[Dragaera] Teleport Shipping

[Bryan Newell]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010, Philip Hart wrote:

> I just did a lower-bound estimate for an easy shipping route 
> midway in the empire (is Bryan Newell still reading)

*start*

> and got 
> one Teckla-year of labor for the transport in question, 
> ignoring capitol costs, insurance, oxen food, bribes to 
> Orcas, local taxes, and who knows what else. I'd like to see 
> a better, lower estimate or something solid on the other side 
> before believing this.

I haven't worked /Iorich/ into the dangerously-close-to-vaporware Release 2
of my Map yet, but:

pg 13 - I was entering a little village called Whitemill at the southern
edge of the Pushta

pg 17 - Whitemill was hundreds of miles from the nearest port.

pg 20 - How far are we from the [Adrilankha] River? / About two leagues.

pg 21 - Anyone in Adrilankha would take more than a month to reach me here,
barring a teleport or access to a really efficient post system.  But I was
only a few days from Adrilankha; rivers work like that.

pg 22 - Three days later I stepped off a boat [in] Adrilankha.

I think Whitehall is probably around 320 miles north of Adrilankha, which,
incidentally, puts it very near to the meadow where Orlaan found Aliera's
soul (and met a band of road agents, so presumably this area has been beset
by banditry for quite some time).

I'm not sure how long "more than a month is", but a month (17 days) at that
distance works out to be about 18 miles a day, which is fairly slow as far
as travel times in Dragaera go (which average around 50 miles a day,
excluding the post system).

Down river, that works out to a little over 100 miles per day (I don't know
enough about barges and rivers to say whether that is reasonable or not).

...

While looking at this, I found two other passages that might be helpful to
this discussion:

When there is famine in the north, the fishermen in the south rule. When the
mines and forges in the west are producing, the transport barons rule.
- /Phoenix/, Chapter 11

And of each hundred [deserters from Kana's army] who joined [Morrolan's
army], one or two might know enough of sorcery that, having become citizens,
and now with the power of the Orb at their disposal, they could learn to
teleport well enough to aid in the transfer of supplies, which, in turn,
gave, Sethra Lavode [et al] more time to transfer troops.
- /The Lord of Castle Black/, Chapter 61

Bryan