The vote had been close. With three people in the running (well, seriously in the running, several other men had put themselves forward, or been put forward, but had been chased out by their obvious lack of support during the discussions), voting had unfortunately mostly followed species lines, and with Trip and Wilson splitting the human vote and the goblins voting as a block, Varrarg Breakleg was the first Mayor of New Massachusetts. Serving a one year term, with monthly town meetings to decide any long term policy matters.
It might have gone differently, but with Miss Silene present, only a few older men raised the notion of women not being allowed to participate and they so clearly were outnumbered they did not even request a vote.
The vote had been close and interesting. With many of the people illiterate, or unable to communicate with one another, and a shortage of paper, they had resorted to older methods. Each had chosen their symbol, a rock from the ground for Varrarg, a bullet for Trip and a twig for Wilson. Everyone had been given one of each, then dropped whichever they supported into a large clay jar, which had then been emptied and counted in front of everyone. The other two symbols had been dropped in another jar, from which the bullets were retrieved.
To be sure everyone remembered which stood for which candidate, the candidates were made to stand at the front, holding their symbol. Which had actually been quite amusing, as it took a surprisingly long time for more than a hundred and fifty voters to cycle through the line. To make matters worse, the goblin had stood there, quite dignified in her heathen garb and body paint, while Trip and Wilson both had attempted to emulate politicians and called out last minute arguments and pleas to the crowd. All they did was make her look dignified in comparison.
Thomas himself had been torn. He liked Trip...sort of. But didn’t agree with the man. He wanted to build something here. Once they had a solid base, they could find other people to trade with. Women liked a man of property, not a mercenary. Or at least, they married men of property, not mercenaries. This was good land. He didn’t know farmland, but he knew towns and buildings and wood and there was good wood here, good animals and the farmers said good land.
Land he’d never have been able to afford and now it was his. Not the mill. They’d voted, the mill, wells, latrines, all farmland within the walls and any other communal buildings, or resources would be owned by the town. But each and every human man would be given space within the wall for a house, or shop and house as they preferred and equal parcels of farmland outside the walls.
The farmland was worthless for now, until they cleared it and had plows and horses to pull them, seeds and irrigation ditches to water them, and employees, or children or friends to work the land. But someday, he could almost see it, this tower would eventually become a military citadel, central to a growing settlement that would spill into the forest, down the river and across it...a city they could call their own.
They’d also elected a judge, but that had been easy because no one wanted the job. No one was getting paid at this point, they didn’t even have anything except land and each soldier was given as much as they could reasonably manage. In the longer run, there would be a town-hall with rooms for the judge and the mayor, allowing at least some benefits, besides prestige. Once they had a proper economy and money, that would all change, but for now, it was just a remarkably unpopular job, especially as the limited legal code and insistence on jury trials for anything not handled by the military code of justice meant that he would be administrator more than lawyer.
Corporal Robinson had ended up with it, because he’d worked as a clerk for a lawyer and had one of the highest wisdom scores in the regiment. They’d agreed on basic laws fairly easily, but left anything more complicated than ‘no killing, no fighting, no stealing,’ for later discussion.
And, they’d stolen their oath from that they had already sworn, swearing allegiance to New Massachusetts, their elected leaders and their obedience to superior officers, all so long as it did not conflict with their prior duties to the United States and their oath to uphold the constitution. The Settled Feet swore likewise, but without the restrictions, Thomas wasn’t sure if it was because they did not have any such outside loyalties, or because they did not take the oath seriously. They did not seem to have any notion of the existence of such things before it was brought up.
With Varrarg’s platform winning for the year, the only other major topic of discussion had been what to do about the troops. In the end, a compromise had been reached, they’d all signed up for three year hitches, or until the end of the war, whichever came first. Some men argued the war was over for them, others that they couldn’t know and so should serve their full three years. Mostly the dispute was over men who wanted to be able to start work on their own property, or run off in search of women, and those who wanted to stick together. In the end, the compromise was to split the baby evenly as neither parent was willing to give to prove their love to Solomon. Eighteen months, then any man could resign if he wished. That left them with ten months of service.
Then the goblin youngsters had asked about enlisting. The eventual answer after painfully lengthy discussion and several votes was that New Massachusetts was authorizing a military of 120 men. Women would not be allowed to enlist, but male goblins could, to get them up to full strength, but they would only take volunteers. No draft at this time. Since there were a hundred something soldiers already, that meant only a handful of goblins could get in, but since they were very short on resources, and it made at least two in three of their citizens soldiers, which was absurd in the long run, but since the soldiers were available for free (not quite free, every goblin soldier who completed their service would get the same land rights as the human soldiers, everyone was paid in land, for the moment, as it was all they had) labor for the moment, Thomas wouldn’t complain.
Well, he would, as the company didn’t stop drilling or training. Besides everything else, they were practicing almost every military skill, except shooting, as ammunition was too dear for that. Men were even practicing bugle calls, both the ones for battle and the ones for everyday life. Which was a shame, Thomas had rather hoped he was done with reveille. He was proud of his service, proud of his actions, but that didn’t mean he liked being woken up by the blaring of a horn, though at least he, as a sergeant, no longer had to share a tent with Trip.
Respecting and even liking the man was a lot easier when you weren’t trapped in a tiny tent with him.
Robert’s one ‘request’ had been granted and the town meeting had gone further, formally adopting the Union flag as that of New Massachusetts. It didn’t make a lot of sense anymore, given the lack of any connection to the 13 original colonies, or the existing states, but it was a pretty flag and the goblins were fine with it, having no notion of flags, or larger loyalties beyond the clan. Robert himself had been off for the entire meeting, fighting Giant Vultures, apparently.
Thomas was pleased his old friend hadn’t been truly hurt, and no one was dead, so he didn’t feel guilty about feeling glad that the other man had been a little humbled. Having endured brutal training, marched across the country, done hard labor, fought in two battles, and died, Thomas felt he understood what Robert had gone through in the first two years of the war and so felt no particular guilt in saying that his old friend had become something of a humorless prig. A deeply admirable humorless prig, but a humorless prig nonetheless. Even this business of absenting himself, to avoid ‘undue influence’ over the process, was both deeply honorable and so condescendingly arrogant that Thomas wanted to use his newfound muscles to punch Robert squarely in the face…
Thinking of Robert, his mind flicked back to their new civilian leader. He wasn’t certain, he wouldn’t claim to be an expert on human facial expressions, let alone goblin ones, but he had thought Varrarg—Mayor Varrarg had looked extremely surprised, when at the end of the town meeting, the entire company had come sharply to attention and saluted her. She’d agreed to maintain their command structure when Robert finally returned (and hadn’t that been a nerve-wracking night, not knowing how Robert and Cabot were, given the message Lieutenant Rawlins had received), but again, seemed surprised by receiving the question.
Not as surprised as she was by the massive corpses which had been carried along behind them. Those birds were by far the largest flying creatures he’d ever seen, though they were surprisingly light. Hollow bones apparently, though the goblins were pleased to receive them and requested the beaks and skulls as well, as apparently they had lost goblins to such creatures over the years. Robert asked the Mayor if that was acceptable and she eagerly agreed. The larger feathers were likewise disposed of by being passed to the Mayor for distribution, trade, or use.
Robert did request the down be retained for bedding, which she casually agreed to and the meat was treated like any other hunted meat, which made Thomas a bit nervous, carrion birds did not seem like safe eating, but the ritual magics of purification seemed quite effective. None of the men had come down with anything, even the usual fluxes that were inevitable when moving to a new place. Thomas admitted he was jealous of the down pillows some men had received. Robert had insisted that they go to the men wounded in killing the vultures first, then to those wounded in other actions. Then he carefully checked and confirmed every man had a standard bedroll, which they did, and distributed the remainder first to those involved in the fight with the birds, then based on rank and seniority, which, alas, meant it had run out before it got to a new sergeant like himself. Indeed, despite their prodigious size, it had run out before it got to Rawlins, let alone the NCOs. But it had worked, besides acting as a reward, it meant men were keeping an eye on the sky, not in fear, but in hope for down pillows and bedding of their own.
She’d been even more surprised by the question about planning and operations had been met with delegation to Robert, for the most part, though she received the briefing of what was underway with a certain equanimity, which was impressive from such a small person.
The hunting parties were also scouting surrounding territory and they had a basic map of the area immediately around the settlement, but she did want to (or Robert suggested and she agreed, it was hard to tell) approve/order any military operations beyond standard patrols/hunting/sentries. And she formalized Robert’s position that they would not go into the Deep Dark, or mess with the river (except his sawmill, which wouldn’t be going into the river) without orders from her, given the horror stories they’d heard about both. She’d also given her one and only direct order, though it was phrased as a request, to prioritize finishing the door to secure the entrance to the Deep Dark. Robert saluted and agreed. Of course, any actual war, would need to be declared by the town assembly/meeting, but anything urgent, or standard operations were for her to set sideboards on, while Robert actually managed it all.
The next few days were busy, well, the entire time was busy, but they’d gotten the frame of the mill up (after appropriate prayers and blessings from the Chaplain for laying the first stones and timbers) and finished the mill pool and gates, which would create the still pool of water they could use to control the flow of water over the wheel and thereby the speed of the saw. To assuage Mayor Varrarg’s and Robert’s worries, Rawlins produced two heavy nets, each with metal anchors, which were stretched and anchored into place to prevent anything from getting in, or at least getting in easily. The gates worked properly, sliding smoothly in the wooden frame they’d put in place. He’d prefer something in stone and had many plans for improvement, but this only needed to last a few seasons.
Everything worked! The gate to the river was in place and with a few waves of his pointed finger, he opened a channel to the river, where it bent slightly, allowing a single line of water to run straight down into his pool...and soak into the ground. He signaled and the gates were open wider, speeding the flow, then cursed as it began to fill, but was still draining far too fast into the dirt and it sped out so fast that it was eating away at the sides of the channel and even part of the pond edge. He cursed again. This was why the mill ponds he’d seen were all lined with stone on the sides and bottom...but they didn’t have the stone, any mining on the massive mesa was banned as the goblins had riddled the thing with tunnels as much as was safe.
There was no nearby quarry, though the foothills across the river looked encouragingly stony. Thomas cursed to himself as he looked up. It was windy atop the mesa, he should have built a windmill atop it...damnation. He ordered the gate closed, which also worked like a dream, even if it had taken a lot of animal fat to grease the wood. He could dig down further, but from digging the wells, he was not optimistic about hitting bedrock or clay any time soon. Indeed, surveying their town for a clay base to make sure the saltpeter beds would retain their waste and properly transform had been annoying. Only at the edge had such a place been found and he didn’t know if [Mold Earth] would work on clay, it specified loose earth...he quickly made his way over to the edge, ignoring the stench of the somewhat covered urine pits and stripped off the covering earth of an adjacent area and pointed a finger. The ground shook, but didn’t shift.
He cursed again. Then thought for a moment, found a dozen men with entrenching tools and had them cut around the edge of the clay. It wouldn’t be fully loose, but it would be disconnected from the rest. He pointed, it shook more. He sighed heavily in frustration, then thought for another moment and realized he needed to narrow it down. The spell let him take up to a cube five feet on each side, which he’d tried automatically, as it was what he’d generally done. But the entrenching tools had dug down maybe a foot, not five. He pointed and narrowed it down to just the top six inches, and despite being stuck horizontally, it peeled off nicely, and flowed over the ground. He quickly stripped dirt off more clay in the area, until he got to the edge of the clay pit and put men to cutting squares, five feet on a side, while he dragged over thick slabs of clay and armored the sides and bottom of the pool.
The men grumbled a bit, and more when they all then had to go into the pit and smooth the clay together with hand tools and hands, but given that everything could be cleaned (except for themselves, as they rather exceeded its one cubic foot limitation, it was strange that rifles didn’t, they pointed out, but, it appeared to be going by volume rather than actual size) by any spellcaster with [Prestidigitation] and Thomas promised they could swim themselves clean in the pond once it was done, the men worked with a will. Before night fell, he was able to reopen the gates and the pond filled smoothly. A swim later, he pulled on his, once again, clean uniform and smiled. If nothing else, having a pond inside the walls, which was safe, would be a benefit.
Indeed, one of the other Wizards finally got to experiment with his [Frost Fingers] spell. Others had tried using spells which allegedly inflicted ‘cold’ damage on water, to try to produce ice, but only the [Frost Fingers] spell said it froze liquid and that proved to be true. Thirty seconds later, they had a massive block of ice to try to move...only to realize they lacked a good ice house and that given the ease of making more ice (though only one Wizard currently had the [Frost Fingers] spell), they shouldn’t waste time on making one now.
But he didn’t want it to be merely a source of water, so he looked back at the mill and the workings. The assembly would take many men, but not that much time, not with most of the company assisting, he was sure. He still needed Rawlins to make the actual blade and some of the gears, they would be iron and wood, so he should be able to do it quickly and efficiently. The wheel was almost done and he’d dug a deep pit after the second gate, so the water would come down from above and spin the wheel forcefully. The question was, how many gears did he want? A sawmill needed to move the blade up and down many times for each spin of the waterwheel, but it also needed enough force to cut through any wood they might put on it. The conversions would require multiple gears, as well as a connecting rod and shaft to convert the rotation of the wheel to the up and down motion of the saw.
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In a perfect world, he’d have additional connections would allow the wheel to also power the movement of the log into the saw. But for now, he’d rely on human power for that, a simple cradle, well greased and the soldiers could slice logs easily. That was simple enough, but there were a million other questions about the design, which he needed to finalize. How the men would move the logs around, the size of the logs it would take, both in length (which determined how many pieces a tall tree needed to be cut into by hand) and in girth (which determined which trees could be used at all).
The trees they’d gotten so far had been fairly small, being on the edge of the forest, where the ground turned to sand. It was surprising there weren’t willows, or other trees growing into the river, but perhaps this place didn’t have such? Or the monsters in the river kept it clear? Regardless, even a small cradle would work for the trees nearest the settlement, but the larger ones which were deeper in would need to be cut into many pieces to be brought in, especially given the lack of actual roads, or draft animals.
Perhaps those could be charcoaled in place? But Miss Silene was very worried about fire...well, that was a problem for Robert and the Mayor.
He made the final set of decisions and again asked Rawlins to prioritize his gears and sawblade as he prepared to finish the mill. Which meant he had to go see Rawlins. And his babies. Unfortunately, Rawlins was trying to get some of the goblins who were already caring for large numbers of goblin children to care for his babies as well. Which meant he went inside the mountain...which he wasn’t terribly comfortable with, until he saw the tiny goblin babies. They were so tiny it was insane. And adorable! He’d seen human babies, of course, held and cared for siblings and nieces and nephews, but goblins were just built on a smaller scale all over, so their babies were tiny. More like kittens, or puppies than the babies he was used to. Older children helped take care of younger ones, as were some adult caretakers, the Chaplain and a handful of human volunteers, teaching English and trying to teach them reading via the Bible.
To his surprise, this was the first place he’d been within the mesa that was lit without a human bringing in a lantern, or something with [Light] cast on it. Perhaps the younger goblins couldn’t see as well in the dark? The goblins were using a strange slightly glowing fungus and candles, probably made from animal fat, but those did give off some smoke that must be let out somehow—ah, there was a vent in a jagged corner that was the top of the cave, that wasn’t too bad. He wondered about seeing if they wanted someone to come cast [Light] for them, but that would be needed every hour...though the Ever Burning Torch would work...but it was being used at the guard post below...
The whole place was so warm that Thomas actually undid his uniform and the goblin children were clearly comfortable running around naked, squealing and chasing each other, throwing things and, for some of the older children were observing the older goblins who were working as they watched the children. He wasn’t sure why it was warm, and almost got distracted into looking into that, until he suddenly discoveredthat goblin women both had breasts and could breastfeed, but they were apparently only visibly distinct when actively producing milk. And that, as a result, goblin women had no sense that they should cover themselves. He looked away carefully as Rawlins made his case and the goblins looked with great dubiousness at a baby that was now larger than any of them and beginning to crawl with terrifying acceleration and speed. Babies the size of an 8-year old boy was a sort of horrifying notion in general, but babies the size of an adult person, which is what the goblins were facing was worse.
And unfortunately, though couldn’t speak, or really understand yet, despite growing at a prodigious rate. Indeed, as Thomas watched, one head finished chewing on a bone and hauled off and tried to whack the other head. Rawlins casually caught it, as if he was expecting it and rapped the bone against the attackers hand. “Naughty Abraham, don’t hit Sumner,” as that head burst into tears, Thomas twitched...were those really the names he had given them? ‘Abraham’ then reached out for the bone which was returned and gnawed on again. Sumner was also gnawing on a piece of wood, wrapped in bits of a uniform, apparently not hungry, though not enjoying the teething process and not even noticing his attempted bludgeoning. “See, you just need to be firm with them.”
The goblins looked at him with a certain amount of doubt, probably because they couldn’t understand him. But an almost grown goblin spoke up, repeating his words understandable to both. A male goblin nodded eagerly, but the others in the large cavern were not, especially as the baby started to crawl towards other, small children and had to be hauled back into place by Rawlins. It took a moment, but one of the older women gave a lengthy speech, which the translator translated as ‘they say no. Not unless they’re forced to.”
Rawlins sagged. The male goblin frowned, and poked his friend, “But we can watch them for you, sir! If it’ll help Merrik and me enlist?”
Rawlins frowned slightly, then shrugged, “You’ll have my support, but it depends on the Colonel and the Mayor.”
“We’ll do it!” there was a lengthy discussion of what the babies needed and where they’d be, then they headed off, herding the baby like sheepdogs, before Thomas could make his requests. Rawlins was willing to work a few extra hours, if Thomas covered for him with the babies. Not exactly what he was hoping for, but he’d take it.
Several working days (and one forced mostly day of rest) later, the mill was done. It was insanely fast. Without magic and a hundred hands to help, it would have been impossible. But the entire regiment turned out to see it. There wasn’t a real roof, or full building, but the gears were in place, and they’d been tested and a log had been heaved into the cradle, the saw was in place. It had cost 97 gold pieces for everything that he’d needed from Rawlins. If this didn’t work...he’d tested it, of course, but only by hand, spinning the wheel to watch the saw rise and fall. The regiment and the mayor were here to see it.
He took a deep breath and nodded to the man by the gate before the plunge down to the wheel and he moved the gate up, allowing a trickle of water through. The wheel began to turn, the saw began to go up and down, slowly. No one was impressed by that. The gate continued to open and the wheel sped up, until Thomas yelled for him to stop. It was fast enough. This wasn’t perfect, a modern mill could be controlled more centrally, with fewer people, but this would do for now. The log was already in the cradle, and had been fully debarked (the bark had been requested by some goblins, though he wasn’t sure why).
Two men slowly slid the log forward and sawdust began to fly as the blade slid through the wood without difficulty. First they sliced the log along one side, then pulled off about eight inches there, turned it and repeated the process on each other side. Within ten minutes, and that was working slow and careful, they had a thick central squared pillar, suitable for a major support beam in a reasonable structure. Twenty minutes later, the other portions were turned into long, 2 inch thick planks. They stopped several inches from the end, as they hadn’t fixed the log to the cradle and so were handling it with spike and hand, quite close to the saw.
But something which would have taken men days, and a large number of saws, was done with one saw and an hour. Thomas smiled so broadly his cheeks ached as he yelled for the gate to be closed. The pond hadn’t dropped that much, but he had it refilled as the boards were taken off to dry. All the time spent marking the cuts on the board in charcoal (the first batch, not particularly well done, but good enough for this purpose) had been worth it, the practice cuts using the saw as a handsaw which had shown his initial intention had flung sawdust up into the faces of the men guiding the log, rather than onto the floor, (okay, rocks and sand, but that was good enough for now, the next goal was a roof and walls to protect the mill workings, though the goblins said rain was unlikely for a few more weeks). They also needed places to keep the wood...he almost smacked himself in the face and went to talk to Varrarg.
They had an entire cave system, after all, most of which wasn’t in use. Easy solutions were easy. A warm dry place was best and would speed the drying and the goblins were fine with use of some of the corridors near the blacksmith (who was practically in love with the 54th as they’d provided him with so much more metal to work and new problems he could work on, as well as suggesting improvements to his anvil, there had apparently been some early disputes, but after the 54th’s own former smiths proved their skills, it was more friendly competition than insult) and their potters (who, he was interested to note, didn’t use kilns, so must have some alternate method of firing the pots), which, he belatedly noted was right below the floor the children were on, these were the source of the heat that let them run around naked.
He was impressed by the efficiency of the design of this place. Even as men grumbled about carrying the wood all the way up through the narrow corridors. In the long run, he thought they might want to punch holes out into the open, and set up cranes. They’d need long ropes to get all the way to the top, but at this height, only a hundred or two hundred feet would be needed. Usually it wouldn’t be worth bothering with something like that as there would be plenty of people to carry stuff, but that simply wasn’t the case here.
He laughed to himself, the goblins had become incredibly efficient with space, because they’d been so space constrained and now he was trying to make the humans more efficient with people, because they were so short. It was interesting. As was the goblin language, which he really needed to try to learn, though he hadn’t had time. The goblins he interacted with on the way up had managed enough english for ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘Stop,’ ‘Go,’ and, of course, the necessities, ‘Please,’ ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Hello.’ Personally, he thought it was worth it to teach ‘Good Morning,’ ‘Good Afternoon,’ ‘Good Evening,’ as those were much more polite, but he supposed since any of them were more than he could manage in their tongue, he should not complain overmuch.
As he was preparing to leave, a goblin did try to speak to him, but he couldn’t understand until the younger one who’d translated for Rawlins earlier in the week showed up and explained the goblin was hoping to trade for clay, as he’d seen men gathering it and mixing it with water and sand, testing the ratios for this clay to figure out what they could use to make good bricks. Thomas frowned and the goblin flinched. Thomas forced his face back to stillness, he wasn’t mad, he just hadn’t noticed it happening. It wasn’t a bad idea, if they could make bricks that would help too. The problem was...he didn’t know anything about that process. Some of the men must have worked at brickyards in their past, but he certainly hadn’t and it didn’t involve any of the machinery he’d studied, at least so far as he knew.
Still, he knew the answer to this question, “The clay deposit by the saltpeter beds are considered to be owned by the town, rather than by any individual, you’ll need to ask Mayor Varrarg, as I assume the men making bricks did,” he made a mental note to check with Robert, wouldn’t do to step over the line.
It was impressive the men had the energy for bricks, unless Robert had put them up to it, but then again, he’d been more energetic here than he had before. He’d put it down to the interesting puzzles, but perhaps it was another gift of the boxes? In fact, he was even more pleased when he realized it wasn’t just bricks, the men had made two earthen ovens, which were already firing, to let them make better use of the flour in their supplies.
He stopped by to talk to Robert, who was pleased with the result and agreed they needed to get everything under shelter quickly. Which meant they needed more boards, more shaped wood and something to actually roof the structures. The mill needed a real roof. They hadn’t found any slate yet, so that was out, as was asphalt, or copper. Tar was possible, but would compete with charcoal for their wood supply.Thatch, usually the fast, cheap choice wasn’t due to their lack of straw, or knowledge of local plants….a question for Miss Silene, perhaps?
And an excuse to talk to her...she wasn’t exactly modest in her dress or behavior, but she was so beautiful…but as the Bard said “beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.” Except...that wouldn’t be true, was it? She was centuries old, and would, as far as he knew, live as long as her tree. She would be beautiful far longer than he would be alive, barring some disaster...they really should do something to protect her tree from threats, that was the true route to her heart, not flattery, or dances, substance...
He shook off the thought, that left clay, or wood shingles, neither of which would be fast. Robert said that the plan for the bricks, once they’d been sun dried was to just get raw wood frames spreading out some tent fabric to protect them from the coming spring rains, which would ruin unfired bricks. They could do the same with the mill if need be, though it would mean more men would temporarily move into the caves, the goblins had plenty of space, even if much of it was so short that it would be deeply uncomfortable, but many areas were larger, as there were natural caves throughout, some had intermediate floors, but a shortage of materials prevented many. In the long run, they’d probably put in wood floors splitting up those taller caverns, unless they preferred to keep some open for humans? But it would probably be easier for humans to build up top, given the lack of lighting, in most places...
Yes, he could see more rising, even as he walked over to where the men must have gotten someone else to dig down to the clay, and were dumping dry stuff in, as men brought over buckets of water (wood, hand chopped and dried, mostly, while he’d been building his mill)which was being dumped in. They already had a couple of brick molds, lined with metal to make sure that it was not worn down from repeatedly being filled with clay and having the striker stick shove off any excess clay, before the brick was dumped out onto sand, brought up from the beach in massive piles (which was also mixed into the clay and used to keep the clay from sticking to the molds), which indicated someone else working with [Mold Earth] was helping.
The big delay was moving water, otherwise they were an efficient team. The wood buckets weren’t very efficient. He considered and asked. It hadn’t occurred to them to put in a closer well. Given the presence of the saltpeter bed, it couldn’t be used for drinking water, but it could work for this. He punched one in carefully and got out of their way. After two men almost fell in, they put up simple fences made of tree branches to keep people back. That hadn’t been an issue with the other well, but it was in almost constant use, given the number of people who needed water. But with the pond...he put a few men on it, before heading back to the mill and finding men just standing around, as they’d already cut all of the debarked trees.
Thomas spent most of the rest of the day sorting that out, as they were short on both tools and men to keep cutting trees down, delimbing them, skidding them to town, debarking them and cutting them to size. All the other bits of the process needed his attention as well, especially given their limited number of tools. If not for the axes they’d taken from the orcs, they would have needed a lot more tools from Rawlins, but even so, they didn’t have enough and massive war axes made poor debarking tools. So getting better tools from Rawlins was a high priority.
Even so, as he worked to streamline the process and fought with the men who were trying to prioritize finishing the road to the field, or who wanted to use trees and axes for the construction of log cabins (when none of the fools had even finished the foundations to their houses!) he felt himself smiling. Progress was being made, every day, towards something he could be proud of.
Sure, he hadn’t even managed to touch the plot of land allocated to him for his house, or see the plot of land allocated for his farming, but by the time he was ready, he was sure he’d be able to build himself the finest house in town and he’d have all the tools he needed...assuming he’d be allowed bricks and boards? He wasn’t quite sure how that was working, as they were paid in land. The men wanting to start construction were talking about cutting down trees in unclaimed areas, but he wasn’t sure about that either. Really, there were so many interesting problems, how could--
To his immense frustration, his problem solving was interrupted by a bugle call. Not one he recognized, which wasn’t unusual, their new buglers were...not good yet, even with diligent practice. Though they had gotten reveille down, so he hadn’t worked through the night, which was good, that hadn’t happened since back in Knox College...for a moment he remembered watching the fifth debate between Lincoln and Douglas while a student there, it had been impressive watching both men, masters of rhetoric, logic, sophistry and argument, knowing their every word was transcribed to be written up and transmitted, lie to one another and the audience. Watching Lincoln expressly saying that “in their right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ as proclaimed in that old Declaration, the inferior races are our equals,” had been a master class in joy and anger all wrapped in a single thing.
And Douglas...Douglas the compromiser, who owned a plantation in Mississippi and a hundred slaves...had rallied to Lincoln’s side in the end, when the Slave Power of the south finally overreached itself and attacked Fort Sumter. You could never truly understand another man.
The bugle sounded again, shaking him from his thoughts and he realized it was calling them to the top of the mesa. Another town meeting? So soon? He might have lost track of time, but it hadn’t been a month!
What in the world was going on?
