#6 Pigeon Go Home
July 28, 2016
Transcript
It wasn’t long ago that Pigeons’R’Faster did not have their own officials to fetch loafers. The duty of returning such a pigeon would be up to the receiver.
g such a pigeon would be up to the receiver.
This was rarely a joyous occurrence, since many messages were sent to adventurers who may have been on their way to far away places, for long periods of time, and to do dangerous things.
Hauling back a pigeon or several was a daunting task, and exposed both the adventurer and the pigeon to much danger and stress.
Gheralf says:
It used to be far too often that adventurers would find more helpless or abandoned pigeons on their journeys. A good-willed adventurer would not abandon a trained bird, and thus ends up imposing himself to additional luggage.
Not only do the pigeons take space and add weight, but the constant cooing gives away your position and may eventually drive a lesser person insane.
Vayandil says:
I have heard stories from my parents how some people exploited the old system for silly pranks. They would pay extra to get to pick the most inept pigeon to carry their message so the receiver would have to bring it back. The prank would be the travel time on itself, or someone would be waiting at the post office to do the actual prank.
But then some of the receivers realised they could pay someone to do the delivery for them and thus double-fool the sender. All of this sprouted quite a few tiny businesses offering pigeon-picking and pigeon-returning services for a sum of money. The Scholar-pioneers wanted to put a stop to them, so they hired a bunch of officials to patrol posts and collect shirkers, thus ending the need for paid services.