The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 708: And The Shipment

While Rill silently panicked about how to move a hundred and one trailers, his assistant had a much more pressing issue on their minds.

"Sir, how are we going to deal with the fact that the Trolls don’t know us? Showing up at their village with a bunch of strangers, who likely don’t know that the whole village is populated by Trolls, is not going to end well," he noted.

"Right. We need to send someone there to verify the loading, and someone from the Duchy to confirm the transfer of products to the Guild.

It’s all been placed on us to have the orders delivered to Dagos on time, though by the letter of the agreement, we’ve got the entire month to make the delivery to any of the points within the King’s control.

The problem is that he doesn’t control the closest section, the Provinces that he controls are much further to the northwest, and the road would normally take us through Kinewen, to go to Albroles."

"Right. I had nearly forgotten about that. Fortunately, we have a mage on staff, and we have portable transport arrays. Are you going to ship them to Albroles? The old capital is pretty messed up, from what I understand.

Which likely means that they need the relief more than most of the others.

As I understand it, the Staptondon Province will be taking their relief goods at the border in Staptontave. But that’s a separate agreement to what we have with the King for the purchase of Kinewen Province."

"And most of it won’t be coming from Cygnia anyhow. They have a deal to supply Staptondon City from West Keria, arranged with Duke Thorvald and Princess Josephine.

Keria isn’t in that much better shape after the storms, but they were sending food aid anyhow, as the region was in such bad shape.

So, that’s not our problem. At least, not for the local branch." Rill agreed.

"Alright, I will leave you to it. Tell me when the trucks are here, and I will arrange to go supervise the loading so that the Trolls don’t give your people a hard time.

Plus, with my signature on the documents, nobody will question your payment.

It’s far less hassle than having one of my advisors or the Castellan do it."

"I will arrange to have them here in the next few days. I called for caravans, but not nearly enough."

Dominic sighed. "I likely should have warned you to get us more trucks. One convoy of twenty trucks isn’t going to be nearly enough."

"I called for two. But that’s still only half as many as we need, they should have close to sixty trailers between them. I didn’t know that the Trolls had gone all out with the food, I assumed that it would be heavy on the magitech, since the city produced so much."

"An easy mistake to make. And we didn’t even ask for anything from the Baronies yet."

"Right... I will make sure we have at least four standard caravans next month. Possibly, the same ones, as it will take them so long to drive back."

"Good point. Though, we do have the option for them to hire a mage to help them travel."

Rill rolled his eyes. "And pay out a fifth of the transport fee? Unless they have a guaranteed return shipment, most of them would rather make a loop and stop at the villages along the way.

But they might also be asked to distribute over a larger area than just the capital, given the amount that you’re sending to one spot."

"You’ve got a point. They’ll want the shipment spread over as many towns as possible, since nobody in Dagos has crops stored. Everything flooded, as far as I know, so unless it was a fair distance above ground level, it’s likely soaked in rather filthy floodwaters.

Isn’t it great to have all the logistics dumped on you?

Though, the Guild will likely make a plan for distribution so that they can get enough convoys moved between the two nations every month.

If they can’t do it, then the Nobles are going to have to take over the shipping themselves, and that will be a big profit loss."

Rill’s assistant smiled. "Always looking out for the little guy, even when we’re not really the little guy. If you really wanted, you could cycle a fleet of three cargo airships back and forth to Albroles. It would move what Wistover is sending, and get it all moved within a month."

Dominic nodded. "Indeed, I could. Or... the Guild could buy the airships and do it for me. Much less stressful than having to hire my own crews.

The seaports want some for international trade, though. They’ve placed a big enough order that the second airship factory they’re working on will be busy from the moment it opens."

They technically had the building constructed already, but they were only working in one shop while they trained an expanded crew.

Everything was coming along well, they just needed time to get all the specialists ready.

That was what everything came down to. It all needed more time, but soon, Dominic knew that he was going to have to do more than catch up on paperwork. Every week, there were more reports of incidents in Kinewen Province by Merchants, Adventurers and other travellers.

If he didn’t start to more effectively deploy the military forces that he had stationed here, things were going to get out of hand, and then they’d never get the area properly settled.

And without anyone returning to their farms, it would just be the most fertile wasteland in the world.

The only problem would be breaking the news to Alexis that he was going to have to go on a multi week trip with a group of soldiers to clear out the bandits and make sure that the farmers had the security that they needed.

There were Cygnian soldiers stationed at outposts, but Dominic suspected that they only came out of their patrol routes when they were called.