The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 502: And Medicine

"Get the medicine and get on board the airship. You will make the delivery, since you know what is going on. There is rope and netting on board, so you can lower it to them and maintain a safe distance if needed." Dominic ordered, then waved for the airship to wait.

The Merchant nodded, checked his storage ring, which presumably had the medicine, and ran for the open door.

"Wait, before you go, what sort of virus is it?"

"It’s the Mana Plague. A disease designed to kill magic users. The report we have says that Dagos bandits deliberately targeted them with it on the Kinewen side of the border, but didn’t follow them when they fled south past the checkpoint."

Then he was in the airship, and Gully was releasing the latches for the extra ballast bags, so he could start gaining altitude faster.

Though ’bags’ might be the wrong word for them. They had used huge stone blocks as ballast, as they were easier for the team to make, and an airship that size needed a huge amount of weight for primary testing.

Many of the townsfolk came out in the light rain to observe the spectacle of a massive airship departing from the remote warehouse, and the incredible speed that it was attaining as it gained altitude.

The Wistoverke River ran straight west of the city, so there was little chance of major flooding due to these storms, but the further north they went, the more of the land that drained into the Skipton River, then into the Kinewen River, which was said to already be flooding over the level of the city’s levees.

The thought made Dominic wince. How much history was going to be lost in that flood? Kinewen had been at that location for a thousand years, and in all that time, Dominic didn’t remember anything in the history books about the levees being breached, only that they had been rebuilt multiple times when they got old, or the stone became too worn with age.

He wasn’t the only one who had that idea, though.

All over Kinewen and the surrounding territories, valuable relics were being moved to high ground, ancient tomes were being sealed in airtight containers and placed in the most secure locations available, in case the water collapsed structures.

The Royal Palace was being barricaded, and the gates blocked with earthworks, sealing the floodwaters out, while magitech pumps ran constantly to keep the catacombs and dungeons from flooding entirely.

The Palace was raised above the majority of the city, but the river ran through the city itself, inside the city walls.

There was no way to save most of Kinewen from a disaster on this level.

There was no way that anyone was going to come rescue them, the winds were too high, and the whole region was flooded already, the parched ground unable to absorb water fast enough to compensate for the rainfall.

Dominic watched their new airship race off into the distance, and realized that he had forgotten the most important question.

He forgot to ask what they named her.

Every airship needed a name, just like ships of the naval fleet. You simply didn’t send one up without it.

He would ask when they got back.

Instead of lingering, Dominic took the rest of his security team back to the Manor in the drizzling rain, intending to help set up the covers over the event area so that they could continue the parties.

Dave was already busy at it, using Nature Magic to grow out a canopy of vines and long tree branches over the garden, creating a maze of sheltered areas.

Or, they would be sheltered, once there was a proper cover on them.

The Merchants had sent over a mountain of white canvas that the staff was pulling over the natural awnings, while Dave simply grew branches around the knots so that they couldn’t be blown away.

There was a lot of trimming to do, to get the canvas to the right shape, but working together, it was coming along very well.

Well enough that most of the event was on the back patio already, under an awning stretched between the Manor wall and two new trees. The canvas shadowed the event more than Dominic would have preferred, but they could set up lights when it got closer to dark, or if the cloud cover got heavier.

Currently, it was thin, and you could almost see the sun through the light rain and hazy clouds.

Looking at it from a distance, the effect was beautiful, acres of white canvas and green leaves stretched over the garden, and Dominic could see how the garden would still look very similar to the way that it had once the canvas was removed.

Assuming that it was.

The hedges grew well in the shade, so there wasn’t an urgent reason to remove most of the covers, and some of them would be fairly easily retractable, thanks to Dave placing trees that could be pruned into pillars on their lower sections once they had some more time to mature.

A bit of rope and a few hours work could replace the removed canvas and extended branches the next time that they wanted them in place.

Dominic didn’t expect to have to host quite so many people regularly. Even once the Duchy was fully occupied, invites for the major holidays would only bring them half as many Noble couples as were currently here.

The Knights typically didn’t come if they weren’t nearby, they would go to the Count or Baron nearest them, if that Noble wasn’t going to the Duke’s Manor.

"Was there a reason that the airship prototype was sent out without any fanfare?" Alexis whispered as Dominic approached.

"Humanitarian aid. There is a lot of flooding near the border, and Dave made the most excellent point that there should be quite a few displaced goats in need of a new home."

"You sent them to steal livestock?"

"They’ll bring the farmers too if they find them. The river has completely flooded, and it’s spreading overland fast with the amount of rain.

Everything is already saturated, so it’s not going to stop until everything near river level is flooded."

"So, call it a cargo weight stress test, and bring a whole bunch of goats and sheep back to make the Trolls happy?"

"Exactly. They also had to make a stop near Lympsbury. There was an incident with an Axbridge convoy. I will tell you about it later."

There were too many curious ears around them at the moment.