"It sounds like the humans are summoning these monsters to attack us," said Vesh while cutting a chicken apart with his knife."That may be true, but we are woefully unskilled in the arts of magic," said Varnin with a frown.
"So, there aren"t any mages for me to learn magic from?" asked Aella with a frown of her own.
"There haven"t been any mages in our kingdom since the first king sealed away the library. Every attempt to train a new generation, from the few who knew magic, failed. We still have magical items, and the castle can bestow magic upon people, but other than that, there is nothing," said Orolon.
"It is a.s.sumed the human"s still have magic, but we haven"t seen any instances of it in any of our lifetimes. We have stories from our parents and grandparents of there being magic used during skirmishes, but nothing recent," added Jirga.
That made things a bit difficult for Aella to try and use magic to fix some of the problems of the kingdom. Though, if the humans didn"t have magic either, then that would even the odds.
"Okay, a.s.suming the humans do have magic. Give me reasons why they haven"t tried to overrun our kingdom yet," said Aella, pushing her plate to the side.
"That is a point we have discussed many times," said Varnin with a nod. "The only thing we can think of, is they are using us to deal with the monsters that come from the mountains, like a buffer. If they take us out, then they would have to deal with the monsters themselves."
"And every attempt to send troops into the mountains, to see where these monsters are coming from, have failed?"
"The troops have never returned. We a.s.sume they are being killed and eaten."
Aella nodded thoughtfully. That seemed plausible. She had never seen any of these monsters, to know how hard they would be to fight.
"Are there any kinds of fortifications for the troops to use, to make fighting these monsters easier? Like walls to funnel them to one location, and things like that?" asked Seifer.
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"No, every attempt to build something, to aid our troops, has been met with sudden onslaughts of ma.s.sive numbers. It"s almost as if someone were watching to see what our troops do, and then respond to that by sending monsters. It"s been very infuriating," growled Varnin slapping her hand on the table.
Aella could tell that it was obvious to everyone, the attacks were being orchestrated. It reminded her of the unfair situations she had found herself in. Squaring her shoulders, she nodded to Varnin and turned to Jirga.
"We"re feeding our troops from the monsters they kill, and the fields to the east are being stolen from us. Where is the rest of our food coming from?"
"Most of our population has moved west, to the coast, where most of our food for the entire western half of our kingdom comes from. The problems to the west, are that the foods don"t travel well for the rest of the kingdom to benefit from it, and the storms are horrible. Many who live here in the capital have returned from the west because they can"t handle the storms."
"Alright, so the western half won"t starve, if we don"t have enough food from our fields. That"s good. Even with bad weather, that is good news. What about you, Xathtak? Do you have anything to report to me about the sanitation of the kingdom?"
"Because of the increased need for the military, my workforce has dwindled, again. I no longer have enough workers to collect trash throughout the city, or to properly monitor the sewers. Which means, we have the sewers getting clogged in the lower sections of the city, and backing sewage into the streets. I"m getting complaints on a daily basis from people having their homes overrun as well."
Aella scrunched her brow and said, "The sewers are the tunnels under the city, that allows the waste to flow outside of the city, correct?"
The Advisors all looked at each other for a moment, before Xathtak nodded.
"What happens to all of the trash?" Aella asked.
"The waste from the sewers travels to the large river that runs from the north east to the west, and is carried out to the coast. All of the solid trash, that is collected daily, is taken to a processing zone just south of the city. An entire town has sprung up there, that is dedicated to sifting through the trash from the city, and finding new uses for it. Some is burned, others are put aside for fertilizer in the fields, and the rest is salvaged."
Aella was impressed. Someone had set up a decent system. The only problem was lack of workers to keep the city clean, apparently.
"What about outside the city?"
"Each town has its own person in charge of ensuring the sanitation codes set out by the first king are followed. Anyone who is found to be in violation of any of the codes, has one month to fix the problem, before being fined. If another month goes by without the problem being fixed, the person will be jailed and the problem will be fixed at the cost of the person. I get monthly reports from each town, if they are able, otherwise I get a report from them every six months. Some of the towns are either too small to warrant sending monthly reports, or they live too far to get a report to me that often.
"The other form of sanitation I oversee, is the removal of the dead from battle fields. We"ve had more skirmishes then actual battles in the past 10 years, so I haven"t had any issues with this. Each military troop is required to bury their dead, at the soonest possible chance, whenever it becomes necessary. That way we don"t have disease spreading."
"Disease?" Aella asked, confused. She had no idea what the advisor was talking about.
"People get sick if dead bodies are allowed to lie around and decompose. Also, it attracts monsters and vermin," Xathtak explained, obviously fighting the urge to roll her eyes.
Aella had never been around dead bodies long enough to see them decompose, so she decided to nod as if she understood.
"So, nothing major is happening outside of the city, that needs dealt with?" asked Aella.
"Other than the fact that our dead are not being retrieved from the mountains, that is true," said Xathtak with a nod.
"Alright, what about water?" Aella turned to Rannaun.
"We"ve had a drought the last couple of years, that has our water reserves severely depleted. Our fields are struggling, and the animals have had to be moved, to ensure water availability. The city is on fire warning until we get some good rain again. I"ve had my people hand carting water from the river, to our fire reserves, in case a fire broke out in the city, but even the river has shrunk from the lack of rain.
"So far, our drinking water has been unaffected, due to excellent construction that brings the water into holding tanks, but if we don"t get rain soon, even those will start being affected."
"And outside the city? How are smaller towns dealing with the drought?"
"We have an excellent team in charge of digging wells. Some of the older towns have had to get new wells dug, but so far, they are doing fine. Though most of the wells have never gone dry in the past 100 years, that only shows the severity of the drought."
"Do the storms to the west not bring in water?"
"Those storms never travel inland. They hit the coast and travel north, petering out in the mountains."
"What about the law?" Aella asked, turning towards Ernun.
"The city has been an increase in lawlessness, with the acquisition of more people for the military. There are more vandals on the streets, and cases of theft have risen. Those being sent to the jails, who are capable of being in the military, are being sent off to fight instead. The orphanages are filling up, and the city has large swaths where the houses are empty."
She sat back in her chair at his concise report.
"Outside of the city we have an increase in bandits on the streets, and I have authorized people to have permission to kill them and turn their heads in for a reward, if they are attacked. We don"t have enough men to patrol the roads between settlements, as we used to. So far, the smaller settlements have been able to hold law and order, but I foresee them deteriorating if something isn"t done to halt it soon," he added.
Nodding to herself, she turned to Orolon.
"It doesn"t appear that the heroes are getting any closer to the palace. The reports I received this morning state they are fighting monsters that have traveled along the border lands, where there aren"t a lot of people to inhibit their movement," said Orolon.
Aella stood up from her seat and began pacing back and forth across the room. Most of the demons had finished eating, so Edgar was having the servants take away the leftover foods.
"If the monsters attack whenever an attempt is made to build walls, have you tried to use that to your advantage?" she asked Varnin.
"What do you mean?" asked the military advisor.
"Build traps to kill the monsters, then direct them to attack where you want, by beginning to build things, like walls and other fortifications. Put the traps in place in the dead of night, when it would be the hardest to see what is going on. You could even direct whatever is watching away from the location where the traps are being placed, by having something else occur at the same time, to draw their eyes away. The meat could also be used to help bolster local food needs. It may not work consistently, if whoever is orchestrating the attacks figures out what we are doing, but if it works a handful of times, that is far better then what we"re currently struggling with. And if they stop sending hordes, we"ll get our walls built."
"I think that…would actually be a good idea," said Varnin with obvious surprise.
"As for here in the city, have the entire population move to one or two sections of the city, so the water and sanitation needs are consolidated in one location. The workers that we have, will be able to focus on a smaller area, and be able to keep up with the task required of them. Once they get caught up, and have a little leeway, they can slowly get the rest of the city cleaned up."
"You would have everyone move?!" cried Jirga, horrified.
"My solution would fix the problem, would it not?" asked Aella, turning to the elderly demon.
"It would, but no one would think it a solution! The rich would loathe having the poor closer to them, or having to leave their estates!"
"You haven"t come up with a better solution. As far as I am concerned, we are in a wartime situation. The people don"t get a say in what is demanded of them by their king when the safety of the city is at stake. Once this war is ended, and the bulk of our troops can return home, we can allow people to spread back out. We don"t have the people to keep up with maintaining a full city, and there are empty sections separating the population, which is giving the low-life elements room to grow. We shall push everyone closer together, so they can be better watched as well.
"Ernun, whenever children are discovered running the streets and causing trouble, they will be put to work. I want them to help with cleaning the streets up. We shall have small processing zones open up in the smaller area to sort through the waste, and I think those will be wonderful places for them to be given work. If anyone has a problem with that, they can be lashed."
The advisors stared at her in surprise and shock. None of the demons who were her guards seemed to have a problem with what she had said, but the thought of putting children to work and lashing the ones who acted up had the advisors stunned silent.
"Rannaun, is there no way to collect the rain water from the west and bringing it east to our fields, as the water is moved for our drinking water here in the palace?"
Rannaun managed to shut his mouth before stuttering, "Do you have any idea how difficult that would be? That would be a ma.s.sive undertaking!"
She shrugged. "I have time. Put those who ran to the west coast to work. We have coin to pay them. Enough people have died. Let"s start implementing changes to fix that."