Barahi Kingdom’s main problem currently were famines. Another harvest of their farrs was demolished by endless locusts, worms and so on.
Kachi-Chi Kingdom had ready access to fish in their Chi river and other ga in their forest. But their most populated territories were flooded by the sa river that fed them.
I decided that we will focus on the second one. Because there, I at least had a plan.
"There are sea ships Naregan Kingdom has that can enter the Chi river—it’s deep enough for them. We can use these ships and their boats to bring food and clean water to people stranded by flood, and to carry them away to safer places," I said. "Listener, please tell Whisper that I need the list of all ships that can do this."
Listener nodded and silently sent the ssage; anwhile, Bloodhero rose from her seat in the Council Chamber in protest.
"But Father, what about the Vardish Empire? Their forces will appear at any mont now! If we don’t have enough ships, we might be too late to stop them from disembarking on our shores."
I looked at Oracle Undecided.
I have already thought about what Bloodhero said. It was almost certain that the ships sent to the Kachi-Chi Kingdom won’t return until the Vardish Empire attacks. But what else could I do?
"I think the Oracles can predict when the Vardish Empire’s ships actually appear. There are even so with the Bloodimina’s army stationed in the Eastern Expanse Reach. Or, do you also think this won’t be enough, Undecided?"
The Oracle Bee glanced between and Bloodhero anxiously.
"It’s hard. Ocean is very unpredictable... But we will try, I swear! If there’s even a tiny chance that their ships will co at a certain date, then we will find this thread in the cloud of dreams and bring it to you, Father."
Bloodhero sighed.
"Thank you, sister. Still, this is so unreliable... We will have to send arsonist squads out into the sea at the smallest warning, and this place is a ho to several dangerous types of dragons."
"Is it an Adviser’s job to complain, or is it their job to solve problems, Bloodhero?" Ambrosia asked sternly. "The obstacles we t on our way are not the reason to lower our wings in dejection."
Upon hearing this words, not just Bloodhero, but all other Advisers perked up.
Even I raised my head only to be stricken speechless by the regal way Ambrosia sat at this mont. By how straight her back was and how much fire was in her eyes when she looked at us all.
Imdiately, Bloodhero straightened to attention like the most trained soldier in our army.
"Yes, Mother-Queen! My job is to find solutions and to make Father proud! If sea dragons are dangerous, we will kill enough of them that they stop attacking us! We will order humans to shoot them from their bows and muskets!"
"That’s right, that’s my girl!" I cheered, raising my fist victoriously. "These dragons are also very greedy. You can bait them with so beast at or just bread, and they will all co—and then you can turn *them* into prey! Just make sure to cook them very carefully and test the at, I fear it might carry a lot of diseases."
"After testing we might add these creatures to the lists of safe or not safe to eat," Tabletina said. "And it’s always good to find whether sothing fits into one of these lists."
We’ve talked about the details about this plan for so while—where we will take supplies for the Kachi-Chi Kingdom from (so from Naregan Kingdom, so from the Kachi-Chi Kingdom itself), how many ships we might need and so on.
Then Whisper relayed a—sowhat slow—ssage, suggesting that the beast tars try to ta so of the sea dragons. According to humans, they weren’t the stupidest of the dragons, just really very greedy. But they could fly over longer distances than the dragons we usually rode on (like black ones, crows).
"Humans that spend a lot of ti in the sea have tales about dragons that never land on the ground except to lay eggs. They just spend all their lives flying over the sea and both eat and sleep in the sky. Whisper said," Listener transferred.
I rembered birds like that in my ho world—albatrosses. They landed more often than just to lay eggs, but they really could nap without landing.
Really interesting birds. If we had so of them tad, I was sure Agent Bees riding them will be able to reach the other continents of this planet without having to travel on a much less reliable human ship.
"I wonder if the hawkmoth pheromones will help in taming these sea dragons," I said. "We have so of them left, don’t we?"
I had a thought about breeding hawkmoths for their pheromones, but I couldn’t find any of their males. In the end, I just gave an order to capture them alive so more of their pheromones could be extracted through bathing.
Yes.
To harvest hawkmoth pheromones, the Physicians ca up with a procedure to soak them in water, then let the water evaporate a little to increase the pheromone concentration. Boiling the water destroyed the pheromones, but using too much water made them too diluted.
On the good side, hawkmoths lived after this procedure. They were still fairly rare, and they didn’t have the high immunity of bees. At so point we captured a few dozen, but now only seven were still alive—the rest died from illnesses.
I felt that their future as a species was grim.
But we still had so of their pheromones, which my Commandos used on special operations to destroy nests of especially dangerous creatures, especially evolved hornets and wasps.
"We do, Father," Tabletina said. "Just last week, soldiers even brought a freshly captured hawkmoth, and so far it only got sick with a small cold."
"Then let’s send beast tars with pheromones toward the sea imdiately. Then we will start the operation to help Kachi-Chi... And the Barahi Kingdom will just have to wait."
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