159 Tipping Poin

It was a time of great upheaval.

Many boars were about to lose their jobs at the farm, to be replaced by harder working, less rude, less greedy and far friendlier horses. The average price of grub in the farm market was soon to halve, while the prices of oats doubled. The price of honey-roasted oatmeal tripled. Huge swathes of land around the farm were cleared but left fallow, or given to open fields where horses could roam and graze freely. Acres and acres of new farmland was dedicated to oats and barley.

The number of random Wilds attacks upon the farm and the protectors of the farm (mercenaries and adventurers on patrol, mostly) rose steeply as the western forest shrank and shrank once more… the Wilds of the western forest began to gather in groups. Farmers began to fear a large scale attack in spite of Doom's orders in the past.

Meanwhile, George was drowning in the sudden inflood of new population.

There were roughly six thousand freed slaves arriving at Kara-Goth.

"Our people are starving!" the Jamil Clan pleaded for help.

"Water! We need water!" one woman from the Aman Clan clung to him desperately.

"Sir? Our children are getting sick. The air here… it's humid, and colder, and… the doctor lady said we needed clothing." An Elum clan elder said.

A burly guy from the Jaka retorted. "You don't need any such thing! You already have a big cavern to stay in. What about my people! We don't even have a place to rest! We're sleeping under the open sky, afraid it would rain tomorrow! At least you have some form of housing!"

"Aren… where's Aren…" George called for help.

"He's gone off to Fal'herim to help Remian set up a new industrial district!" Zana informed him.

"Then what am I supposed to do with all these people?!"

"Take care of them, I guess?"

"They don't belong to me, and I'm not responsible for their needs in any sense." George turned to the freed slaves. "You'll have to earn your own keep and see to your own needs from here on out."

They fell silent, in some cases, outright dumbstruck.

"Can you guys build your own houses?" George asked.

"Our people are exhausted…"

"…hungry…"

"…thirsty…"

"…getting sick…"

In the end, they turned to him once again.

"STOP!" George shouted, giving up on letting them handle themselves, at least for the time being. "We have to prioritize. First things first. Alani! Where are you?"

"Here!"

"Take the Aman Clan to the Encles settlement!" George requested.

"We need water…!" the woman tried again.

"It's at the RIVERSIDE!" George burst out. "Go drink whatever you need! Taj? Is Taj or Nadia here?"

"They're at the farms."

"Call them! No, wait! Just send the Jamil clan to them!" George shook his head. "Get them fed, and get them settled until we can sort them out properly. Elum clan, stay put. Jaka clan, can you mine?"

"Sure, we can!"

"We have other mines to the west and the south. You'll have to board the airship again, and it'll take you over. Whoever else needs shelter and doesn't mind mining, you're free to join one of four other mines."

George wasn't about to let strangers tamper with Misty Steel or Fire Copper, but there were gem mines at Amber Gorge, a tin mine at North Misty Heighs, and a silver mine at South Misty Heights. They hadn't been in operation long, but surely they had been dug out enough to shelter a clan or two.

As for the Elum clan's clothing problem… "What do you guys do?"

"Whatever you want us to do, just please, the children…"

"Even children take care of themselves around here." George growled. For goodness sake, he qualified as one of those 'children' himself! And the reason for that… "They can jolly well join the Guild just like I did! I'll have the Guild open a credit line for immediate needs. Everyone needs to sign up and pay off your debts in Guild Points by doing missions for it. Fair?"

"Uh… whatever you say, master…"

"I'm NOT your master!"

It might take quite a while before freed slaves got the hang of taking care of themselves.

"We're going to have to explain economics to these people." George groaned.

"It won't be easy." Zane sighed. "It's different for the High Rock clan. We accepted jobs from outside, and we understand something of money and how to take care of ourselves. But there are clans like these, who have no understanding of money. They work, but are never paid. They are fed, but never buy. How can they understand?"

"If they don't know what to do, they can just join the army. We'll tell them what to do all the time!" Song Chen barked a laugh.

"That might actually be the best idea I've heard all day." George said gloomily. "But I don't think that's what Remian had in mind when he sent them here."

"Well, we can't house six thousand people." Zane shook her head. "We're only in phase one of the reconstruction program, and even housing one thousand is more than we can manage. Even when we finish up to phase five, we could accommodate five thousand, at most. We simply didn't design Kara-Goth for numbers that big."

"Then we better re-design." George grimaced. "Call it Phase Six, if you will, but at the rate we're going, we better be prepared to handle thousands of people at a time. How many people can these hills hold if we use at least half of them? If we use steel-reinforced structures and supports?"

"You'll have to ask Arnold."

***

"Twenty thousand, probably." Arnold guessed. "Assuming we use the Pit. Fifty thousand, if you include all the hills around here. But it's going to be a whole lot of work, you know. Won't it be simpler just to build normal houses outside…"

"And have them wiped out again and again by every enemy attack that comes by? No, thanks, I've had enough of that." George shook his head. "We're digging strongholds out of mines and hills, and that's that."

"We're going to need so much earth magic…" Arnold sighed. "Or at least heavy machinery."

"What do you mean by that?" George asked.

"I mean specialized machines designed for digging. Mana-powered drills, for example. A friend of mine works at the Rockeater Drills company. I can ask him about sending us one by Deutero Delivery."

"Let me know how much it costs. We might need a whole lot of those." George figured. "Meanwhile, I'll ask Remian about hiring more Earth Magi."

***

Word came back three hours later.

"Fifty green crystals an hour?!" George gaped. "And there's no way we can pay in lir?"

"The mages don't need lir, right now, but everyone's scrambling for crystals." Remian coughed, wheezed, then coughed again heavily.

"Are you okay?" George asked.

"I'm… I'm fine…" Remian cleared his throat. "Back to the topic… the thing is, more and more people are becoming aware of the mana shortage."

"There's a mana shortage?" George blinked. "But I thought mana was generated naturally by living things. I thought everyone generated their own mana!"

"Personal mana, yes. But that's very little compared to the power we get from mana crystals. That's why devices powered by mana crystals are capable of so much more power than even a high leveled mage casting spells using his own mana. The problem is, as a whole, mana crystals have been heavily, fanatically mined across the whole world for centuries now, and there just doesn't seem to be much left. Magic across the world has been consuming mana crystals at a terrifying rate and that rate is only increasing as time goes by. We're at the point where production is feasible even at high cost and it still can't keep up with demand. Someone discovered a new vein recently, and entire countries are on the verge of going to war over it."

"So that's why magi won't take jobs for lir any more?"

"Yeah, they only want payment in crystals."

"Didn't we already sell all the crystals we had?"

"The Red Fang still has some in storage from the time it was in the Fal'herim military. We're still using them to fly around."

"What about the Tugs and the Sky Fortresses?"

"Those are powered by groups of people."

"So what happens when the Red Fang runs out of crystals?"

"We'll have to power it manually, or it won't be able to move about. It's going to be exhausting work and the airship probably won't be able to move even half its usual speed."

"Then shouldn't we just sell the Red Fang and buy something that could be powered by people more easily?"

"Not yet. I wouldn't recommend it until we have something to provide air security in its place. Like the new Wasp Fighters. I think we might be able to manage if we could put four or six of those on a Galleon or a Sky Fortress."

"Speaking of Galleons, doesn't Mindy's new Galleon use crystals as fuel too?"

"Actually, yes, it does. But I think she can get by with a larger crew."