D.A.B. day 11
Crucial step
Screechy bird wakes us up and Reiley have learned how to salute the bird, and do so before she returns inside, leans the spear in the rack and hurries back up to our bed after making sure the coast is clear. I just want to stay in bed, and Reiley don't mind joining me. Through the dormer window and cliff gap it looks like a blue sky which Reiley confirm. I want to finish the work and make that furnace, so we can focus on other stuff and go exploring.
The high fields need lots more work, but the plan for the morning is to try that furnace to melt that axe head and steel knife. It will take hours and who knows how the weather might change. We can take turns using the blower and I will make parts for the toilet, shelves and chairs, and Reiley will work on bows and arrows. She's already made flint arrow heads and prepared fletching and sinew.
So after breakfast we load up and walk down to the furnace and charcoal mound in the jungle working area. We crack the mound open and there is plenty of good charcoal. We insert the bottom slag tray and place the crucibles in the furnace and fill up with coal, as much charcoal as we can since we're going to need the heat to reach high steel melting temperature inside those crucibles. Then we seal the top with dried mud pieces from the charcoal mound and more mud. Not pretty, but should work. We light the furnace at the entrance in the bottom, and after the fire has caught, we start using the big blower that force air in from below. There are quite a few streams of smoke we have to smear mud at to seal, but it seems to work.
Then it is just work with either operating the blower or other projects, which is tiring. So we focus on getting the furnace run right. Honestly, I am less fit than Reiley, and I don't want to show it, so I know I will be extra sore. But this is my project and damn important. If there are iron in that creek and I can extract it, I'll need to melt it too, so this might not be the only time we do this. I sure would like to make some water wheel blower, but it is just a few hours of hard work that might not happen again, so I should just suck it up. At least this is basically quiet work and we can be attentive of our surroundings.
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The furnace have basically burned out, but is far to hot inside. I don't even have gloves or proper tools to lift the crucibles out, so we have to leave them for now. They sure glow yellow white down there, and that is a lot of heat as I poke at them and clear away the fire residue from around them. The slag tray in the bottom glows very yellow too, so that might not be reusable. But its most there to make cleaning out easier, and if a crucible broke, there was something to hopefully catch the steel.
Reiley have done really good work on two bows and about two dozen arrows, half of which have small flint tips. As Reiley tended the blower in the end, I practised with the arrows that have fire hardened tips. Reiley was trying hard to not smile and gave helpful hints, but shooting a bow is difficult. She understood I would suck, and added a small arrow shelf and small strings to the sinew string to make consistent nocking easier. At least I have a ranged weapon, even though the range is 'short'. It might not be good for dinosaurs, but for hunting small game or against people it is far better than nothing, although I am a bit worried that some bastard will know how to make black powder or something and have made a musket or rifle. Some people have been here more than 70 days, and who knows if others have been here even longer. That feels so damn unfair, you damn alien bastards!
I know black powder is saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal but not the concentrations, and I know what sulphur and charcoal is, but saltpeter? Something about blessed Bishops urine? Or was that a cure for some sickness? And how the hell will I get sulphur here? Then I won't have enough metal for firearms. Even a handful of buckets of those bacteria slime probably won't be much more than a knife, and dozens of buckets for an axe. Any handheld firearm I could make would suck more than a bow, and be far slower to fire.
Actually, I kind of want a powerful crossbow instead. With a sight. A crossbow is surprisingly a new concept for Reiley, although she did learn about it from other people in her old camp, and she is eager to try to make a powerful one, and try different strings. Both from sinew and cords.
Anyway, we dig up plants to plant on the high field, and bring the finished stuff up to the hut and then continue up to the high fields with our tools, plants and the sundial. So much work to do.
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We can see showers of rain closing in so we hurry down to the furnace and collect the crucibles. Still damn hot, but we crack them open and carry the metal pieces between hardened mud, and we make it back before it starts to rain. This is definitely a rain forest, and Reiley is surprised how much it rains here at the coast as it rained far less in the valley. As I light the forge and kiln, and we prepare a meal, I explain about rain shadows and prevailing wind. She understands and remember some of it from her old life, but living in the inland far from the sea and big lakes, rain wasn't that often. She is used to a rainy season and a long dry season, and have only heard tales about ice and snow. Considering the heat, the jungle and we're heading for the summer, she is unlikely to see ice and snow here. Unless there are high mountains inland and we travel there. Honestly, for her camp and Manous and others having been here for more than two months and the high valleys seem spared from large dinosaurs, they sure haven't been trying that hard to explore. They never really tried to ascend the highest mountain to see the area around them, and the only real exploring they did were downstream since they wanted to find the sea and get salt. It's one thing to be focused on surviving the first weeks, and they found big dinosaurs downstream - but still. They didn't have big dinosaurs up there and they were that many people, so they should have after 70 days. They might have seen smoke from another camp like those raiders or something.
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I'm very happy with the metal pieces from the crucibles, and heat them up again in the forge. The rain will at least help dampen any noise, but since I'm using rocks on metal instead of metal on a metal anvil and metal sledge, there is far less noise and no high metallic 'tink'. It really suck to use wooden clamps and stone as tools, but it is all I have, and as I shape the blade it feels good that I made the crucible mold as I did, and I also hammer out a simple compass needle from a cut-off.
I mark a north-south line on the floor and place a shallow bowl on top. In the bowl I place a piece of dried clay with a narrow V shape, and line the V up with the north-south line. The plan is to fill the bowl with water so the bottom of the V is in water, and heat up the compass needle to orange hot before dropping the needle in the V shape, so the needle quench in water while being lined up with that north-south line. Once that is done, I bind a thin thread around the balance point in the middle, hold it up and move around. It works even though it takes time to stabilize, and it means I now have a compass. But I need accuracy, so I need degree markings. I take the prepared small round wooden cone shaped disc and push the needle through the hole going horizontally through the cone and middle, and fasten with a bit of melted tree sap and string, so the needle is in the middle with a bit of wood underneath to level the disc. Yes, it works! Then I mark degree headings all around the disc edge and burn them in with a heated edge. By holding the compass in the string and letting it settle, I can sight the twine over a distant feature, and look at the disc to get a heading. Hardly a really accurate compass, but better than nothing. Sure I have my smart watch, but if there is accomplishments to unlock I don't want to cheat more than I have too. Those damn alien bastards probably won't count it if I do. Reiley is really fascinated by this project, and a compass is a new invention for her.
The small file saves time and I make sure to save the metal shavings, but in the end we just sit there and grind and grind the axe and knife blade against stones to sharpen them. Since iron is so highly valued in Reiley's culture, I haven't told her why I want to collect that orange slimy water as I don't want to get her hopes up, but I hope there is enough iron in that creek for a couple of knives, compasses, another axe or two, a hammer, a file and a drill. A proper chisel, awl and planer blade would be nice too. Hopefully there is enough iron in slime settled in the bottom mud. Extracting it will be a bit of a chore.
Reiley just loves doing this work that is so advanced, and we might be two people taken from our lives and trapped on a planet with dinosaurs trying to eat us and alien people trying to kill us - all for the amusement of Damn Alien Bastards playing Gods - but as far as Reiley is concerned this isn't a bad life. We have water and food, and she is in a good home with a 'rich' man that gives her wonderful sex. I'm even teaching her to do advanced crafts, math and science. She have learned a lot from just watching me building this hut, the furniture and doing the joints.
Next is heat treatments. It won't be properly done as I just have water, but I do the best I can. Once the blades have gone through the heat treatment cycles Reiley start to sharpen them while I make the axe handle. It takes a bit of time to get the right shape and feel, but eventually I hammer on the axe head and add the wedge to lock the head in place. Yeah, this isn't a big axe, but I sure am proud of it. I add the wood handles for the knife and wrap it in leather, and in the end I have two proper steel tools. I just need to make a wooden sheath for the knife and there is enough leather scraps. We need more leather, and Reiley think she have smelled bark and leaves that will work for tanning, and we have salt.
I really hope that is iron bacteria in that creek and I can make an iron knife and give it to Reiley. It feels wrong that I now have my small multi-tool, this steel knife and steel axe and that red Star Fall spear.
Although I have that lump of weird brass alloy to make a knife from.
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We work until we loose light and have to wait until the morning to assemble the last stuff and empty the kiln. It might not be raining outside but the dark clouds makes it darker than it should. It's not safe to go down, but we both need to pee and poop, so we leave the hut, climb down the ladder and follow the trail a bit before doing what we need while the other keep watch. We're on our way back when we hear bad sounds, so we hurry back as we hear screeching, roars and angry honking below us. Very very bad sounds and uncomfortably close, so we hurry up to the hut. As we secure the ladder we see four of those horse size predator dinosaurs eating one of those grazing dinosaurs just a bit this side of the rocky knoll on the beach. Guess they all survived Tiola's last stand. It's a gruesome vision and we hear crunching, tearing, munching sounds from this distance.