Cloudraft

The Cloudraft is a poorly constructed type of vehicle, built out of necessity with barely enough materials and in a hasty manner. These raft travel across the void between the islands of Adea on top of ropes that are attached to the edges of the islands.

Origin

These haphazard vehicles where started to be created to connect the floating islands of Adea as soon as people could afford to spend sometime (and people) to go to nearby islands to find for missing people or materials to help rebuild.

Originally, travels between islands where made by people with the ability of flight, but between injured and exhaustion, a different method had to be applied and quick. And thus, the Cloudraft was made.

Since then, the rafts have seen a bit of improvements (mainly to make it more resistant and being able to hold more weight) but its effectiveness has helped a lot in connecting the floating islands and transporting both goods and people (whether injured or unable to fly).

Construction

The rafts are usually made with whatever wooden materials can be found around and attached with metal pieces that aren't being used and thus melted down to create nails, hinges, and similar. They follow a pretty simple shape: a few floorboards making a rectangular shape, at least big enough for three or so people to lay down, with a bit of fencing so that nothing can fall off. On the underneath of the floorboards, a system of a specially made pulley that allow the raft to move on top of ropes.

Above-cloud photo of blue skies by Taylor van Riper

How it works

On each island that the rafts will reach, there's an "anchor points" (usually a heavy and tall object hammered into the ground). A single (long) rope is put around both "anchor points" with help of some more pulleys, allowing the rope to move towards one island or another depending on to which direction is being pulled. It is on top of this "rope system" that the rafts are put on top and will move around.

When rafts are hefty, draft animals are used to help tug the ropes around the "anchor points" to move the rafts, but usually, people are the ones moving the rafts as draft animals are very much need to help restore the towns and working at the fields.

Newest versions (or renovated rafts) have a system that allows the raft to move both as usual and to allow movement from the raft itself. This movement from the raft makes the pulley get "unstuck" from the rope (it is still attached to the rope), which allows it to move without needing to move the rope. This is done so that when the raft is being "piloted", the "pilot" of the raft can move it by pulling from a second rope that's attached to the "anchor points". This new system allows the rafts to be operated with less people needed and it causes less damage to the "anchor points", whom had started showing signs of damage from the rope constantly being causing friction on them as it moved.

The introduction of this vehicle on Adea helped people tremendously, as many people who were stuck in islands, unable to reunite with people, or injured, were able to return to some sort of civilization. It also helped greatly at gathering materials to reconstruct towns, giving people places to live after so many places became ruined after the dawn of magic.

A close up of a rope with a paiting on it by Kiril Krsteski

Installation

To install a Cloudraft between to islands, two "anchor points" have firstly to be hammered down. On one island, this is usually easily done, as people are already there, but for the other island, a couple of people able to fly must carry the materials to the other island and then hammer it. Once both are installed, a rope will be added between them, usually by one of the flying people.

Once the "anchor points" are added, the raft can be easily added to the system. After the rafts are added, its customary to create a small "harbour" so that rafts can be easily accessed both for getting in or out the raft, loading or unloading goods, or for maintenance of the underneath's system.

Recycling

The harsh looks of the rafts come from the used materials, all gathered from the ruins of buildings. No new materials are used on rafts as the new materials are needed to fix buildings. A lot of the goods these rafts transport, especially nowadays, are gathered building materials from ruins across the islands, bringing them to Aeria, which is acting as a refuge until the people of Adea have won some sort of control over all they've lost.