That night we cuddled and snuggled till I fell asleep. In the Morning, most of the work was finished. “I just need to make the second Cattle Surround, and depending on the progress in disassembling the old structures, I can start designing the new townscape.”

  “Are you sure you should work so much today? You’ve exhausted yourself two days running.” Alian, clearly worried, asked me.

  “Alian, every time I’ve lasted longer. I have more Mana available than ever. Pretty sure I can finish everything today, probably get exhausted again, but have enough Mana on the way back to the Capitol to pave the road with ease, ahead of us, so we can travel quicker. The new walls are all the protection the town needs for the Greenhouses, and faster shipping means lower costs.”

  Jeanette nodded. “I think that will help a lot in Winter Weather. Even if the snow is low, the mud always stops any shipments.”

  “Huh? I know the Carriages don’t have shocks, but are you telling me you don’t have Sledges?!” “Um,…What’s a Sledge?”

  “A Sledge is like a Carriage, or Wagon, but without wheels, instead it has runners to travel through snow, or over ice while pulled by the Horses.”

  Total Confusion on everyone’s face. “I’ll build a set of Sledge Runners later, along with everything else. Then maybe we can use some of the wood from the old houses to build the body. Clearly someone has good carpentry skills.” Kent looked a little sheepish, but also proud. “I take it you’re the carpenter for this soon-to-be fine table, Kent?” He nodded.

  With breakfast out of the way, I went outside to find that indeed the townsfolk had been busy, attacking one building with ladders for the roof, another team removing walls, and a third team dealing with floors and framing. Most of the town was only lumber at this point. By the time I had finished the second Cattle enclosure, all the buildings were dismantled. None of them had been particularly large. Work was underway on dismantling the Palisade now. So I tended to designing an intelligent layout for the central community, and greenhouses over the central farms. After completing the work on the town, with all the plumbing connections and other fixtures, I noticed the Palisade was nearly gone as well. I still felt I had plenty of Mana, so I built a couple of grain mills reliant on wind, and a saw mill of the same design, set up for making dimensional lumber. It was surprisingly easy at this point.

  My Mana must grow faster than most people's. So I created two sets of Sledge Runners, to which I showed Kent. “Here’s the sledge runners, now you just need the standard Wagon bed, and diver’s bench, then the lead poles to attach the harnesses to.”

  Kent’s eyes sparkled. “I can do that, it won’t even take three days each, and there’s plenty of time before winter. This will help a lot with transport during winter.”

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  I left him to it, feeling like I hadn’t touched my Mana today. “Jane, I’m sorry, but what are those new buildings with the big spinning things on them? I know they must be important, but I can’t understand what for.”

  “Elder, two of those are Grain mills to turn wheat into flour, or Corn into meal, in large batches. The third one is a Saw Mill for cutting lumber into desired sizes for construction purposes. I only wish I knew how to design a Plywood Mill, because that would use much more of the wood than we currently are able to.”

  “Could you show me the buildings, and tell me how they function? Also, what’s this Plywood you speak of?”

  “Certainly, I assume you have a Quern at home for making flour, or perhaps just a pestle and mortar.” She Nodded. “Well, a Flour Mill is a large version of that, only it’s powered by the wind. As the wind hits those sails, they will spin, and that rotates the grinding stone on top of the base. One is set up to be coarse ground, while the other is fine ground.”

  After demonstrating the mechanisms inside the two buildings with grain mills in them, I then took her to the saw mill, and, cautioning her about the extreme dangers for the unwary, I explained how those mechanisms worked as well. "These buildings should always have an adult on hand. Kids might think it’s a cool place to play, but that’s a good method of crippling themselves, or outright killing themselves. Nobody should work them at night, but someone should still be alert for a late-night visit by children who think they know better than the adults.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, Mistress Jane; Presumably, you assumed I knew as much, but had some need to state the obvious?”

  I chuckled. “It’s called Liability. Back home, anyone who provides an item that can be dangerous if misused or mistreated must explain all known issues, or they’re liable for legal punishment when the obvious happens. JUST in case anything that I presume is obvious was unexpected to you, I’ve pretty much gone over everything, so at this point nobody can blame me for any mistakes they make on their own.”

  She Chuckled. “Your homeland must have been strange indeed compared to our Nation.”

  I laughed. “They’d find this Nation strange, but I think most would agree, it’s a good strange, simpler, and honest. Nobody has to protect themselves legally as much here, they rely on the people they do business with to be at least somewhat intelligent and able to not kill themselves in a ridiculous manner.”

  Looking around at the revamped town, the Elder beamed with pride at what she saw. “This town will be the envy of the Nation for some time, even the Capitol’s citizens don’t have this much luxury in their homes, and you’ve given us this. The running water is a miracle in itself, and those Sledge Runners are inspired. Our smith has been inspecting them since Kent came for advice. He’s positive he could have made them in his old forge, let alone in the massive metal works building you constructed with the Blast Furnace, and the Sheet Extruder that you designed.”

  I grimaced. “I don’t know how good that Sheet Extruder is; I tried to copy what I remembered, but if it needs any improvement, I’m sure I could get one of the Royal Smiths to help me fix it properly. This is a Royal project with the Greenhouses after all. Having the tools is the least we can do.”

  “I’ll let the Smith know, and he’ll get back to me if there are any problems. Though I don’t know if he can spot if there are. It’s a completely new tool after all.”

  “He should know something is off, even if not how to fix it exactly. The sheets are supposed to be perfectly flat and of uniform thickness, for one thing. Any Smith should be able to spot imperfections of that sort.”

  “Maybe so, we’ll have to see.”