Editing Stranded in fantasy (section)

==Journal Entry 304==

So Austin finished his current round of upgrades and we gave them a test run to make sure they wouldn't just snap off.  Sure enough, the pilot's having some trouble adapting but she's doing an admirable job.  Austin provided her with boots that keep her firmly locked in place, even if the ship flips over.  I'm calling them magic gravity boots for now.  So while we're in the airdock, the other trade airship is also in dock, the Celestial Rose, captained by a certain adventurous shifter.  He swaggers on over and declares that his ship is faster.  Well, that just won't stand.  Austin starts bragging.  So he challenges us to an air race.  To the mountains and back, a 2 hour ride, 2 laps.  I'm pretty sure we just kicked off the first air race in the world.  Word spreads around town pretty quick and we got spectators.  Even the mp3 golem gets into it and is running around town playing speed metal.  The Rose dumps it's cargo to lighten up, only the basic crew, namely the artificer and the pilot.  Austin's all excited.  Some university professors are tagged official judges, bets are made and the countdown begins.  One of the judges fires off a lightning spell into the air as the start signal, both airships lift off and they're off.  We lose sight of them pretty quickly.  Two hours later, the first pass.  The Hind is in the lead.  Two hours after that, the Hind crosses the finish line with no sight of the Rose.  We have a big celebration.  The Rose's captain is pissed.  Well, an hour later, the Rose still hasn't shown up.  We load up on the Hind and head out on a search and rescue mission.  Sure enough, we find the wreck of the Rose in the foothills.  It had an engine failure.  We land and check for survivors.  The pilot is dead but the artificer's okay if injured.  Apparently the mains failed due to stress and they swandived into the side of a hill.  The hull is wrecked but there's enough of it left, that the captain thinks it's salvageable.  It looks like a mess of mangled wood to me.  Austin and the Rose's artificer managed to get the mains back up to make it lighter so we can tow it back to Aeyllin's airdock.  It's captain seems to think he has enough money to pay for its repairs, apparently his family is rich from their trade run.  Maybe Austin can talk him into getting his auxiliary engines installed.  For a price of course.