Chapter 388: Life 29 - Chapter 81 - Bridges

I learned later that the dragon stunt caused deep ripples in Perenneth. One, it came clad in Windemere’s colors. Just the thought a foreign nation could control dragons would send a shiver up the spine of any general. Two, the summoned dragon said exactly what I ordered. It crashed into the throne room (they moved back to the old palace), dropped the woman on the ground before the King, and said to his face, “This woman offended [Queen] Mirina and the Matriarch,” before taking off without retaliating the attacks it took. Thankfully it was still under the “do not attack or fight back even if attacked” command from before.

She and her family were executed on the main square for sedition the next day, their House had been written down as traitors.

What the fuck did I expect? Damn, that was dumb of me. I just wanted her gone from the party. But she dug her own grave.

By the start of the next week, we had a messenger from Lonid loaded with gold as an apology. Imitating Sadian, Mirina’s father ordered the construction of a grand temple to the Matriarch and passed laws forbidding discrimination against the Kin and the Silk-folk.

The bards and merchants spread tales of dragons evicting traitorous nobles from Windemere as fast as fast horses could travel. Most other nations quickly started to welcome the priests of the Matriarch and accommodate them in brand new temples and shrines. The affinities and ethos I imbued them with made them very welcome to the common folk. They didn’t put themselves above the plight of the common folk like other priests. They went around them, healing animals, fixing their clothes with the silk they could create, on top of performing the other tasks a priest could do. They needed no donation as sales of self-made silk items alone could fund an acolyte’s life. That drew several candidates for the priesthood, searching for that Perk alone.

They needed to be well-screened. But I learned that Divine gifts from the priest's Path could be stripped from those that fell from grace. More often than not, the Gods didn’t pay a close watch on their priests, however. Checking for prayers was a dull boring job but one that I didn’t shirk from.

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[Queen] Mirina started their planning meeting by signaling Haru to spread the map over the table. As the tapestry unfolded, an illusion of the terrain projected over it, giving a sense of height and depth. Haru’s special maps were all made of her own silk and were enchanted to enhance onlookers’ reasoning and information capture. It felt at times as if the map was wordlessly whispering its secrets behind their ears.

“Our first task should be to raise the wall,” the half-kitsune declared, waving a hand and creating a tiny wall across the map. “It’ll have one hundred and fifty kilometers of extension and one massive bridge over the Plymark just after the Windemere flows into it.”

Officially, that was Rabet’s territory but those foothills at the base of the Plymark were monster’s dens. Not even Adventurers ventured there so they wouldn’t make a fuss at first. But with the wall going there and a bridge of all things, they could share a border with Rabet directly, allowing trade between Windemere and the southern kingdoms without passing through Sadian. It seemed Haru was intent on demolishing that nation’s geographical and economical advantages.

“What about the floods?” Vanagon asked. “The Plymark doesn’t flood very often, about once every lunar conjunction, but these floods are no joke. Especially when they happen in early Spring.”

Vanagon was excited by the prospect of reviving Saegalla. The deposed king was another in the long line of adversaries Haru, or Rosewise at the time converted into allies. Not servants, the young [Queen] reminded herself. Haru made the distinction very clear over and over. Everyone in that room was free to walk away at any time, no questions asked.

Haru frowned. “Floods. Damn, I remember seeing one, now that you mentioned,” She smiled empathetically back at the cloth golem. “Well, the wall on our side would contain it from spiling over the foothills, but this region never floods because it is almost a canyon. Right. But the Windemere also receives water from the mountains, so here at the bridge’s future location it would...”

Marlowe checked the elevation and grunted, “We don’t want the water to flood entirely to our side, but you need to keep in mind that Rabet’s territory is almost entirely plains. If we block the Plymark from flooding into our side, it could turn Rabet’s farmlands into a swamp and ruin their economy. We don’t want that. Sadian would use the opportunity to annex them.”

“That would be awful. Rabet is a peaceful neighbor. I like them,” Haru mused. After a few minutes of silence, she tapped one particular flat section of the river valley. “What if we build a collection drain here? The Japanese...”

She explained her plan. Build massive dry wells at the side of the river, with mouths sitting a bit above the waterline ready to swallow the excess water. This way, the river flood would be drained into a massive underground reservoir and discharged harmlessly in the Uroko gulf through a channel that would surface kilometers later.

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“Monsters will enter through these wells and take residence in this reservoir,” Alfondric Ashshield rubbed his silk beard. “It happens with every cave or mine that is left alone.”

Contradictorily, Haru’s face lit up with joy at the dwarven golem’s warning. “Great! We can even make some entrances upriver so they can find their way easier. Then we can harvest them for Exp and materials.”

“Nah, it won’t work. They won’t enter regularly. You’d waste time with patrols that more often than not would find nothing.”

“Then we just need to make sure there are always monsters in the reservoir, except when it floods. Make it a Dungeon. Yes!” Haru squealed and drew a road linking the southern wall to Rabet, going over the bridge she intended to build over the Plymark. “A Dungeon city! Adventurers will clear the reservoir of monsters, and foster a new settlement here! I just need to get another Dungeon Core from Bit. No problem!

“Wandering monsters,” she continued, “Will need to fight with the Dungeon-spawned ones. Once the floods come, the Core will turn off spawning and go dormant until the reservoir is mostly dry again. It will also take care of the structural integrity of the place and I can subordinate the water-pumping enchantments to it. We’ll have another settlement and another source of revenue. Not to mention we’ll make all the trade traffic from the south move along this new road straight from Rabet. And the Adventurers here will keep an eye on the Godfall Swamp. I killed a few monsters taking residence there last time I was nearby. This is perfect.”

Mirina smiled, “We have an ambassador from Rabet here in the castle. I’m going to offer them the road for free in exchange for a trade treaty and free passage for our pilgrims and refugees.”

Haru beamed back at her. “Atta, girl!” Causing Mirina to blush for a moment before she forced her regal composure back. Then the half-dwarf started to mumble. “I could bury enchanted immovable rods to enhance animal endurance and speed…”

“Speaking of them,” Vanagon cleared his non-existent throat, “we need to develop more settlements. We have some villages and small towns here, here, here, and here that could receive some of them. I’m afraid too many are coming to Windemere proper and causing the capital to develop some nasty slums.”

“We don’t want slums,” Haru remarked immediately. “Let me add these settlements to the map. And another at the coast. This new town will be called ‘Port Lorna’ and will become our beachhead into the Uroko.”

“What is this fog to the east?” Alfondric asked, curious. It started a few kilometers near Vugh Tarim.

“Oh, that’s a valley we are never going to claim or settle,” Haru said and checked everyone in the room. She waved a hand and dispelled the fog over the illusionary map. “Guess I can show you guys. This valley has a guardian, a friend of mine. I have an agreement with him to leave it alone. However, I was able to talk him into letting the elves settle here in the northeast of the valley. The Thennean and Lierin elves are going to make their home there.”

Mirina raised an eyebrow and nodded. So that’s where she disappeared into with the elven leadership during the birthday party.

“They’ll be independent but allied to us,” Haru concluded as if anyone doubted it.

If the dreamy way the elves looked at her during the rest of the party, she might even become the divine sponsor of these two offshoots of the elven family tree.

“How much land are we adding to our territory?” Julia asked. She was acting as the meeting’s secretary, taking note of everything and writing the minutes of the meeting.

“Hum, let me calculate...” Haru rubbed her chin. “Five point eight thousand square kilometers, not counting these useless monster-infested foothills at the source of the Plymark. We currently have eleven thousand square kilometers. And the northern wall will go here,” she used her thread to weave another wall on the tapestry map. The tridimensional illusion changed to show a matching wall.

“May I suggest one thing,” Marlowe said. “Why don’t we use the Academy students’ help with the construction tasks?”

“They’ll refuse,” Mirina shook her head. “Most of them are nobles and scions of wealthy merchant houses, they won’t agree to do grunt labor.”

“Everyone has a price,” Haru chuckled and produced a magician’s staff that brimmed with power. “I can give each of them a Kel’Caldor staff if they work earnestly.”

“That’s a bit too much,” Vanagon groaned. “And you have one staff, what’s the use--”

Without malice, Haru absentmindedly interrupted him, “Eight-hundred-something, actually. Kel’Caldor was keen on having redundant equipment for his clones.“

“Either way, that’s too much, Haru,” Marlowe chastised.

“Okay. I’ll make a custom staff for them. Let me see, ‘reduced MP costs and increased effects for Earth magic by 25%, along with +10 to base MP, Mind, Willpower, and Magic’,” she glared at Mirina with her crystalline emerald eyes. “Is it enough to entice them to work? They’ll work under me, four teams of thirty-six, so they’ll have eighty-eight percent faster Proficiency gains too. Marlowe, I’m making one-hundred-forty-four of these staves. Find me some candidates.”

Alfondric laughed while Julia just shook her head. Marlowe deadpanned, “As you wish, Haru. A hundred-forty-four mage. People would murder each other for these staves.”

“I’ll soul-bind them,” Haru added as an afterthought.

They spent the rest of the time planning the minutiae of their expansion project. Even with Haru dominating the private meetings, for the people at large it was Mirina the one responsible for the growth and restoration of Windemere’s position as a local superpower. It couldn’t be helped. Haru was… Haru. Goddess, weaver of threads and souls, the reincarnation of the kingdom’s founder, but most importantly, someone that loved the ordinary folk.

As the [Queen] removed her regal dress to prepare for her evening ablutions, she traced the intricate runework of her enchanted crown, another gift from the half-dwarf-kitsune. One who gave out countries like a baker handing out stale bread for beggars in the late afternoon. Her feelings for Haru were a tangled mess, impossible to unravel. She didn’t like dying but it felt now as if they’d just had a brawl over some misunderstanding. Then her oath, the rollercoaster of their visit, her dreams, Julia, the strange toys she created, their nights together…

On days like the one that just ended, Mirina felt like she was struggling just to not be drowned by the whirlpool called Haru. One whose warm waters she was eager to dive into at the next opportunity.