In his past life, Urist had come across many hairbrained designs for a forge thanks to his second uncle. For spring vacation he and his uncle would drive around the states to see exciting forges and how they were made. To the crude to the advance from charcoal to coal to gas, and even electrical forge designs. Throughout their trips, they had visited hundreds of forges and watch their work in process.
Learning about new and interesting methods of how metal was forged and crafted from swords to the furniture he had some basic idea should be made. Alas, the best metal they could mess around with, with their current technology would be making a bloomery.
A bloomery is a simple forge that consists of a pit or chimney with heat-resistant walls made of earth, clay, or stone. And at the bottom, it had pipes that would be made of clay or metal that came out of the sidewalls.
These pipes main function is to allow air to enter the furnace, either by natural flow or forced with bellows. The simple forge would also have a hole at the bottom so bloom could be removed.
Of the main materials, he'd required for the forge would be clay, rock, charcoal, and bellows.
In the items, he had clay, rock, and charcoal that was simple to make. The bellows would be the hard part to take care of.
Since they couldn't treat leather they would need to make pumps out of bamboo to pump air in and later move onto river power.
But one step at a time with the idea planned out in his head after dinner he would give out jobs.
And dinner was a sight for sore eyes. Digging up the cooked ribs and legs when the time was right to see golden meat.
The dwarfs were already salivating thanks to the stew. Now with the leg meat revealed they dwarfs were getting rowdy as Urist washed the ash off.
With the food now finished, Urist took a bite of the leg and passed it to Urat then took another bite out of another leg and passed it to Uria.
The dwarfs started picking up on what Urist was doing taking a bite and passing it on.
Strew also got served in the bowls they made and eaten with bamboo spoons. It filled them with warmth drinking in the fatty stew spiced with woozoo flower petals.
Despite the lack of spices used the stew was pretty good in Urists opinion. It didn't taste gamey despite the short amount of bloodletting still it wasn't a prime piece of meat. Though how could he complain about filling his stomach, those that complain about what they are given should be beheaded.
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The dwarfs sat around the fire chanting and cheering eating their fill, since coming to this world this was the tastiest thing they have ever eaten. Thanks to the bosses knowledge they could fill their bellies and stay warm in the night.
Although staying on watch annoyed them a little it was a necessary evil when they didn’t know what dangers lurked in the darkness. When the dwarfs were relaxing by the fire using toothpicks made out of bamboo Urist began talking.
“So I’ve decided on the next plan we should tackle and that will be getting a forge up and running. Meaning we need to start on brick production tomorrow it’ll be hard work, but when we can craft metal tool it’ll be worth I promise.”
“What do we need boss?
“Yah let's make a forge! Um… what’s a forge?”
Urist smiled at how excited the dwarfs quickly explaining what a forge was, “A forge is a place that allows us to bend metal to our will. You can make knives, swords, axes, armor, and many other things with it.”
“So we can make more bronze items?”
“Yes.”
““““OHHHH!””””
The dwarf's eyes lit up like candlelight thinking about owning their very own bronze knife. They had seen how well the bosses knife cut into flesh and wished to exchange their rock knives for the shiny instrument.
“We need Clay and sand a fair amount of it and also any open ore we find on the topsoil. We might start digging in the cave with the pickaxe we have to find some. Though I’m pretty sure on this mountain range there should be some metal sticking out we just have to find it.
Other than that we need to make a shifter, and a bellows which I’ll make by hand tomorrow with some help with the rope making team now the jobs are as follows…”
One Day Left
After giving out his orders Urist decided to call it early tonight he would rest in his bed checking the internal clock ticking down in the back of his mind.
Time: 1 Day 5 hours 47 minutes until Market opens
Points Gained: 5538
The points had risen once again and the time had shortened. By now after thinking it over for a week he had a pretty good idea of what this Market it would be. And the thoughts that filled his mind made him terrified of what's to come if his thoughts were only half true.
The market wasn’t his concern, it was after the market was activated that made him scared him out of his mind. Since he had one-timer now what's to say there wouldn’t be other timers foretelling of other more sinister events.
His felt confident that they would occur afterward since they haven’t once seen a dangerous animal cross their paths or their droppings. No poisonous animals or plants, he knew deep down after tomorrow things wouldn’t be the same.
He was the leader, he was responsible for all these dwarfs. No by now he thought of the little guys as a family not as dwarfs. They all listened to his every word, the went along with his hair-brained ideas without much thought except Uria.
What happens if he failed, what if someone he knew died in front of him how would he live with himself? Urist didn’t get much sleep that night worrying about useless things, waking up in a cold sweat more than three times.