The Unshakeable Scout and the Determined Governor

basically canada

The colony starts to carve a place for itself on the southern continent. Valanda toys with calling it something that'll make people who have morals think of morality but ends up telling the imperial government that his new state is officially named Ira Sani, Ice Beach in Ilan, because an Ilan name will make caralendri more likely to immigrate and caralendri will want human-friendly architecture.

Things move frustratingly slowly. The plumbing gets planned, parts of the plans get tested, they discuss zoning, they discuss zoning some more, there are always more things to figure out and more ways everything could go wrong and not one single slave saved so far. He wants to move to Hyrule and forget it all. Instead he imports frozen fruits from the mainland and has Dareni check for the presence of known poisons in the native wildlife and pretends individual flakes of falling snow are monsters from Ganon that he needs to beat to death with his staff.

Every day he steps out of the illusions on the tents and creates a record of the slow effects of the drugs he bought in Milliways for when he has a new voice and a new face and needs to prove he's not some random person who killed and replaced Valanda. On most of those days he talks to himself. He sends a letter to the imperial government on the same flight Nik takes listing dates, places, turns of phrase to have their knowledge mages look for in his rambling monologues to find the times he spoke letters to them. He tells them how to find the time he talked about why he wants permission to test the effects of setting the age of majority for humans a year younger, to sixteen.

People come, mostly to visit, only rarely to move to the new world. Under Ira Sani state law there's a fee to bring a slave into the state, a tax on all slaves, an additional tax on all slaves over the age of majority for their species. The only result of all these laws is that one adventurous and introverted agerah sells a slave in Norvand before immigrating.

While Nikolas is on the mainland and has been for a while Valanda ends one of his monologues and decides to head inside and finds Milliways. He says hi to Bar and sits down for some nice sulking instead of putting up his sign immediately.

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basically canada

"Yeah, kids' allocations will go to their parents. Who here wants and intends to farm commercially when you get there?"

Two families used to be farmers and ranchers respectively (though they'll need to purchase livestock, they suppose), and they figure they'll need at least one more to have a stable food supply so Katherine the botanist is training up a couple of recruits on all things plant, in addition to how she'll be running greenhouses.

basically canada

"Thought you were planning on selling automata and importing food. Sure, if you're going to have a use for that much land it's not like I'm short on it. If I just give everyone a hundred forty-four acres so you don't have an incentive to lie about your career plans that'll cover the farmers and anyone who ends up with extra can rent it, I guess. Any ideas where you want the rest of that land?"

Having multiple plans, multiple resource streams, is a good idea.

They won't need more land for a good while at that rate. Not for a generation or two, unless there are a lot of immigrants, anyway. Extending a few miles out from the river, going upstream?

basically canada

"Sure, there works. If I find a way to get more immigrants I'll probably offer them their own land, not try to squeeze them onto yours. Anything else?"

They certainly appreciate the generous land packets, but he'll have to stop doing that eventually.

There's always something else sooner or later but nothing comes to mind immediately. They send someone upstairs to fetch all the other immigrants and finish their shopping-from-Bar. They're about ready to go through. Though it might take a while, carting crates of their fresh supplies through.

basically canada

He can stand and hold a door for a long time.

"It'll be cold out but when this is done being Milliways it'll be someplace warm that you can be in any time you want. ...We can shout for one of my force mages if you want, it'll make moving things a little faster but it won't be free."

It's definitely less cold than where they came from.

They need to get all of it all the way over to their new land once it's out of Milliways, too. Hiring a force mage is going to be easier than trying to assemble an automaton and sled to carry all their stuff right there. So, please do.

basically canada

"Will you want to negotiate the deal yourself or have me do that?"

They'll negotiate.

basically canada

He opens the door and calls for a force mage.

The one that comes is a belul who looks very small and cute and fluffy and just happens to be hovering a foot off the ground.

It's one thing to read about magic and other sentient species and another to see it.

Also, aww, cute!

"Er. Hello. We want to move rather quite a lot of stuff - approximately eighty tons - and several dozen people about a hundred miles, from here to here on this map. All of the stuff is in packed crates. Is that something you can do? Multiple trips would be fine."

The force mage explains his rates, this is how much per pound per mile, this is how much extra for loose cargo that's at all hard to keep track of, this is how much extra if he has to stay in the air too long at a time.

Eighty tons of stuff will cost them a lot, even for a fairly short distance like this.

How much is 'a lot' exactly, because if it's too high they'll decide to assemble an automaton and carry the stuff overland and hike.

Hundreds of rings and it'll take hours to make all the necessary trips safely and they're going to have to either accept a greater risk of things being lost in transit or give him a break halfway through.

Oh, just hundreds, not thousands... Yeah, that's a good deal. Things lost in transit aren't really acceptable, take whatever breaks you need. Half pay up front, half when everything has arrived.

"Would you like me to take half of you there first, so your things aren't left sitting unattended at either end of the trip?"

Yes.

There's a little confusion as people put themselves into an order, but a couple of the men are treating the group like a foreman and have them in a neat line filing out of Milliways, and then a procession of crates, soon enough.

And they can fly! It's very windy and any thrill there might have been in it wore out a long time ago for the force mage.

There's some wonder to it, yeah. People smile and laugh. It's barely below freezing out here. They can see patches of green on the ground.

As soon as they're dropped off, they start cheerfully unpacking things, setting up tents, and singing.

Trips without other people to be careful of go faster. The pile of stuff on their land grows.

Meanwhile a local human notices what's happening and comes to investigate the Milliways door.

"Hello," a man in slightly less raggedy clothes, and bearing some kind of badge on his shoulders, says from just inside the door, "My apologies if we in the way at all. We are trying to be quick. I'm Robert."

Mahan

"I'm Mahan. A ring to know where you came from and why you're coming here?"

"We come from a place called England, most of us. But a natural disaster has all but detroyed the world. Valanda has graciously allowed us to immigrate though the... Magical bar. It's warm here, we have a hope of survival now, and he is giving us land to make new lives on. Living under Har's law is a fair trade for that."

Mahan