Until they unlock their domain, Haku and his siblings won't be safe. Once that happened, then they would have became almost invincible; but until then, if the newcomers caught them, then they could easily defeat and kill them. Therefore, if they wanted to survive, they had to hide in a place where no newcomer would ever go. The Thul Oasis was the answer to this problem: completely surrounded by the infernal sands of the Yuthia Desert, it would have guaranteed the seventeen dragons a safe haven until they grew old enough.
However, the desert couldn't provide them with many of the essential things for survival. They would have found water at the oasis, but they needed three other basic things to be able to hold out long enough.
The first thing was supplies. Without food, Haku and his siblings wouldn't last long. But since they had already obtained 6,000 of the 7,000 tons they needed, food wasn't a serious issue. Once the ogres and faeries fought a fourth time, the number of corpses would be enough to fill the final 1,000 tons needed. And if it wasn't, the dragons would get what little they lacked from the hunt. Therefore food wasn't a problem.
The second thing was a way to transport supplies. After all, it was impossible to carry 7,000 tons of meat on their backs. However, they had a large number of dimensional bags with them. Many of them had been stolen from the corpses and others had been obtained by Sarpa. Currently, Haku and his siblings had more than 200 dimensional bags, far more than they actually needed: since each bag could hold 50 tons of food, only 140 were needed to transport 7,000 tons. Therefore transportation too wasn't a problem, and indeed it had already been solved for some time.
The third thing was a way to keep food from spoiling. And here the problems began.
Haku planned to use a large number of refrigerators, magical items capable of freezing meat and keeping it fresh, so they wouldn't have had to worry about its preservation. However, getting so many refrigerators had proved more difficult than anticipated. Since each refrigerator had a maximum duration of three years and the dragons needed them for at least ten years, the number they needed was more than 500. Haku hoped on being able to find enough by stripping the corpses or relying on their infiltrator Sarpa, but unfortunately such task turned out to be much more difficult than what he expected.
Ogres didn't carry supplies with them. They kept them at their camp and were heavily guarded. Each soldier simply took what he needed for one or two meals each day, so he didn't need to take a refrigerator as well. Therefore, all the refrigerators had been kept in the ogre camp. Even stealing them wasn't an option: even if Sarpa managed to evade surveillance, he couldn't have taken away such a large number at once, and certainly the ogres would have immediately noticed the theft and would have become more wary. Haku had hoped that the fairies were different, but sadly none of the corpses he and his siblings stripped had a refrigerator on them, proving that they acted exactly like ogres when it came to supplies. Therefore, there was no way to get refrigerators easily.
Without refrigerators, they had no way to store food long enough, so Haku's plan had came to a halt. The dragons had waited, hoping for a profitable opportunity, but now they could no longer ignore the problem: once they had enough supplies they would have had to leave, therefore they had to solve that problem immediately. So Haku organized a sort of emergency meeting: all seventeen dragons gathered in the cave that was their refuge and arranged themselves in a circle. After that Haku spoke. "Well, guys, you already know what the problem we have to solve is. Without refrigerators, or at least a way to prevent food from deteriorating, we can't go anywhere. So, any idea is welcome; suggestions?"
Haku knew he was the smartest of the litter and normally he would have looked for a solution to that problem by himself. However, his siblings had repeatedly proved to him that they were much smarter than he thought, and they often saw things that he didn't. Haku had learned that being the best at planning didn't mean being the best at everything, and that in some areas some of his siblings were better than him. Therefore, since he couldn't solve the problem on his own, Haku decided to ask them: even a single suggestion could lead to a good plan.
There was a moment of silence, then Rhaegal spoke: "As I have suggested several times, we cannot just stand hide and wait. We have waited long enough and have not gotten any results. We can no longer delude ourselves: we will never find enough refrigerators just by stripping the corpses. Therefore, the only solution is to go and steal them at the ogre camp!"
Rhaegal had already made that proposal some time ago, when the problem of food preservation had become apparent. Many of his sisters agreed with him: after all, dragons weren't known for sitting around and waiting for opportunities to come their way. Haku and his siblings had always created their own opportunities.
After Rhaegal's statement, Darbi also spoke up: "I agree with our brother" he said. "I've been thinking these days and I think it's the only possible solution. If we take advantage while the two armies are fighting, we could infiltrate in the ogre's camp and steal everything before they realize it"
"Won't the ogres get suspicious? It will be strange that someone stole their refrigerators but not their supplies" Keita pointed out.
"It will be enough for us to take both" Sisna said. "More supplies won't certainly hurt us. And in this case we won't even have to leave marks to blame the faeries. After all, food is important to ogres too, so if I were fighting them the first thing I'd do would be organize a theft to deprive them of the food. The ogres will think that the fairies want to cut off their food source to weaken them"
The other dragons nodded. Despite the risks, it seemed like a good idea.
Haku waited for his siblings to finish talking, then he said: "I've been thinking about it too these days. Rhaegal's idea was good. I studied the ogre camp to be able to create an effective plan"
Everyone looked at him, and Rhaegal puffed out his chest slightly with pride. Haku was notoriously the smartest among them, so if even he said that idea was good, then it must really be.
However, soon after Haku gave the bad news: "Unfortunately, however, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way for us to implement such a theft"
Rhaegal's smile faded, but before he could say anything Haku pulled a large piece of paper out of one of the dimensional bags and opened it. "This is a map of the ogre camp. I had Sarpa draw it and then I personally checked to make sure he wasn't lying. I spent several days trying to find a weak spot, but it's next to impossible. Our target is here". Haku pointed to a small red square in the center of the camp. "This is the hut where they keep the food. And as you can see, it's defended from all sides". He pointed to several dots around the small square. "These are the sentinels. Each of these dots represents at least five ogres, each of them no weaker than level silver. There are a total of two hundred sentinels, who take turns every four hours to ensure they are always alert and rested. Their position is designed so that there is no blind spot around them. What's more, the terrain too is designed for this"
Haku pointed to the other marks on the map. "As you see, the hut containing the food is completely surrounded by an empty space no smaller than twenty feet. This space has been flattened on purpose so that there is no way to sneak up on it. The sentries would see us long before we can get close"
"What if we attack at night?" Malchia asked.
Haku shook his head. "I've thought about it, but the ogres have countermeasures for that too. The few mages present in the camp each night cast a spell that illuminates this area, making it impossible to rely on darkness to approach without being seen" he replied. "And anyway, this is only one part of the defence. Beyond this area, there are many others"
Haku pointed to the space beyond the marked area, where several more squares were located. "The hut with the food is completely surrounded by several other important structures: the meeting hall of the chieftains, the forge to repair weapons, the mages' tent... each of these places is in turn defended by countless sentries. Only for to overcome this blockade it would be necessary to be invisible. But then, there is the main problem: the army". Haku pointed to several dots arranged in a circle around the whole camp. "All ogre soldiers are purposely arranged to form a shield around the main buildings. Anyone wishing to reach them would first have to pass tens of thousands of ogres. Basically, to reach the food hut, we would first have to pass the entire ogre army, and that is impossible at our current level of strength"
When Haku finished explaining, his brothers and sisters looked quite despondent. While such an army of ogres would have been just a bunch of ants to the dragons when they would have became adults, they were now an insurmountable wall. "What if we wait for the army to go into battle, as I proposed earlier?" Darbi asked.
Haku let out a grunt. "I thought about it too, but unfortunately the ogres turned out to be less naive than we thought. When they go into battle, they don't bring their entire army. About a tenth of it remains to protect the camp, just to prevent the loot their resources. Even if the soldiers that stay behind aren't the equivalent of the entire army, we are still talking about several thousand well armed and dangerous ogres"
"And what about go under them?" Finiar suddenly suggested.
Haku was immediately interested. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. If we can't go through or over the ogres, then let's go under them!" his sister answered. "We can use magic now, even if just with runes. Even if we know only a few spells and can only use them with runes, we still know some spells that can open holes in the ground. Let's use them to dig a tunnel to the hut. Then we just will have towait for the right moment and at the earliest opportunity we will take everything we will want!"
Haku thought well about it. That idea actually made sense. The ogres had no way of detecting them underground. However, there was one big problem. "The strongest earth spell we know can only create a hole six or seven meters deep. But to be able to reach the ogre camp the road is much longer" he pointed out. "In order not to be seen, we would have to start digging at least a kilometer away from the camp. Which means that the tunnel would have to be at least a kilometer and a half long to reach the food hut. We are only seventeen and we can use the runes once before having to recharge them, and to recharge them we need to spend at least a day in a spring, so we will only be able to advance about a hundred meters a day. It would take us at least two weeks to reach the hut, and before then with every chances are a patrol of ogres will discover the entrance to the tunnel, since from what we know they are very meticulous in patrolling the surroundings of the camp. miles away, so it would take more than three months to reach our goal. And by then the ogres will almost certainly have already moved their camp, or even the war may already be over"
His siblings seemed to understand. While the idea wasn't bad, the time and work scale made it impractical.
However, suddenly Teramon talked: "And what if we change our goal?"
Haku turned to her, not understanding what she meant. Teramon was one of his frailer sisters and was rather shy, seldom speaking in their gatherings. "You mean don't aim for the ogre food hut, but for the fairy one? It will most likely be even more well defended..."
"No, no!" Teramon stopped him immediately. "I mean maybe we need to stop looking only at the battlefield and focus elsewhere!"
Haku's eyes widened, realizing where his sister was headed. Of course, it was that simple! How was it possible that he hadn't thought of it!? "You mean..."
"That now that the two armies are here, there are a lot of places that don't have any protection. So let's use this to our advantage!" Teramon said. "Let's storm a city!"