Rewrite That Witch
CH283 · Rewrite
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Chapter 283: The Hydrogen Balloon Delivery

Three days into autumn, Margaret’s fleet docked at Border Town’s pier.

Ten sailboats, back to the old scale—the lean months of war and suspicion had passed, at least for the Chamber of Commerce’s routes. Gammon stepped from the lead vessel first, a bow that managed to be both formal and warm.

“Most Honorable Prince. We meet again.” He straightened. “Miss Margaret asked me to inform you that the transformation of the first steam-powered ship has been completed.”

“So it has,” Roland acknowledged with a laugh. “It still needs three or four days of sea trials to verify the systems. We’ll test reliability and power output properly before calling it done.”

Margaret appeared at the gangway, hands clasped together like a woman who had just been told her birthday was being extended. “Then we’ll wait. That’s about the time we need to unload anyway—could we observe during the trial?”

“Of course. In fact you’ll need to see how the ship handles—it operates nothing like a sailboat. I’ll have it demonstrated tomorrow.” He gestured for them all to follow. “For now: have you eaten? There’s a banquet in the castle hall.”

Margaret laughed and covered her mouth. “Every time we come here, we eat well. My stomach has been protesting for hours—those wheat cakes are stones, and the dried meat is worse than stones.”

After the feast, Hogg patted his belly and sighed with genuine satisfaction. “That mushroom soup—I counted three flavors I couldn’t identify. Seafood, I think, but also chicken and pork bones. Your court chef is extraordinary.”

“I preferred the dessert,” Margaret said. “Ice cream, yes? Milk and honey, frozen with saltpeter into that crystalline texture.”

“You also need butter and egg whites,” Roland added, “or you won’t get that soft, yielding quality.” He refilled his cup. “How much saltpeter this time?”

“One vessel.” Margaret shook her head. “The Alchemist Association has been purchasing saltpeter aggressively—the Imperial Prime Minister has even deployed patrols to help seize the saltpeter fields. Patrols. Men with the prestigious name of Sage, behaving like guild thieves with authority. This one ship came through Redwater City.”

“So the bulk of the goods is washing stones?”

“That’s right.” Hogg drained his cup of white spirit and poured another without pausing. “More than usual this time—but you told me last time to bring as much as I could. Iron ingots and lead ingots too. Very few cities are buying that material right now,” he said, and sighed. “The mining business is suffering.”

The purchasing power is declining across the whole kingdom. Roland turned the thought over. If the civil war continued two or three more years, grain prices would become catastrophic. Starvation, not armies, would be the last enemy standing.

He made a mental note about canning. Preserved food, proper preservation technology—when the light industry was ready, that would be the next natural step.

“A question,” Margaret said suddenly. “When we were sailing toward Border Town, we encountered quite a number of… floating corpses.” Her voice stayed even, but deliberate, choosing each word. “Dressed in rags, soft from decomposition. So many that they spread bank to bank across the river channel. Broken planks, ropes. It looked like a shipwreck, but there are no reefs on the Redwater.”

“Those were the remains of Timothy’s invasion fleet,” Roland said, letting a note of indignation enter his voice. He told them the shape of the battle—the ambush, the artillery, the failure of the landing. “They received what they had earned.”

He’d transferred Anna and Lily out to clean the battlefield after the fighting ended: Anna burned the wreckage, Lily purified the water. But Margaret had apparently passed close to the site before the river fully cleared. She must have departed not long after the battle ended.

“So that’s what it was.” The businesswoman smiled. “It seems Timothy has hit a wall on both sides.”

“Both sides?”

“Garcia’s Port of Clear Water. The latest intelligence I have is that the looting of the Eastern Territory’s cities—Sea Wind Region, Valencia—was Garcia’s work. The Black Sail Fleet stripped those cities, then sailed north along the coastline instead of returning to harbor.” She spread her hands. “No one knows where she landed. What I know is that Timothy’s troops arrived at Port of Clear Water and found a ghost city. She’d evacuated everything.”

“North.” Roland turned the word over. “She’s left Graycastle?”

“For now, that appears to be the case. Timothy’s army holds an empty port. And that leaves you as the only thorn remaining in his side—which means his campaigns against the Western Territory will only grow more frequent.”

Marlan leaned forward. “If you ever need to leave Graycastle, Crescent Moon Bay will receive you. The island can hold ten Border Towns, and we would provide for you and your people at no cost.”

“The offer stands,” Gammon added, patting his chest.

You want the steam engine, and possibly the paddler design on top of it. Roland rolled his eyes behind a pleasant expression. Even if he couldn’t remain in Graycastle, the first door he would knock on was Tilly Wimbledon’s.

“I’m grateful,” he said. “If such a day ever comes, I’ll remember it.”

“Oh—” He turned to Margaret. “Last time you placed an order for reconnaissance balloons. I’ve succeeded in fabricating two.”

“Already?” Her face opened with genuine surprise. “May I see them?”

“Follow me.”

In the castle’s rear courtyard, the hydrogen balloon was already inflated and waiting.

It hung in a teardrop shape—wide at the crown, tapering at the base. Five meters across at its broadest point. The silk of the envelope and the attached ropes were dyed in shades of sky: pale blue, washed grey, white. Worn by an observer in matching clothing, the whole assembly would become nearly invisible from below.

“This looks different from the balloon we flew before,” Margaret said, walking a slow circle around it.

“That one required a witch to fly.” Roland cleared his throat. “This one anyone can use.” He walked her through the inflation system: a valve at the tail of the envelope, a connecting hose, a series of pressurized gas tanks. “Hydrogen fills it. To inflate, you connect the hose and open the valves. To descend, you release gas through the same valve. The rate of ascent and descent can be controlled by how quickly you vent.”

He ran through the demonstration—inflate, deflate, back to inflated—while they watched.

“How many tanks to fill it?” Margaret had the sharpest eye for operational details.

Roland hesitated slightly. “Five to six. Possibly seven.” The inconsistency came from the sulfuric acid concentration: producing hydrogen required diluted sulfuric acid, and controlling the density of the diluted solution precisely enough to guarantee consistent gas output was difficult. Purifying the acid to 98% and then re-diluting it would be wasteful. “The variation is a production limitation we’re working to reduce.”

“And the gas itself—expensive?”

“Yes. It’s also difficult to store safely and requires careful handling.” Roland coughed twice. “The tanks can be kept for up to a year, but should not be knocked over, disassembled, or exposed to fire. Careless handling has serious consequences.” He let that settle, then continued. “That said: your first order from Border Town includes the initial tank supply at no charge. You’ll also receive a set of sky-camouflage investigator’s clothes to match the envelope.”

Margaret nodded slowly, still studying the balloon’s teardrop silhouette against the grey morning sky. Something in her expression suggested she was already calculating not the cost, but the radius of what she could see from inside it.

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