I woke up from a dream where I was drowning in a data lake. It glowed green because... why not? Belle was knocking on the door and barged in.

"Sandra, you asked to wake you up before dawn. Are you up? Is there a problem?"

I sat up in my nightgown and the freckled girl covered her eyes. "No. I just had a nightmare. It is fine. Thank you, Belle. Is there any problem?"

She peeked through her fingers, "Your clothes."

I giggled. "Oh. These? Quite comfortable as the heat is unbearable even during the night. I'm up."

I glance through the open shutters. Tones of orange threaten to devour the stars on the eastern side of the sky. Time to get the day started.

My early morning ritual was blessed by slightly cool water. I put on my training clothes, a dry-fit solar-blocking pink and white shirt and a black spots bra on top, cargo pants and sneakers below. Despite the nightmare, I was feeling absolutely fine and well-rested. I used the latrine holding my breath, as usual and sighed. I learned that once a week, a wagon comes to collect the night soil. You pay them one bronze mina and they empty the septic pit. I don't even know how I should call it. It is just a hole under the latrine filled with... whatever falls down the latrine. There is a side opening that goes through the structure, a gap they left in the building that ends in a chimney. The wind pulls most of the stench out through that pipe and not back to the latrine.

This afternoon I am building a septic tank to dispose of that. Maybe even a flushing toilet. But for that, I need to make concrete and to make concrete I need a rock crusher. We can crush rocks with a mallet but I predict a lot of building. So it is time to hit the smithy before going to training. I nab some grilled sausages and fresh bread at the kitchen and eat my breakfast washed down by some tangerine juice Belle-Sunu squeezed.

"Oh, Belle. These tangerines, they are not for eating. Well, at least not straight. I want you to look out for the sourest ones and keep their seeds. A fruit merchant should come to deliver thirty-seven bags. I expect him to be grumpy and to give me lots of very sour fruit. Sour, not spoiled. Check if the fruit is fresh and store the bags in my room. I don't care about the smell, I find it quite pleasant."

Maybe even get better at Decomposing so I can extract essential oils with my power. The freckled cook nods.

"Penny-Gu is already being saddled. Your mare is as sweet as her name sounds, isn't she?"

I finish chewing, "Penny? Yes, she's lovely. Well, gotta run. Oh, take a crate of salt and a barrel of water to my room as well. I'll need them."

"Will do, Sandra."

"I'll also leave the devices for Aristunn to set for me. Remind him to keep them always under the sun and keep a watch over them."

She nods. I'm worried about leaving my charger and battery out and away from my hands as my devices depend on them to run but I need to charge them. So all I can do is trust the people I have. I wash down my food with the rest of the juice and go to the stables. It seems that Lah-Ueri will be my escort today.

"Morning, old prospector," I salute him.

There's no word for 'prospector' so I call him 'ore-finder' in Akkadian. The veteran miner smiles.

"I heard the Lady likes rocks," He smiled. "It is an honor. The other eunuchs told me stories of your deeds. You are very brave."

"Or very stupid. I'll let history judge me. Now, let's go. I want to talk to the master blacksmith as the first rays of sun hit the Earth."

We ride past the gates and back to the central zone of the town. Soon we reach the smithy and true enough, the apprentices are already working hard on the central bellows to get the forge hot. That work is usually left for the newest apprentices and while it seems like hazing, it is done so they can build the muscle to wield a hammer all day long along with the mindset to do the same tiresome activity repeatedly.

We gain access past the gate and ride to the tent just as master Aran is coming out.

"Milady Rinaldi! What brings you here this early in the morning?"

I get down and pat Penny's neck. "Master Aran. I'd like to commission a unique item. Can I show you a drawing?"

"Yes, surely. Follow me inside, milady."

I go inside and take a seat next to him on the cushions lining the inside. I take my iPad and show him the drawings I made while I waited for my scripts to generate all the data from the pictures. A rock grinder. One fixed straight plate with undulated teeth, and two sides making a U shape and another movable straight plate with teeth that matches the first one but is free to swivel along its base. Two grooves running along the bottom of the arms of the U allow the movable plate to be adjusted so you can select the grain of the crushed rocks. A lever attached to the top of the movable plate allows one to convert up and down motion into sideways motion with multiplied strength to chew the rocks. The joints are made with large rivets that can be smashed on both ends to affix the parts together and keep them movable. I can also later attach the lever to a wheel.

"This is a rock crusher, master Aran. The teeth are round and the rocks put inside are chewed by them, making fine gravel. Can you make one today? The parts are not that complex and require little delicacy. I just ask that the teeth plates are made of the hardest steel you can make."

"Hardest steel..." He ponders.

"It will suffer a lot of stress, so it has to be well-tempered," I added. "Since it might catch a really hard rock to crush inside."

"I can try to make it. Let me make a copy of that drawing of yours."

He goes and copies the design in a piece of parchment. Satisfied, I left for the training grounds.

I thought I was coming early but Brandon was already there. The guard captain was practicing a few martial forms with a spear against a training dummy when he stopped and rested the butt of the spear on the packed dirt ground as he heard the clopping of hooves. Once we went past the gates I donned the training tunic over my dry-fit long-sleeved shirt and tied the belt. It was a fashion crime but nobody in the know was looking. I hoped.

"Captain, good morning!"

I thought he smiled for a moment. I kept my inner fangirl quiet because I remembered what Abil-Kisu said. People could notice my totally undercover fawning over the hunky captain so I better police myself.

"Good morning, Sandra. You are here early, good to see you are eager to train. How was your day yesterday?"

"Fine. I shopped for groceries and hired some guards. Meet Lah-Ueri, my bodyguard for this morning."

The former miner nods, "Captain."

"Good. Today you are going to practice basic swings. I'll show you five basic swings, you are going to go through several bladed weapons to find the one that suits you the most. Follow me," He said and moved to a weapon rack. "These are the scimitar, the shortsword, the sword, long sword, dagger, and finally the sickle sword."

I'd never seen the last one. It had a large handle, and the blade was as long as a longsword. But it had a crescent shape halfway through the blade that was deadly sharp on the inside. Brandon explained.

"This sickle sword is used from the back of a chariot. Here ner the pommel you attach a strap of leather to the chariot. Any enemy limb caught in this weapon will be severed off."

I never heard of it but yes, the weapon could be even considered a polearm with a short haft. It was taller than me. I think it was developed here in this world. It should work well otherwise people wouldn't bother.

Brandon shows me the five basic swings in their training manual. Side, upper, rising, diagonal, and stab. All their weapons are made for both slashing and stabbing. The rapier does not exist. I guess it is an elegant weapon for a more civilized time. I did forty repetitions of each of the five strikes with each of the six weapons. One every twelve seconds, on average. At the end of the training session, I was trying to hide the fact that my arms became noodles.

"All done for today. Good exercise!" I told Brendan.

"I'm amazed you managed to do all those exercises," Brendan said. "Too bad you could do only twenty of each."

I could even hear his tongue click. And the burning fire coursing through my arms muscles ran to my heart and rose to my brain. What the! That's twelve hundred repetitions! I basically became a slashing machine there. I tried to protest but my arms wouldn't respond. He kept staring at me and in the end guffawed.

"I'm just joking. Seriously, you have the endurance of three soldiers!"

Eh?

The fire went to my cheeks. I tried desperately to understand what was going through his mind. One day he can sink DiCaprio and the whole ship, the next day he is... cracking jokes?

"Are you feeling ill, captain?"

"No. What, can't I make a joke? I can see that you hurt your arms from overdoing it. But you'll probably be fine once you reach your home, right?"

Is this some sort of test? I don't understand this guy. "Yes. Was that why you had me do all those swings? To test the limits of my recovery?"

"Yes. And I must say, I'm liking very much, training with you."

I froze for a moment.

Modern Akkadian (as opposed to Earth century XXIV Akkadian) is a context-based language (although there's evidence the latter also was context-based) and leads to these kinds of misunderstandings, especially when some parts are only spoken at the end of the phrase is jumbled up. He could've meant any of the following:

"I must say I like training with you very much."

"I must tell you that the more I train with you, the more I like you."

"I must say I like you very much so I train you."

"Training you this much [is my way of] saying I love you."

"After training you I must say how much I like you."

Now, Brendan is not a native of this region. Like Samus, he also is a refugee. His domain of Akkadian is not at a native level and I have my translation power that has no telepathic component because it translates the sound, not the meaning. In fact, the meaning is very often conveyed the way I'd interpret it first. I had my share of misunderstandings already.

Then, what should I do? I remembered Nanna clearly warning me to keep my fluttering heart in check because the captain was a traditionalist.

"What did you say? I'm sorry, I didn't get it." So I asked.

"Your progress. I like how dedicated you are and it's been a pleasure to train you."

Oh. Yeah, I pray to Tarhun to freaking upgrade his divine translation software. Because it kinda sucks.

"I am also pleased with how it is coming out. Thank you for your efforts, Brandon. So, see you tomorrow?"

"Until tomorrow, Sandra. I believe your training weapons will be ready by then. I'll have the carpenter deliver them here."

I didn't even remember them.

"Oh. That's sweet of you."

"I am eager to see that katana of yours in action."

I narrow my eyelids. Is that the reason he is acting like that? Just because he's happy he'll get to know another kind of weapon? I can swear I don't understand dudes.

That's what I get for putting my hopes up. Nanna was right, maybe I shouldn't pursue a romance with the captain. Speaking of the witch, where in tarnation is she? I have no idea. I call Penny through our mental bond by sending the emotion of needing her and she comes. I climb on a bench and go up the saddle. No upper body strength for now. I glance back at Brandon, he is watching with unbridled mirth. I raise an arm and wave at him. Penny starts to walk away on her own. Lah-Ueri comes right behind me.

"We are going back to the smithy. I want that rock crusher done today. Maybe I can help them."

The former miner pairs his horse next to Penny, "You do like metal, don't you, mistress?"

"We can say so. The metal is cool. What would be of us without metal? Heck, our bones are made of metal." And that's true. Take that, Hugh Jackman. You are only special because you had claws and was hot.

Lah-Ueri opens his eyes wide. I chuckle. "Really, mistress?"

"Yeah. It's the calcium. Find me some non-human bones and I'll show you. Lah-Ueri, I have one request, if you may."

"Anything, mistress!"

"Call me Sandra when there are no strangers. I'm no mistress."

I don't know if it has the same meaning here but the term 'mistress' annoys me. A lot.

"As you wish, Sandra. I'm looking forward to seeing metal from the bone. That tool you are crafting today, you said it is a 'rock crusher'?"

"Yeah. It is a device made to break large rocks into fine chunks. Sometimes you have some important minerals stuck inside some hard rock. Well, the crusher makes it easier to reach those."

He nods sagely. I know I triggered some memories because his next move is to glance away and up, absorbed in recollection."

"I can promise you that in less than ten days you and I are going to get us some ores. I'll show you some amazing things from my world."

He smiles. "Looking forward to that, miss... Sandra."

I usher Penny ahead and the mare just bolts toward the smithy. We have no trouble getting inside and sending our horses to the less noisy corner of the complex, where they keep their mules.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I went to find Aran and after a while I find him hammering at a thick sheet of metal with a cross pein hammer while two apprentices hold the thing together. I can see him forging the teeth for the crusher with his hammer. After he makes one row of grooves, he calls a third apprentice, older than the first two and carrying his own cross pein hammer. He asks something I couldn't listen due to the overwhelming sound of hammering coming from all the other stations but the apprentice takes his place and starts hammering another grove before the metal cools too much.

Satisfied, Aran backs away and sees me. He comes with his hammer on his shoulder. The man is covered in sweat and soot.

"Ah, miss Rinaldi. I just sent another three wagons with slag to your home. The parts for your project are being made as we speak. I took some apprentices to work on them."

"Excellent. Say, master Aran, am I disturbing the place too much? I can see some smiths are glancing at me too much."

He glares around and the ones that were doing that suddenly find renewed interest in their work. "Do not mind them. If they get distracted and burn or crush a finger, it is their problem."

I am forced to agree with him. He's the boss.

"Follow me, come see what we have already done."

He goes to show me the articulated arm that is supposed to convert downward force into a push to move the grinder jaws forward. I check them, and everything seems fine. It is just a really awkward and heavy jointed metal piece now but once it gets bound to the frame, it will convey and multiply the force through basic mechanics. The rivets are well done.

"Did you have any trouble making the joints?" I ask, running a hand through the handle.

"No, none at all. Once you showed me the shapes, we did it easily. It helped that the holes are so big. Once we polish this, it won't be so rough."

"Don't bother. These parts are for heavy-duty, not for show. As long as they don't break or rust too much, I don't care how they look."

"They won't. And aside from the rainy season, the weather around here is dry. Metal just don't rust."

"Okay."

I was happy with the fact they could do the joints. If they could make gears too, I could join the articulated arm and the gears to make all sorts of contraptions, like vehicles or engines.

"Master Aran, someone mentioned clocks, do you know where I can obtain one?"

He shook his head. "No. There's only one in town, in the palace of the Ensi. And it runs on water, so you can imagine how exquisite it must be. Rumor has it that the clock sings."

It must be really impressive. A water clock contraption. Oh, well. The guys don't have locks, much less mechanical clocks. Maybe I can find something in Wikipedia or Britannica.

I check the articulations. I can see that the rivets were thick and sturdy. The whole mechanical arm weighed six to seven kilograms, it must've taken a lot of metal. You could make what, five swords out of the metal that went here.

"I'll pay for the metal and the work," I absentmindedly mumbled.

"Nonsense! Lady Rinaldi, it is a pleasure--"

I interrupt him. "Master Aran, it would be an insult to your work and your apprentices' combined effort if I don't pay them. I barged in front of a lot of projects you had scheduled for today and I'll take that as your token of appreciation. This rock crusher will be important in mining and I am sure you'll sell lots of them, at least until others learn how to make one. Despite that, I must compensate you for your time. It is only fair.

"Besides, I have too much gold."

He chuckled and I just smiled.

"Well, can't let a paying customer waiting. We'll finish this today. I was thinking, these teeth will wear out fast if you crush hard rocks. What if I made the plates with teeth removable and affixed with bolts on the back? This way you wouldn't have to throw away the whole machine once the teeth are bent."

"Excellent. Is that why the teeth plate was being forged on its own?"

He nodded. "Indeed. I'll add pins in the back of the plate that will have holes for the rivets. It should sit tight. I'm going to start assembling everything."

I waved and Aran went away after giving a servant orders to keep me supplied with fresh fruit and ale. Not a nice combination but I think it is what goes around here. I took the iPad and started to design the septic system. Two chambers, drainage...

I needed pipes. I couldn't make a septic system without pipes. The tech tree raised its ugly head. Time to go through my checklist of things to do. It is so large it is more of a wishlist than a proper to-do list. I intended to do some serious chemistry soon and I'd need proper containers. I decided to check the portable lab. The portable geology lab used to have one but it broke back on Earth if you believe me. And unless I could fix it, it would remain broken. Worse yet, I didn't know if it wouldn't revert to its normal "broken" state.

Besides the broken precision scale, it had a digital thermometer, a probe to extract soil and clay samples, enough reagents for forty tests of each nitrate nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, aluminum, sulfates, ammonia nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, chlorides, ferric iron, calcium, and humus. I didn't have it by heart, I was reading from the printed manual. It also had one hundred PH strips and a bottle of PH testing liquid that could be used for another hundred measurements.

It also had test tubes, pipettes, measuring spoons, and snap-top bottles for samples. Four small graduated beakers, one 500 ml graduated cylinder and two watch glasses. Let's not forget the still-regrowing radiation dosimeter tag.

I put everything together and closed the lab case, sending it back to storage. Most of the tests I could do with Decompose but the lab glassware was precious. The reagents wouldn't replenish if I used them but maybe the PH strips would. I could test one later when I started to split salt to get soda and hydrochloric acid.

But while they forged my crusher, I went out of the tent and walked around. Aran and the apprentices were hammering another teeth plate. Or making a nice wavy sinusoidal surface on a thick steel plate. I wish I could make them a hydraulic hammer. It would make their work so easier. But what material would I use as seals? Rubber? Where would I get rubber? Or better, extract latex to make rubber. Rubber trees? Good luck finding a rainforest that has them.

Another reason to work on those photos. A rainforest could be on the other side of the mountains to the west for all I knew.

I had to stop and breathe. I couldn't get tunnel vision from anxiety again. Maybe I should input those things into a wishlist. While I digressed and wandered through the smithy, I found master Samus.

"Hello there, milady Rinaldi!" The bearded and grandfatherly blacksmith opened his arms wide. He was covered in soot and checking on the excavation of the slag pits.

"Master Samus, thank you for your hospitality. How are things going here?"

"We received your iron ingots yesterday. I was wondering, how do you get them in that shape?"

"I use a frying pan as a mold and pour the metal on it."

He stopped and gave me an 'are you serious?' look. I smiled and showed him the frying pan. My mistake. The man took the pan and put himself to check the object. The handle, the rivets, the metal, the Teflon coating. He kept mumbling "this... this... this..."

I felt bad for him. It was like I offered a trinket to a native. Some bauble that I'd trade for all his gold. I wouldn't trade the pan though. It was really one of a kind. Samus started to bombard me with questions.

"What is this black coating?"

"That's... a substance we put on the pan so the food won't stick."

"What metal is it made of? It seems like steel but..."

"It is steel. In my world, we had thousands of years to develop lots of different steel alloys. It was considered the strongest kind of metal."

"Can I heat it?"

"Yes, but only over an open, normal flame. Otherwise, the metal will lose its tempering. You can fry an egg on it if you have one."

He went away with the frying pan. I felt afraid of losing the item but I had to trust them. He came to rescue me from Hama-Tula. That had to be worth something. He called in a favor to make Brandon train me. The pan would find its way back to me.

After I watched the cooking utensil that I used for several things except cooking go away, I noticed the apprentices stopped digging the slag pit to stare at me. I looked at the pile of slag awaiting a cart and I thought, 'why should I wait until it goes home to come back?'

"Let me handle this. You can take a rest."

They stopped, curious about what I was about to do. The only that did any sort of reaction was the one that arrived with a shipment of slag right when I was Decomposing the first batch.

He nodded, "Hear the lady. Step aside and let her do her magic."

The mention of magic was enough to scare the apprentices into acting. They vacated the pit and stood a few meters away, watching intently. I approached the pile of slag and crouched next to it with a blue plastic trash bag in my hand. I put a slag rock inside and extracted the iron, calcium, and silicon from it. I felt the slight high of breathing too much oxygen but it went away quickly. What was left in the bag was the powder of the oxides and salts from the slag. I kept doing it, piling the chunks of soft metallic calcium, dull gray iron and gray-black silicon separately. After an hour, I had the three bags I had full of oxide dust.

Samus startled me as he cleared his throat after I stored the bags. I fell on my butt and craned my neck to see what he wanted.

"Yes?"

He handed the pan to me. "Your pan. It is really marvelous this black layer. I'm afraid I've melted the black material of the handle."

I took it and checked the molten plastic near the pan. The pan would self-repair in storage so I sent it there. "Don't worry. I can fix it with my magic later."

"Speaking of magic," Samus spoke tactfully as if broaching a delicate subject, "I see that you removed three kinds of different metals from the slag. The iron I recognize, but what are the others?"

I saw three apprentices with small crates for the metals and I backed away to let them gather them. "They are called calcium and silicon. Silicon is what sand is made of, and calcium is found in limestone, eggshells, and bones. Take care of the calcium. It burns if hot and boils water if wet."

He nicked the soft metal with his fingernail, pressed it. "Can I try it?"

"Sure. Drop a small piece on a bucket of water. It will make slaked lime and heat up the water."

He sent an apprentice to fetch water and dropped a pellet of calcium in. it started to bubble hydrogen out as it reduced the water. Calcium was not as reactive as sodium or potassium so it didn't burn the hydrogen. He laughed like a child.

"Can I keep this... calcium?" I nodded. "What about the dark one?"

"That's silicon, you can have it too. It is part of what makes rocks and sand. It is not a metal but sometimes behaves like one. It doesn't have much use."

Yeah. No chance of making circuits, transistors, etc. Silicon was useful as a building material but that was it. Its greatest advantage was abundance.

"Do you think I can smelt it?"

"No. You'd only waste time, but it is not dangerous. I think it is too brittle to be forged."

Samus had the apprentices collect the elements and I looked at the crates. They seemed to be better than the leaky ones I had at home.

"Could you get me some of these crates? I'll get you more calcium for them."

I had no idea the worth of calcium. Being able to boil water without fire was valuable, you could warm food by using a bath and get slaked lime back but that was not the point. I thought of something. I never tried to push Decompose to its limits. How much material could I affect at once? How far? How fast? For how long? I had to know. Not knowing the limits of my power would be catastrophic if I had to rely on it and fail or if I needed something and wrongly thought it to be impossible.

Samus barked some orders and soon I had several crates available. I descended into the slag pit next to an apprentice and focused on answering the first question. How much material at once. I repeated what I did with the material outside. Extract the iron, calcium, and silicon in massive quantities. The chunks of metal formed on my hand and I passed it to the apprentice that handed it over to the guy outside.

Then a mini-disaster happened. I was removing silicon when the large rock I was standing on crumbled and I fell down.

Never dig straight down.

After reassuring everyone that I was okay and having the apprentice leave the pit, I carved a niche on the pit wall for me to sit in and resumed Decomposing. As the slag rocks crumbled, I removed material beneath me to lower my seat. Rotating between the three elements, I made short work of the slag pit. And didn't feel any signs of exhaustion. Decomposing the slag felt as tiresome as walking.

The bottom of the pit was full of the oxides, a gray-brown mix. The payload was in there so I decided to remove the oxygen, cycling Decompose through the most common metals so they would bind the dust among them. The metallic particles bound to one another as the pure metals formed bonds between them once the oxide layer was removed.

I ended up with a large chunk of mixed metals that shone multicolored. From a light silver to blue to yellow. Since nothing happened, I took down the three bags of oxides I had and did the same to it, separating lumps of particular elements out of the mixed lump and putting it inside the bag. After half an hour I was done and the slag pit was empty. I stored the plastic bags.

"Want a lift?" Samus asked me with a cheeky tone.

"Sure, throw down a rope."

I got my climbing kit and took a quickdraw and an ascender. I bound both carabiners of the quickdraw to the loop at the bottom of the ascender to make a stirrup. Once the rope came down, I attached the ascender and locked it. I grabbed the rope and placed my foot inside the quickdraw loop.

"Pull me up!"

Samus stood at the edge of the pit and lifted me up like a line fisher. I was amazed at his arm strength, it felt like I weighed very little, which I did. And still do. You're welcome.

Once I reached the top, I deftly jumped out of the pit and pulled the end of the rope to me, sending my items to storage.

"That blue thing you attached to the rope..." He started to ask but halted when I shook my head.

I felt a mischievous grin form on my face. "That is for another day. Did you get the iron and calcium?"

"Yes."

"The water you mix with calcium, don't let people touch or drink," I told him. "If you let it dry, you can use the slacked lime."

"I think I can add it as flux. I'll try."

"Yeah, it might work." The calcium would snatch the oxygen faster than the carbon, protecting the steel alloy."

Samus pointed at the crates, "What should we do with these?"

"Just send me the empty crates."

An apprentice came and made eye contact with me. "Milady, master Aran is calling you."

I looked around. It was late. I should've spent two hours cleaning the slag pit. "Okay, show the way."

Samus went with me. On the way to Aran's station, he commented. "You used a lot of magic on that slag. Aren't you tired?"

I denied with my head, "No, not at all. Should I?"

"You used about ten times as much magic as my full potential," He commented somehow embarrassed.

"No, I could do another three pits if I had time. Or more control. I tried to move large volumes but my control is lacking. Say, do you think I can learn magic? Sorcery? Casting spells?"

"It is hard. You obviously have a lot of magic power so you're covered on that side but you must have affinity and training."

"I'm curious, how do you know I have magic power and how much?"

He balked. "Are you serious? You have so much magic power you glow, Sandra."

He seemed to be really surprised, as he even used my first name. "I can't see magic."

"That's unheard of. Even the weakest adept can sense magic power."

"Maybe I'm broken." I quip. Or maybe some deity broke me. I think Tarhun blocked my magic or did something because I couldn't feel a thing.

"I doubt. Ask Nanna when she returns. Maybe she can help you."

I stopped. "Where is Nanna? She disappeared yesterday morning and didn't return."

He chuckled. "Typical. She went to the mountains, to harvest some rare ingredients for her potions. She won't be back for several days."

"I wish she told me," I sighed.

We reached the workstation where Aran was assembling the rock crusher. I checked it was resting on the table, and the chute was in place underneath the teeth.

"Ah, miss Rinaldi. The plates are hardening now but we are assembling all the other parts. You can check them."

I did. The frame was heavy but compact with thick walls. The lever and the pieces seemed to be attached to the right places and I gave it a tug. The articulations reduced the amplitude of the movement and multiplied the power by a factor of twenty if my calculations were right. Depending on the hardness of the teeth, it would break most rocks.

"Everything seems fine. I look forward to using it tomorrow."

"The teeth plates will be done tomorrow morning. The whole thing will be by your gates by noon."

I bowed to him. "Thank you, master Aran. I think I must go now. Master Samus?" He seemed to want to speak.

"Since you emptied a whole pit today, we will need more time to excavate the third one. We won't be able to make deliveries of slag for two days."

That was fine, I guess. I'd need to process the materials I took, but I should have as much as what I had on the first session. I nodded at him.

"There's no rush. And please take care when handling the calcium. It can cause a nasty burn if wet. Use gloves to handle it."

I said my goodbyes and rode back home.

I wanted to do a lot of things but I knew that if I threw myself at things the fastest I could I'd get tunnel vision again. With that in mind, I pushed my sanitation concerns aside, retrieved the battery and charger and went to my room. I had to write a script to calculate the adjacent pictures so I could browse them in the HTML I wrote to view them.

I rewrote the script to dump a CSV instead of a JSON and loaded it into a MySQL table. Then I loaded it and created indexes on the columns for the coordinates. I ordered them by latitude than longitude and checked the two pictures on top of the list. Their edges matched. If I had to guess, they had about two to three percent of overlap between them. I'd later compress the photos one under the other to make them look seamless by shifting their CSS. To my dismay, their coordinates weren't exactly the same. It seems there was a little shift between both coordinates as each picture had a unique value.

I'd have to select the closest picture by approximation on both values. I wrote a procedure and let it run. The processor locked and the HDD lamp started to blink like crazy. The heatsink fan turned on at the maximum speed a minute later. After my initial panic died down, I let the machine do its thing and shifted to the iPad to sketch where I was going to put all the holes for the septic tanks, water reservoir, etc.

I needed pumps. Next request at the smithy. The septic tank would only work if water went down with the sewage. That meant flushing toilets. Did I have a good picture of the inside of a flushing toilet? Yup, there is one on Wikipedia. Even four types. Let's go with the easiest one. But this meant I had to install a reservoir above the house. Another pump.

Don't forget the filters.

And I had to make activated charcoal. I was about to finish doodling when Arwia came with my dinner.

"Sandra! You can't lock yourself in your room every night. The children need to spend time with you. I brought you dinner, how are you?"

I gave her a thumbs up and she tilted her head, confused. "This means that I am alright. And hungry now that you showed me food."

I glanced at the PC and it seems that the procedure already ended. Twenty-seven minutes. I stored my devices to eat.

"Thanks, Arwia. Is everything fine around here? How are the new guards? Are the kids studying?"

"Yes, they are nice, and yes. These kids are very dedicated," She cooed.

"Good. Tomorrow, we are going to dig some holes. It will be fun."

Arwia's mood changed. "What part of digging is fun?"

"Come here!"

I show her my plans on the iPad. Of the toilet, the septic tank, the filter. And while I was at that I also added a rainwater collector. Enlarge the underground reservoir. This way the house could survive the drought season.

I'm definitely bothering Aran for water pumps tomorrow.

Arwia was slack-jawed. "I've seen your magic tablet, but to think it could do such things..."

"It only draws, if you are having some weird idea." I knew I shouldn't have rendered them in 3D. "We still need to actually make things."

"And that way we'll have all the water we want?"

I poke her forehead. "No, dummy. We will have all the water we need. We still have to be careful about using too much water."

She rubbed where I poked and smiled. "That would be awesome. But I think it is time for you to sleep, Sandra. You worked hard today."

"Yeah. Goodnight, Arwia."

She smiled from the door frame. "Sweet dreams, mistress."