“I have already seen the damage to the coral reef, and the Hindel will help,” the Alpha said once she had eaten her fill and the rest of us had managed to contain our laughter. “The Hindel are just as much, caretakers of the ocean’s bounty, as we are citizens. We would have acted to save the reef even if you hadn’t asked for help.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” I asked, pleased that the reef could be healed and that my plans to provide communication tokens for sale within the Empire would be possible.

The tokens were going to be distributed to the leaders of the towns within my Fief, as well as to every cultivator and government official within my borders. These people would serve as beta testers and allow us to fix any problems we encountered before they were offered for sale.

We still need to test the actual range of each device, something I wondered if the Alpha might be willing to help with now that I’d met her.

“Akil, give the healing balms to the Baroness,” she replied before answering my question. Akil motioned for more of the pod to enter the pavilion and place bags full of product on the floor next to me.

“Every bag holds enough of a healing balm to see the reef restored. The balms should be placed along the reef yearly. After a year, the reef will be healed well enough to allow for careful pruning. Scatter the balms every year for the next ten years, and the coral should be completely restored,” the Alpha said as she gestured at the bags of balms.

I opened one of the bags, grabbing a healing balm to examine.

They were an interesting blend of plant and enchantment. The balm I examined was as tough and durable as any bag of holding the Elves might craft. The only difference was the Hindel used a species of kelp or seaweed for the construction material, and the contents slowly escaped. It made for a resilient device, able to remain pliable in water, while the contents remained dry stored in a spatial area until a process similar to osmosis happened.

The runic overlay was almost the same as what I had learned when studying runes, arrays, and formations. So similar that it was obvious either the Hindel borrowed our methodology, or we had borrowed theirs.

I had a suspicion that we had stolen their entire library of information, allowing our progress with the professions to leap forward.

I withdrew the ingredients from one of the nutrient balms, examining it with interest. It appeared to be nothing more than a seashell. It was pretty enough, a faint striation of blues and oranges painted across the shell with the distinctive shading of a watercolor.

There didn’t seem to be anything special about it until I focused my perception on examining it closely. It was packed with life. Vitality pulsing like the ocean waves at high tide. Each pulse released a focused burst of regenerative healing as well as releasing zooxanthellae, a type of algae that lives in a symbiotic relationship with the reef.

The zooxanthellae had been hybridized, a new species of algae that produced more glucose, glycerin, and amino acids than usual. The algae, once seeded, would feed the coral and, in turn, be protected by the coral’s structure. The life cycle of the algae living inside a coral’s polyps would allow the coral to proliferate. The polyps would, in turn, provide the algae with the nutrients they need to flourish.

“How far apart should these be seeded,” Lily asked as I handed the nutrient shell I had been examining to her.

“One balm every three hundred feet will provide the fullest coverage,” the Hindel that had offered the bags replied. “It doesn’t have to be exact but try not to spread them more than five hundred feet. Anything further than that will leave a gap in coverage.”

“Thank you, Alpha,” Lily replied, bowing deeply. “I will have the reef divers begin distributing them immediately.”

“There is no need, not for a few weeks,” the Alpha informed her. “I had my pod seed this coral reef with a different product that will kick-start the healing process and allow the healthy coral that remains to flake off as seed stock for the new reef.

“You should wait six weeks before scattering the first set of nutrient balms.”

I hadn’t expected the Alpha to have already acted. Not before we had met, and she could measure my commitment. But her words, her claim that the Hindel were caretakers of the oceans, had more impact. Her actions proved her and her peoples’ willingness to keep the sea healthy.

“There is one other item I’d like to discuss, Alpha,” I said once Lily was confident she understood the mechanics involved in using the nutrient balms.

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“Unlike Lord Chon, I hope to establish and foster a healthy relationship between the Hindel and my people. I would like to build an embassy that would genuinely serve your people. Perhaps a building constructed near the shore but in water deep enough to allow your people to enter and exit without the need for the bulky equipment you use on land.

“It could be built using the same array formations that allow this pavilion to adjust the environment to the individual. We would be willing to construct something based on your requirements.

“I have a talented architect who creates with a vision that looks forward. He excels at innovation and designs with a masterful aesthetic. I believe he could design something that is both functional and suited to the aesthetics of both our people.”

“Who would staff this building?” The Alpha asked.

“It would be up the Hindel’s discretion. You could staff it with your people, hire from among the Elves, or decide to activate defensive arrays and leave the building empty when not in use,” I replied.

“And what happens to it the next time whatever happened to the coral reef happens again?”

“The reefs were destroyed when the Guardian Spirits of the town were forced to defend and defeat a ship assaulting our docks along with a powerful Nascent Soul cultivator,” I said. “There is nothing to suggest that will become a common occurrence here.

“The people responsible have been identified as part of a smuggling ring that has been destroyed. The crop they were harvesting was discovered, and the place where they were most likely growing the plant was located.

“Now that we know about the damage the Spirit Triad can wreck as a byproduct of protecting the town, we have made plans to minimize any future damage by creating a formation that will allow the coral reef to be safeguarded with defensive shields.

“We could create the same type of defensive formation for an embassy. Your people could provide input and their own formation arrays into the design to include protections you are more comfortable with.”

“I believe your idea has some merit,” the Alpha mused. “It would be another first between your people and ours, something else we could point to as an example of how the relationship between our people should look moving forward.”

I winced at her statement, now more determined than ever, to make sure Patriarch Umbra knew of this meeting and the impact my attempt at diplomacy might have with the Hindel going forward.

“I cannot make this decision on my own, but I will convey your words and ideas. The decision shouldn’t take long, a month at most. We pride ourselves on moving swiftly when events demand.”

“Perhaps a gift then,” I suggested. “A method for us to stay in communication, even at a distance. Or at least a possible way.”

I removed a walnut lacquered box from my spatial device. The gift box was inlaid with a seascape, a relief of coral that represented our coral reef when it was healthy. I handed the box over and noted another facet of the environmental array in action. The box remained dry when the Alpha clasped it. A bubble of air perfectly outlined the shape and size of the box and kept the ocean’s water from harming the lacquered finish.

“This is?” The Alpha asked as she opened the box.

“A new invention of my House,” I stated proudly. “They are communication tokens, and with a simple injection of Qi to attune them to your Qi Signature, they allow you to connect and speak with anyone else that you know as long as they have a token of their own.

“I’ve included a dozen tokens as gifts and as a possible source of trade. We have yet to determine if there is a decline in efficacy with distance, but so far, our testing has been promising.”

“Why don’t you use a Conch?” The aid that had braved the curry asked in confusion.

The Alpha noticed my confusion. “Hindel use a similar device. A Conch created for communication across vast distances,” she explained, pointing to one of the items she was wearing on her belt.

It looked to be nothing more than a conch shell. Not as large as usual, but not the largest I’d ever seen. I had thought the item an embellishment, a Hindel affectation that served no purpose other than ornamental.

I would have known if I had bothered to use my perception to scan them, but I hadn’t. I thought the action bordered on rudeness, especially since we approached the Alpha and her people to ask for help.

“How does it work?” I asked, examining the item more closely once I had been offered one to examine.

“Have you ever placed a shell to your ear?” The aid asked. “The sound of the waves crashing as you listen, the rhythmic motion of tide and ocean seemingly trapped inside. The Hindel learned long ago that the oceans were one. And that those sounds that are found in every shell can be shaped to reproduce our speech.”

“The process seems to be similar to what you have done with your tokens,” the Alpha pointed out. “You inject your Qi into one of the shells that had been enchanted to store your Qi signature. Once done, it is a simple matter to activate.

“Focus on who you intend to speak with, and if they own a conch, the ocean works as a medium to connect the devices and allow for conversation. It is how my people will discuss your offer, why I can be so sure a decision will be reached in a month.”

“Do they work if activated on land?” I wondered.

“They do,” the Alpha informed me, “but not well.

“The farther away from the ocean’s water you are, the larger the chance of failure. Even a mile away can see the devices fail and stop transmitting.”

It made sense, and the limitations filled me with relief. If I had spent so much time focused on creating a system to communicate that had already been invented, I would have been furious.

“Why don’t my people use them?” I wondered.

“Some do,” the Alpha assured me. “The librarians are the most prolific. I believe they use them to keep each other informed of tomes, tokens, and scrolls they come across.

“As for the rest? I think they don’t bother because the devices need to be close to the ocean’s shore.”

“That seems short-sighted,” I said, realizing that my people really were speciesist. It made me wonder how they had thought the runic language the Hindel used was worth appropriating. Perhaps some enterprising young Elf had stolen the techniques and passed it off as his invention.