Tosra & The Auction, day 15
3 days later
Attic & Games
I compliment Caecilia who together with farmhand Hrappr and the new maid Ida have done a good job of traveling around to the neighboring islands and the mainland to buy and transport all the animals, and Caecilia was proud to report that it all went well, and that there is now a man from the King in Lysesund who will take care of all the custom dealings things there.
As a start, I now own 27 chickens, 5 geese, 8 pigs, 13 sheep, 4 goats, 5 cows and an ox, which is funny as I've avoided having even a cat before, as animals would make traveling harder. It still don't feel like I own a cat, as well... its a house cat and they're more like a being living with a human in a symbiotic relationship. The humans feed, pat and give the cat someplace to be warm and comfortable, and the cat lets us do it. But Krosp likes me. Especially after giving him that Cat tree. Most of the animals are relatively young, while some are quite old, but we have had to take what we can. There is room for more, especially when the future barn is built. My idea of how much space a cow or pig needs is of course oversized, and even if they tried to show me, I added a margin to my drawings. A fairly large margin.
The animals will stay outside most of the winter if it doesn't become too cold, and as we live along the coast on a small mountainous island it shouldn't be that cold, not compare to inland which gets far colder. But Hrappr and Ida take care of the animals so there is nothing I or my sambos need to do, and it is Idas task to let out and take in the chickens, to fetch the eggs, milk and so on, and she also helps out in the kitchen and collects sap every evening as well, and it has gone really well. Elvira and Jalida protect their own servant duties, because of course there is already ranks between the maids, and the new maid who is a born free woman should have higher status than those who are free necks, but that is compensated by the fact that Jalida and Elvira are my free neck maids.
I have given strict instructions to wash their hands, with soap, after handling the animals and scrubbing the eggs before taking them into the kitchen, and of course before they touch food and meat. I have generally given instructions on hygiene, cleaning and washing clothes etc. I should put a tap on the outside of the basement to be able to get water without walking inside, but there is a well near the barn that has the direct tapping option so it is possible to pump up water and wash off the worst without going inside. I'm also a little worried that an external basement faucet will freeze so I may have to make an 'interesting' solution sometime in the future.
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Iselin and I take another break from our work to inspect the latest crucible making, and that it actually is crucible steel when the crucibles are cracked. I tried to keep the guards and others away from the mansion while Iselin and I were doing some work, and making more crucible steel has kept them busy. It was quite easy to explain why it was important to keep it secret and protected, and they have managed to make the largest amount of crucible steel to date. They still don't know details such as why the crucible exists, or how I prepared the contents, but I can let them do the work of the smelters. As they see it, it is turning iron to steel by binding sejd into it, and it is for making weapons, and that seems to appeal to their warrior side.
After a quick cleaning at the barns waterpump, Alith follows along as we go for another walk across the island. I like to go for a walk with Iselin, but it almost always feels too official, where I as the ruler with my consort go and judge the work of the proletarians. I love that we are a couple, but I miss the feeling when we walked around at the end of the first trip, or in the beginning in Borgarsandr. When no one cared about us.
The farmhand and a few of the workers have been good at building fences, so the cliffs towards the strait have got a couple of decent pastures and paddocks. It is not the easiest terrain to build a fence in, but now it is done, and our animals seem to like it. Their next project is the pastures up in the forest so that the pigs can dig up the ground for future fields. That will be more work for less area.
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As we return, Caecilia is pleased to report that carpenter Engdrid has completed the covers for my workshops power lines, and she has supervised him during the whole installation. It looks nice, and feels good that the power lines are protected. Sure it is not 230V AC, but it still feels better and prettier.
It was annoying to have to charge tablet etc at the battery bank, where I can not use it at the same time, and it is only a matter of time until I will build more things that require access to electricity, or just doing work with electricity. So I took the time to draw power to my workbench, and it was a good lesson for Iselin. It also feels a little more modern. Quite easy work as I justed use insulators to streach a couple of copper power lines, with their own primitive iron fuses and main switches at the battery bank, to two separate outlet boxes at my workbench, one on each side of the south window. Bare power lines arn't practical, so we also made terminal blocks in brass to get two 12V sockets with a separate earth ground wire in each outlet. Then I installed the rebuilt Car Adapter USB with its two USB sockets. It looks quite good and modern with the recessed USB sockets and 12V sockets, and it absolutely makes it easy to charge two different things at the same time, such as mobilephones, my tablet, MP3 player, camera batteries, battery banks etc.
I would like to add the quick charger in my study at the other end of the house, but its a bit of a hassle. The tablets battery lasts a long time, so it is no problem to read PDFs or look at images, or just play some Doom 2, Xonotic or simple old racing games or emulators for something like pinball, Arkanoid, Bubble Bobble or Super Mario. The problem is when it is something like OpenTTD, Starcraft, Heroes of Might n Magic 3 or FreeCiv...
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Then it easily becomes a bit more than just 20-30 minutes. Or if Iselin looks on or tries to play. Two player Bubble-Bobble on a tablet keyboard is hard, but not as hard as Iselins look at me for making it seem so easy while the damn bots in Xonotic keep killing her, or she falls to her death and I fail to keep a straight face. Ciara is terrible at playing everything but isn't really interested in even trying, but she likes some of the music, like Bubble-Bobble. Just explaining a 3D game engine is hard, but Iselin eventually understands it involves a lot of math, that the computor does very very fast. Showing the simple model of the mansion in Sketchup and making a copy of a 6x4m house completely fascinates them.
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I sit and chat with Iselin and Ciara about work on the mansion. It feels good that the floors have been finished in the main rooms and corridors. Another thing making life here feel slightly better, prettier and more modern. It was only for a few days, and I and either Iselin or Ciara have been able to 'inaugurate' a couple of other rooms. But it is 'crowded' in the wing, and I have seen more of the staff than usual.
We talk about the attic conversion and explain how I'll install power lines and add junction box for the signal wires under the stairs while it is being built, and prepare a space for a small secondary battery bank, if we ever need it.
Exactly what will be built or how the attic will be divided is not completely decided yet, but the space will be separated from my bedroom attic. That security door is moved to the guards attic room so they have a secure way out into the attic that is hidden to avoid attracting attention, and can only be opened from the guards side. Its normal lock and handle will be removed. The food supply on the north side seem to work well, and will be kept as they are.
My plan is to make a hidden crawl space in the uninsulated space outside and past the food stores to the northeast attic above my bedroom. This means that the escape route continues to work even if I have to crawl on all fours, and Alith clearly prefers that. I can also arrange the hidden doors to the crawl space myself, and the northwest attic space will continue to be a large storage space for me. After insulation it will be about 18m² and 2m ceiling space on the inner part and about 70cm towards the courtyard. To make it more pleasant to store things in, that space will be divided in two at one roof truss and become an 11m² room with the attic windows facing the courtyard, and a 7m² corner storage room with the small window on the gable and the door to the antenna mount.
I could expand so my bedroom attic to be twice as big, but I hardly use the space I have, and I see no reason to do so. It is impractical as a study, and the only way to reach the room is from my bedroom attic due to the escape route in one corner behind the chimney. Caecilia would certainly have loved to have it as her bedroom, but I do not want her or anyone else sleeping there. They have to go through my bedroom, and then it won't really feel like my room anymore.
Since the is a lot of work going on in the attic, there will also be a water tank installed above the secret passage, because I have realized that it would be extremely practical with a small toilet instead of the walkin closet in my bedroom and I have already prepared the drain there. For some reason it tends to be 'sticky' and 'messy' in my bedroom, and just a sink and something like a bidet where it is also possible to pee, would be so very practical. The secret passage is great for hiding pipes and drain in, although of course that means I have to do all the work myself to keep it a secret, but I can live with that.
It will probably only be a large open room in the attic for the near future of about 14x4m, with a small room under each attic window on the south side. The space in the southwest corner of the attic, which already has a larger window on the gable, will also be built like a real room, and should be quite nice where three beds in a row can fit along the low side. Its more practical with a separate room that is accessed from the main attic, than extra space for the guards who already have a lot of space. It is only if we ever have eight guards, or more, that there will be talk of expanding their spaces, and their space will then be expanded to the northwest storage. To limit the amount of people and people moving about in the main building, future guards will probably have a room on the wing attic.
I still don't want servants or others sleeping in the main building attic, but it is stupid to not be prepared if space is needed. My plans have gradually proven to be more and more wrong. I want and will need to keep the guest rooms on the ground floor vacant, as we have significantly fewer than I expected.
The large attic room initially gets a sofa, and a small table with a few chairs in front of the main window. The attic will be a calmer meeting place or game room.
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During work breaks from the other jobs, we have made D6 dices in wood that are well balanced and with rounded corners. I built a couple of tools and templates to help me make them 90 degrees and made ten D6 dices, and we filled in their markings with different colors to separate them. Two black, two blue, three red and three white. I have also made two D20s, but fucked something up, because they do not look good, so I will have to redo them along with preparations for D10s. Ciara and Bodil liked to participate in this, but it got a little crowded in my workshop.
Bodil got the Ludo game finished, so in the evening with new dices we inaugurate it. Easy to learn and pure chance unlike chess. Some appreciate games of chance, others more thinking games. Personally, I think Ludo is a waste of time, but it is appreciated that four can play at the same time and it is something to pass the time. It is not appreciated when some gang up, but what can one do? If Hillevi is stupid enough to suggest playing for extra night duty, and doesn't realize that the other two can win by ganging up on her, then she only have herself to blame. I just laugh and tell her to accept it, learn a lesson and move on.
In any case, everyone gets an interesting short lesson in how I prove that the dice are very fair and well balanced by floating them in water, and also by statistics. If she complains about unfair dice, Hillevi also have to live with the fact that she has volunteered to collect statistics. It will give her something to do tonight, as she will sit for hours and roll thousands of dice and record the results, but she can use one dice of each color in the same roll, which will make it slightly faster.