I wasn’t sure if everyone else in the team were nodding or rattling their heads from the cold. Later, I needed to do some work on the platform to make it more permanent. The structure’s internal moisture needed removing and the surfaces compacted and hardened further, perhaps even baked. But more importantly I set up a hot bath near the ablutions facility which was big enough for four people at a time. Another day I would go about making a more permanent bath on the rampart in the south western corner.
I used my transfer storage to collect some water saving us dragging endless amounts of water into basecamp. That meant Tobias and I had to get back into the water to travel some distance north to clearer unmuddied water undisturbed from all my earlier activities. When I returned a few minutes later I poured some of the water into the bath and added one of my marsh stones to which I had transferred the fire skill as an attribute to the stone. When I did that, the stone ignited in a blaze of fire. I popped the stone into the water and the water started to bubble like a natural hot spring. With over 350EE in the stone the water heated up in three minutes. I realised soon enough that it was probably overkill because we could have easily all had a hot bath for 100EE.
When the water was hot enough, I simply removed the stone out of the bath onto the floor of the platform where meeting air again it burst into flame. I removed the fire attribute from the stone and stopped it burning. I found a small marsh stone in my collection and removed its EE until only 50EE remained. Then I transferred the flame skill as an attribute and placed it into the water. That seemed to work more elegantly. It would now just keep the water temperature right. As an experiment I would let it burn until the EE ran out to see how long it kept the water warm.
I achieved water temperature control by removing EE stones in and out of the water using some iron scoops I made. Since the stoned I removed out of the water would continue burning, I placed a couple of copper pots filled with clean water around that could warm up with spare EE stones for anyone wanting to wash in the ablutions. I later discovered that by transferring EE to a Mustite-iron mix I could distribute the EE across a wider surface and create a heat bar which worked better and didn’t burst into flame.
As eager as the men were to dive in, the woman unceremoniously pushed us out of the ablution area. Judging by the sighs of relief from behind the wall I would say the hot bath was the single most important contribution to team relaxation. While the women enjoyed their bath, I helped Cortez dry the horses seeing they had spent longer in the cold than we expected and gave them a good feed of grain, they certainly deserved it. In no time the horses nodded off to sleep. They could rest for the next few days. Eventually, Tobias and I got our turn in the bath, after patiently waiting for so long, not one of us complained. We were in truth, nothing but a bunch of softies.
With the men’s help Cortez got the fire going and a meat barbeque of the last remaining preserved meat. We added some lovely vegetables cut and fried by Cortez. Later the kitchen area turned out to be a good place to chat around a warm fire. With the food completed, Cortez used the opportunity for his turn to wash and relax in the hot bath. I especially replaced the water and warmed it again as a special thank you to Cortez for all his help. The benefit for him was that he had the tub all to himself while earlier I had to share it with that hairy tank. I didn’t realise men had that much hair. I wondered if he was related to the dwarves somewhere in his lineage but given that we sat in close proximity in the bath, I didn’t dare raise the discussion.
The ladies soon placed leather cloths over the doors and window openings for the rooms. Wood door panelling was the one luxury we would have to do without. I was concerned that the ablution facilities and rainwater runoff that needed dumping away from where people drew water, the last thing we needed was dysentery. Having horses and humans in proximity supplied its own health challenges.
I decided to create a sewage treatment plant of sorts some distance away and put in a well to supply safer water. I might even make a filter in the well as extra protection. While there probably wasn’t any reason for me to have to go to all the effort, I started to feel attached to my constructions. Once I hardened the surfaces of the earthing walls that place might be around for a long time. Something about that made me feel proud of the effort I had put in. Eventually I would also put a large image of my standard on the gate wall, I wondered if I was displaying tagging tendencies.
Later the team relaxed around the fireplace. The night sky was full of stars and some smaller frogs serenaded each other somewhere in the distance. Cortez whipped out a flask of some alcohol and shared it with everyone. Never did a bit of alcohol taste so good. Our spirits were high, and I think everyone felt secure in basecamp. Cortez then serenaded us with his Ironwood flute again. With the backdrop of the stars covering the sky and the warm fireplace, it was a night to remember. I used the excuse to sit next to Hana whom I had not been able to socialize with up to now and keep us warm with a blanket that covered us both. At first she looked a bit shy, but never resisted. We got a few gawky looks from the others, but I ignored them.
Cortez told a little of his life story and how as a young boy he eventually ended up orphaned after bandits ambushed his family while on the road and travelling between Draguilet and Obon. In the chaos he and his father managed to escape, but his mother was killed. The event changed their lives forever. His father disappeared for long periods from home and one day never came back. Cortez never knew where his father had disappeared to, but from then on was placed into an orphanage. When Cortez was old enough he managed to find work as an adventurer and joined other teams on expeditions until he met the Red Sparrows who had become his family. The rest of their team all had stories of loss and lessons learned but they had found each other and been together for the last three summer seasons. They trusted each other like family.
Later that night everyone headed for bed. Cortez was going to do the first shift followed by Corey because they would both be staying at basecamp the next day to look after two horses. Earlier that evening I proposed to the team a different strategy to look for marsh iron. I would personally find and manually retrieve the ore, while the rest still focused on my protection. Somehow they seemed happier with that method.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Hana and I headed for one of the rooms and we didn’t get any objections from the others. Although we weren’t in a physical relationship, it was nice to be able to stay with Hana again after the inn. I think it was the first time that we used the same bed together though. Snuggling up was so good. Hana did however have a habit of rolling around in her sleep and on occasion would briefly wake up and then fall asleep again. Once while lying in front of me, she seemed to be having a bad dream. I rubbed her back lightly and she fell asleep again. On the other side her flailing arms did result in me getting the odd knock, but I never mentioned that to her.
The next morning, when the sun had just started to rise, the voices of the Red Sparrow team outside seemed to be concerned about something. While still snuggling behind Hana I did a presence sense check of the area but there was nothing worth worrying about a good radial distance from us. Just then, Tobias opened the flap of leather covering the door.
“You need to see this.”
Was all he said in a hushed tone and then disappeared back out the door. I quickly dressed while Hana, who decided to join us, also got dressed. Outside, the Red Sparrows were on the southern rampart looking in the direction we arrived from yesterday. It was a beautiful day to search for marsh iron but once I got up there, my heart stood still for a moment. A dark column of smoke rose into the sky on the far horizon, ominously in the direction the other expedition team headed back to Obon.
Tobias did a low growl in his throat saying,
“Only fools would purposely light a large fire to attract attention. Since neither the monsters nor those private adventurers strike me as fools, only battle remains.”
The implications were clear. The other team met some challenges returning home. I hoped they were okay. They were a big team, and fully aware of the presence of direwolves, so they should have been prepared for dealing with them. Unless they faced a more difficult foe.
“When we return, and if the opportunity arises, I would like to investigate.”
I said to the team. They nodded in agreement. It might seem strange to head into trouble, avoiding it may be the better judgement but in that case, but we felt obligated to them in the way they unselfishly helped us. In many ways that was so typical the behaviour of adventurers in remote places like that.
“Tobias. Is it possible they met with ogres?”
“As strong as they were, that team would stand little chance against ogres cooperating with direwolves. Having said that, we should carefully consider our own plans.”
As we watched the smoke that morning, we felt less eager to head back home. Thankfully, we still had a few nights to think of a few good strategies.
Just like the sunny day, the gloom in our hearts from the morning’s events gave way to joy as the number of ore we found improved remarkably from before. Heading north I detected the density of the ore got thicker and thicker the closer we approached the Mystral Mountains, standing proudly before us. Tobias took point lead, I followed with Hana next to me, with Aliz taking the rear. I only needed to walk a few meters forward and I would pick up large chunks of ore about a foot length deep under the ground. From there all I had to do was use earth and water skill to pull the ore out. I suspected that our success was also due to my ability to find the ore under the surface of the mud where no-one could have easily found it previously. Besides my luck with that, I found that I was able to pick up hundreds of marsh stones out of the ground as they zipped into my hands underwater. Using water skill, I pulled them out of the mud and flushed them towards me. I even managed to get a lot of good training from the activity, becoming quite proficient at it. Once my hands were full of either the ore or marsh stones, I placed them into separate transfer storages, ore in one and stones in the other.
Electric eels bothered us continually. Hana and I could sense them heading to us every time. Although we could deal with them, they were an unwelcome distraction. We needed to quickly prioritise it so that they didn’t build up numbers. A pair of them we could handle, but if we allowed them to build up into larger numbers, we would be toast, just as Karato predicted.
We found that we could only handle about six hours in the water before we got so cold that we battled to operate properly, so altogether we had about an effective four to five hours of mining. Of the bullfrogs, we noticed none, seemingly happy to ignore us or go about minding their own business. Otherwise, it turned out to be a profitable mining session.
Arriving back in camp, Cortez and Corey set up a good, hearty meal and even prepared a hot bath for us. We spent a good while relaxing in that glorious water.
“Hey Shane?”
“Tobias.”
“If you’re thinking of doing anything more to this place, make a bigger hot bath.”
“You know Tobias, I think you’re on to something. I’d also want a better view.”
“Are you saying I’m ugly?”
He retorted.
“Bwahahaha.”
We laughed like men in the tavern as we talked about the DIY work we needed to do. After dinner I poured out the proceeds of the day’s ore haul and about three tons of metal lay on the platform.
“Incredible.”
Was one response from Aliz, and she hardly spoken all day. Tobias and Cortez both whistled. Cortez offered his take on the matter.
“That’s a lot for one haul, we could pack up and go home while calling it a success. A concerted effort from a full expedition team may only get half of that haul and consider themselves extremely lucky.”
Before I put the pieces back into storage, I picked a piece of ore that had the largest amount of Mustite and left it one side. Afterwards I took a closer look at the ore, melted it, and separated out the iron from the Mustite using transmutation. There was about thirty percent Mustite in the ore and in another test, from ten kilograms of ore I was able to get three kilograms Mustite matching my expectations. The remaining iron ore became decent quality iron but nothing more. From what I could deduce, the marsh iron’s special metal qualities obviously derived from the presence of Mustite. The Mustite on the other hand got its special quality from both the EE stones in the water and the Mystral mountains. That could help explain why up to now no one had been able to artificially replicate the marsh iron. Only I was privy to that little secret, there had to be a way I could benefit from that knowledge.
That night I spent a bit of time with Ara on the Creation Core while sitting in the room with Hana. She fell asleep while I was sitting on my deck chair designing a few new ideas. I wanted to create some exploding arrows that we could use against ogres if we ever encountered them again. The problem last time was the lack of decent ordinance that had any serious punch. I was forced to make something I called a Tigre some fancy acronym I dreamt up to describe a panzerfaust that could nail ogres. The problem was Tigre’s were noisy and far too effective. Anything within the blast radius would be roasted which meant I lost both money and friends. I wanted exploding arrows, but it was a bit like reverse engineering. The explosive head simply consisted of a small cylinder of water that when activated was hyper flashed into steam in milliseconds. The head consisted of Mustite, iron and the slightest bit of orichalcum. Yeah, it was a bloody expensive arrow.