Valkyrie's Shadow

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 6, Chapter 8

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 6, Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“We’re back…”

Nemel shuffled back into her base camp. Its occupants looked up from their work. Fendros, Elise and Ida rose from their seats at the campfire.

“Are you alright?” Fendros’ head went from side to side as she checked over Nemel, “How did it go?”

“She won.”

Dame Verilyn appeared, sitting atop the tree trunks lying in the camp’s new yard. Since the Frost Dragon was usually in Human or Elf form, Nemel was mostly unfamiliar with her liege’s natural expressions. Her voice seemed pointlessly proud, though.

“What do you mean by ‘she won’?” Elise furrowed her brow.

“She battled the leader of the Goblin tribe for dominance,” Dame Verilyn answered. “It was a flawless victory. The first of many conquests, I’m sure.”

Awed reactions rose around the camp. Nemel wanted to crawl into her tent and never come out again.

“I didn’t go to conquer them,” she said. “I just went and asked if they wanted to move in and they decided it was a challenge.”

“And then you won,” Dame Verilyn said.

“Of course I won!” Nemel replied.

“Of course,” the Frost Dragon nodded.

Nemel glowered at her liege. That posture of hers must have been pride or something. Her minion was subjugating more minions for her miniondom.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Nemel said. “It was a pointless fight. They were just Goblins living in the woods. Of course they’re not going to win against an Imperial War Wizard!”

Dame Verilyn brought down her upturned head. She settled her wings over her back and draped her tail over the logs, regarding Nemel with a brilliant turquoise eye.

“It wasn’t pointless,” the Frost Dragon said.

“It was!” Nemel frowned, “There was no need to fight. They could have just said yes or no and that would be that.”

A log collapsed in the campfire, sending a swirl of embers into the late afternoon sky. Dame Verilyn let out a frosty sigh.

“You always speak of being a good, responsible ruler,” the Frost Dragon said. “All of your planning these past months is to that effect. But tell me: is it more important to be a good ruler by your own definition, or by the definition of your subjects?”

“It’s not one thing or another,” Nemel replied. “There are things that lords have to do that their subjects might not know much about or like. Sure, there are certain things that you can do that your people might see as ‘good’, but being good in the eyes of one’s people isn’t enough to be an effective ruler. Nobles blindly pursuing ‘good’ can produce undesirable results just as easily as an utterly terrible Noble can.”

“But what are desirable results?” Dame Verilyn asked, “I’ve mentioned this to you before, but Humans from the Empire hold rather extreme views on what is desirable and undesirable. Far more than any tribal society that I’ve observed in the last century or so. You are not in the Empire anymore, Nemel Gran – not a Human Lord in a Human nation. You cannot build a little copy of the Empire here: it will not work.”

Was that what she was doing? Nemel didn’t think she was. She was just trying to make things work as well as she knew how. Maybe that was the problem: all that she knew was ‘the Empire’.

“Then what should I do?” Nemel asked, “This is your fief. I’m just here to help make it the way that you want.”

“That may be so,” Dame Verilyn answered. “But it is your home too. By the same token, it will be the home of everyone you bring to live here. We Dragons understand that many races may live in one’s domain. You Humans, on the other hand, mostly appear to believe that a land must be occupied by either one race or the other. To understand what must be done, you must understand that your Human perspective is only one of a myriad of other perspectives that you must fit together into something that works for everyone.”

“But I can’t keep track of so much stuff!” Nemel said, “Humans are complicated enough as it is.”

Dame Verliyn’s head snaked forward, looming closer to peer at her.

“Wh-what?” Nemel said.

“You have come here to make something new,” Dame Verilyn said. “A place free from the troubles and sorrows of your former home. With that being the case, I do not understand why you feel obliged to recreate the environment that produces what you wish to avoid. It isn’t as if the Empire is superior to the Sorcerous Kingdom in any conceptual way. And, as I said, the ‘Baharuth Empire’ cannot work here so it is a futile vision to cling to in the first place. Besides, the task is probably not as difficult as you think.”

“At least help me out a bit here,” Nemel said. “I don’t understand the world as well as you do.”

“But you do understand what needs to be done here more than I do.”

Nemel furrowed her brow, sending a confused look at Dame Verilyn.

“What are you?” The Frost Dragon asked, “In terms that Goblins might understand.”

“A Human Lord,” Nemel answered.

“And what is the ‘place’ that a Human Lord occupies?”

“If we’re speaking strictly in tribal terms, they’re martial Nobles. Powerful warriors that a Human community builds itself around.”

“Very good,” Dame Verilyn’s tail swished lazily over the logs. “So what is that in Goblin terms?”

“A Hobgoblin.”

The Frost Dragon’s tail stopped. Her wings unfurled and furled again, settling lightly on her back.

“Hmm…you’ve jumped ahead of where I wanted to go, but that’s still good! Let’s step back a bit first, though. What is it that Goblins need that Humans also need?”

“Food. Water. Basic necessities.”

“But Humans and Goblins can procure that on their own without a ‘Lord’, yes?”

“That’s true,” Nemel replied, “but without a powerful leader to organise their efforts and face other powerful leaders, that tribe won’t be able to hold their ground against other tribes. They’ll lose to their competitors.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Of course it is! They’ll get enslaved or eaten or something.”

“Then why did they start dancing around you when you won against their leader?”

Nemel fell silent, frowning into the campfire.

“It should mean that they were pleased with the outcome, no?” Dame Verilyn said.

“Pleased about being subjugated?”

“Why not? You are looking at things in a rather Human way…no, it isn’t even a Human way – it’s the way Humans look at races other than Humans. Tell me: if a Human nation subjugates another Human nation, do the losers get enslaved or eaten or something?”

“O-of course not!”

“Then why must you hold other races to different expectations?”

“Because it happens.”

“Sure, it can happen. Just like the Theocracy sending Elvish prisoners of war to the Empire as slaves happens. You’re just applying the best-case scenario to Humans and the worst-case scenario to everyone else. Why not look at it through a more objective lens?”

“Such as…”

“Well, go back to why ‘Lords’ exist. Subjugating a tribe does mean that you can do whatever you want with them, but you made your offer in advance. You didn’t even kill the old leader. The Goblins replaced their old chief with a bigger, stronger one and they received favourable terms on top of that. What’s there to complain about?”

Did it work that way? She supposed that it did for Humans. Imperial propaganda always cast their conflict with Re-Estize in a positive light. They were destroying a corrupt and bloated regime, working to liberate millions of suffering people. The eventual downfall of the Kingdom would bring about a new golden age for everyone.

Would Nemel Gran bring about a Goblin golden age? One with delicious, golden potatoes? It was still all too big for her.

“I can sense that you’re overcomplicating things again,” Dame Verilyn said. “You need to think in the other direction. Employ universal truths as the foundation of the society that you wish to fashion…or at least that’s what Lady Zahradnik says. As a ‘Lord’, the insights and skills required to build that new reality should be inside of you somewhere.”

“Wow,” Ida said, “Nemel is amazing.”

“She was always so quiet back at the Academy,” Elise said.

“Now she’s subjugating Demihuman tribes left and right,” Fendros nodded.

“I-I only did one tribe, okay?” Nemel said, “It’s not as if I’m going to conquer the Upper Reaches.”

“But you’re getting more Goblins, right?” Dame Verilyn asked, “Six is a bit pitiful looking. As a Hobhuman, you should aim for several hundred thousand.”

She did want more labour, but she never expected to get it like this. And not that much.

“Wait,” Nemel said. “I don’t even know how to handle Goblin subjects. Can’t we just start with these ones first?”

“Goblins don’t need much,” Dame Verilyn replied. “Going back to the Hobhuman thing, you can just pretend you’re one of those. That’s probably what they associate you with at the moment, anyway.”

Hobhum–no, Hobgoblins were about Human-sized and possessed a similar level of intelligence. They were more orderly and militant than Humans, but they were also pretty evil by Human standards. Nemel didn’t want to be evil.

“I can try,” Nemel conceded, “but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.”

She went down to the river, boarding the knarr and ordering the Death Warrior captain to bring the ship to the opposite shore where her newly subjugated Goblins awaited. The group shied away from the approaching vessel’s Skeleton crew.

Nemel came ashore, frowning at the Goblins cowering in the bushes. What would a Hobgoblin do? Probably beat them silly for their lack of discipline. Or maybe…

“FALL IN!”

The Goblins jumped out of the bushes and lined up smartly in front of her.

Seriously?

She issued several more drill commands, which they carried out as well. Were Goblins just born knowing them? Could they stick Goblins in the Imperial Army and they’d outperform raw recruits?

Nemel marched her Goblins to the riverbank and ordered them to clean up. After that, she had them board the boat. Once they reached the other side, she marched them into the camp. Everyone stared at the orderly rank of Goblins. Nemel felt a little bit proud of them.

“There were six Goblins before,” Dame Verilyn noted.

“Huh?”

She counted the row of Goblin heads. Somehow, she had gotten an extra one. She couldn’t tell which Goblin it was.

Well, one more probably wouldn’t hurt…

Nemel went over to her tent and grabbed a clipboard. She walked over to the Goblins, starting from the right side.

The first Goblin was one of the mystics. She was garbed in the same soft leather outfits as the other Goblin. Stains from bruised vegetation covered her tunic. Feathers, beads and smooth stones were attached to strips of rawhide, hanging out of her mess of black hair. She looked like a village girl trying to decorate herself. A green one.

Nemel wrinkled her nose at the odour that wafted from her.

Even if I ordered them to clean up, I guess they only do it in the way that they know how…

She took some notes on the Goblin’s appearance before pointing a finger at her.

“?Clean?.”

A swirl of magical motes washed over the Goblin, removing every stain on her person. The stains on her garb vanished as well, though not the accumulated damage from being so poorly maintained.

“What’s your name?” Nemel asked.

“Fi.”

It was an unexpectedly cute name for a Goblin.

“You’re a mystic, right?”

Fi nodded.

“What kind of mystic are you?”

Fi tilted her head, brow furrowed. Assuming Goblins had similar expressions to Humans, she didn’t know what Nemel meant.

“Can you cast healing magic?” Nemel asked.

Fi nodded.

So that makes her a divine caster...a Druid? Priest? No, Alchemists can cast healing spells as well…

And then there were the other categories of magic that weren’t commonly practised amongst Humans of the region. To complicate things even further, schools of magic were shared between all categories of magic. It was possible for some spells that were usually seen as belonging to one category of magic to be developed for another. Alchemists, who were arcane casters, learning rudimentary healing spells that were usually associated with divine magic to imbue their potions with was an example of this.

She couldn’t be careless about identification, so she gestured to her right.

“Stand over by the fire with the ladies over there, please,” Nemel said. “We’ll go over what you can do after I’m through with the others.”

Fi went over and plopped herself onto the log beside Ida. The Goblin clearly cared less that she was sitting beside a Human than the Human cared that she was sitting beside a Goblin. Since they all eventually became accustomed to Zu Chiru and his apprentices, Nemel hoped that they would be able to do the same with the Goblins.

The next Goblin was the one she had ‘challenged’ for leadership of the tribe. He wasn’t a Hobgoblin, nor was he particularly strong-looking. His leather tunic was messier than that of the mystic, caked in dirt and dried bloodstains. He held his bow in one hand and had a rawhide quiver at his hip. In his other hand was a flint-headed spear. A knife that was nearly identical to the spearhead was tucked in his crude belt.

Nemel took note of his appearance before casting a Clean spell on him as well.

“What’s your name?” Nemel asked.

“Nob,” the Goblin answered.

“What is it that you do, Nob?”

In response, Nob looked down at his equipment.

Right.

Upon closer inspection, it was easy to tell the Goblins apart. Not only did they have the tools of their respective trades equipped, but the mess created by their work was all over them. It was like checking someone’s palm for calluses or looking for other marks of one’s vocation. In a way, it made the Goblins honest people that didn’t try to hide what they were as many Humans might.

“So you’re a…hunter? Or maybe a warrior?”

Nob tilted his head.

“Same?”

If they ate whatever they killed, Nemel supposed that it might be the same. Still, there were distinct differences between Fighters, Rangers, Knights and all of the other ‘warrior’ vocations out there. Since these Goblins lived in a highland forest, there was a high chance that their warriors would be Rangers, but one couldn’t be sure.

Nemel poked her chin with the end of her pen. After a moment, she looked at one of the men nearby.

“Mister Baumer.”

“Yes, Mistress Nemel?”

“Is there any way for us to figure out if someone’s a Ranger or not?”

“Sure is,” the Ranger nodded. “I’m guessin’ you want me to check this guy here?”

“Yes, please.”

Nemel turned back to address Nob.

“I’d like you to go with Mister Baumer here, Nob. Have you worked with Humans before?”

What am I saying? There’s no way–

Nob nodded.

Really?

How in the world did that happen? Maybe some of the Demihumans in the Upper Reaches interacted with the Human settlers along the new highway. If that were the case, would she be seen as condescending while she herself was trying to figure things out?

Of the seven Goblins, all of the ones without mystic’s attire claimed to be ‘hunters’. Nemel assigned a pair of Rangers to each to assess their capabilities.

Alright, now for the interesting part…

Interesting to her, at least. As a mage raised in the Empire, the idea that she was about to see what a different ‘sphere’ of magical knowledge had to offer was undeniably exciting. New fields in magic theory could very well be within her reach. Even if they weren’t sophisticated, a large population of tribal Demihumans potentially had centuries, if not millennia to develop and refine all sorts of unheard-of spells.

Nemel switched to a fresh page as she went over to join the two mystics by the fire. They remained seated beside Ida, bare feet dangling a dozen centimetres off of the ground.

“Let’s see…I suppose we should start with Fi? What do you usually do for your tribe, Fi?”

“Mash.”

“Mash?”

The Goblin looked around. She stood up on the log and hopped off, going over to snatch some leaves from a pile of wood waste drying out for kindling. Taking the gathered leaves, she bundled them up and started rolling them between her palms. The scent of bruised vegetation filled the air.

“A herbalist?” Fendros said from the side.

“Maybe,” Nemel murmured. “Fi, do you gather plants by yourself?”

“Hunter get!”

“But can you do it?”

Fi stood there for a moment before nodding and wandering off.

“Wait!” Nemel said, “I wasn’t asking you to do it right now – just whether you could or not.”

The Goblin returned to her seat.

So the ‘hunters’ go out and forage plants, which makes them more likely to be Rangers. If Fi can do it too…

That crossed off one broad field of divine casters, which were Clerics and Priests. Divine casters who were rooted in ‘organised religion’ often doubled as apothecaries in villages. However, they were broadly ‘city folk’ who didn’t do very well in the wild, so they relied on locals to gather reagents for them.

A part of her was relieved that they weren’t of a priestly vocation. She wasn’t sure what would happen if some weird Goblin religion took root in her camp.

Nemel reached into one of her belt pouches, producing a minor healing potion. She held it between herself and Fi. The Goblin mystic frowned, reaching out to take the potion. She looked at it every which way, eventually figuring out how to unstopper the vial. After sniffing it for several moments, she raised the potion to look inside. The content spilt into her eyes and all over her face.

The Goblin let out a startled screech, flinging the vial into the fire and bolting into the bushes nearby.

“Not an Alchemist, I guess?” Nemel said.

“Probably not,” Elise agreed. “That was an expensive way to find out, though.”

“I-I didn’t think she would do that! More importantly, does that make her a Druid?”

The others shook their heads unknowingly. Druids and druidic magic weren’t a topic that received much focus in the Imperial Magic Academy. For the most part, the Empire saw Druids as a nuisance that impeded development. They had little influence, save for in the Adventurer Guild where they often protested the posting of commissions that threatened the balance of nature. If the targets of said commissions were a threat to imperial citizens, however, their protests were generally ignored.

Nemel looked over at Dame Verilyn.

“Is there something like a Druid Circle here?”

“The closest thing to it would be the institution run by the Lizardmen priests,” Dame Verilyn replied. “They’re all practising Druids, but they usually call themselves ‘priests’ or ‘shamans’ as most tribal Demihumans do.”

“Is Fi anything like them?”

“I’ve hardly seen anything out of her,” Dame Verilyn said, “but it should be something similar to what most tribal cultures in the region have.”

Since Fi still hadn’t returned, she moved on to question the next mystic: a male named ‘Gog’.

“Gog,” Nemel asked, “are you the same sort of caster as Fi?”

Gog shook his head.

“Then what do you do for the tribe?”

The Goblin reached into his tunic and pulled out a pouch. Nemel found it filled with white crystals.

“Liz,” Nemel said, “can you toss me one of the empty pouches over there?”

Nemel caught the small leather bag and handed it to Gog. The Goblin held it up in both hands.

“?Summon Spices?!”

Fendros buried her face in her hands.

“Goblin work,” she moaned. “I’ve been doing Goblin work for years.”

“I-it’s alright, Rei,” Elise said. “Salt is important!”

“Quiet, Goblin number two.”

Elise slouched powerlessly in her seat with an ashen expression. She was right, though: salt was important. The use of Summon Spices also explained how the Goblins were getting the reagents to produce leather.

“What else can you cast?” Nemel asked.

Gog shook his head.

That’s it?

She thought they would identify what he was through the spells that he had, but now he could be anything. Lifestyle magic was universal.

“Well, that’s fine too,” Nemel said. “You can join Rei and Liz’s production team.”

Gog strutted over to sit with Fendros and Elise, who still looked devastated over having their practical value downgraded to ‘Goblin’. Maybe it would encourage them to study harder.

Fi returned a while later and Nemel continued her interview. As far as magic went, she could cast Create Water, Summon Spices, Detect Animals or Plants, and Light Cure Wounds. In addition to having Light Cure Wounds,Detect Animals or Plants pointed to the Goblin mystic being a Druid.

She would have to see the Lizardmen in Warden’s Vale about what she could do with Fi. For the time being, she had Fi help with reagent production and act as the camp healer. What sort of ‘mash’ she would come up with was yet to be seen.

Joel Baumer returned with Nob two hours later. The two Human rangers carried a dressed boar on a pole between them while the Goblin followed carrying the boar’s bristly hide in both arms. They disappeared into one of the storehouses before coming out to join Nemel at the fire.

“How did it go?” Nemel asked.

“Guy seems to be a Ranger,” Mister Baumer answered. “A pretty basic one, but a Ranger nonetheless.”

“What did you do to figure that out?”

“A bit of common sense–er, no disrespect intended, Mistress Nemel. Rangers do things other people can’t, just like Wizards, Blacksmiths, Imperial Knights or whatever else. For us Rangers, we move through wild terrain faster. Not just copses or fallow fields, but real wilderness. Like this mess you see all around us – the type of terrain that’d take city folk two hours to get through a kilometre, if they don’t get lost outright. The more experienced a Ranger is, the easier it is to get around, but it’s pretty clear even with inexperienced ones.

“On top of that, Rangers have wilderness skills. We can track and do things like identify plants and animals, forage and dress the beasties that we hunt. Also…if you’re willin’ to risk it, just get in a scrap. A Ranger’s a lot tougher than the average villager. I’ve seen my ‘pa thrash a drunk Imperial Knight once or twice. Army tried to recruit him after, but that life wasn’t for him.”

Rangers were always associated with the savage frontier and many stories featured brave village Rangers who faced its threats. When Nobles ran into trouble with beasts, raiders or monsters, they’d consult with their Rangers before anyone else. If the problem was minor, a Ranger – or a group of them – would just deal with it themselves.

Imperial patrols always included two scouts – usually Rangers – for the exact same qualities that Joel Baumer listed. It was a bit strange that people commonly separated Rangers who were Imperial Knights or Adventurers from ones just living out in the villages when they were essentially the same. The main difference between them was that village Rangers specialised in local work while those in the Imperial Army addressed the needs of border patrols. Adventurer Rangers specialised themselves for jobs that they did out of their respective bases.

“Have you run into anything dangerous yet?” Nemel asked.

Mister Baumer exchanged looks with several other Rangers present.

“…that’s actually something we’ve been meaning to talk about, Mistress Nemel.”

“Y-you found something dangerous?”

“Er, not anything like a monster,” Mister Baumer said. “It’s about the local wildlife. We’re moving in and carving out territory here, so we have to ensure that the natural balance of the land is preserved.”

“You mean we’re taking up space, so we have to kill animals?”

“Basically,” the Ranger nodded. “Dame Verliyn’s the boss here, so the final numbers are up to her.”

The people around the fire sent looks in Dame Verilyn’s direction. Nemel cleared her throat.

“You said there was room for ten farming villages, right? This first site will be the harbour town for those villages.”

“That’s right,” Dame Verilyn replied. “The southern valley under my mountain was what I had in mind. Ten was just a guess since I’m not sure how your Human villages would fit along the river, but there should be around two hundred fifty square kilometres for you to use.”

“Right, so two hundred–wait.”

Nemel closed her eyes and scratched her temple.

“Did you say two hundred fifty square kilometres?”

“It’s a sort of skinny stretch along the river,” Dame Verilyn said, “but it should amount to around that.”

“But two hundred fifty square kilometres is enough for twenty-five villages,” Nemel told the Frost Dragon.

The ridiculous expanse of Dame Verilyn’s – and Baroness Zahradnik’s – territory once again came around to slap her in the face. Her liege had allocated twice as much land as Nemel’s father held to Nemel and it was only a fraction of Dame Verilyn’s total territory. The average Barony in the developed portions of the Empire only had about fifty square kilometres of land, so Nemel always believed House Gran was not in the worst of situations as far as minor Nobles went. As it was, Nemel would be a seneschal responsible for a county-sized territory.

“Not around here, it’s not,” Dame Verilyn told her. “Have you seen Baroness Zahradnik’s villages?”

Nemel went over to the tree stump that served as her desk, unrolling the map that Nonna had given her.

“You mean these things here?”

Dame Verilyn raised her head, tilting one side of her head down towards the map.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But they’re huge,” Nemel used her fingers to try and figure out how much land each village covered. “Each one must manage thirty-five to forty square kilometres! They’re like baronies on their own…how many people live in each?”

“No more than three hundred per village,” Dame Verilyn replied. “Not including the Undead.”

“…and how many households are Farmers?”

“Twenty.”

No wonder little girls are running around with bags of gold coins here…

Each village must have been wealthy beyond the imaginings of the average rural tenant in the region. They had absurd amounts of land to manage and Undead made it possible for one household to manage sixteen households’ worth. According to the almanac provided by the administration, they used druidic magic to enrich the fields and crops, achieving an unprecedented number of bushels per acre.

Even if they were subjected to a ninety per cent tax rate, a Farmer here would still be wealthier than the average minor Noble. Commodity-wise, at least. The price they commanded for those commodities was another thing entirely, but at least they would never starve.

The raw martial might of the Sorcerous Kingdom was infamous throughout the region. Barely anyone outside of the Sorcerous Kingdom, however, knew that its single duchy could probably rival a large country in terms of its rural industry.

“I’m going to have to rethink our plans,” Nemel said. “There’s just no precedent for any of this…”

Nemel felt like she had been repeating that over the past few days, but so many ridiculous things kept coming to light.

“Is that going to affect my taxes?” Dame Verilyn asked worriedly.

“Of course!” Nemel answered, “You’re going to be making a lot more than I thought.”

“Oh,” Dame Verilyn seemed to brighten, “that’s good, then.”

Leaning against her tree-stump-turned-desk, Nemel frowned down at the map.

“So we’re using about ten per cent of your land, but it’s the best land…at least for farming. Mister Baumer, how many predators do we need to displace for two hundred fifty square kilometres of forest like this?”

“That’d depend on how bountiful the land is, Mistress Nemel. There are plenty of grazers out in the woods, but I got no idea how many there’d be per square kilometre yet.”

“Do you know, Dame Verilyn?” Nemel asked.

“Down here, there should be around twenty deer per square kilometre or some mix of animals equivalent to that. I only eat about two per week if I’m around and if I’m awake, so they’ve been breeding like crazy and on their way to overrunning the place since the resident tribes moved away.”

Mister Baumer crossed his arms, rubbing the stubble of his beard.

“One wolf-sized predator goes through about twenty deer per year,” he said. “We’ve got hundreds of different ones to get rid of, assuming they’re coming in to take the role that the tribes once had.”

“Do we have to kill that many animals?” Nemel frowned.

“That or they starve when we clear the land,” the Ranger said. “We could chase ‘em off, but they’d just be competing for food elsewhere. Something’s gotta give somewhere – gotta remember that we got other citizens in the wilderness out here too. Imagine dumping hundreds of wolves and thousands of deer on a neighbouring territory. It’d be a disaster.”

“If we’re putting in all of this work,” Fendros said, “we may as well be the ones profiting from it.”

“What do you think, Dame Verilyn?” Nemel asked.

“I knew it would happen the moment I decided to give you this land to manage,” the Frost Dragon seemed to shrug.

“Then I suppose we should get started on that,” Nemel sighed. “Don’t hunt more than we can process in the camp though: I don’t want any of it to go to waste.”

“Will do,” Mister Baumer nodded.

Nemel went over to one of the logs in front of the campfire, sitting down to continue examining the administration’s map. At least hunting could continue throughout the winter. The price for meat in the duchy was high, too. In the end, however, it was an effort that was culminating into some unknown result.

Ten farming villages growing potatoes…

The original idea seemed simple enough. With everything she now realised, however, it was no longer so simple. A cosy set of sleepy farming villages was far from what Nemel would have on her hands. There was going to be a massive surplus and she would have to figure out what to do with it.

“We need to go out,” Nemel muttered.

“What was that?” Fendros asked.

“We need to go out and see what the rest of this territory is doing,” Nemel answered. “I wanted to take my time looking around while we set ourselves up, but everything here is just too far out of line with what we’re used to.”

Undead labour aside, even her basic expectations were in tatters. Thankfully, reality wasn’t filled with unpleasant surprises so far, but ignoring what was going on around her would leave them far behind.