Chapter 121: Operation Smiles

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Tom had laid out the idea for Nunuk in the library the next morning, interrupting the old lady's paperwork that she had picked up until Dakota got better. She hadn’t looked particularly pleased as he walked her through it, taking a deep breath as he finished.

“You want to hold a festival? in the middle of all this? A proper one with a feast, games, drink, and everything.”

“Yup.”

“Have you eaten something different lately? Perhaps something you didn’t know what it was? It might just have been a little snack,” the old lady asked, looking at him with a very kind if rather strained expression.

“No, but I did play tag with some kids and a dragon a few days ago, and it was great. It’s not like we will stop working on the defenses. Hell, with everyone in one place we would likely be even safer. We just need to figure out how to defend the places other than where we are holding this.”

“My gods. You have even started putting actual thought into this,” Nunuk responded, putting her head in her hands.

“Yes, we need to have some fun around here to keep things light. I also think we should look into making some more everyday things. You know, try and make life a little easier. Right now we are just making weapons.”

“You sound like you think we have won this war already.”

“No, I sound like I have realized this war will go on for a long time. Possibly forever,” Tom interrupted. Sure, he knew this was perhaps not the most sensible thing to do. But sometimes the most sensible choice isn’t the best one. “Every time we get more and or better defenses, we simply just worry that the enemy will bring something bigger and nastier too. You used to have a handful of warriors here, now we have several dragons, professional soldiers, and soon the most potent weapons in the world.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself there. I’m sure your latest project will be very impressive. And small too. But I doubt it takes that title.”

“Like what would then? A big catapult, or some magic ballista?”

“No, Tom,” the old lady replied, shaking her head with a sigh. “All I’m saying is don’t be so hasty. I know the capital and the palace alone have some impressive defenses. If you want more than that I would take it up with Victoria. Or perhaps Baron, he might have seen them in action actually. I have only heard stories. Not that I know if they are even true, of course. Might just have been gossip and tall tales.”

“You can’t just say something like that and not tell me more. Like, come on...” Tom protested, holding his arms wide.

“I know the palace is supposed to have four ‘beacons of light, that will burn away the darkness.’ Make of that what you will,” Nunuk replied, sounding like she wanted to get back to the previous topic.

“And I assume these things are either ancient or holy, since well... they aren’t everywhere.”

“I suspect both actually. And no, I have never even seen one, so they are at the very least rare. There are countless tales of incredible things, items of great power. I must admit, following our latest discovery down below, I am starting to reconsider some of them being just tales though. And whether all of them were regular enchanted items like my sword and armor, or perhaps something older.”

“Okay so there’s nasty stuff out there, that doesn’t change much though. This fight is still gonna continue, and these are just even more excuses for worrying that we will still be outgunned. Do you want to live in a place that feels like a frontline fortress for the rest of your days?”

“We are a frontier keep. It is literally in the name,” Nunuk interrupted with a disapproving look, though she was looking a little melancholy.

“Yes but… Oh come on, you know what I mean.”

“I do. But sad faces are better than happy memories in my book. I might be old, but I’m not quite ready to become a memory yet.”

“Not a fan of living life in the fast lane?” Tom questioned only a little leadingly.

“Making fun of the elderly is most uncouth. But I assume that means living recklessly. If so, then no. I have tried that, and I got lucky,” the lady replied with an edge to her tone.

“I just don’t see why we can’t have both so to speak. Sure it will slow down the work a little bit, but it would be so much nicer for everyone, and as I said the festival might be the safest day so far with everyone together.”

“For us. Not for those left behind. Would you want to bring all of Deriva? They need help, not distractions right now,” Nunuk replied with a dismissive armwave, before leaning back in her chair. “We could hold something just for us. Perhaps let whoever Victoria deems able to attend.”

“On that front actually, we have seen just how well Jarix can hunt with a net. Why not make one for Tiguan? I’m certain he would be more than willing to use it.”

“I suspect you are right,” Nunuk replied, rubbing her jaw as she pondered the idea. “Would you be willing to part with some of our new weapons for them too? In that case, they might be willing to send some people here.”

“That would just lead to a poorly defended keep with very powerful weapons ripe for the taking, wouldn’t it?” Tom replied with a pained reluctance.

“No, you're right there,” Nunuk had to concede after seconds of looking rather annoyed. “But you must be able to see that they can’t leave their keep. It would be dangerous in the extreme. We don’t know if we are being watched right now. If they all leave, then they might return to a keep captured by an enemy. Or even just a smoldering ruin.”

“Deriva is in the middle of an open rocky canyon. Where would a scout hide? You people can fly, and it would be impossible to hide from the air there. At least when it isn’t dark.”

“I don’t know. In a crevasse somewhere?” Nunuk countered with a hand wave. “The enemy is a tricky one. You know that.”

“I say we just get everyone here then send them back in force if someone has taken it in the meantime. If so, then we bag ourselves some more enemies. They will need a dragon or two anyway if they are to be bringing any serious amount of supplies back with them.”

“You are in a mighty generous mood today. And where do you imagine these supplies will come from?”

“Look, we need friends. Thus far the enemy is getting scarier and scarier. We have Jarix and Victoria’s combat wing. Those might not be permanent. We could really use friends of the more local variety.”

“Deriva are friends? We have had dealings with them for decades,” Nunuk replied with a confused expression, tilting her head a touch.

“Yeah, but they aren’t exactly fit for battle now, are they? I guess we don’t just need friends, we need allies. They need supplies, we need allies, and everyone needs cheering up. It’s a triple win.”

“So you do want to arm them? You sly little bastard,” Nunuk replied with a hint of a smile.

“We need them back on their feet so they can make it through a siege. With just a little extra firepower, they might be able to drive them off. Or at least scare them a bit. And they do have Tiguan.”

“If you are willing to give up the weapons for it, then I say it’s actually a pretty good idea. I just thought you wanted to keep them all here.”

“I don’t want guns to permeate out through the world, that might lead to some weird situations. It will happen eventually, but you should be ready for it. At least as ready as you can be. The more I think about it, you might not be able to prepare for something like that. The world you know would come to an end. Leading to something new.”

“I think that happened around spring. But I take your meaning.”

“The worst possible thing, though, would be if the enemy gets their hands on all this. So we need allies. As many as we can get. I think it would be easy enough to convince Deriva to keep the secret, and they won’t be taught how to make them.”

“We could call for help from them or have a repeat of the last battle for their home. I might sound harsh, but the more of a fight they put up the better for us in the long run.”

“As long as the enemy doesn’t just raid them for weapons. Even if they can’t make more, it would still be bad.”

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“That is true. Any bright ideas? Beyond instructing them to destroy their weapons in case of defeat,” Nunuk questioned, her scheming nature coming out in full as she leaned forward in her chair.

“Well, Linkosta and Apuma are busy, but otherwise I was considering using her little corruption detector from the mines to lock the guns, so to speak.”

“Then only brigands and the like would be a problem… That’s mighty clever. Victoria might have something to say about her not getting any though.”

“Probably. The way I see it, we don’t have a choice with them either. They want them, and in time they will either get them or take them we can only buy time. We just want ourselves armed first, 'cause that is sure to raise the danger level once again when someone who we don’t like finds out where the guns came from.”

“I think you are depressingly right on that front.”

“Hey, no sad faces, that was the name of the game. Let’s look at the timeline. We have Grevi coming back in a week or two with new orders for Victoria and likely some people to go look at the cave vaults. A bit after that Archeon is due back again with stuff for Hylsdahl. Raulf seems to agree with me that we have three or four weeks left on the sugar beets. Which is sooner than expected to be honest. Then again, the weather is really nice around here.”

“If you want to wait for the beets, then we miss the solstice. Perhaps the beginning of fall instead?”

“Probably smarter, yeah. Then order some stuff from Arch; perhaps he can tell a friend or two that there is money to be made. Then we can get the stuff that Deriva needs and the supplies we want for winter. From what I understand you aren’t the most active in wintertime.”

“No, and luckily neither is the enemy. Winter isn’t too long here though. Jarix would at most have to sleep sixty to seventy days. At most.”

“Right yeah... Wait, you guys aren’t going to sleep, right?”

“We usually don’t. We don’t really need to unless a particularly bad storm hits. We have a good keep and a rather mild climate. We still collect the bark and herbs needed anyway just in case. It does happen every couple of years. The worst one I can remember lasted more than twenty days. That was truly horrible.”

“Geez, lonely me I guess then,” Tom replied with a chuckle. That did sound rather sad though. Perhaps he could arrange a little surprise for when they woke up if that ever happened? That could be quite fun.

“You would still have Rachuck. He has watched over us many times before. Just be wary, he is probably liable to put you up in the watchtower,” Nunuk joked with a slight chuckle.

“Yeah yeah, I’m sure he will. You never know when the frost salamanders attack.”

“The what?”

“Anyway back to business, do you think it can be done?” Nunuk looked at him skeptically for a bit before relenting when it was clear Tom was not giving an explanation for that one.

“Sure it can. In the end, we can just send an invitation to Deriva and have them decide. They know their situation better than we do. If they accept and their keep is lost, it is technically not our fault.”

“I meant without things going horribly wrong.”

“Oh that. No idea. We can try and help, but in the end, this is what we have to deal with if we want to hold a party in dangerous times. I agree that we could use some good old fashioned fun, but that comes at a price. As you said it likely always will from now on… You know in some places finding old priceless relics that would see university scholars happy for the rest of their days would be considered the event of the year.”

“Hey, that stuff is awesome, but it still means even more work.”

“I know,” Nunuk replied, looking down at all the paperwork before her. “I never knew how much work finding an ancient treasure would be. How do you even calculate taxes for ancient priceless treasure?”

“I have no idea, and I don’t think a book on economics would help.”

“No, I guess not. I think we agree then. An end of summer festival is to be held here. It’s a little unconventional, but these are tricky times.”

“Amazing,” Tom countered with a slight smile. “And we let Victoria decide how many people she is comfortable with attending.”

“Well if that’s the plan, then we have work to do.”

“Yeah, that one is always true around here,” Tom replied as he got up. It wouldn’t do to invite Deriva and not actually have any of the stuff they needed when they got here.

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Well, it would seem Tom had actually decided to go through with his latest idea. To be honest, Sapphire hadn’t expected him to get Nunuk convinced about that one. Rachuck looked like he had a fair few protests when Nunuk let them all know what the plan was at dinner that day.

Dakota has just shook her head, before pointing out that this likely meant inviting the people that Grevi was bringing to work down in the vault. Or at least they should make a point to avoid inviting them.

A brief debate had them deciding on the second option. Mainly based on the fact that they didn’t know just who was being brought. But they were likely all of the very nosy variety all things considered, and a party would be the perfect opportunity for them to find something they shouldn’t.

They had set that date at the end of summer when it would still be warm and before the weather started to get too annoying. By then they should apparently have their small fortune in sugar, and it sounded like Tom wanted to spend what they could in short order. Fengi had poked Saph in the side to very politely ask what the plan was for getting paid this year. They were paid based on what the keep made in profit, that was the rule, but this had been very far from a normal year. There was a good chance they were gonna make more this year than in all the time Saph had been at the keep. But they had also spent an incredible sum, so she wasn’t actually sure what the profit was gonna be.

“I’ll ask Dakota sometime. I don’t even think Tom really knows if I’m being honest,” Saph replied, looking at where the human was sitting at the kid’s table, where he was seemingly busy telling a story that included large arm movements.

“Probably depends on how much sugar we get from the beets,” Essy added, having overheard them.

“What do you usually make?” Pho asked, looking a little uncomfortable, eyes darting around at them.

“I think the best I can remember was twenty-five silver per share. That was a pretty good year; it’s usually around fifteen. You can’t expect to make much when everything you need is paid for.”

“What’s a share?” Ray questioned, sounding a tad apologetic. Saph almost wanted to give her a thwack and tell her to straighten her back. It was better than keeping quiet though.

“Half of the profit goes to the shares, a quarter to the crown, and a quarter to the keep and the family. At least that’s how we do it. One share for a greenhorn, two if you’re coppered, four for silvered, and eight for a gilded.”

“That’s not bad. I used to get paid three copper a day for cleaning sewers. It was only every once in a while that they needed me though.”

“You're kidding, right?” Jackalope broke out, mouth still full of food.

“It was a good job… Well, the pay was good. And they didn’t care about wings.”

“I guess so, but still.”

“Someone has to do it. I remember hunting rats for bounties way back when,” Fengi added. “You two had it easy, you just had to catch the one,” she continued, pointing at Bo and Pho with the fork.

“Ours was a mouse, which is smaller and faster. And there’s not much grass to hide in, in the cities.”

“No, but you don’t want to go where they do hide,” Fengi countered. “Still, it’s gotta be more than a few gold this year. Even with more people around.”

“Oh yeah, no doubt about that,” Essy added with a smile. “You two got rather lucky for first-timers. Even one share should be quite something.”

“Well I have always been good with money,” Pho replied with a very smug face.

“You once lost a silver ring in a bet on who was fastest to a watchtower and back,” Bo interrupted, Pho looking like she was mouthing ‘don’t you dare’ to her friend. “By first going the wrong way and then getting lost on the way back too.”

“Oh come on, I thought we were going for a specific watchtower obviously. Not just the nearest one.”

“Yet you said nearest. And how do you get lost flying in a straight line?”

“I was going low so they couldn’t tell my route.”

“Which would be slower than a straight line.”

“Fuck you. I was young.”

“I hope you learned something. We can’t have the deer outsmarting you,” Saph added with a chuckle, which did little to improve Pho’s mood. “Speaking of which, we are gonna have time to make this a proper celebration. Not just some rush job with what we have at the time. We need good game, good drink, herbs, spices, and whatever else we can find.”

“So we get Jarix to catch a few deer and what… pluck some leaves?” Pho questioned with an unimpressed shrug.

Saph just looked at Essy with a slight smirk. Fengi just shook her head while Jacky looked like she had something to say.

“It’s a bit more than that. I think we better start on the school bench tomorrow. Remember you aren’t just hunters,” Essy went before Jacky got her piece in.

“Foraging 101. Step one: don't eat the stuff that kills you,” Jacky added.

“101?” Bolinda had to question.

“It’s a course that teaches the basics. Like going to school in the city.”

“Like a degree?”

“Phospheno, racing prodigy with a 101 in berry picking,” Pho replied with a slight shake of the head.

“And an almost decent shot,” Fengi countered with a chuckle.

“Oh come on, who’s on my side today?” Pho went, putting down the cutlery with a huff.

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you,” Saph added with a sly smile.

“Haha, very funny miss biggest cheat in the history of archery. Just you wait. When I get around to being all magical, I’ll probably just have to look at a deer to kill it.”

“Technically I don’t have to look at it. That does make it a little more tricky though.” Saph replied concentrating hard in the salt shaker trying to lift it off the table.

“A gold of my salary says you can’t kill a deer with a blindfold on.”

“See, unlike you, I know when not to take a bet,” Saph replied with a knowing look as she saw the shaker in the corner of her eye, grabbing it with her left hand. ‘Fuck yeah I’m good.’

“Show off.”

“I’ll take it. I just need a big enough grenade,” Jacky interrupted, with a raised fork and mouth half full of venison.

“There won’t be anything left at that point. And I don’t even think Tom knows any recipes for pink mist.” Essy added with a chuckle.

“Oh, you worry too much. It just needs to be far enough away from the blast,” Jacky countered with a hand wave.

“Well, do you have such a grenade?”

“No… I really need to find a proper trophy too,” Jacky replied, slipping into a pondering pose and playing around with the fork a little.

“I honestly think he would be happy with just about anything,” Essy added cheerfully. Saph nodded her agreement. To be honest, if Jacky had a go at knitting, she believed he would still praise the inevitable mess that would result.

“Well, it better be something. It’s supposed to be equal to the revolver. At least sort of.”

“So what you're saying is you need to be a dragon slayer.”

“Don’t get any good ideas down there,” Jarix let out from above, the dragon having swung his head inside, likely having gotten bored.

“Don’t worry, I only kill bad dragons. You can sleep safe in the knowledge that Jackalope Furlong isn’t out for your hide.” Jacke replied with a confident expression as she stretched.

“Phew, you had me worried there,” Jarix countered in a rather unworried tone.

“Hey, I’m dangerous.”

“Sure you are, miss second place,” Jarix replied, turning his head away indignantly, clearly just trying to annoy her even if he wasn’t hiding the smile very well.

“Oi! Look at me when I’m threatening you. I will find a way to beat you, mark my words,” Jacky protested, waving her fork at Jarix like Apuma on a noisy day in the library.

“You are better at getting flung at a wall.”

“At least my ass fit in a tunnel,” Jacky grumbled as she went back to her food, refusing to look up at the very pleased-looking dragon.

“As you can clearly see it’s my strapping shoulders and wide chest that is the problem.” Jarix countered with no small amount of sarcasm in his voice.

“No, you’re just a fat ass”