D.A.B, day 15
Ironman
The refilled charcoal mound is getting hot, but as the furnace reach high temperature and the flames stand up in the open top, I focus on that. When the furnace has started to burn down a bit, I stop using the blower and pour on dry reddish powder and add a bit more charcoal. Then I use the blower for a few minutes and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. I have more than 3kg of red powder to burn through. There is just a few short breaks to seal the air vents and the top of the charcoal mound. If this works we're going to need that charcoal. Reiley silently keeps watch as she works on a new and improved crossbow. I think she is starting to suspect what I'm doing as the only time this furnace have been used was for melting iron, although the sand in the crucible is a weird thing too. It's a cloudy day and I like that it is not as warm as it often is, as working the furnace is warm and tiring enough. We have to abandon this if it start to rain, but that might always happen. We're in total agreement that we will stay up high if it rains; in the hut, on the cliff workspaces or on the ridge. If it looks to be rain we will try the flower powder on meat by the river.
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Eventually all the powder have been added and the charcoal has burned down. Now comes the interesting part. The glass crucible will have to slowly cool, and I sort of forgot that, but if it cracks, it cracks. We'll still be able to see if it is glass like, and it will be good to know if re-melting glass works well.
I remove unburned charcoal and inspect everything I take out for metallic sheen. I should definitely let these cool before touching, but.... YES! They're tiny and look like solder beads, but that is metal. YES! There are a few beads and larger lumps stuck in the coal, but I collect them before discarding the rest. Eventually I take out the slag tray in the bottom, and I'm still surprise that the tray have survived this far. Very hot though with plenty of slag, so I move a piece over to my sorting tray and look closer. YES! So many small wonderful beads! I carefully pick away a few beads with a sharp pointy stone as I don't want to use my steel knife on the slag. I blow on the small beads so I don't burn my hand, and then hold them up towards Reiley.
"Is that..? " Reiley just gives me a completely unbelieving face, and I can't help but smile.
"Yes. That should be iron. I didn't say anything as I wasn't sure and didn't want to disappoint you, but that should be iron beads. Just look at the amount on this piece of slag!" I show and Reiley have a wonderfully awed, but still that unbelieving, look. "I suspected that orange slimy sludge was what humans call iron forming bacteria. There is tiny tiny pieces of different metals and other things all around us in nature, far too small for us to see or feel, but tiny tiny simple organisms that humans call bacteria lives on all kinds of things, and there were probably millions in each pot as we fill them. There are bacteria in the soil, and trees. Everywhere. You have bacteria all over your skin and in your stomach. They break down food into tiny parts that your body needs to survive. That is part of how the stomach works, and I've seen your red blood from cuts and scrapes. That red colour is partly from iron in your blood. Your body needs a tiny bit of iron and other metals to survive, and what is part of why blood have that weird metallic taste. You also have copper, zinc and other metals in your body. Anyway, as a by product some of all the tiny bacteria on Earth concentrate iron in their waste product. They basically poop iron oxide, also called rust. The orange-red colour was probably a small part iron oxide. By firing it really hot, it turned back into iron."
"You can make iron from blood?!" Okay, I didn't think about that line of though.
"If the blood is red you probably can, but all the blood in one of those huge dinosaurs might have less iron than to make a knife."
"But you can make a iron knife from Dragon blood?!"
That would actually be damn cool to say: This is my knife made from Dragon blood!
"We could try to extract a tiny amount along this same principle if you really want too, but lets try the creek first okay? Far less gruesome, smelly and safer." Reiley nods, still just awed. "Honestly, there might be far more concentrated iron where this creek flows from, but it might also not. Like I said, the are tiny amounts everywhere in nature. Where I come from the nature have bogs, and this type of bacteria forms iron pieces that might be quite big. And they regrow over a generation. That was how most iron was harvested for more than a thousand years. But lets see how much this collection and burn got. I need to crush this slag in the mortar and really sort it very carefully."
Extracting the beads takes time, but eventually I have quite a little cup filled with it. Maybe 100 grams? So yeah, not that impressive if I want a proper axe, but considering the amount of work put in, how much orange slime there still is in that water and soil, and how valuable this will be? Yeah. This is damn nice, and will be enough for a knife. We will need to collect so much to make the tools and axes I want. We need to make a bunch more filtering pots.
Still, work is not done and I need to forge this. To make that easier I need to melt all the beads together. I have no idea about the carbon content, but considering this was melted in a charcoal fire there might be more than enough already, or too much. So I just pour it into one of the prepared 'blade' mini crucibles and seal it up as I describe what I'm doing, and why. The seal will need to dry before burning, and we clean up the work space and collect more plants before heading up. Time to work the fields a bit before starting a kiln firing.
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As we start yet another kiln firing the mood is high, and as usual we talk and try practising the occasional signs. Which gives me another idea, and after I've feed the kiln, I give Reiley a kiss.
"Reiley, close your eyes when I close mine. Only using your hands, try to feel what I sign."
"Okay."
There is still that weird unsynchronized but pretty Swedish-Irish voice as I see her lips move. Those damn alien bastards could mess with translations however they want. But I don't think they can't do anything about movement and feel. And it might be a way to communicate they can't snoop on without external cameras everywhere. So we stand close, and I slowly sign: 'I', 'Love', 'You'.
Reiley gives me a kiss and I can feel her wide smiling lips. She taps my hands and indicate I should feel her sign: I', 'Love', 'You'. I give her a kiss. Reiley taps my hand and I feel her sign: 'Wall', 'Sex', 'From behind'.
She don't have to sign me twice, so I kiss her, push her against the front wall as I caress her neck and back. Reiley is digging in my pants and releasing my very willing manhood, and I just push Reiley around so she's facing the wall and looking outside.
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Reiley disturb the silence by making a deep sigh and saying: "We need to check the kiln."
I look at the watch, and she is right. The sex against the front wall was just the start of a fairly wild tour of our hut, and we ended up having sex on or against most furniture in our hut before making our way up, and after a short moment on the stairs we ended up in bed. And we didn't use an intestine condom. It is so much better without one of those terrible things.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
"You're right. As usual."
"I loved your idea. Very intimate and honest. And in the future, lets skip the condom. Whatever will happen, will happen." Yeah, we should check the kiln, but a couple of minutes more shouldn't make that much difference. Reiley continue speaking: "Tomorrow is the last day before the start of a new week. If the weather is fine, we should explore the high inland from the ridge. Even with the wind in our back we can start to dust with flowers in front of us."
"Well it might rain, but yeah, lets try to explore. We will just be careful and stick to uneven high ground with good visibility. It's more likely we find those smaller vicious dinosaurs that you are used too, than big ones. We have to explore sooner or later, and it is the last day of this week."
"You think you will get a Vision next Pillars of light?" Reiley's worry is clear in her voice.
"No. It might be that the Spirits don't approve of my view of them, but it might as well be that it simply don't work and is broken. Nobody is perfect and stuff break. Shit happens. Humans have a term called 'percussive maintenance', which is a nice way of saying 'hit it if it doesn't work'. It's usually a bad idea, but sometimes it does fix glitchy wonky crap, so maybe I should bang my head against the wall to see if that makes it work."
"NO! Don't hit your head!" Reiley gives me a very serious look, as she don't get that I'm partly trolling the damn alien bastards to give me something to prove me wrong.
"I'm just kidding. Sure, the 'gift of understanding' works, but maybe my vision never did. We're all different people so it might be too hard to get it right every time. You've only meet a few people and it all worked for them - or so they claimed. You said that some of them didn't want to say what their vision was - which might be true as keeping it secret can be an edge. But maybe they didn't have a vision and didn't want to seem unblessed or unworthy, and were afraid to be thrown out of camp or something."
"Oh, I didn't think about that." Reiley is silent before continuing. "That... would explain some things."
"There is also a bias. If visions really make a huge difference in survivability, you're far more likely to meet someone that have useful visions that helps keep them alive. Someone without a vision is more likely to die. So you meet the survivors. Honestly, I do fine without vision so far, and I'm not worried. At least I'm not reliant on some vision that might just break and stop working when I really need it."
"That is also true."
Take that you damn alien bastards! "It's a bit like Star Falls. Yes, those bottles or the spear is very good and valuable, but if you can make an object yourself and you loose the object, you're likely to be able to replace it. Anyway, let's check that kiln."
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The day is long and we make sure to feed the kiln as I do more pots and Reiley finish the improved crossbow, bolts and arrows, although I do the trigger and safety mechanism. I've never really thought about how truly important pots are when you don't have other materials, although the glass crucible did produce glass looking material. It is just terrible glass with plenty of bubbles. I've seen glass blowing as that was a huge thing in Southern Sweden, and there still are places that do it, so I know that glass is very viscous even as liquid, which means air bubbles might have a hard time rising. We will probably have to do dedicated glass burns, and just keep the furnace warm for hours upon hours. We really need to do a proper furnace and kiln in the cliff work area. And make that proper path across the lower cliff top from our roof door. And build the extra room slash balcony. It will be good for stuff like fermenting berries as that smell is annoying. As usual Reiley wants to hear tales from my world and life, and I indulge her as long as I feel the subject is safe. I avoid war and weapons, but she is more interesting hearing about technology, and even simple technology is like magic for her.
"It might just be me thinking in technology, but Humanity is actually advanced enough that we have made something similar to the 'gift of understanding' and 'visions', and in a way all the needed technology is in both of those mobile phones I have. Humans could just make a specialized smaller version and implant it. Although we would probably use spectacles for another decade or two, and maybe forever. We could implant something like it right now, but there is so many issues, and it is just easier to service, replace or upgrade by having it as a stand alone kit. If you loose it or break it, you just replace it with a spare, as it might not be worth to repair it and it just takes too long."
"Like replacing a chipped stone knife with a prepared one."
"Yes." I wonder how much Reiley really understands, but my talk is mainly aimed at the damn alien bastards.
"There is a lot of cool stuff you could make with the right technology and enough information, like my smartwatch or like this 'gift of understanding'. Humans do something similar since we have thousands of different languages, so even though many learn one of the larger and more common languages, many don't or isn't fluent enough, and there are many large languages. So a very advanced machine called a computor listen or read and turn it into text in the computors memory, translate the text, and read it up in the new language or show the translated text overlaid as we hold the mobile phone over written text. But there is so much more you can do, and most human kit have radios - that is that wireless thing I told you about - so you don't have to be close. I should be able to say something like 'Phone Reiley' or 'Radio Reiley', and then we could talk like now, but you could far from here. Maybe on the other side of the world."
"That sounds amazing! I really wish we could do that."
"Yeah, it's very practical and change how people interact and how information flow, and maybe we will get a similar gift. But there is also downsides. You might be able to 'sense' other chosen from far away, without them ever knowing, or track someone who cannot hide. There is all kinds of use, if you are creative enough. Some of them are very bad, but you don't blame the tool. A knife is very useful for everyday life, or it can be used to murder someone. The tool isn't bad or responsible - the wielder is."
"You don't give a too young child a knife. You have to teach them to respect the knife and that it is a responsibility."
"Exactly. But if you give a too young child a knife, or someone you know will murder or kill with it, or just torture animals, you're partially responsible for what happens."
"In my culture, we force them into the wilderness or might hang those people if it was bad enough."
Take that you Damn Alien Bastards!
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We stand naked in the light evening rain as we help each other get clean. I stand behind Reiley as I give her back shoulders and hair a thorough and sensual wash, and I enjoy feeling and hearing Reiley enjoy it. Our sensual moment is just disturbed by occasional disagreement and threatening sounds from the scavengers digging into the carcass and meat on a stick below, which makes us glance down on them. It feels weird how common and accepted part of the background that have become after two weeks here. I wonder how the sanctuary flower test will go. We might have to do another test once that carcass is gone.
"Your deeds have earned you a gift, and a star is falling."
What the hell was that voice?! Wow. I just saw orange light falling in a cool animation, even after quickly closing my eyes.
"A Star Fall... Arne! Star Fall!"
Apparently Reiley got it too. I look up and around, but can't see any light. "Where?"
"It will soon fall! I got the vision!"
"Reiley; I too heard a voice saying my deeds have earned me a gift, and a star is falling, and then I saw an orange light animation."
"You did?" Reiley is smiling from ear to ear and give me a kiss, as we look around, and soon Reiley points: "There! Green Star Fall!" I look in the direction Reiley is pointing and in the weak evening light and rain, the light gently falling down through the clouds and getting stronger is very noticeable.
"That is not green. It is blue. And it looks to fall up on the ridge not far from here."
"It will be dark soon, but the night should be bright enough to move around."
"Well, we've never seen even small dinosaurs tracks on the ridge, but it is raining, and we've seen flying dinosaurs landing on cliffs during rain or flying close to the ridge. They don't seem to attack people, but might if we get too close or scare them, and their teeth look vicious and might give infected wounds. The clouds and rain should make that light less visible than during a clear sky, but it will lure any Chosen in the vicinity. You said it will continue to glow on the ground?"
"Yes, for at least a day but maybe more. We'd always found them within a day."
"That is rocky thick jungle and will be easier to find in the dark than day. Shit! Memorize which direction it lands!" I took of the my smart watch to shower, so I rush in to find my compass, and as I hurry out the Star Fall is still visible but getting low and we're just about to loose it over the cliffs blocking our view towards the ridge. I take a heading from my compass. And I repeat the heading twice and have Reiley say it too.
"We should try and get it, and then just try to stay hidden and look for any other person that comes searching for it from afar. The night can be dangerous and it is raining. Try to get a few hours of sleep and get up and find it before dawn when hopefully it isn't raining?"
"Sounds better and safer."
"Okay. Time to try and sleep for a few hours."