Remian came out of the infirmary after visiting George, Tim, Mindy and Max all in a row later that day and shook his head. "What are we going to do about Deepsilver?"Jujar wheezed. "Harness the power."
"Harness it?" Remian pondered Jujar"s advice for a moment. "You mean, like the Ecclesia"s Lightning Rods? Hmm. If we could use their lightning-storage technology, we use it to power our airships and other machines. Or maybe we should do it like the Empire and convert it to mana. But either way, that kind of technology isn"t easy to get a hold of. They are closely guarded secrets and the devices produced are well-guarded and monitored."
"So?" Jujar asked.
Remian fell silent. "I guess we could send Mikai and some of his friends to Ecclesia. I don"t think we want to risk provoking Zor"khan-dras at this time. Or maybe we could try our luck at Liberteria. I heard they were experimenting with that sort of thing too."
At that point, Asda dropped by. She looked stressed.
"Asda? Are you all right?" Remian blinked.
"I need... I need…"
"Here." Remian grabbed a flask of water right off the Guild Hall table, picked up a clean gla.s.s and poured her a drink.
She gulped it down, coughed twice, and said, "I need thirty kilograms of wheat or rice delivered to camp four, a large crate of clothing and three crates of bedding sent to Craggy Falls, nine crates of Fire Coppper and Jade picked up from KarGoth, sixty steel bars and fifteen builders sent to Encles village, and, and…"
"Slow down. How did our logistics get so completely thrown out of order like this?" Remian asked, puzzled.
"Mindy ended up in the infirmary, that"s how." Asda groaned. "n.o.body else can manage the Red Helm, and even the Red Fang is operating at low efficiency. She"s the only real mage around, or haven"t you noticed that all your dear adventurers are just scroll-casters? My people have our own carts and convoys, but there"s just too much."
Remian sighed. "I"ll ask the wolfcats to help with deliveries and pick-ups. It would be a good chance for me to inspect the camps and colonies."
"You? You"re going to be a deliveryman?" Asda stared blankly. "Aren"t you… well… physically weak?"
"I"ll have the wolfcats accompanying me, and riding one the entire time." Remian a.s.sured her.
It wasn"t good enough for Asda. She had Andros" people a.s.semble an actual carriage and added a few people to Remian"s sudden entourage, including Salim, a representative from each of the three clans, four riders from the FDF, two of her own half-sisters, and Asda herself accompanied by all six of her logistics staff and four armed guards.
Their little convoy of twenty-two people, fifty wolfcats, two carriages and ten carts went to and fro along the new trail to KarGoth, Encles, the four road-camps, and the new town shaping up at Craggy Falls. They picked up and delivered goods and personnel, gave orders to the people that would shape the budding settlements, established regular supply lines between them and finally, toward the end of the week, ended the convoy feeling like they had accomplished a lot of good work over the past few days.
By that time, Remian was constantly throwing up by the roadside, barely able to eat, and had to be carried back to his room in the Guild Hall. Phoebe paid him a visit and had Asda"s two half-sisters clean out his room every day, bring him regular meals following her diet plans, and stay with him throughout the days to take care of him and whatever he needed, doctor"s orders, in spite of Remian"s protests. They even part.i.tioned off a whole section of his suite and turned it into another room for the two.
Were they nurses? Maids? A combination of the above? Remian wasn"t sure what to call them. When he asked, Asda told him the easiest answer.
"Call that one Dhia, and the other one Jazaa." She shrugged.
Remian gave her a serious look. "You do realize they"re only here temporarily, don"t you?"
"What, you don"t like them?" Asda frowned. "Are they not pretty enough for you?"
"There"s nothing wrong with their looks or their care." Remian shook his head. "I"m just… not comfortable with having them look after me in the long term. I get that I"m in bad shape now and they"re here to nurse me back to health, but once I"m back on my feet, I can take care of myself."
"Eh… that"s…" Asda hesitated. "Just get better first, all right? We"ll figure out the rest as we go along."
Dhia and Jazaa looked a bit disgruntled. Both had put in quite a lot of effort into their cosmetics this morning. But Remian, looking half-green and on the verge of throwing up at any time, didn"t seem to be thinking along the same lines as they were.
With Remian confined to bed for the day (doctor"s orders, part 19), his entourage sat back for a relaxing day…
But within the hour, he sent one out for maps, another to call in the Second Queen, Aren, Taj, Markus and Song Chen. Then he kept calling for more and more maps; mineral maps, geological surveys, weather maps, soil fertility maps…
By dinner-time, all the guards and representatives in his entourage had been sent out at least five times each and every one of them were more tired with Remian in bed than they would have been had they been on the road with the carriage.
The next day, a new plan was announced; Fort Spoas was going to explode in size. The new plan had the current town center becoming the north center. The south market was going to become the new market center, the Forge west side was going to becoming the north-west Forge district, they were going to completely quarry off all the stone of the old quarry, clearing it for a new industrial zone that reached all the way to the new Adventurer"s Guild. Also, they were planning a new hospital south of the Guild, where the old temporary workers residences used to be.
Meanwhile, eight more districts were going to spring up, a few to the east and west of the market, and another whole row to the south of it. The Iron Legion camp was going to move to the north, the FDF"s new military base would be built at the southern end of the town, along with significant fortifications, the kinds that for years the defenders facing Beast Waves would talk and dream about.
The airport was also going to expand to the east and west. The west end, toward the Adventurers Guild, would be a high security zone for military (Mindy, FDF and Legion) use. The central area was to be a middle security zone for storage and supplies. The east end, overlooking the cliffs, would be a low security zone where most of the airships would be landing and taking off, where cargo and pa.s.sengers would be loaded.
Construction began that very hour. Asda was scrambling around madly with her crews shifting men and materials. She was fl.u.s.tered and harried and entirely too busy for one person, stressed to the point of breaking pencils, half-scolding everyone as she bossed them around to get moving, on the double, right now, because all of this had to have been done yesterday…
She loved it, and it went on all week.
With all the construction going on over the weekend, not many people noticed that they were missing a Beast Wave. Most of them didn"t even know there should have been one, having come straight from Fal"Herim. Those who had been around earlier was tense when the time came, the FDF was on full alert, Spike, DD and the Wilds had been on standby, and the Adventurers had been readying the airships even without Mindy.
Yet no Beast Wave arrived. Some people celebrated. Some people put on suspicious looks. Some said that there would be no more Beast Waves, because the Desert King was done for, and he wasn"t going to rebuild the excavation camp and send any more. Others said they were being entirely too optimistic, that there could be something worse coming next time…
But next time was its own concern. This weekend, there was nothing except Charlie and another Deutero airship that arrived to trade.
"So, what do you think?" Charlie asked the Deutero captain. "Worth coming more often?"
"A settlement this size?" the captain squinted at the new, larger town area, the trail leading south that was rapidly becoming a dirt road, the Legion camp building the road to the north…. "Sure. I think we can recommend increased operations in this area."
***
The new Shadowflash Fief spread out from the desert edge to Craggy Falls, establishing seven settlements. From north to south, they were; Fort Spoas (airport, Adventurers Guild, Burning Steel Forge, Iron Legion Camp, FDF Headquarters, Farms), KarGoth (Fire Copper/Jade mines, the Pit, Encles enclave), the four road camps (Rocky Ford, North Black Depths Lakeside, South Black Depths Lakeside, Deadly Sands), and Craggy Falls Town.
Scouts, prospectors and surveyors were sent out to the hills and Misty Heights mountains east of the trail, to the highlands around Craggy Falls, even to the Rocky Thorns. For wealth and profit, the humans that went out didn"t even blink at the dangers they would face. Having wolfcats accompany them for added protection didn"t hurt either.
On top of that, Arnold received a new instruction from Remian; design an airship-to-land bomb, something that could be employed in the Rocky Thorns against a giant lizard that spat fire, and quickly send dud representatives of the design to the FDF to train in its use…