As with all things, travel down the coast took time. After passing the massive volcanic mountain of doom things slowly went back to some semblance of normal though. I wondered if there was something like a ring of fire on this world, as there had been on my previous. If so, was it the mountain region I was so familiar with? I didn't think so, as none on the other side of the continent had had any signs of ever being volcanic.

I thought on this as we made our way along the shore. At night we had to find somewhere safe from the menace that was the ocean, but that was easier than dealing with angry flaming mountains. The monster population other than those near the volcanoes.

“What ya doing there boss?” Chien asked as I walked along, one hand roving over the sands gently.

“Look,” I said, showing him the handful of black sand I'd pulled to me.

“More iron?”

“We're almost out of trade goods, and a few tools wouldn't go amiss either.”

“Have to build a forge,” he pointed out.

“You know, I don't know if we do. Between the two of us I'm pretty sure we could smelt it without, but even if we do we can improvise one pretty quickly.”

“No other reasons you're doing that?” Isha chimed in, knowing me well.

“There are actually, I've been thinking.”

“Dangerous,” she said, getting a nod from our other companion.

“I've gotten good enough at fire and force magic that I can now make crystals of them. What if I could do the same with other basic forces? I could start on building something bigger, more... lasting.”

“She's right, dangerous,” Chien answered with a shake of his head.

I hmmed roving back to my thoughts. “I want a boat.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Like the ones used to go down rivers?” Chien asked.

There were such things, canoes and rafts basically used to move goods and people between cities, but they were painfully basic.

“Not quite, I want one good enough to go on the ocean.”

“Saw a guy take a canoe out there once,” Chien informed me, and that was news to me.

“How did it go?”

“Well enough until a wave hit it wrong and flipped the whole thing. Think we wanted a moving version of one of a fishing platform.”

Platforms were easy enough for our people, and popular too. Basically just tied to trees or the like; with the ability of some elves to grow said trees into the perfect shape or in the perfect place it made going up sensible. Once or twice I'd even seen people primarily weave them from vines, but that was a lot more work.

“So how do you think we should go about building a boat for the ocean?” Isha asked, seeming almost curious.

“No idea.” That got me a pair of guffaws, as normally I had at least some thoughts.

I did have some thoughts, I mean, I understood how boats worked. Water displacement was easy enough to wrap your head around, and could lead to really interesting designs. However that didn't mean I knew anything at all about making a boat. Even with my perfect memory, even with all the time I'd looked at things, and videos, and all the like, I was drawing almost a complete blank. Boatbuilding was something that had never really caught my interest, and I knew enough to know it wasn't a simple subject.

“So you want something you have no idea on how to make? That might be a first,” Isha laughed.

“Definitely a first,” Chien agreed.

“Both of you shut up. I don't know everything.”

“But a lot of things,” Chien pointed out.

“Sure, a lot of things.”

They kept on for most of the rest of the day. By that point I was very thoroughly decided that I was going to have to build not only one, but many boats. There would be no other way to wipe this particular failing off of my record, and if I didn't they'd probably pester me for the next century or two.

That thought brought a smile to my face as I laid down to sleep. No longer did I have the gnawing fear of old age, of people leaving me like they did before. My family could live on forever, or almost forever, so long as they weren't killed. I'd lost loved ones in both lives, but in my first so many had fallen to the specter of age. Once I brought this world forward we could have whole cities of ancients, we could tame the world together, as one. That dream carried me through the night.

The mountains went back to being just that, mountains, and as we moved slowly retreated from the shore. That line of ancient soldiers fell back, giving way to more and more of the pleasant tropical forest. It still wasn't anything like a wide opening, with the sentinels maintaining their vigil in the far distance, but it was noticeable.

We stopped for a few days at that point, taking the time to build a bit more of a secure structure and forge out the iron I'd gathered. There was no hurry, no rush, even if we wanted to be done with this mission there wasn't any reason we had to keep moving, and the weather was nice, so a vacation was called for. Also, the sled was getting heavy with all the ore I was building up in it.

“This seemed easier when we did it back home,” Chien observed as we poured our first ingot.

“Because we had a whole shop full of tools. I assure you it was this hard at first.”

We managed to forge out a small stump anvil, a little contraption that fit into said stump, and matching hammer, not big, but big enough for some simple work. This was followed up by a set of knives, knives were too useful to not have and somewhere through the trading we'd lost one. They were poor compared to my normal work, but still ages above what most people had, just simple all iron blades.

The few days of work were followed by a full week of rest, during which Isha began working with plants. She didn't say anything, but I saw her once or twice out of the corner of my eye. Perhaps she was working on something special, and if so, I relished the chance at a surprise.

Chien and I took apart the forge with all the gusto of two young men who had a chance to destroy something, and we set off, eager to see the next part of our lands.