Quoted By:
>The civilisation gets -5 Prosperity.
>The civilisation gets -10 Productivity.
A road shall be built, one that leads north of the Croglatol and into the Grascan. It shall not stop until it reaches the Brigatol river and the land of the Winterfolk, however many hundreds of miles away they may be. Hundreds of men and women shall be required for the construction of this road – even though it shall only be wide enough for half a dozen men walking shoulder, the slates shall have to be maintained and the workers shall need to be fed and housed.
This project will require a great deal of time and effort and resources, which means taxation. Once more, the people of the Croglatol shall be asked to part with their shell money so that it might be used to purchase the necessary stone and labourer. Their devotion to the chiefdom such that they willingly part with this wealth, trusting that it will be used for the benefit of the Croglatovic. Taxes are usually a source of anger and resentment but in this case, the people are understanding and perhaps even supportive of such measures. Anyone who grumbles about this tithing is derided as a traitor, a disloyal fool who spurns the will of An and Il.
Progress is initially swift – the first mile of slate is laid in less than a week. However, as the distance increases, so does the amount of time and resources required for each additional mile. After a few months, the road is so long that workers are unable to return to the Croglatol to rest and are forced to live temporary shelter in the Grascan. After a few years, older stretches of the road begin to crumble and are in danger of being hidden by the forest's undergrowth, which calls for further maintenance.
By the time that twenty-five years have passed, over a hundred miles of this road have been laid, yet the project is far from complete. Contact with the Winterfolk still hasn't been established – the only people who have been encountered so far are a collection of disparate communities who live in the forest. They are too small and far too primitive to be considered tribes or clans, they're just savages trying to survive in the deepest, darkest depths of the Grascan. In their entirety, there must be seven or eight hundred of them, scattered across over a dozen separate villages. Though they are wary of the Croglatovic, these people have no concept of warfare and aren't particularly hostile. Once an understanding of their dialect has been established, it is even suggested that they could be incorporated into the chiefdom.
Elsewhere, the Shagodalek have continued with their conquering. They spread themselves even thinner by dominating the Brobokrak and bringing the lands of the Foebane into their dominion. In order to bolster their numbers and maintain control over such a vast area, Kadrel orders his warriors to conscript the firstborn sons of the vassal tribes.
