Chapter 5.2 - Unreliable Undead

One week after Darius and the other bandits had emigrated, there was a council meeting. Rachel volunteered her representation to Darius to ensure that the newest humans had adequate representation. She was bonded with Allister, who still held a seat, so she was still very much informed of what went on with the meetings.

Other than that, there were no changes to the roster.

"First I wish to welcome Darius to our council. As a representative, you are here to ensure that the needs of the humans are being represented and that the race is being treated fairly and equally."

Everyone clapped, and Darius smiled. He may no longer be in charge of everyone, but he still held power and spoke for the previous human group as before.

Serin looked to Darius, "This meeting of representatives is a chance for us to lean on the other races and figure out what solutions can be found to alleviate problems that we are presented with. Darius, since it is your first meeting, how about you speak first."

The first to speak was Darius, "Most of us are interested in the raids that Edel keeps talking about, and we are working on joining the protectorate formally, the entry requirements are difficult but Jericho at the pub told us how to best get the requirement met. Although we are criminals, some of us no longer carry the will to fight. But fighting is all that they know. They lack most skill sets and their class would make them poorly suited to most work beyond menial labor."

First to ask was Dana, "How many of them are there? And what are their classes and skills?"

Darius continued, "We have two rogues, wisp of a lass the both of them. Still able to pick pockets and go places unseen but they can't fight anymore. We also have a few fighters that we know had to endure tireless torture. It seems that Human Intelligence officers of the grand wood alliance use slaves as practice. Although they are physically healed, they pale at the sight of blood."

Dana looked, "I can take four of the fighters. We need Door Guards and Room attendants for the House of Masks."

Darius then shook his head, "They can't fight. At best all they can do is stand there and act tough."

Dana smiled, "Good. I would prefer they stand there and appear to be the muscle. Our people can handle themselves."

Sute spoke, "One of the planetouched wishes to open a tea shop in the merchant quarter, however with such a forward facing location, we would need two human waitresses to run it. What is the charisma of these two?"

Darius laughed, "Well they are grifters by nature, so quite high."

Sute nodded, "Alright. I will inform the proprietor, Reim, that I have two human attendants for his shop. They can begin training tomorrow."

Serin looked at Darius, "Are there anymore that need employment assistance?"

Darius shook his head, "That should cover it."

Serin continued, "I know your people are new, and there are a lot of changes. But you are a representative now. Just as you represent humans' needs on this council, you represent the council's needs to your people. So before it becomes an issue, are there any among your group that we should be worried about?"

Darius chuckled, "6 days ago I would have said 'all of us'. Most of us didn't choose to be criminals. We simply did what we needed to do in order to survive. Seeing that housing, food, and water are all taken care of, the worst thing that might happen is a bit of laziness."

Darius looked over to Dana and she winked, "But we have learned a bit while we have been here. We know that the house of masks is not free, and we don't want to only try our luck once a year at the harvest festival. And I don't want to eat rations for every meal. So consider us sufficiently bribed into being just productive enough to fill our life with wine, women, and entertainment."

This had most of the council chuckling.

Serin smiled, "Alright, what is the next item for the agenda?"

This time it was Allister, ��We have a bit of a materials problem."

Serin stood confused, "which materials?"

Allister looked pale, "Undead."

The group stiffened. Darius looked confused.

"Explain."

Allister continued, "So when an undead is working too hard for too many hours, it will eventually fall apart. This is usually an easy fix, it just requires piecemealing from other corpses. However we have been working our undead ragged for years, 24 hours a day. It has been too much physical work."

Serin shook his head, "Well I doubt we will be able to replace them at this rate. How many do we have and at what rate are they failing?"

Allister answered, "We still have over 300 pressed into service, and they are failing an average of 6 a week. In two weeks, we will have to cease mining activities, and in three months we will have to stop building districts. In a year, we will be unable to keep sewage turning in our waterworks, which means lower crop yields and eventually the waterworks will back up, which risks disease."

Serin shook his head. It was always one problem after another.

"This week I want an inventory of everyone capable of producing a homunculus." Serin started to say, but then Shurik raised his hand. Serin handed the floor to him "We will have to go a step further. Homunculus have a maximum operating time and ability. Additionally they need to be regularly maintained and given time for their cores to naturally recharge."

Shurik pulled out the full sets of schematics for what looked like opened cocoons. Sigils, markings, and spells lined the walls as well as descriptions of changes to the homunculus design to adapt to pods. "I have here the first full design that the gole have completed, and within a week we can have a working prototype, with the appropriate materials and support. It will keep the homonculous moving longer, and with proper tasking and priority, operations can continue 24 hours a day with homunculus charging as needed and being replaced with first available. Without the pods, to maintain the same work ethic as undead, the ratio would be 4 homunculus to 1 undead, and they would still need regular repairs. The pods lower that ratio from 4:1 down to 5:2 and removes the need for periodic maintenance from the operator, and it only requires one pod for every 3 homunculus."

Serin then looked, "How does this affect the infrastructure of the town?"

Shurik continued, "I think this can serve us well. If successful we can look into building these pods into the infrastructure of the city, and with the right adjustments, they can begin additional assignments such as street sweeping and garbage removal.

Serin had previously been assigning the protectorate on patrol to remove the grime that had a way of moving in from outside the city. And although the city was very clean, it was only a matter of time before refuse started to become an issue.

"Alright. Allister, work with Shurik to begin shifting the manual work force from undead to homunculus. Shurik, please begin construction of the prototype charging pods. "The treasury and National materials are available at your discretion. Place as many bounties as needed. I would like replacements made as soon as possible. Please head up the initiative to produce 750 homunculus as direct replacement as well as the 250 pods. You can use the current undercroft that was previously the undead storage for the majority of the pods, and work with Lord Koni on placing others as needed to maintain waterworks, infrastructure, and mining operations in that order of importance."

Shurik then commented, "I recommend that we have 40% built in reserve now and keep a rolling reserve of 30% now. As our infrastructure and waterworks needs increase, so do our needs for manual upkeep, construction, and mining."

Serin then nodded.

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