Back to work (Selfmodded)

[Z'kron]

Early Winter;
Somewhere underground on the carrot farm.

Slumber...
The druid awoke with a start. A creak, rather. His eyes weren't opening. His branches shuffled.
"Allaris! What the feth..". His fingers waved. They brushed through the air, as if looking for some small sensation of where he was.
Underground somewhere, he thought. Dirt was trickling onto his head. And he appeared to have grown roots... to have taken root.
He shrugged, creaking again. There was an ant on his shoulder.
"Ahhh. Coming to wake me up again, are you? How long have I been this time? Hmm?"
The ant chittered. Whether it said anything was hard to tell, but the druid reacted as if it had.
"Not so long this time then. Orc hordes still going? Airships building? And where on earth am I?"
A frown. "You don't know? Well. Understandable I suppose. I guess scratchy-non-sun place is the best I can really expect from an ant. Time to get out then."
He flexed his hands, which barely responded. The slumber had left him colder and more plantlike than he remembered.
One. Two. Gradually channelling heat down into one spot; forcing it through a filter of miniscule biological processes into his numb, cool arms. Where was he? He thought. The surrounds were familiar. And then he remembered. Flying machines. That was what he had been planning. Flying machines.
After all, he'd designed an airship once. He'd spent half of his life flying. He'd even been in a ship that passed into space. How difficult could it be? A simple flying device, for his own personal use.

Now, the airship had been simplified in a few ways. For one, it had a large powersource- the elemental plane of fire. The lift was substantial. The lift the druid could provide was less. That wasn't to say he couldn't provide any at all. But it wouldn't jet across the sky like the Navae Vitae had.
Two options. The ball-and-socket solution, or the wing solution? The druid considered. The wing seemed simpler. But the ball and socket appealed to him.
A biological component which span freely. Simple enough. His mind wandered backwards. It was rather like how the arm of a man worked; turning in a full circle smoothly within a joint, due to the accumulation of slippery fluid within. Rather like the arm of a dead man. Pre rigomortis.

The druid paused on that rather unsavory image. It had been a while since he'd eaten. But time for that later. His feet gradually left the soil in which they'd been embedded.
Carrot. Carrot. The druid drew out a carrot, and ran his hand over it, smoothing it casually with one finger. One of the carrot-prototypes he'd developed for the airship, this one. Lightweight, sturdy and ideal for flight.

He closed his eyes and, manipulating the upwards drift of the wind through delicate heat-alterations from the nearby fungi; he placed the ant into an updraft. Touching his hand to the back of the ant, he stroked it once, twice. Arcane energy blossomed out, extruding a tiny fibre of the ant vertically. It looked like a plant vein that had inexplicably been stripped of its leaf. Then, the druid gathered another wisp of essence, and gradually applied pressure around the tip of the vein; encouraging it to change and adapt into a ball-like shape, rotating freely at the tip around what seemed to be a endoskeletal axel.
Z'kron leaned back. He was out of practice. His hand moved out, extruding the little ball. Two more vein-outliers stretched out from the side of it, which caused it to wobble. The ant fell over. As the heat spread over the vein outliers, they continued to grow; albeit almost imperceptibly. But the ant itself seemed more concerned with its over-tipped predicament.
"Blast."
A second stroke of the finger over the ant-carrot, which then righted itself. The ball continued to rotate in the airstream.
"Thicken the vein outliers. Obvious. And by thicken, I mean stretch out. Or what do I mean?"
The ant, again, did not respond. The druid shrugged. Gradually, the vein-outliers stretched out, forming papery-thin, slightly angled strands. Reaching down, Z'kron delicately brushed the skin of the ant.
"Flight test. Upwards air shift. Heat responsive."
A warm draft rose up from under the ant, and the tiny synovium ball began to spin. The vein outliers caught the air and grew, lifting the ant up a few gentle centimeters; before falling gradually to the ground the moment it moved out of the uplift; slipping awkwardly through the air to land perched on a nearby rock. It scampered off into the dark.
"Not a particularly sucessful concept. Perhaps the other idea." He shook his head.
"Perhaps with external power. But that rather defies the point of the exercise, eh?" As usual, the ant, wherever it was, didn't respond.

[Z'kron]

The bird idea was probably better anyhow. It was how ants flew naturally; in a way. Rapid up and down motions of a wing. By flapping down, like a bird; the wings provide both lift and thrust. It was all in the angles. And by altering the response of the upper levels of the carrot to air resistance, so it folded inwards... well, the results were self-explanatory. In the druid's mind at least. 0-angle upstroke swing meant that the wings would move up with scarcely any effort, and down like the wing of a large bird. The druid flapped his arms up an down as he visualised. It wouldn't be so difficult.
The amount of lift... well, that would be difficult to calculate. He tried to recall how much a bird was capable of lifting. About 4 pounds per foot squared wingspan? That sounded reasonable. And the principle of it would be similar to with the way the wings of the airship worked- increased pressure below the wing, higher above. Simple enough.
"Two modes. Elliptical for tight maneuvering, and high aspect ratio wings. Deals with a lot of the problems. And saves the hassle of shapeshifting"
The drag of form. Always difficult. The druid had contemplated this problem many a time. With the Navae Vitae he had solved it via evolution of a form that was almost perfectly adapted to the effects of wind-resistance. With the personal model, the druid would try something slightly different- something that he'd initially developed for the airship, but remained mostly untried.
"I propose, Mr Ant, the creation wind deflection field in front of the pilot; reducing drag by maintaining a constant distance so the body was persistently passing through thinned, non resistant air; while the mass of the removed air instead gathered beneath the wings; increasing the degree of force in the downswing. A solution of sorts, to a wind-drag dilemma. On the negative side, this still doesn't affect that these wings are essentially muscle powered, as opposed to your previous dead-man's arm setup.."
The druid scratched his nose. "Combining them could work. But we'd need to do a lot of tweaking. For example, consider the drag at the vortices.. similarly wind-shielded? And by that, I mean that the air would be prevented from ever causing friction by manipulation of the airpressure? Wouldn't that cause problems with the ornithopter mechanism?"
Time passed as the druid contemplated the rock where the ant lay on its side; having crawled back into view and fallen over again.
"I see your point. We need more than just that. And the skin friction around the package of air by the windshielding would still be an issue."

[Z'kron]

The druid brushed his hand down over the ant again. "You know, if you weren't made of wood, this would be a great deal more difficult. And it you weren't an ant, you wouldn't have the natural tendency towards wing forming regardless. But if we combine the fixed angle of the synovial ball mechanism with your natural wing setup- perhaps slightly adjusted- we'll see what we can manage. But lets make you just a little bigger first."
A growth spell would do it. A cantrip for a druid as experienced as Z'kron; who'd wandered the planes and even set off detonations at the border of the planes of nature, death and life. But a useful cantrip nonetheless. The ant grew; it's frame spreading until it finally reached the size of a small rat. Normally problems would occur with such growths in ants due to breathing problems. But with a creature that was at least partially photosynthetic, there was a lot more leeway.
"Lets see you flap. Warp wood in addition to supplemental adaptation should do it. Air resistance so that upwards increased airpressure induces contraction of the wings, and downwards expansion. Modified for reversal so contraction is for maximum five seconds, in case of fall." Again, more minor modifications as the adaptation spell set in. All in a days work. The druid bit down into a carrot. Arcana danced over the unfortunate ant; settling on his wings and sticking like an ephemeral blue glue.
"Flight test, upwards heat responsive wings with pressure adaptability." The synovial ball spun, the tiny extensions catching the wind and lifting the ant a few centimeters up. The wings flapped rapidly, appearing and disappearing between beats. The ant slowly buzzed upwards.
"Heat response functioning normally. Ant code: Allaris is in flight."

[Z'kron]

Z'kron narrated quietly into his carrot. "Wing fatigue notable. Lift of ornithopteral wings by increase in size lessened compared to gliding wings. Causing inherent limitation in propulsion for larger setups. Supplementation by solar absorption necessary". He shrugged, watching the ant fail to lift more than two feet off the ground.
"Dead-arm system useful in updrafts; helps maintain height. Provides only upward lift. Addition of windshielding only useful in situations of rapid motion. Photosynthetic alteration on deadarm system mildly reduces energy cost. Ant still looks exhausted. Poor little thing."
With a type of odd sympathy, the druid knelt down besides the ant. Cracking open a carrot, waved it over the insectoid.
"The problem I always seem to make, is that an overal increase in size doesn't account for external forces. Body weight needs far thicker limbs to support; and all those... things. So I think we're going to have to adapt you a little more. More strength for the wing motions. Lower the overal centre of mass- that's simple enough; and you're used to being fairly short anyway. And increase tendency to absorb energy from the sun. Carrots aren't naturally great at that. But we'll get there."
And indeed, as the druid spoke, the ant seemed to be getting there. Its legs were thickening down under increased pressure from the air. The musculature and exoskeleton around the wings was growing bulkier; as if better designed for powerful rapid movements. And the sheen of dark green that had formerly only been upon the dead-arm rotator now spread across much of its upper body.
"And finally, an internal adaptation which we used on the salamander-carrots. I'm glad that carrot-to-carrot transfer is so simple. Bouyancy derived from the generally redundant previous breathing mechanisms. Why produce heavy air when you can produce light air? But we can finish that up later, the transition takes a while. I think, airships is the next thing in line?"

[Z'kron]

The design of suntowers to power his constructions.. looked rather like a giant pillar with leaves.
The basic principle behind it was always absorption of the sunlight. The druid had identified methods of converting sunlight to energy that could be used for motion long ago. The main issue was always surface area; so that light could strike the largest possible area and be absorbed. But the druid also had another idea in mind for this day.
All plants produce some tiny layer of moisture. By concentration of this moisture and allowing evaporation; the druid provoked a draft oa ir down through the hollow center of the tower, turning the dead-arm. And by turning the deadarm repeatedly, the druid was able to produce a waterwheel-like effect; to which further attachments could be added at a later date. Perhaps some mechanism for moving the actual ship materials; which, despite their lightweight nature, still came to a notable mass when in shipform. Or some more complex mechanism, in which the forcible motion of a portion actually provided life-force allowing the rest of a structure to thrive. He would need to think on that one. Perhaps not a concept for today.
Ah! But the druid did have a different concept he could use today. By using the rotation of the internal portion of the tower, the dead-arm, he could cause the motion of the sun-catching leaves outside so as to be in motion, when necesary, to capture the sun. Like a giant sunflower, constantly turning to capture fading rays.
The druid took a carrot in one hand, extruding it upwards, exposing it to the "adaptation" field and encouraging the moisture to form exclusively at its top. Next, he transplanted the vis-pattern of the deadarm structure and put it in place at the center of the tower; exposing it to growth to allow the pattern to set.
And now, with adaptation, the structure was embedded within his seed-pods. A simple prototype; barely functional. But enough to check for flaws within the concept.
Now, the druid sat and waited for it to grow.

[Z'kron]

Over the course over the next few hours, the suntower grew only gradually. The first evolution of a species was always a slightly tricksy business, and the druid had no intention of rushing it. Finally reaching perhaps five feet tall, the tower looked only a little different than he had imagined. It sat in the ground like an inverted carrot; with fillamentous leaf-wings extending out from various areas towards its top in various angles to catch sunlight. As moisture collected at its top and gradually evaporated, the wings showed no sign of motion.
"Mmm. How odd. I wonder...". The druid mused as he observed his creation. He peered down at the top-area of the carrot, into its hollowed out centre. The design seemed sound. Rather workable in general. And then he realised.
"Pfft. Needs a disproportionate increase in the hollow at the center in order to work that... would be rather awkward to produce. But. I suppose we could modify it a little. If it's getting this large..."
The druid leaned closer, extruding out a thin, dense filament from the internal dead-arm out through a hole in the side of the carrot, before tucking it around the carrot base. In almsot the same motion, he extruded several more tendrils out of the carrot-walls, deftly mimicking the techniques of satyha he had perfected many months ago. With a lifeform this small, the ability a satya could derive would be highly limited. But still...
"Just in case we need it."

[Z'kron]

And so it was that Z'kron, imperial high sage of the empire, emerged from his hibernation underneath the carrot farm to plant his first prototypical "sun tower"; complete with satyha's designed to assist growth of carrots. Admittedly the single-handed transplantation of a five-foot tall plant without any disruption or damage was not such an easy thing; but Z'kron had a way with carrots; and within hours it was once again thriving. And not just the "sun-tower" itself, but the carrots in the area around it; as if the satyha was working some sort of subtle influence promoting their growth; replenishing their nutrients and energy supplies on a moment to moment basis. Which was, of course, the purpose of satyha.. this being merely one of their many and varied applications.

And perhaps it was worth testing the sun-tower out on one of his pet projects. Algae. Kneeling down with casual familiarity, the druid evolved yet another of his seemingly endless supplies of carrots again; this time one-by-one separating the individual threads of the carrot and reducing it to dozens upon dozens mini=carrots; carrot components which existed independently of eachother in tiny globules of, for lack of a better word, gloop. Essentially it was a collection of sessile micro-life, either attached to a surface or another that were, at the base, embedded in an extracellular polymeric substance produced by the microbes. In other words, a sludge. A sludge derived from carrots. He'd turned carrots into algae.
The sucess of it all, as an algal form, was something to consider. Z'kron had dealt with algae before on several occasions; and had indeed manipulated them. But turning carrots into algae was a new thing; and out of personal interest he rather wanted to see them strive.
In Z'kron's head, the mechanism for how and algae would thrive was rather like the way a ship would go into port. First it would dock. Then, when the ropes got thrown on, it would lock. And finally, after it had bound and was done, you'd get the payoff. The goods would be removed, the algae would mature, or whatever.
The sucess of the first step would be dependent on any number of factors. Things like gravity; the ability of the algal carrots to move through the fluid; the ideal temperature, how acidic the substance they passed through was.. and what precisely they were trying to bind on. It would be easier to bind onto a rough surface than a completely smooth surface, for example... though the rough or smoothness would have to be at a incredibly small scale. And what precise sticking mechanism the algae would use. Carrots, sadly, had very few sticking mechanisms. Ants had some ability to stick, but this was almost entirely mechanical. But what carrots did have was the ability to form filamentous strands; self supporting ones which could eventually be molded into an ultra structure that could be applied and sealed.
The external carrot-algae would adhere to the sessile one; while the outer layer would be adhered to by tiny particles from the outside environment, to partially seal the algal-carrot environment off; while keeping it fully alive due to the photosynthesis on the external surface. It was a good system. But practical? He wasn't so sure.
He placed the algae next to the sun-tower to grow. He waited for bubbles.

The druid dragged his toe through the dirt as he tended to his carrots. It was good to be above ground again. Basking in the sun; and photosynthesising a little himself, the druid relaxed. He was rather fond of this new creation, and practical uses had already begun to spin in his mind. Now, if only he could build it just a little bigger...
A smile. Where on earth was Erenthril? He had a new idea for the airship.