| “Floydien did not find Nancy Jane!” the elk grunted, then turned to caress the hull some more. “Nancy Jane found Floydien... yes yes yessssss, she did, even if Floydien had to carve his way through frozen chunklands to find her. A more beautiful beloved there never was and never will be. Floydien protects her, so that only Floydien knows her name...” |
| - Innavedr, "A High Wind" |
The Noble Jury is a skystone flying ship owned and piloted by Floydien, who views it as his beloved and refers to it exclusively as Nancy Jane.
A rendition of the Noble Jury, by Buckweiser
The exact origin of the ship is unknown. It appears that Floydien salvaged the ship's hull in Val Roa and used skystone stolen from the Lounge to power it. He then flew to the frozen north to harvest more skystone before heading west on his journey[1]
After it was stolen back from the Ledomaritans during the battle of Blue Nova, the Noble Jury became the home and primary mode of transport of most of the main characters, occasionally referred to as 'Jurists' in reference to their being the Jury's crew.
A resilient vessel, it proves capable of running on several different power sources: its original skystone, an improvised steam engine, and a Ruby Flame taken from Nightshade Industries and contained in a book. This last was the idea of Nightshade Industries: when the Noble Jury is first seen in-story, it is partway through being refitted by them to use this flame as a power source.
The Jury first appears in Innavedr, where, owing to Floydien's eccentric manner of speech, it is initially assumed by Pilate to be a flesh-and-blood lover of Floydien's. Floydien actually takes this view more or less literally and is encouraged in it by Props, who takes up the elk's habit of referring to sections of the ship after body parts, particularly the engine room, which they call "Nancy's womb".
Floydien pilots the ship through his own intuitive magical connection through his antlers, though he insists that "Nancy Jane is a proper lady who flies herself." In Urohringr, necessity forces Zaid to take the controls for a short time, and this eventually develops into him learning to be a co-pilot.
Appearance[]
Props identifies the design as an "East Arcane Void-Skipper"[2] The Noble Jury is described as a "two and a half-story tall barge ... shaped like a bullet carved in half down the top." The hull of the ship is rust-red and glows with "otherworldly effluence," contrasting with other airship's wooden or metal hulls. The top of the Noble Jury has a "widely-stretched upper deck", above which is a giant shard of red skystone "the size of a small whale" that hovers in place, braced to the deck by four metal rings of various sizes that rotate around the crystal when the skystone drive is powered up.
Final Flight[]
The Noble Jury participated in many missions throughout Val Roa, primarily against the Goblin Cartel. In the first confrontation between the Jury and Haman's Gamma vessel, a well-aimed middle destroyed the Jury's observation room and parts of the bow, but left the ship still flying. During the climactic fight between Haman's ships, the Lounge, and the Tarkington over the city of Val Roa, Belle realized that the goblin's warships were about to crash into the city. She ordered the Jury to ram the falling ship and thrust it towards the outskirts of the city. In doing so, however, the skystone drive overloaded and launched the Jury past its target on an unstoppable course due south. Rainbow Dash, empowered by harmonic energy, was able to catch up to the runaway ship and rescue Belle, Pilate, Zaid, and Props, before it crashed into a mountainside. The Text of the Prophets was destroyed in the same crash.
The surviving shards of skystone from the crash were given back to Floydien and used to make a new, much smaller ship for himself and Midnite.
Etymology[]
The name "Noble Jury" is a reference to an anagram of "Eljunbyro," first derived in the Austraeoh Skype and originally used as said Skype chat's name before becoming an in-story reference.