Chapter 352: Put Them Together
The next morning, Elder Manif was met by Dominic and a short man in a Royal Engineer’s coat.
"Elder Manif, this is Engineer Marcos. He has just finished the upgrades of the Manor grounds, and he will be helping you build the schoolhouse while your Sect works on their tower." Dominic explained.
The Elders of the Duskblade Sect smiled. "Thank you for the consideration, Your Grace."
Letting them make their own tower meant that they could keep some of their secrets, and set the layout themselves, while the public areas of the schools would be created by the Royal Infrastructure team, saving them time.
"As I believe you heard last night, we have two weeks to get the school ready. The Crown Prince of Cygnia will be here then, and I want everything to be in place before his arrival.
Tell me now if you don’t think that is possible." Dominic instructed.
"It could be tight with the furniture. We will order it with the Merchant’s Guild the next time they arrive, but it will take time to be shipped from a furniture maker in one of the cities. Until then, the classes will have simple benches for students to listen to lectures." Elder Manif explained.
Dominic nodded. "Even if it’s makeshift benches and tables made of sawed planks, just having the kids in school will help us impress the Crown Prince."
"That should be easy enough. I don’t know how many woodcutters you have, but I’m certain that we can manage something. We also have a real knack for clay tile roofs. They’re quite common in the desert, and we’ve had to repair thousands of them to hide signs of battles. The buildings themselves will go up fast." Elder Manif agreed.
Engineer Marcos patted him on the back. "Well then, let’s get started. Call your people over, and I will grab a team to start staking out the school. Speaking of which, how much space are we planning for?"
Dominic frowned. "Good question. Probably plan for a few hundred kids to start with, and leave room for more. In a town this size, we shouldn’t need dorms, but when the Barons start to move into the surrounding territories, they will most likely send their kids here for at least a few years. So, plan for some residences as well."
"And guard barracks. The General will send guard candidates here for training in magical combat. But they won’t be with the children, so we will want separate rooms for them.
Letting them go home every night wastes training time. Consider it a form of boot camp, though they’re not technically military." Engineer Marcos added.
"Right. Almost forgot about that.
The school complex is going to be rather large, but eventually, we will need all of it. Just do the best that you can, and we will furnish it as we have the ability." Dominic added.
"We will do our best. Do you have any updates on when the next convoys are expected?" Marcos asked.
Dominic shook his head. "I know that they got our last round of requests, but that’s about it. I haven’t gotten any messages about new shipments, but I might have to work a deal to get some communication tokens made so that we can at least contact senior Merchant’s Guild members.
I know that the Castellan has some ability to get in contact with them, but it’s not as detailed as a conversation."
Elder Manif nodded. "I can help you with that, but the materials that are needed can be a pain. The tokens are made of a specific sort of Jade, and they’re extremely fragile, as well as expensive to make.
If you want to have a conversation, it will need linked tokens. That means only one specific person, and that there is a risk they will be able to listen in on your conversations when they are trying to contact you."
"And a written message?" Dominic asked.
"Less complex, but the same materials. It will display the request when activated, but that means the message has to be short or it’s unreadable."
"That is a bit annoying as a limitation. An expensive jade item that’s too fragile to make in a larger size, but text is the best option. No wonder everyone has such a difficult time passing important information." Dominic sighed.
Elder Manif smiled. "Well, there is a new magitech device known as a telegraph. It’s a wired communicator, which has its own limitations. But if the wire is undamaged, you can rapidly send messages back and forth to another city."
Dominic laughed. "Can you image how much effort it would take to run a wire even to Lympsbury or Castle City? It’s over five hundred kilometres to Castle City. Where would we even get that much wire?"
The Elder mage shrugged. "Probably not the best choice for our situation. But I hear that Cygnia is working on better radios for their airships. That should help once the experiments are finished.
An airship over Wistover and one over Castle or Lympsbury should theoretically be able to communicate by radio if the radios had the range."
"That is something that we will have to keep in mind. Even for the Barony Manors, I would like to have radio communications. There shouldn’t be a need to travel back and forth for a simple message." Dominic agreed.
The mage nodded. "That is something that we can do. The Duskblade Sect has some skill making radios, and we can install them in a few important locations for you.
Say, the Manor, the Barony Manors, the Mage Tower, the Guard Barracks, and the Sheriff’s Office?"
"I think that should cover all the important locations for now. It at least gets all the spots where the ones in charge of responses will normally be working. Even if someone is away from the radio for a moment, the message should reach someone." Dominic agreed.
"Alright. I will send someone to the Techno Wizards in town, and borrow their workspace to build the radios while most of the Sect works on the tower. Engineer Marcos and his team should finish about the same time we do, with plenty of time to spare before the Crown Prince arrives."