Chp.29: Improvements

Haku's plan works perfectly, much to the dragon's satisfaction, Zamor's delight, and Tzegorn's annoyance. Haku couldn't help but grin when he saw the tigerman's annoyed face trying in vain to hide his anger for not being able to predict that twist and stop that situation before it happened. And the funny part was that now there was nothing he could do to stop it, since anything he did would inevitably harm ordinary people as well, and this wasn't something Tzegorn wanted, so he could only stand and grumble in anger.

The construction of the canal had begun the same day that Zamor, Haku and Tzegorn had visited the sick camp; as interim leader, Zamor did not have to account for his actions to anyone as regards the tasks that served to stem the epidemic, and the construction of the canal and the subsequent supply of water to the sick camp fell into the category. Thus, the lizardman did not need anyone's permission to knock on the door of every healthy and physically fit person in the village who was not yet performing any task and order him to take a spade and prepare to dig a ditch. The best experts in the village had been put to work designing such a structure, a project which had been supervised by Haku and which was finished in just half a day, and which CASUALLY involved the canal passing through the center of the village and strangely seeming destined to continue towards the outside. Once the project was completed, work had immediately begun under the jurisdiction instead of Tzegorn; in fact, Zamor had decided to give the two different tasks to prevent them from getting in each other's way, but in any case he had ordered the tigerman to follow the project he approved to the letter, without modifying it. Although he disapproved, Tzegorn couldn't refuse.

Seeing what had happened in the previous joint work between dragons and newcomers, Tzegorn decided not to make use of the dragons' help even though they could dig much more than a normal person, and incredibly Haku agreed with him; however, he still found a way to interfere in the works. Thanks to the help of Brenno and Gord and other trusted people, Haku had been able to use some of his resources to speed up the construction a lot. Obviously the first of these resources had been Inpu, which Serengal had left him before leaving, who thanks to his earth spirit powers had modified the land by creating a very large basin; Haku had also used some earth runes to speed up the process even more. All the workers had had to do, much to their delight, was perfect the walls and flatten the bottom of the canal, as well as reinforce the banks for any flooding. In this way, even if he hadn't been able to participate directly in the construction, Haku had still checked that everything was created the way he wanted, thus preventing Tzegorn from trying to modify the project by making it look like a mistake.

Although the original plan was for three days, thanks to Haku's help, the canal was completed in less than two days. Even if it could not be defined as an extraordinary architectural work, it was nonetheless satisfying: now a moat two meters deep and four meters wide cut perfectly half of the village, carrying the lake water up to the center, where the sick camp was; strangely and above all CASUALLY, however, its end was rather bad, as if the architects had not paid attention to where it ended and had simply traced its path... almost as if they planned to continue after that point. However, this was simply a fantasy of the people: after all, the simplest explanation was often the right one, and the simplest explanation was that the architects had focused on bringing water to the sick camp, not on making the canal aesthetically beautiful... everything else was a mere CASE.

The healers of the sick camp were very pleased with this: now they had enough water. However, the work was not yet finished: since Zamor clearly cared that the healers could work in the best possible conditions, he had kindly asked the group of architects who had already designed the canal to create a system of fountains that dragged the water out of the channel and purified it. It hadn't been difficult: the fountains were quite simple to make, and there were already many examples of them in any other city, so it was easy to design a system of pipes that would draw the water out of the canal and make it spit out of a pipe, so that healers only had to place a basin under the pipe to fill it with water. Since the fountains would be located directly next to the canal, the pipes needed were also very small and short, and so it took the blacksmiths only a few days to make the required quantity. Just a week after the canal was built, a row of five fountains stood in the sick camp. However, of course that was just the beginning of the improvements.

Thanks to the fact that the canal now passed through half of the city, people who weren't yet sick now no longer needed to go to the lake to collect water, and consequently they crowded together much less than before; this led to an evident decrease in the rate of infection. Having noticed this, Zamor, under Haku's veiled request (and insistence), had decided to take advantage of that situation: after all, every means to stem the epidemic had to be exploited, and therefore if the presence of the channel had decreased the infections, why not make the easily accessible to all in order to minimize contagion? So he had given the order to widen the canal to reach every corner of the city and produce new fountains that would provide clean water. Since this decision served to stem the epidemic, once again no one could stop him: and so everyone got back to work. Within another week, the whole village was cut in the center by what looked like a cross whose points reached up to the sides: the canal took the water from the lake, carried it up to the center of the village, and there it it branched out at three points divided by a ninety-degree angle. Were it not for the fact that the village was built on a slight incline, the cross would have matched the four cardinal points. A rich system of fountains had then been added, some even further away from the canal, so that everyone could easily access them and crowd as little as possible; this, combined with the fear of the people who led them to stay indoors as much as possible, had greatly reduced the rate of contagion, and even the population itself had noticed it and was happy about it. Even the Council had been happy about it: the new city water system would have been very useful even after the end of the epidemic. Furthermore, the canal could also be used in other ways: on two of the sides of the cross, those which cut the village horizontally, at the end of the canal two water basins had been created which were used to make the water flow out and keep the current stable which in turn would keep the water cleaner. These basins were quite large and it would have been a waste not to use them; Zamor had no say in the matter, since they were not his competence since they could not serve in any way to stem the disease, but thanks to some of his friends he had ensured that the Council was proposed the possibility of transforming them into new fish farms for improve food stocks even more. The motion had been approved and as a result those water basins had been divided from the canal by nets and filled with the eggs of innumerable fish, which would soon hatch forming a new, very thriving farm.

The only thing that displeased the members of the Council was that there was no third reservoir: in fact, the part of the canal that cut the village vertically lacked one. It obviously began by taking water from the lake, but then ended simply with an earth barrier at the end of the village, even CASUALLY a little outside the village, as if initially there had been the idea of ​​continuing it. Haku had sincerely apologized and stated that it was an unfortunate design error, but that it didn't make sense to worry about it at the moment since it was better to focus on the epidemic; he then assured that when everything returned to normal he would personally repair the canal. Obviously none of the Council members had let themselves be cheated: they understood very well that Haku had voluntarily left that point incomplete in order to then lengthen the channel to create his cultivation project in the desert. However, no one thought it was the case to worry about this: those who hoped for the approval of this project were happy, those who rejected it instead believed that Haku could not have done anything without the approval of the Council. Obviously, no one imagined that at that moment Haku had a small hidden farm where the plants were growing well, and that he would soon reveal it to everyone and, thanks to the fact that with it they could grow medicinal plants, he would allow Zamor to approve a further construction of the canal to the point of making it suitable for farming.

Everything had gone exactly as Haku wanted it to... but of course, the channel wasn't the only project he had in mind. While they had built that, they had also built something else.

The canal and the new water system in the village had greatly improved the mood of the people, but what was the best way to improve it even more? Easy: allow sick people and healthy people to talk to each other. Newcomers were very social creatures, so only the power to interact with their own kind was enough to make them more jovial. A happier population meant a better chance of healing and more order in the village. Obviously they couldn't allow sick people to get close to healthy people... but what if there had been a barrier between healthy people and sick people? In this way it would have been possible to meet without risking sneezing or coughing on the other and therefore infecting him. All that was needed was the right design, and Haku came up with it.

They had been called 'houses of communication': these were some houses built on the edge of the sick camp which had been modified for the occasion. They were divided in half by a very resistant glass: on one side the healthy people entered, on the other the sick. So they could meet and see each other in person. As far as talking to each other was concerned, right next to the glass there were two tables on which one of Isaac's communication devices was placed, constantly on and set exclusively to transmit sounds: in this way people could hear their voice even through the glass. Thanks to this system, long-separated family members and friends had been able to meet again; obviously an order and a time limit were needed, obviously established by Zamor and enforced by the guards, but this had greatly helped the psychological impact both on the sick and on the people outside.

But how to go about moving the sick? A sick person visiting a family member would clearly have to pass through the corridors and then see sick people who were in worse shape, which is precisely what the healers did not want to happen. How to do then? Very easy: it was enough to put patients in the initial stage of the disease in one room and those in the final stage in another, and only the former could go to meet their families; in this way they would only see people who, like them, were relatively well off. But how to move sick people from one room to another? A patient in the terminal stage of the disease was feverish and weak and clearly could not walk. Haku had found the solution for that too: put wheels on the beds. By a titanic carpentry work, all the beds in the camp had been fitted with wheels in less than twenty-four hours; now moving a patient was very easy. Once the healers noticed that a person was starting to have a high fever, they simply moved the bed to the appropriate room. To avoid further fears, and perhaps that people would begin to think that those who were taken away were dying, from time to time some of the healed people would return to greet their old comrades, reassuring them that everything was fine.

Thanks to these measures, not only the morale of the sick had risen, but also the work of the healers had become much easier. Haku hadn't asked for anything in return: he had simply asked Zamor to make sure everyone knew that that was his idea. As he had expected, this had a great effect on the reputation of the dragons: for the first time since they had built the village, in fact, a few days later some people had come to thank him. But Haku obviously wasn't going to stop with so little. He already had in mind how to use this situation to get even more gratitude and respect... and he was also already implementing it. There had in fact been a little news for the brats who were currently staying in his and his siblings' cave.