Haku, king of all dragons

Haku was in the village when Gord and Brenno reappeared after a momentary absence. As usual, he was busy with Zamor and Tzegorn managing their predicament. No one had noticed Brenno and Gord gone for a while... except of course Haku himself. He knew what it meant, even if he ignored it; in confirmation of his thoughts, Gord casually approached him and in a brief instant he whispered to him: "Done"

Haku smiled satisfied. If anyone had heard that brief interaction and seen the evil look that the dragon had just flashed, they probably would have thought that they were talking about a murder, certainly not about secretly employing a group of farmers. But basically no one had seen or heard anything, so there was no problem. Everything had gone according to plan: if Gord confirmed that the job had been done, then that meant the farmers must have accepted the job. Optimal; now all he had to do was wait for them to bring results, and at that point he would reveal his work. He couldn't have been accused of anything: being one of Zamor's advisers, he had the right to act independently in matters concerning the epidemic provided that this didn't go against his will and that sooner or later he informed him... and that was what he would do, in due course of course. At that point he would have solved both the problem of food resources and that of the ingredients for the remedies for the disease in one fell swoop. Everything would go exactly as he wanted, precise to the millisecond.

He wondered if Zamor had foreseen that twist. It was unlikely that the lizardman trusted him blindly, indeed: he almost certainly had his suspicions about the dragon. After all, he knew Haku well enough to know that he would do anything to take advantage of the situation. Perhaps in fact he was imagining that Haku would try to enhance his original project... but he preferred to remain silent. After all, he too aimed at the realization of that project and he knew that the community was important for Haku: even if it meant nothing to him, it meant a lot to his family, and that was enough to believe that he would do nothing to harm them. Haku almost laughed. That would have been a really smart move: let the dragon do all the work, knowing that he would do a much better job than Zamor could ever have even imagined, and then reap the rewards of that work. If this had really been true, Haku would have greatly reevaluated the esteem he felt for the lizardman. He wouldn't be mad at being used: after all, what Haku respected was cunning, not bullshit like honor.

The dragon looked at Tzegorn, who was puzzling over a solution to the resource problem. He wondered how he would react when he learned of his little trick: would he keep his composure and accept defeat sportingly, or would he curse worse than a drunk longshoreman? Haku had to admit that he was quite interested in it: after all, even if it wasn't his main interest, he too tended to be a little vindictive towards those who hindered him, and Tzegorn had repeatedly tried to block him since both had entered to join the Council. With that humiliation he would give him back all the time he had made him lose. Haku couldn't help but grin: it seemed to him that he had a little mouse in his paws (although it would have been more correct to say a kitten) and that he played with it before eating it, letting it go and recapturing it again, just for the sake of seeing a brief hope ignite in its eyes and then destroy it in an instant. Tzegorn was the main reason why he had preferred to keep his work secret: it would have been much simpler to ask Zamor for authorization to proceed, and he would almost certainly have given it to him, but in that case everyone would have known and above all would have understood his true intentions, and Tzegorn probably would have done the same to enhance his project, perhaps even trying to sabotage Haku's one. Tzegorn had said that he wouldn't have done anything that went against the well-being of the community, and indeed it had been so far, but Haku didn't trust him anyway: he wasn't sure that, faced with such a possible humiliation, the tigerman wouldn't decide to forget his moral code and pursue his own interests rather than those of the village.

Haku had always wondered why Tzegorn was so angry with dragons. He had noticed that it was also a common feature of the other tigerman members of the Council and some others who held important positions, but not of all the rest of their people. Why so much hatred? He didn't know, but he honestly didn't care that much. Haku had spent his life knowing that just because he was a dragon he would always be feared by everyone... and at least in his case, that fear was well placed.

In any case, now he had other things to think about. A first piece of his plan had worked out; now he had to make sure that the other pieces fell into place as well. "It is clear that continuing to discuss the issue of ingredients won't solve anything" he said, interrupting the conversation. "I propose to postpone this discussion until we know more clearly how many of these ingredients fall within our sphere of availability and how to obtain them. For the moment, let's focus on the other important factor we need to take into account, namely the production"

Finding the ingredients was only the first problem: they by themselves were in fact useless, it was necessary to subject them to a treatment to transform them into potions and remedies against the disease. For the time being Isaac was in charge of that production… but he couldn't do it forever. One person could not deal with both the sick and the potions: another method was needed, or when the number of sick started to rise Isaac would no longer be able to keep up, with the result that someone would died. Which of course no one wanted. "Yes, indeed it would be appropriate to discuss it" Zamor said. "For today we've talked enough about how to find ingredients. Let's think about how to make the job easier for our head healer"

Tzegorn, who had been explaining for more than an hour all the problems they were facing and all the remedies (unfortunately not sure) he had thought of, looked at Haku rather askance, but even he recognized that at the moment the information to them arrangement weren't enough to get anything done, so they might as well change the subject. "As you wish. Advisor Haku, if you wanted to talk about this I assume you have some solution to this problem"

The dragon nodded. He still felt strange being called 'advisor', as everyone had begun to call him by now, but he was getting used to it by now. "Actually, yes. I may have found a solution, which I hope you will find suitable" he answered. "As you well know, at the moment Isaac is the only one who can handle the production because he is the only one who knows how to create a potion. Even if he were to teach someone just how to prepare that specific potion, his student would take at least a few day to memorize all the steps. But that doesn't apply to us dragons. We have an infallible memory: if Isaac only explains the process to us once, we'll learn it immediately"

Tzegorn let out a chuckle, cutting off his words. "I sincerely admire your thoughtfulness and willingness to put yourself and your family to work to help us, but that won't be enough. True, you dragons can learn in an instant, and you can probably do the work of ten men, but soon the sick rate will be too high even for you. Today there are only 230 and already Isaac is struggling to keep up with them; what are we going to do when they will be 2,000? Or 3,000? Or maybe even 5,000 or more? Adding seventeen people to the potion production won't be enough"

"Unfortunately, what the advisor Tzegorn says is true" Zamor confirmed. "I don't doubt your or your family's abilities, but even with your help we will need more manpower. You said it, every person in this village is defenseless against this disease, so it stands to reason that almost everyone before or then they will get sick. There are almost 20,000 people here, we can't make do with a workforce of seventeen dragons, it's too small. Not to mention that you would almost certainly be less, as some of you will have to stay behind to look after the children we have entrusted to you"

"Don't worry, I'm aware of my duties and of the fact that I can't offer enough manpower. My plan is another" Haku replied. "I don't want my siblings to learn how to create the potion to produce it, but because in this way they will be able to supervise the various phases of production. Phases that will be divided among different groups of people, each of whom will have to deal only with a specific phase of the production of the potion. A simple and almost mechanical action, which will be easy to memorize and which my siblings will be able to teach to numerous people, thus obtaining all the manpower we need"

Zamor's expression became immediately interested, and Tzegorn showed some curiosity as well. "So... you're proposing to divide the creation of the potion into various phases, for example into ten, and create groups of people who each take care of only one of these phases, so that their work is simple and easy to learn. For example, one group will add nightshade roots, another will mix the result, and so on?"

"Exactly" Haku answered. "Obviously such groups won't be able to go unsupervised, but since my siblings and I can easily learn the entire potion recipe, we can not only make sure that each group is doing its job well, but also that the end result is perfect"

Zamor and Tzegorn weighed the proposition carefully. Then the tigerman spoke first. "I think it could work, in fact, it's a good plan. This way we can produce large quantities of potions and disease remedies without having to waste weeks making sure people have learned how to do it" he said, then lightly vibrated the his long feline whiskers. "However, I strongly advise against entrusting supervision to dragons. No offense to you, Councilor Haku, but your kind does not exactly have a good reputation among the people of this village; it is likely that many would refuse to work alongside dragons. The reputation of the provisional leader Zamor is already very precarious as he sent the children away from the village and into the company of dragons; if we forced citizens to work under the supervision of dragons, surely rumors would start spreading that Zamor is actually a puppet and that the goal of the dragons is to exploit the situation to seize power. We don't need more unrest. I therefore propose a compromise: the dragons will teach people how to make the potion and then let them do it, and finally they will control the result ending. That way it won't look like they want to control the citizens"

Surely Tzegorn was also speaking moved by his hatred towards Haku, but it couldn't be denied that he was right. While the situation was unlikely to be as dire as he portrayed it, surely many wouldn't like having to work for dragons. "Unfortunately, however, these are difficult times, and we cannot afford errors in the production of medicines. And then we invented the position I currently hold so that there was someone who would take the inconvenient decisions" Zamor said. "We will do as Haku says, but we will keep an eye on the situation. If there are any complications, we will change our approach"

"But..."

"My decision is final"

Tzegorn was clearly annoyed and shook his head vehemently. "I'll do as you say, but don't expect me to approve" he replied, then he glared even deeper at Haku, clearly holding him responsible for their leader's decision.