frauds."
"So you do acknowledge that his accusations are accurate…", the Queen groaned, "While I understand wanting to protect our national treasures, what was your plan if Leon is indeed the real deal?"
Looking at one another none of them had thought that far ahead. Turning back to , the Queen gave an apologetic smile.
"Forgive my husband and I, we were unaware that they had ordered our staff to act out of line. I swear to you that moving forward they will not act impolitely to you.", Mylene swore, "If you can repair the ship, how can we make this up to you? I would hate for you to leave here on bad terms with us."
"After I fix this ship, I would like assistance in opening my own Airship Workshop here in the capital. It is a tough market to break into, and the two existing workshops have a reputation for running competitors out of business. Having the Crown and the Cabinet Ministers backing my workshop would help prevent that from happening to . Of course, I would be more than happy to work on any craft or Lost Item you bring to .", I told her, 'It will be the perfect cover for repairing and building Starships!'
"I understand, we would be more than happy to aid your endeavors. Please rest assured that everything will be taken care of by us, right gentlen?", Mylene said, glancing over her shoulders with a deadly glare, 'If you say no, I will replace you with more competent ministers. Our enemies will pounce on him if we do not lock him down.'
Sensing that their livelihoods were in danger, all of the ministers imdiately agreed with Queen Mylene. Overexaggerating their agreent, to appease her, I wondered how scary she might be behind closed doors.
"Moving on, what issues are you having with this craft?", I asked, making a ntal checklist of potential glaring issues, "The Levitation Engines are working as the ship is still airborne. Is it an activation issue? If mory serves, two individuals with a high affection rating for one another are required to rouse the ship from its slumber. Is it not working properly?"
Climbing onto the ship, I began checking the wiring on the platform the two individuals needed to stand on to receive their scores. While I was checking things out, the group was taken aback by my knowledge of the ship and how it turned on.
"Activating the ship is not the problem, our issue is that the ship does not move. We have given it verbal commands and tried using manual controls inside, but nothing works.", she explained, pointing to the cockpit, "There are several flashing lights on the instrunt panel in the front of the ship. We do not know what the lights an as the language around them is unknown to us."
Peering through the window, to see the lights she was referring to, I noticed that they were all system warning lights. Nodding my head, I pulled my T-45 Power Armor out and got suited up. Walking to the nearest entry door, I began fiddling with a cover panel that hid a keypad. Since I did not have override codes, prying off the keypad and hooking my onboard computer to the ship was my only option.
"What is it that you are doing, Young Leon?", Pri Minister Jacob asked, having never seen anyone do what I was doing.
"Since we do not have a couple here to rouse the ship, I have to manually override the ship's systems to open the doors.", I told him, granting myself System Administrator access.
Now that I had full access to the ship's security system, I opened all the external doors with a press of a button. Loudly clapping their hands, the Cabinet Ministers realized I was the real deal. Putting everything back in its place, all of us boarded the ship so I could get a better view of the trouble lights. As soon as I stepped into the cockpit, the ship's AI began conversing with .
(AN: Just as a heads up, all of the machines in this world use the English language to communicate. English is a dead language now because only the Old Humans used it, and they left the planet after losing the war. When the MC speaks to the machines, only the machines will understand him, everyone else will hear a foreign language. This only applies to the humans in this first world. Everywhere else, English is the predominant language.)
"Leon, what was that!?", Mylene shouted, with a terrified expression.
"That was the ship, many Lost Items can communicate in a limited capacity.", I assured her, "Computer, run diagnostics on all systems please."
While the ship ran its checks, I climbed under the instrunt panel and began checking for faulty connections. Doing a little cable managent, to ensure no one's foot got caught on the wire harnesses, everything else looked good as far as I could tell. As I was picking myself up off the floor, the computer ca back with the results.
"Computer, where are the control systems located?", I asked.
Thanking the computer for its assistance, all of us headed into the bowels of the ship to find the engine room. Asking how I could speak and understand the ship, Mylene wanted to know who taught the language.
"The first five years of my life were spent cooped up in my family ho. From the mont I could move freely, I spent every day gleaning all I could from the library in our ho. Since the day I began reading, I have read and reread all the books in our library five tis.", I told her, "From those books, I learned a lot about this world's ancient past and picked up their language."
"Truly a Prodigy!", a Minister praised .
Ignoring his comnt, when we reached the door, I ordered the ship to open it for us.
"Ship, please open the Engine Room doors.", I commanded.
Watching the thick, steel doors imdiately pop open with a hiss, I stepped inside hoping to find everything in order. Taking a quick look around the space, everything appeared to be in order and properly organized. Relieved that I would not be spending several days rewiring the ship, I began removing the specific module units from their docks to look for damage. Using an engineering diagram from a storage shelf in the room, slowly I began working my way through each leg of the three systems.
"Ah, here is so minor damage.", I remarked, finding several blown capacitors on the board responsible for arming/disarming the weapon's system, "Let replace them."
Using spare capacitors I had scavenged off of faulty items Roxanne and I found, I used the small torch in my Power Suit Gauntlet to replace the faulty parts. Slotting the board back into place, we heard several audible clicks as the ship ran another battery of tests.
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