Inoadar Inoadar took a deep breath, deciding that as much as he hated to admit it, Clyde was right. He was going to get nowhere shouting his opinions into these fools' faces. He was glad at least to see that the problems with the other suggestions were being exposed by some of the others present. He turned to the newest arrival, "Our allies here have made it clear that the beast is fairly discriminating in its diet. It is not going to swallow a bottle. And anyway it would have to chew it to break it open and release the poison. It would probably just spit it back out. And even if it swallowed it, glass is probably the most resistance substance to acid that there is. That is why we store it in glass." He really did try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice with his last comment, but the condescension was impossible to conceal. He recognized this woman as some servant of his old partner, Valerius. 'Isn't she a slave? What in Dira's Dungeons is a slave doing taking part in this?' he thought to himself. For a moment he thought of posing this question out loud, but decided that it would undermine their credibility in the eyes of their Dhani partners. "There are some clear misconceptions here. Let me explain. The Vilemoss has no severely abrasive or corrosive quality to it, once processed. But I can promise you, on my life, if the beast eats something with a batch of Vilemoss in it, it will drop this discriminating pickyness and eat anything dumped in front of it." He gave a sidelong look at Clyde, hoping the man would spare his dignity just this once. "The...subject I tested it on..." he started, not mentioning that he was the one that had accidentally exposed himself to it. "...was even eating rope! He was eating the roots from plants, right out of the pots. Bits of bark, wads of cobwebs, a rubber stopper, you name it! Anything he could chew up or swallow whole. The only issue is the exact method of introducing the vilemoss so that we can be assured of the thing eating it." He looked at the Iyvess contingent. "You have some way of tracking or luring the beast to us? Then let us have use of one of our ferries. I can process enough Vilemoss to set two armies to attacking each other with their teeth! We can use a preachin' cow! Or a horse! Or whatever we have on hand that you think the beast will want to eat. We strap a packet of Vilemoss to the animal and shove it off the side of the boat. Once we see it eat the thing, then we shove the dead bodies, spiked with the poison components, into the water in front of it." He looked from face to face, trying to see if there was anything still In question. "We don't need to worry about stomach acid compromising the compound when it's in a dead body. And that's why we attach the vilemoss to the outside of the animal. A live animal's stomach acid might impact its effectiveness." He looked around. "Forget about spears. Forget about fish, and forget about having to breathe under water. We won't have to do more than get our feet wet. The thrashing animal will lure it to the surface." Like Clyde, Inoadar had no doubt these Dhani would not be here if they were not finding themselves newly supplementing the beast's fish diet. This was no surprise to him. He'd have been surprised if a race so far removed from humans HAD volunteered to aid this human city out of pure altruism. Why should they? |