Engineer’s Log Day 181.1
Alrighty tighty, all of the rocks at the future base seem to have settled down so it’s time for me to go ahead and start taking measurements. This is probably my least favorite part of construction but I’ve run out of stalling methods. I’ve already made extra food for the base since Darana still isn’t particularly mobile and the plant care is finished so unfortunately I need to head on out.
In an ideal situation, everything has settled down nicely and I can start working on setup. The first order of business will be me evening out the area, setting up a new generator, and then lastly a fabricator. The xythans will be in charge of getting the water above ground and usable as, quite frankly, I don’t have the foggiest of clues about fluid dynamics or even where I would need to drill in the first place. For food, we’ll be splitting the bill and then lastly, we’ll be setting up defenses and housing. The housing situation will primarily be the xythan’s responsibility as there are much more of them than me. My main role here is to set up the power and defenses and once that’s done, I’m a free bird. Any work I do that doesn’t fall into that category is basically for my own comfort.
The biggest issue I’ll have to deal with will undoubtedly be how I’m going to create the walls. I don’t necessarily need to make walls although they are incredibly handy and giving them a bit of extra height would make my launchers and shields more effective. The shields wouldn’t have to cover nearly as much ground if a bit higher and defensive emplacements always love having the height advantage.
On all levels except physical, the walls are a good idea. Physically though, I am running into a bit of an issue where I need to figure how I’m actually going to be getting these walls. In theory, I can take advantage of the fallen pillars and build on top of those but that plan is liable to have all sorts of complications. The rock around here isn’t the toughest thing which was handy for blowing up but makes it a bit less than ideal for actual construction. I’ve an idea about how I can make it work but it’s a lot more time and labor intensive than I’d like. Concrete. If I crunch down the fallen stone and I could potentially make a sort of concrete. In that form, it’d be pretty easily reinforceable with just a bit of rebar and fairly effective if I make it correctly. The one downside is that I’d be having to to move a lot of rocks which is just... Ugh.
I’ll need to do some fact checking on this but for now all I need to worry about is just getting a working generator and fabricator into place. After those two suckers are down and working properly, I can start getting fancy and I’ll hopefully have a better idea about how I want to do this wall stuff.
Engineer’s Log Day 181.2
At this point, my scratches from the brawl the other day have healed enough that I don’t need to keep like 5 tubes of neosporin on me at all time. With this new found power, I’ve declared Darana to still be infirmed and unsuitable for anything beyond the most basic of movements and if I’m interpreting her glaring and grumbling correctly, I think she agrees and greatly appreciates me reminding her. In light of this new found appreciation, I’ve decided to help her out with a good old family remedy.
Back in my youthful summer months, I remember catching a strong case of whatever seasonal flu was going around and being bedridden for a few days. Initially, I felt so bad that I couldn’t get up without feeling nauseous. Mum had to hand feed me a steady diet of chicken soup and saltine crackers for a full week before I started to improve. Now, Mum was always a cautious woman and didn’t want me running around while I was still recovering and infecting my friends or relapsing so naturally, even after I reached the point where I was mostly better, she still kept me quarentined in my room. I can somewhat appreciate the sentiments now but at the time, I was absolutely miserable. She could obviously empathize with my frustrations and decided to literally sweeten the deal. For the rest of my quarantine, I got to have homemade vanilla ice cream with every single meal. To this day, I still remember the taste fondly.
Bringing this roundabout story to a close, I intend to make some ice cream for my bedridden companion. Tonight, I’ll get an ice cream mixer made. I’ll need to check and see if we actually have blueprints for that but even if we don’t I should be able to design something pretty quick, ice cream machines aren’t exactly the most complicated things. Tomorrow evening, I’ll gather up the ingredients and spring my little surprise. You know, I bet Bayfur would think it’s pretty cool if I show him ice cream is made. The whole ice and salt thing is pretty dang cool if you ask me.
Ahh, I forgot to talk about the work site. Everything has settled down pretty well although I might have been a little too hopeful with the pillars. The remaining pieces are fairly large but kinda not large enough to make a proper wall on their own so it’s kinda looking like I may have to do the concrete method. I’m did check and I’m currently out of rebar so I’ll have to make some soon. It’s not that complex, I’m just a little annoyed that I have extra work. On the bright side, I was able to find an excellent location for a generator. The large pillar near the camp actually flattened out really well so I should be able to take advantage of that space and use it as the center. I’m oh half a mind to make a divot and hide the generator in it. It’ll be a bit more of a pain to work on but this isn’t exactly going to be a long-term base and the convenience of having it out of the way and safe from any oncoming fire more than makes up for any downsides. Tomorrow, I’ll start breaking in the area so everyone else can also get started.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Engineer’s Log Day182
What a resounding success of a day! I had a big brain moment this morning when I was about to go to the new base site when I realized I should probably measure the generator before putting a hole in the ground. Printed out a box that was a bit bigger than my measurements so I could verify the spacing of my hole. Made it to the site without any issue and in what can only be considered a stroke of astronomical luck for me, I didn’t have any issues today. Considering my recent trends, I honestly found this refreshing. My tools all worked properly and I was able to carve everything out without issue. Extraordinary.
On top of that, while it was technically last night, I found ice cream machine plans already included in the printer by default which is great because I’d initially thought I was going to have to make them myself. Whoever put those plans in there is an absolute saint. Like they were just sitting there ready to go for me.
Jumping forward to today, armed with some vanilla extract, ice, and suitably heavy cream among other ingredients, I was able to produce some absolutely delectable desserts. Dug around until I found some the sprinklesand made three bowls. My big brain struck again and I had the excellent idea to crumple some Oreos into mine. I’m actually a bonafide genius.
Darana absolutely tore through two full bowls back to back. Can’t really blame her, homemade ice cream practically crack with how good it tastes although I gotta say it was still a nice little boost to my ego. Might have to add Chef Supreme to my ever expanding list of titles.
Engineer’s Log Day 183
Today was a very stressful and annoying day. Good old generator moving day. Step one of generator moving day is to have a generator. Fortunately, I remembered to bring mine from home so that wasn’t a huge issue. Step two was to actually move the generator which is definitely a bit more of a hassle. I removed all the fuel from the generator and started packing it up. This was the “fun part” of the whole experience as I needed to break down the generator back into its components before packing each part individually. See, the generator is incredibly efficient but that’s only the case if all of the parts make it to the destination without significant damage to any of them. If one or two of the parts become damaged, my efficiency will absolutely tank so getting everything over in pristine condition was my main focus.
To keep all the parts safe, I packed it into reinforced boxes filled with foam which are surprisingly heavy. Turns out having heavy pieces of metal plus a bunch of foam actually just makes a box heavy as shit. Technically speaking, I could have saved some time and just slapped the whole generator into a box and simply replaced any damaged parts and although it sounds like a nice idea, I’d likely have to march the whole distance multiple times to get new parts as I found pieces broken and honestly that sounds like an absolute pain in the ass. So in the end, I just loaded all the small parts into their boxes and then the boxes into the HARP and marched my way over to the new camp praying that nothing got tumbled too hard in the back. That wasn’t too bad overall. You that feeling when you are holding onto a somewhat skittish cat that would love to jump out of your arms if you so much twitch incorrectly? Well, imagine that feeling except instead of having the finesse of a human body, you’re using an oversized machine of war. That is to say, I was very STRESSED. Fortunately, I managed to get everything over without anything being smashed. It took me a few hours to reassemble the sucker but now we have some power. Tossed down a small tend to protect it from the elements and here we are. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow when I get to repeat the entire process with the 3D printer.
Thank goodness I have some ice cream to make things better.
Engineer’s Log Day 184
Today was a lot like yesterday with a lot more double-checking to make sure I wouldn’t get borked when I turned the printer on. These printers use a lot of dangerous tech that while it does have a lot of fail-safes, I definitely am still allowed to fear a malfunction. I’ve survived this long without losing any limbs and I fully intend to keep that streak going. Fortunately, my fears were ill-founded and I managed to escape without losing so much as an eyelash.
I took a bit of spare time to set up a tent for the printer and then some small shields around both the generator and the printer on the off chance someone decides to cause problems. The sketchy part on my side is done and I can create my defensive emplacements over there now and shouldn’t need to lug anything other than materials back and forth. It all gives me a profound sense of satisfaction.
Got to play more Not Dodgeball TM with Todorn, Vrok, Pottem and Grel today and I must say, I’m definitely beginning to hit my stride. At this point, it’ll only be a few more years of consistently playing before I’m ready to hit the Calydr Big Leagues. Darana decided to tag along with Bayfur to watch this time. I’d bet it’s just cabin fever beginning to catch up with her but I do hope she feels tempted to join in after watching. They say that the time-honored tradition of hitting your close friends is important for any bonding process. I suppose that would make Grel very close with me with how disproportionately much I seem to be hit by her. I’d call her a cheater but I’m unsure how one cheats in a game with literally just a ball. It’s not just me getting nailed either, Todorn and Vrok are both on the chopping block also. Grel seems to take it easier on Pottem which is frankly unfair. Please employ some equal opportunity targeting!
The worst part is that every time Grel nails anyone, she gives the most unenthusiastic cheer you’ve ever heard. You wouldn’t think it to be a big deal but she does this every time. Todorn, Vrok, and I are beginning to discuss an alliance to push back against the menace in our games.