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Honey Night
732129
>>171449
Princess, I believe you have misunderstood the amount of equipment required and the range of a heliograph. A curved mirror a mere 9 centimeters in diameter could reflect sunlight 50 kilometers or more. A basic heliograph is just a parabolic mirror and a high point to use it from (be it a hill, building, or even a tall tree). For a small group of agents who have arranged make contact with each other, such as your 20 secret police members, this is sufficient. Even for an army in the field, a handful of 9 cm heliographs is enough to keep every lieutenant in communication with his general.
Improvements to the basic design include a tripod to keep it steady, a shutter, a secondary reflector and cylindrical shield to limit light leak, a telescope for your spotter to better see the other heliograph, bigger mirrors, and encryption for the code being used to talk. The equipment can fit in a shoebox, with the exception of permanent structures.
The record for distance of heliograph transmission of message by my country's army was 295 kilometers between two mountaintop stations each using 20 centimeter mirrors.
The rate of communication for a heliograph tops out at about 14 words per minute, with experienced operators. Even at half that, you could send a hundred word message in under a quarter-hour. If each relay had two operators, it could transmit the message as it received it. With a setup like that, you could get a reply to your message inside the hour.
It would require 30 trained agents and 15 heliographs, but surely you can see the benefits to having a line of very fast communication like that.
My own nation's military used heliograph networks to communicate over distances of more than 400 kilometers peopled by openly hostile inhabitants. I assure you, a network of heliograph stations is suitable for a nation the size of yours. My nation is 4750 kilometers from coast to coast, following the best roads. We are familiar with some of the problems in administrating large countries.
Keep in mind that if we can talk an ally (or even a non-government actor like a professional courier house) into adopting this system we will be able to piggy-back messages on their system instead of having to build our own.
I admit this doesn't help you escape right now, but being able to provide a prototype demonstration of this system to the ally you pick to work with will go a long way toward making them accept it. If you (or Rachel's mother) claim to have invented the system then you'll be providing tangible proof of your own cleverness (or if you have Madam Puzzle claim to have invented it, of your wisdom for keeping her close to you) and thus your value as an ally irrespective of your political ties to your brother. The more attractive an asset you can appear to your potential allies, the more help you'll be able to get.
>>171463
You tipped the man enough for a very nice meal for him and someone he likes, then, or to feed him for the next couple of days. To feed five women three good meals for a day will likely cost in the order of 4 dinars, provided prices hold true. Your monthly maintenance costs in terms of food for the five of you should be in the range of 120 dinars. Your horses will likely cost twice that. Find out what room and board costs, and we'll be able to finish budgeting. The remainder of your money should be saved for bribes and tools.
As to securing your money, there are ways to secret money and small objects such that only an invasive body cavity search could find them on your person, but it's not comfortable. I'll only tell you more about those smuggling techniques if you specifically ask. Again, it's not comfortable, but we can help you make it safe for whomever chooses to smuggle money in that way.
Gold can be hidden in a number of other ways as well. False bottoms to saddle bags, water flasks, hidden in the lining of your clothes and bags, and so on. Common smuggling techniques like that are one option. Investing the money is another option, one which we will have to exercise later if you're going to get the most out of our advice.
Are there large trading companies that we could secure letters of credit though? It was common practice in my world, before the age of fast telecommunications, for trade houses to accept deposits at one city, write a letter of credit, and issue funds at the destination city to the bearer of the letter.
If you are willing to deal with an alchemist, we can give you instruction on how to dissolve the gold in liquid and later how to retrieve it from the solution. Such a solution would be caustic and dangerous, but could be stored as something that does not obviously look like gold.
How big is a dinar, how much does it weigh, and how pure is the gold in it?
Caching money is possibly a good idea, but not here (since we are likely going to flee).
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