Already awake for today, Urist stood outside and watched as the morning light trickled through the leaves. Although it was a nice sunny day with some clouds here and there he couldn’t help having a nagging thought in the back of his mind.
Why hasn’t it rained once since we’ve been here? And why hasn’t the river water level not dropped because of it? Whatever. No rain means we have the full day to do whatever we want.
Throwing away his worries, the dwarfs began to make breakfast for today. The preparation was quick as they reheated the remaining stew from yesterday and had some smoked fished on the side. Finished eating, Urist and the dwarfs got to work on making shovels as he wanted to start gathering clay to make bricks.
Well, it’s more like bamboo-shaped hand shovels instead of actual shovels but whatever.
To make the hand shovels faster Urist enlisted the help of the bamboo team. Thanks to their experience in handling bamboo these past few days, it didn't take them long to finish the needed crudely made shovels. As soon as they finished Urist took them headed over to the river bank.
“Hey Rork, Rat. It’s time to start digging when we’re done you can pull up the fish.”
“Ok, boss let’s gather this clay. The only question I have is how much do we need to dig?”
“Good question Rork first we need to find the clay. When we do, we’ll expand the pit so we can then easily extract.”
The choice of excavation site was near the river but not next to it as Urist wanted no one to trip. It was close enough that they had a good chance to find a clay layer so it should work. Hopeful to strike clay the three began to dig for clay thirty feet from each other to get a better sample size. With pretty excellent luck it only took them a few feet of digging for the party to hit a deposit of high-quality red clay.
Ya, see this color clay nephew? They type is perfect for making bricks and pottery!
A flash of memory passed through Urist’s thoughts as he dug his hand into the red clay.
Uncle. Wherever you are. Thank you for teaching me.
A somber feeling in his heart passed by as he thought of what next to do with the clay.
If we mix this with the sharp sand next to the river we can make some good quality bricks. If memory serves me right, the correct ratio for this type of clay to produce bricks is one part clay to one part sand. Although it wouldn’t be that strong when comparing it to modern bricks standards it will do for our needs.
“This is the material to make bricks boss? It seems pretty soft compared to wood.”
“I have to agree with Rat it seems like something not worth gathering.”
Shaking his head Urist responded to the two criticisms. “It might look weak now but after some treatment, it’ll be strong enough for our needs. Now come on let’s expand this hole.”
Despite having their doubts, the two followed Urists lead and expanded the hole to twelve feet long and twelve feet wide. It might have taken some time to finish, but Urist felt it it was well worth it to make gathering easier.
Wiping the sweat off his brow Urist got out of the pit, “Ok guys five-minute break before we throw sand into it.”
“But boss we just threw out all that soil!? We are we refilling it?”
“Are you just messing with us now?”
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“Now now guys it’s all a process. We’re not completely filling it. It’ll be just enough to make a good ratio so we can mix them with our feet.”
Urist began to start eyeballing the ratios under the skeptical gazes of the two dwarfs. When he finished they began the heavy labor of stomping the sand into the clay making them sweat. With some cursing under their breath, Urist calmed them down by talking about how cool it was going to be when they could make their own knives.
It took until noon for them to make a good consistency to start molding bricks. While the dwarfs were hard at work mixing, Urist took some time to head over to the rope team so he could ask them to make a brick cutter out of bamboo and underwear string.
Such a weird contraption came from them not having better materials such as hide glue or a drill device. To Urist, it was a good temporarily tool to use as a mold. Before leaving them to make bricks, he picked out a nice flat rock and made some scratches on the surface to set the dimension for the brick cutter.
It didn’t take them long to make the cutter and head over to where Urist and co. were stomping clay. Taking out some finished material Urist put it on a large flat stone and began to cut it under the dwarf's gazes.
“You see these bricks are cut in the shape of a rectangle on a flat surface like this. This serves a few things as this allows the brick cutter to make uniform bricks and the flatness makes it easy to work with them. When they are finished we’ll place them on an empty plot of land, this won’t make them completely uniform but it’ll do for now.”
Poking the brick Rat asked with curiosity, “I see that the clay has gained some strength but it’s still soft boss. How do you fix that?”
“It’ll take a bit, but first we sunbake them so that they dry before we put them in a fire to harden. If we don’t, the bricks will crack and pop from the water content making them useless. The bricks we’re making right now will be used to craft the forge. The next series after that will be fire-baked inside to make them stronger for other construction projects.”
“Okay. Then how long does it take for them to be ready?”
“Give or take a few days to dry enough. But since I wanna collect some shells to make mortar it works out.”
“Mortar?”
“What’s that?”
“Like what I always say one step at a time. Let’s focus on the bricks first. After I do a few cuts do you guys think you will be able to handle it?”
“Yeah, this is piss easy boss. We can do this when we wait to pull up the fish. So what are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to make some custom parts for the forge over on the side. You can take turns to watch as I make them.”
“Oh? Such as?”
With a small chuckle, Urist shook his head, “Come on now. What would be the fun in telling you? Just watch and see.”
Leaving the two stunned dwarfs Urist turned and grabbed some clay before beginning to shape the other objects they needed for the kiln. Such custom made bricks that needed to be made were the entry point brick for the billows intake and the firing stone where objects would sit to bake. He wished they could make a water mill for the billows, but they didn't have the tools or the manpower to create such a thing.
One step at a time, Urist consoled himself. If the weather holds then we should finish gathering the mortar materials and be ready to make it after the sunbake.
After he made the custom parts he went to go search the mountain range ravines for any iron or copper sticking out. With such large mountains, there should be, shifts of exposed minerals and metals. I wonder what we’ll find? With the information, I’ve been given I know that this whole world hasn’t been touched by intelligent hands. So the chance to find unmolested pockets of metal should be an easy find. Maybe we could even find metal in our cave. Nah it would be stupid to do something dangerous.
Why he thought it was stupid came to a few points. First, he didn’t know how stable the walls were and a potential cave-in would spell disaster. Another reason is that he didn’t have any wood supports, lighting, breathing apparatuses, or tools to carry the dirt and minerals away.
It was too dangerous a task, without many pros that it was rejected until further notice. With that in mind, he set out into the wilds with a bottle of rations and smoke fished wrapped in leaves along with the bronze sword as protection.
Even if he hadn’t come across any carnivores in the jungle, one couldn’t be too safe in the unknown. Since he went south last time he headed north together with Uora and Briana of the medicine making group in case they found any plants to bring back.
They had similar loadouts, with the exception being their weapons as Urist used a bronze sword and they wielded rock knives. The group didn’t place any markers as the place they were heading was hugging the mountainside the destination being between two mountains.
He figured it wouldn’t take them that long to scout out judging by the vague estimation of distance and how light they were packing. If all went well they would be back before dinner was served. His eyes lit up with excitement as he hoped of finding a source of iron or copper on this trip.