"So there you have it."

"To summarize," Leon says loudly, "Plenty of fuel. Plenty of machines and the theoretic ability to maintain them, with steel. Limited cloth. Three weeks to see if the hothouse is viable."

There are nods and affirmations all around.

"I think the obvious plan, then, is to plan an expedition in three weeks, contingent on nothing major changing. Either we'll be more confident we'll be able to last on our own, or we'll need help from afar more than ever if the hothouse doesn't work. How does Endure Elements work?"

"Endure Elements lasts twenty-four hours and makes it possible to endure a blizzard in shirtsleeves comfortably - it also works on hot weather, not that that's relevant here. It's possible for it to be too cold for the spell to protect a person, but I don't think it is here nor that it will be up the mountains. I can prepare four in their native slot, though I could prepare up to four more if I were using higher-circle slots to do it - Share Language is a second circle spell and I think I should have one of those each day, and a Create Food, at third, and if there are other hazards I don't know about it's possible I should allocate some slots to accounting for those."

"Mr. Arnold, could you furnish a vehicle in three weeks? One faster than hiking?"

"It would be a challenge. One faster than hiking over flat areas, perhaps. It would have to haul its own fuel."

"I see. The principle remaining hazard would be sudden falls. Four Endure Elements, Share Language- Though you should be able to learn some English by then- Create Food... Would a scout team of four be viable? Would five?"

"I'm working on English but cannot guarantee I'll be able to have a complicated conversation under stress in three weeks. Create Food if used every day can feed up to fifteen people, and for a smaller group if you time the casting right it could suffice to cast it alternate days, eating heavily for dinner one evening and breakfast the next, with the complication that the food will not be able to endure the elements and will freeze. If I use a second circle slot on an additional Endure Elements or we avoid having all of us need the spell every day I could maintain a group of five."

Leon nods. "I would like to experience Endure Elements so that I may judge how much it will speed up our trek. If we can run in light clothing with packs, rather than walking, for example."

The crowd is getting a little bit confused and restless.

"-Ah, we should confirm the decision before making detailed plans. Blai Artigas and a team to be selected, tentatively planning in three weeks to trek East and attempt to locate and gather information on New London and then return here, so long as the hothouse project appears to be viable. Does anybody have another proposal, or anything to add?"

"Are you going to bring New London here? Or tell them about us? Jack is a fool but he has a point. We might wish the scouts to be vague about where they are from if New London appears to be hostile."

There's some muttering at that.

Blai doesn't have an opinion on that part. He nods at Leon; he actually has one now, it's a good backup spell in a frozen wasteland especially if you don't expect to need reserves for combat.

The debate about how open to be to New London continues for a while. Eventually they decide to include a respected senior in the group, with the first line being observation to see if they seem violent or evil, and the second line being offering to trade meat for tools or goods, and to definitely not lead New Londoners back here, yet.

"Or spells? They might want oranges too, or some other food."

Well, they weren't considering Blai part of their community, per se. They're unclear on whether he's going to be - staying, or not. If New London makes him an offer, he can do what he likes, as long as he escorts the chosen scouts home again at some point.

"I won't strand them in New London."

Some of the anti-New London crowd are now trying to argue that none of the New Londoners should be on the scout team, since they'll obviously go right back to their old masters and reveal everything.

This sets off another round of mostly-civil arguing. The yelling earlier was kind of embarrassing, but like, they are kind of nervous about the city. They have giant metal war machines there, or so they've heard. (Samuel Cooper of the New London contingent trying to clarify that the automatons mostly do hauling work does not reassure people very much.)

But the objectors are a minority, and they know it. All they can do is make a lot of noise, with the diplomatic members of the crowd trying to address their concerns before the vote they propose inevitably fails, 13-57.

Hopefully this isn't a terrible mistake!!!

They wrap up the meeting with some discussion of who lives where in the expanded rooms, and how to use the newly repaired laundry machines.

Leon and Arnold stay near Blai as the meeting breaks up.

"I don't think we'll have a vehicle for the expedition in three weeks. It's possible if we make it a priority, but it's also a novel development project for us. You should plan on nothing being available but a good sled for carrying supplies on, if you wish it."

And then Arnold tips his hat and leaves, too.

Will Leon take his hand for the Endure Elements?

He will, with a slight smile.

Blai casts it.

"I'm going to go on a hike, now. I'll report back how much this miracle will speed an expedition. Good day all."

Leon comes back from his hike and says he thinks Endure Elements will increase the speed an expedition can travel at by half again; They can jog while wearing little without fear of soaking everything they wear through with sweat and ruining their insulation, and make faster progress, but the dangers of unstable terrain and poor visibility remain.

Days pass. The people of Old Dreadnought visibly improve in condition. The hothouse goes up and things are planted in it. The kid with the prosthetic and one of the kids' teachers are assigned to teach Blai English full time. The workshop crew try to build an oil-powered vehicle of some sort, but it mostly just makes loud noises and a mess rather than proving useful, yet. There's some sort of issue with someone's son and someone's daughter but it's resolved without the particulars becoming very important.

Three weeks pass. The first crop from the hothouses is harvested: Potatoes. They're served with dinner, and while modest, it's a celebratory mood. The locals cheer when the topic of an expedition to attempt to locate New London is brought up again. Does Blai have any opinions on who ought to be on it?

No strong opinion, no! Even if his opinions on people would be operational constraints he doesn't have any that are strong enough to matter here.

The assembled team: Blai, Leon, June, and two people he hasn't interacted with beyond pleasantries- Joseph, a New Londoner who prays a lot, and 'Nuts', a withdrawn girl(?) whose eyes dart around a lot. Apparently, a prodigy with machines but also the most disposable engineer-type, meant to evaluate New London's technology.

Are they all very confident that there are not monsters on the route, such that he should not bring his armor or weapon? They're heavy but it's really much better to lug them around than it is to be caught without them by even a fairly minor monster, especially if he's got his spells prepared for a journey and not a fight.

They are very confident there aren't monsters. The most threatening thing would be a polar bear but what would they eat? A polar bear is admittedly pretty threatening, though. Also, bandits or whatever the equivalent is, perhaps.

He should definitely bring the weapon. Maybe he should have been training with a gun this whole time, too, but it's a bit late for that now. They're less sure about the armor.

The armor is much heavier than the weapon but if they will all have ranged weapons of their own he will bring his mace as backup and leave the chainmail behind.

Joseph and Nuts aren't as good with their ranged weapons as the two hunters who use them professionally, but they do have them.

Leon drags everyone into a group meeting where they go over the planned route, what maps they have of it, how they're going to map and mark their progress- Nuts has a clever arrangement with surveyor's tools and known landmarks and math- And what everyone should pack, and practicing common trail hand signs (the important ones are 'stop', 'go', 'caution', and 'attack'), and what to do if they're separated (fire your flare gun, fresh from the machine shop, straight into the air, wait for eight hours, if no flare responds try to go back to the last major landmark the expedition visited), and so on and so on. They'll be moving with rope tied to each other if the weather gets bad and on dangerous slopes, but it's been good recently and there's no signs that's about to change.

He's planning to prepare Snow Shape at least once a day and that should help with awkward icy terrain.