Chapter 76: A Grand Tour

The early Dragon Mail stations were an earnest and generally successful effort in standardization; Haddock and Ingerman explicitly acknowledged the degree to which their designs were inspired by the Imperial Roman Castrum ''system of standardized layouts. Having experimented with the design in the earliest mail stations in the Alban Isles and Norway, Haddock and his initial construction expedition were able to build the mainland continental stations extremely quickly, typically completing each within a matter of days. Once the physical stations were built, the local merchant partnerships would take over with maintenance, staffing, and other logistical needs.''

''These early stations, while they had their problems, were generally well-designed, featuring a landing platform on the roof, housing for the staff, temporary quarters for dragons and riders, resting and feeding stations for the dragons, and mail intake and output offices. Due to space requirements, they were initially built outside of the local city walls or municipal limits, but quickly accrued settlement in their immediate vicinity, as additional shops and services found the traffic going to and from the mail station to be a natural draw.''

—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396

Foreshadowing
Put spoilers here

Epigraph Tie-In

 * The epigraph talks about the earliest Dragon Mail stations. The chapter shows Berk sending an expedition to build those Dragon Mail stations.

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