The advisors trickled in over the next hour, as the scribe girl, Margaretta, sent them her way. Each time one arrived, Aella repeated telling them about her crazy idea. None of them thought it would work, and for a moment, Aella fought the urge to just throw it away, when she remembered she had to move and build a new city, because she owed Bob a new bar."It doesn"t matter what any of you think, I am going to do this. If people don"t like it, too bad."
The advisors looked at each other, tired from a hard, stressful day, and then back at her.
"Your Majesty, if this is the course you wish to go in, then we must follow. What do you want from us?" asked Varnin, eyeing the map.
"I don"t know what monsters may roam this new land, so I want an army raised to deal with them, and to protect my workers as they begin the construction tomorrow."
"You want an army raised overnight?!" Varnin exclaimed as her normally stern att.i.tude cracked, and a giggle broke out of her mouth. "How big of an army?"
"A small one for now, will work, as I am sending over only a couple dozen people tomorrow. I will be sending over a.s.sa.s.sins, as well, to help with protection."
Varnin nodded thoughtfully, hiccupping occasionally after her giggles subsided, then bowed and left without another word.
"Xathtak, I want the work on the sewers halted. All of the materials that were allotted for the repairs are to be brought here into the palace."
"Why the palace, Your Majesty?" asked Xathtak, confused.
"I will be moving them to the new build site tomorrow, but can only haul as much as I can pick up. My strength is higher here in the palace, than it is outside of it, and once I am there, when my strength fails, I will merely have the materials fall where I want them."
"I will have the workers I have left be working all night on this," said Xathtak, bowing quickly and rushing out of the room once again. Probably to avoid more of her crazy ideas, but Aella continued.
"Ernun, were you able to find someone to take over the dealings with the food situation for the city?"
"I found someone to tend to the food you provided, and someone else to oversee the many soup kitchens, but people are starting to complain that there"s no meat. I know they should be grateful to have anything to eat, at all."
"Get work details together, of 5-6 person teams, and starting tomorrow, I want supplies for new houses and barns to be gathered. Once I am done moving the materials for the new sewer system, I am going to start moving the materials for temporary towns to be built. I want to be busy this entire month Alfred is gone, moving people and supplies. Make sure whatever else is needed, is being provided as well. I expect to see you very busy tomorrow, and want an update as things unfold."
"With all of the people sent home today by your regents, there is going to be a lot of unhappy people in the morning, when they have no jobs to go to."
"That is why you are going to be forming these new work details, to give these people something to do."
"Yes, Your Majesty," he said, bowing and leaving.
"Orolon, there is going to be a lot of kids in the way while this is going on. I want the older ones busy helping where they are able, like cooking, picking up sc.r.a.ps to keep the areas clean, helping tend animals that I will be moving over, and so on. For the children that are too little, I want a place for them to be safe, and out of the way, so the parents can work without worrying about them."
"Do you intend to move all of the children over to the build site?" asked Orolon carefully.
"Not immediately. They will all be safe in the n.o.ble estate Josephine chooses, and it will be a while before enough is completed on the other side for them to be moved in, but it is an idea, so they aren"t just being ignored. The orphans can help by earning money for the orphanage, and themselves, while the children of families can help contribute as well. This is going to be such a huge undertaking, every set of hands to help will be needed."
"How do you intend to keep the workers motivated? Won"t they just return to what they were doing with the sewer work?" he asked.
"I will worry about that, when it comes. I must keep moving forward, and if my people hate and fear me, then at least they will be alive to hate me."
He bowed and left, leaving her with Destov, who looked very nervous.
"Destov, tomorrow I will be learning of the n.o.bles I have in my city. Because you are one of those n.o.bles, I am giving you a fair warning. Each n.o.ble will be placed in charge of something, of my choosing. I will be keeping a very tight eye on them, to make sure my plans to not falter. I would like for your family to oversee all of the n.o.bles, only because you are one of my advisors. I know this is going to cause a lot of people to hate your family, and a bunch of other political c.r.a.p to happen, so you need to prepare. Some of the n.o.ble families will remain here, to oversee things in the city, while others will be sent to the new sites to oversee things there.
"I also need people to start moving to the city, from elsewhere in the kingdom. It will be difficult doing this, as the winter is not being cooperative, but I need as many people moved and working on the other sites, as possible, before the spring hits here."
"There are millions of people in the kingdom, Your Majesty, and it will be a monumental effort, on your part, to move all of them, and all of the materials for this, as you have said. I fear you are stretching yourself thin."
"Destov, I appreciate your concerns, but I only have so much time to get things moving."
He paused as if to say something else, then bowed and left.
It was time to get Bridgette and to head back to the church. First, she teleported back to the treasury room. It was immaculate, without a single drop of blood anywhere.
Eyeing the cursed chest, she moved over to the chicken chest and paused to take a breath. There was no telling what she would find when she stepped into this thing. Stepping inside, she quickly looked around.
Many of the buildings were destroyed, and she could see chickens slinking around as if to not be seen. Others were riding in strange moving metal things, that had legs and walked around. Whenever one of the chickens in a metal thing spotted a chicken sneaking around, they would pause and jerk, making a loud boom, and the chicken on the ground would explode in a puff of feathers.
Aella swallowed, noticing all of the feathers scattered in the streets. What was going on?!
Flying over to the building that used to be the mimic, she found he was gone. Scanning the area, she finally spotted him near the building that looked like an egg. He was handing out food to chickens who were standing in lines. More of the metal things patrolled up and down the street where the chickens were lined up, waiting for their food. Once they received their handout, they would hurry away.
Teleporting inside the egg, near the top of the ceiling, she saw that there were chickens working to bring the food up from below, handing portions from one chicken to another, until it reached the mimic, and could be handed to the waiting chickens in line. Settling beside the outer wall, she made her way carefully past the chickens, who barely glanced her way, outside to the mimic.
"What"s going on? What"s happened?" she asked, eyeing the metal things as one paused to consider her, before moving on.
"Oh! Your Majesty! Well, there was a revolt, and a lot of chickens died. We have everyone locked down, while the last of the dissenters are hunted down," he explained, handing over his job to another chicken.
Aella wanted to ask what kind of revolt, but decided it didn"t matter. This wasn"t anything she was going to worry about right now, as it changed so much each time she came.
"I need another one of those magical bags that can hold so much," she said, watching the chickens as they went through the motions rhythmically.
"I"ll look, but I think you took them all."
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Aella followed him as he hurried back into the egg building, and descended the stairs to the platform that overlooked the ma.s.sive bins of food. She paused when she saw how empty it was.
"Where did all the food go?" she cried.
"The chickens that revolted were discovered stealing it. They had been raising chicks without permission, going against the population controls I set forth, and were having to steal ma.s.sive amounts to feed them all. Our supplies are having to be rationed as the excess chickens are culled."
"I want all of their bodies," she said, with a slow smile. Her people wanted meat? She would give them meat.