Bivaboro was an interesting city from what I could tell from the port. Unlike Bonbordon, they actually could support our ship along a dock. Considering that Rathland had some fairly large wooden ships, I wasn't that surprised. They even had their own shipyard that was clearly mid-production of a fairly large wooden ship.

The city was about three times the physical size of Bonbordon, and featured it's own keep. A few miles in towards the mainland it was clear that they'd been clearcutting forest for the wood for production. After unloading all the salt, we began loading large amounts of preserved food, followed by armor and weapons. Considering we weren't the only ship getting loaded, I was able to get a good sense of just how much cargo we can carry in comparison to other ships, which was easily 10 times as much cargo. That also comes with it's own drawbacks, however. From what I could tell, we pretty much fully drained the city's warehouses, meaning if we had a much larger ship, we wouldn't be fully loaded with cargo for our trip.

After two days, we set out from Bivaboro back towards Ostark will all the goods for the war. We once again passed many ships along the way, reiterating just how much faster our ship is, especially in unfavorable winds. It seems that someone in Ostark has figured out that our ship's travel time is pretty predictable, and they'd already opened a spot on one of their docks for us. That is another benefit of our ship, reliable travel times. Since we're in a self-propelled vessel with a known speed, all you need to know is distance travelled, velocity, and expected loading/unloading times, and you can predict the day that it'll arrive, which I'd imagine makes the logistics of the port a little easier to handle.

Shasta rushed off after we were docked to make sure that the meeting that was going to occur would end up between favorable parties only. I'd expect that it'll probably involve Kao, and potentially an elf. The more people involved, the higher the likelihood some portion of the deal leaks to the public. Even then, just having an elf involved would mean that they'll disseminate the information if they deem it politically advantageous to them, so I'll need to be cautious about what we ask for. In essence, it needs to either be things the elves don't care about, or that they would have a hard time putting a spin on. Their way of operating is a real headache, and while I'd normally want to avoid their involvement, the cover story we'd use would necessitate their involvement, so some will need to know.

Shasta returned after a short time and gave me some coaching on what was going to happen over the next day or so. First, it was already disseminated that I wanted a meeting, so we'd have to hold a public meeting first with the various advisors and heads of state. The cover story that we decided on was that I wanted to check in on the situation and usefulness of the handful of artillery I'd provided. Since the situation hadn't changed yet in regards to that, the expected outcome was a lack of purchase of any new components on that front.

That meeting itself dragged on for a long time. Apparently, some of the advisors have started to think they should begin purchasing some of our artillery for the potential counter offensive and the need to siege captured cities and forts from the demons. I'd told them that should the need arise in the future if the front starts to move, we could potentially provide some. I also informed them that we had halted production of the model they have currently in favor of a new version that would have stricter requirements from our end. In essence, the new artillery piece contains various state secrets that we don't want made public, so the price would be very high for the new pieces.

That was when things dragged on, because of course it would. We essentially told them that the thing that was impressive before is now even more impressive to a degree that we don't want to share it. That could be perceived as a threat, and some decided it was. I assured them that we'd be willing to provide them, just that the cost would be much higher because they are more expensive to make.

In either case, after a few hours, the meeting ended. To those in the know, it was very frustrating. In essence, that meeting hadn't been meant to go anywhere, but I'd essentially started a huge discussion because I told them we aren't even producing the older version of artillery anymore. The only additional information I gave them was that the firing rate was much faster than what it was previously. In practice, making the new form of artillery usable in a mobile sense would probably require the development of a mobile artillery unit to allow it to utilize electricity and the bulkier setup that normally fit into the ship's turrets.

Honestly speaking, that sort of jump in technology might be just as impactful as the elves finally joining the war. Any sufficiently powerful magic user would easily be able to destroy an armored vehicle outfitted with one of these turrets. It's the exact reason that research into these areas is heavily stunted. Even our massive ship which took thousands of hours and industry to build is still able to be destroyed by a powerful elf in close range. Even the late King Besmond III could probably slice through the hull with his magic, and potentially sink it. Magic really is that powerful.

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Compound that with the fact that magic also makes the idea of industrialization less impressive, and you have a one-two punch as to why that is a dead end of research. If you combine both at the same time, however, you get something new. The ability to augment a large amount of your weaker troops to be significantly stronger than they would be otherwise. Without industrial processes, the idea of building tanks would be ridiculous. It'd take tens of thousands of hours to build a single tank. Those man hours would be better spent working on other things. When you adjust that though to require less than one-hundred man hours, it starts to get interesting, and we've passed that tipping point.

If we hadn't had that meeting, I probably wouldn't have reframed the value in my own mind to the degree that I did, so I consider that meeting to have been useful, if a little stressful. The next meeting came hours after the sun had set. Under the cover of night, myself, Kao, an elf that I hadn't met before, and a human from Bivaboro of all places. Just before the meeting, Shasta informed me of a small bit of information that I should be mindful of. Kao and the dwarves are under a lot of pressure from the humans and elves to agree to a lot of unfavorable terms after the war is over. It seems to stem from the amount of expected devastation and need to rapidly rebuild. Other dwarves have been approached in a similar manner as well.

Once the meeting began, it was clear that all parties where aware of the purpose before coming in, so it wasn't like anyone was surprised by the situation. We got down to business right away. Despite what propaganda might be spread around to keep morale up, the situation is deteriorating. The human from Bivaboro was brought in to inform us more accurately on the situation with shipbuilding on the human continent. In essence, they're behind schedule. The likely reason is that the initial estimates were exaggerated because so many different representatives were present. No one wanted to look like the weak link, so each representative gave the lowest realistic estimate, but with so many different producers, you're obviously going to end up producing at the average rate, rather than the fastest, just due to supply chain influences.

Every year that the fighting drags on, the worse the situation becomes. A one year delay in the elves joining the cause means more soldiers lost on the existing front while the demons continue to replace their own troops. What I was perhaps a little surprised about was that the humans and elves were less concerned than I expected, at least that's the impression I got from their representatives. It seems that, since it's happening on the dwarven continent, the delay isn't quite as much of a concern to them. Based on what Shasta told me, there is likely some amount of war profiteering going on as well. I can't complain to much about it, since I'm doing the same thing, but that also presents an interesting opportunity.

If the humans and the elves are looking to essentially gain large amounts of territory from the dwarves in exchange for the amount of help being supplied, we could undercut them. It'd be risky to do so, so I didn't mention anything of the sort at this meeting, but I'll try to get a chance to talk to Kao about it at a later time.

At this meeting, we essentially discussed our ability to field one ship for now, then two sometime next year to help clear out the demon's crossing toward the elven continent under the guise of merchant trade. There are some reasons that this can be believable, we're faster, and considering the longer distance, we can make the trip in a very short time comparatively. The elven continent doesn't have major ports, nor vast food supplies, but there is still a small amount of surplus food that could make the journey. Normally, they wouldn't bother with merchant ships, instead shipping what excess they have alongside their troops as they travel. Our ship, however, can stop along multiple coastal locations in a short time, stock up, and then transport all of it at once well before anything goes bad.

In essence, our ship makes that trade route viable. The pay would still be abysmal on it's face though, so it normally wouldn't be viable. Which was the purpose of the meeting. Kao offered up a payment that, while not really worth it on it's face, could open us up for future negotiations on favorable terms. What Kao offered was that he'd agree to hand over the last island in our island chain to our control. The island itself isn't very valuable, and we won't even be able to utilize it well, but it does have some symbolic meaning. In essence, that's a full recognition that we're our own nation that can stand on our own. That island previously functioned as something of a bulwark to the rest of the world saying that the dwarves are keeping an eye on us, not that that'd be much comfort moving forward for the rest of the world.

So, after a little bit of deliberation, we agreed to the terms with a small added caveat. I asked that the elves wipe what debt we have related to sending messages to and from our island clear. It's not much debt, but the fact it was just sitting there as an item that could be cleared without any public knowledge meant we should try to get what we could under the table while the opportunity was present. Tomorrow, we'll stock up on food, and I'll ride along on a round trip to see what the condition looks like personally. A message will be sent to Kembora to let them know of my change in plans. I debated whether or not I should go, but seeing it firsthand might spark some ideas of new technology we should focus on.

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