Dominic and Lucy went through the numbers for the proposal again, and then started in on the training and equipping a guard force portion of the proposal.
Technically, that wasn’t included in the requirements. But they were going to need it, and they couldn’t rely on the Royal Guard to protect the entire estate.
The Princess would have her retinue with her, as she was still a Royal, but their job was to protect her, not the house, the village or the farms.
But beyond that, Dominic wanted a proper military force in the estate so that they weren’t one of the many villages forced to flee or die the moment that an enemy appeared.
"I should add another wall to the estate. Or upgrade the existing one if there is one. It doesn’t have to be excessive, but it should at least be defensible if the building wasn’t built to repel attackers." He noted as they went through the list again.
"What do you mean ’built to repel attackers’?" Amos asked.
"The Manor at home has a stone ground floor. The actual building begins three metres off the ground. If the stairs are collapsed, the building becomes somewhat defensible, as anyone trying to get in has to scale the wall to get in one of the windows, or through the door, which is now three metres in the air, and unable to be rammed." Dominic explained.
Lucy nodded. "That used to be a common construction technique. Then the stairs were slowly upgraded to narrow ramps, and the houses became more accessible, but narrow windows that double as archer slits on the main floor are still fashionable.
I don’t see any actual details about the state or design of the estate Manor in the paperwork. Should we ask?"
Amos shook his head. "No, I think that is part of the trial. Coming up with a plan for whatever you find when you get there is the point of the challenge. If they tell you exactly what you’re getting, it makes it too easy.
They made a point of saying that it is inhabitable, and that the interior was intact. But then they omitted the actual description of the Manor? That can’t be a coincidence."
"Alright, we will assume that if it’s not in the description, it doesn’t exist or needs to be rebuilt. But Dominic can do that himself once he arrives. We just need to budget the time for the construction, as it can all be done with magic." Lucy agreed.
"But he will also need to upgrade that spell gem if he’s going to make anything resembling a Keep wall in a single pass. You can layer the walls to get what you need, but at level one, the fieldstone wall gem is best used to make residential buildings, not fortifications." Amos explained.
Dominic nodded. "I can get it to Level eight easily enough. That should be sufficient to make usable fortifications, right?"
Amos smiled. "If you’re willing to put that many resources into the spell, it will be no problem for you to fortify the Manor in an afternoon. It wouldn’t even be unreasonable to think that you could fortify the entire village in the matter of a week.
A level eight gem would also erect standard thickness home walls fast enough that you could build a house with a wave of your hand.
If we had more architectural gems and magitech, you could do the whole village like that. But right now, the best bet would be to press clay sheets into corrugated copper roofing after someone installs the roof joists.
It’s labour-intensive, but you can get good copper out of the spell at level three. It’s even easier than steel because it’s not an alloy.
Oh, you could water down river clay, and let it flow into a press, then lift the press and convert it, remove the sheet and dip it again. Three people could make a whole stack of roofing in an afternoon.
Copper roofing is fire-resistant, and with fieldstone walls, the village would hold up well to artillery."
"Oh, that’s good. I will add it to the plan. A fieldstone wall for the village wouldn’t be bad either. It would keep wildlife out. You never know if there will be Goblins, magical beasts or other threats outside the village.
Farmers always get the shaft when it comes to these sorts of plans, but a bit of defended territory is better than none.
Oh, we can add a retreat plan to bring the farmers and others into the Manor if there is a large attack." Dominic added.
"That means you need a larger storehouse. Starvation is a very real danger if you’ve got the whole village locked into a single manor." Tutor Lucy reminded him.
"It would help if we had some sort of layout. But it does say that the village is separated from the Manor house by half a kilometre and the ground is mildly sloping. So, it won’t be possible to have everything protected, as you would with a Keep that had the village build around it.
That means we should station most of the guards in the village, with a token force and the Royal Guards living in the Manor.
That way, neither force is too far from where they will be needed.
Not optimal for a major attack, but we also don’t know where it will be. If it’s somewhere inland, deep inside Cygnia, it’s not an issue.
But it could be in the reclaimed territories awarded during the Armistice negotiations. So, there is a chance that everything in the area can be considered hostile." Dominic reasoned.
Amos frowned. "Aren’t you overthinking it? I have been Baron for thirty years now, and I have never had to even consider most of this."
Dominic laughed. "It’s a theoretical exercise to impress both the Princess and the King with our capabilities, and convince them both to approve our marriage proposal.
Whether it would realistically happen to us or not, we need to be prepared for everything so that the Princess doesn’t end up as a political prisoner."
The engineer laughed. "I have never had to fear that. My wife is much more fearsome than I am. But someone needs to do the hard parts of life, I suppose."