image [https://i.imgur.com/fDreKVj.jpg]
We assessed the rest of the worm carcass. Rocky bent over and inhaled its aroma. “This hough be well good for chow.” He licked it. “Aye, tis salty, which is spot on. I reckon the beastie will taste enough like shellfish—while other parts smack of bacon. And with the stomach for casings, we can make links for breaky.”
After Rocky’s culinary endorsement, we processed the meat by dividing the work into three parts—each one strenuous and unpleasant as the other. Step one entailed using our machetes to subdivide worm segments into strips a few feet wide and ten feet long. The next involved using sharp blades to slice off tire-sized rings of pink meat from the skin, severing it from connective tissue and innards. The third required rolling them into the void bag, where they remained in magical stasis until removed for cooking.
I found no magic items in its guts, though we plundered hundreds of pounds of the stomach lining and organs at Rocky’s insistence. He promised to ground them into sausages once his kitchen had a grinder. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that meat grinders fell nowhere near our priorities, but we collected the lining anyway, working through the late afternoon and evening.
Though flexible, its chitinous hide looked like something from the ocean. At Belden, I reached rank 7 in leatherworking and knew enough that salty meat meant increased chances its outer skin would cure in the sun. Perhaps it might soften enough for armor or boots. I spread out the hide using basic leatherworking techniques. This hide wouldn’t putrefy as long as we had sunny weather.
Each strip of meat weighed at least a couple hundred pounds, but luckily, we avoided lifting and rolled the bounty into the void bag one piece at a time. The exhausting labor foreshadowed at least one point in strength on my next gained level.
By the time darkness descended, we’d taken everything. We totaled 400 enormous strips of meat and preserved just as many pieces of skin stretched out on the grass. The entire haul almost filled up the void bag again.
After our ten-mile trek south, we spotted our camp nestled in the forest’s shadow. The trees blocked the campfire from the mountains’ view so the goblins and orcs wouldn’t spot us from their peaks in the north.
I approached Charitybelle. “I thought you planned to build by the river.”
Charitybelle held up a palm to me, and her face soured. “Oh, Apache! You really stink. You stay right there.” She pinched her nose and asked me to bathe. She pointed me in another direction as if rejecting a stray mutt. Everyone else had cleaned themselves for dinner, which made me feel worse.
Angus eyeballed our exchange and raised his voice so everyone could hear. “Looks like ol’ cannonball will be doggin’ himself tonight!”
A round of bawdy guffaws followed the comment.
Peer pressure and embarrassment had won out, and I went for a dunk in the river. Fin and Rocky joined me. The dark water unnerved us, but we didn’t need to fight river monsters or a current. I rubbed silt and sand into my hair, scrubbing the stink from my skin and equipment. After wringing out my robe, I donned my academic uniform, returning me to my days in Belden before I trained in the academy. The cold water had tightened my aching muscles, making every step back to the camp stiff and painful. It had been a long day.
When I returned to camp, I hung my robe on a nearby tree for the night. Someone had already begun digging a well while others had chopped down tree trunks.
I grimaced from my sore limbs and sat amongst a circle of dwarves roasting meat over a fire. Everyone’s sobriety assured me I hadn’t missed premature celebrations. The dwarves hadn’t tapped the ale or, more likely, someone stopped them from doing so. Everyone ate and drank stores from our inventory. The conversation didn’t particularly interest me, nor did the thick dwarven accents make it easy to follow. The fireside topic involved Hawkhurst’s healthy water table and how the diggers would finish digging a well tomorrow. My chief takeaway from the conversation involved our collective avoidance of hauling water buckets from the river.
I approached Ally. “Why didn’t we locate to the river’s edge? It seems like it would make drawing water easier.”
“There’s naught easier than a well. Inland is safer than riverside—until we have our defenses square. And I’m not sure about hugging the tree line.” She looked into the dark shadows. “Further south would give us better visibility of oncoming attacks.”
Ally’s thoughts on security sobered me about our vulnerability. The more everyone understood our precarious situation, the easier it would be to prioritize buildings.
As the last person to eat, many camp members had already staked bedding claims beneath the canvas tent. I feared I’d get one of the least desirable places to sleep until I remembered the Dark Room.
When Ally left to find a place to sleep, Charitybelle found me. She grinned upon seeing my fresh set of academic threads. She crouched beside me and lowered her eyelids and voice. “Well, well, well—an alum of Belden University? You’re just what I’ve been looking for. If you play your cards right, you might get lucky.”
After our embrace, I shook the Dark Room rope loose from around my waist and tossed it into the air.
“After you, my lady.” I bowed.
Charitybelle’s eyes glowed neon before she climbed up the rope. I didn’t look back as I climbed after her. “Fab, you’re sleeping under the stars tonight.”
The dwarves who hadn’t seen the Dark Room before gasped in awe. I pulled the rope up behind me, enjoying their comments about our transdimensional space. Angus pointed at us. “What’s that, then?”
Fabulosa answered with a snort. “Tonight, it’s the boom-boom room.”
By late morning of the following day, our hard-working diggers finished the well with as much effort as it took to convince Fabulosa that exploring the worm lair wasn’t our top priority. If she cited reconnaissance as our camp’s priority for survival, we shouldn’t skip the due diligence.
I suspected favorable scouting reports would also be helpful for morale. The sooner we established our security, the sooner we could commit to a location. No one wanted to dig temporary wells, build temporary buildings, or till temporary farms.
Everything stayed chipper until I found Charitybelle sitting cross-legged with Greenie beside her. The goblin looked uncomfortable, and she seemed in such poor spirits. “What’s wrong?”
Greenie saw me and got up to leave—giving us privacy.
When he left, Charitybelle answered. “I forgot to get a plow.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Oh, okay. That’s not so bad. We can add that to our list of things to make. Anything else?”
“No, you don’t understand. A plow is everything.” Charitybelle looked mournfully at the dwarves. “I didn’t plan on feeding so many and didn’t bring enough food.”
“What are you talking about? We have tons of meat.”
“We need carbs. Meat won’t nourish this many people—especially if the dwarves maintain any decent pace of work.” Charitybelle leaned back on the grass, looking up at me, her forehead furrowed with worry. “Plows aren’t just another tool—they’re the tool from which all tools originate.”
I searched her face, waiting for a punchline, but saw only remorse. “What do you mean? It’s only a farming tool. Isn’t a knife more important?”
“No. Knives are fine if you want to spend your entire day hunting. It’s called subsistence living, and it’s not very fruitful. But plows begin civilization—which is basically what we’re trying to do out here—tame the wilderness. Historically, plows gave birth to surplus food, allowing humans to specialize in writing, baking, pottery, money, and architecture. Even in apocalyptic scenarios, survival hinges on establishing an agricultural base.”
I kneeled beside her and played devil’s advocate, if nothing else, to distract her from depression. “But we already have those things, babe. You don’t need to be so glum.”
“I know. But I’m an engineer and should have remembered to bring a plow.”
Perhaps distracting her with a techy question would work better than a consolation. “What about the industrial revolution?”
“What?”
“You said plows kicked off everything. What about the industrial revolution? Agriculture isn’t everything. Human advancement skyrocketed after we discovered the steam engine.”
Charitybelle snorted and shook her head. “The industrial revolution came from the agricultural revolution—it was only a byproduct.”
Rummaging through memories of history class, I shook my head. “You lost me, babe.”
Charitybelle’s eyes searched the clouds as she gathered her words. “Crop rotation, selective breeding, and mechanized farming multiplied farm production by an order of magnitude with one-twentieth of the workers—so we’re talking over a 10,000 percent efficiency increase in a few decades. Aside from sending labor to cities to kick off your industrial revolution, the extra food created this little thing called leisure time. Do you remember what I said about the plow allowing specialization? The 19th century’s leisure time put innovation on steroids. The agricultural revolution ended slavery and widespread starvation for the first time in civilization. Being less miserable gave us time to think, beginning public education, civil liberties, and women’s rights. People read books for pleasure. Mary Shelley invented science fiction, and we gave children gentle stories like Peter Pan and Peter Rabbit. Before leisure time, kids’ only fantasies involved frightening faerie tales. And for the first time in human history, it occurred to humankind to be kind to animals.”
Charitybelle’s expression darkened. “And here I am, forgetting to bring a plow.”
Squeezing her knee reassuringly, I offered a consolation. “The good news is, we won’t have to twist arms around here to build a smithy. I bet these dwarves could bang out a plow with their eyes closed. After that, I’d like a bathtub.”
My comic grimace at the mention of a tub broke Charitybelle’s sour mood. Her grin gave me my much sought-after victory.
Unsurprisingly, no dwarf objected to a smithy as our settlement’s starting point. We appropriated the goblin’s crude blacksmithing equipment, so our smithy only lacked a furnace—aside from the building itself.
Rory hauled a cart of tools to the rock bed by the lake because he insisted on a furnace hewn from living stone. We couldn’t make a furnace out of bricks because we needed lime for mortar, and we knew of no limestone deposits in the area. For whatever reason, the dwarves didn’t respect mortar, so Rory got his wish.
With Rory in charge of the smithy, Charitybelle and Greenie fiddled with designs for other buildings.
Fabulosa and I explored the rolling plains and found more wormholes and trenches. Its wander distance stretched farther than the clearing we dubbed Worm Meadow. I wondered if there might be other worms, but the properties on the red core we harvested read “World Boss Bonus,” suggesting a unique monster. I wasn’t worried about the worm respawning since reincarnation wasn’t a game mechanic of The Book of Dungeons.
We hiked north through the woods, then west, staying within a few hundred yards of the meadow. We circled it south until we hit the lake and headed east along the shore to Hawkhurst Rock, looming over the waterline.
On our way to the cairn, we met Rory and his assistants quarrying a stone block for his furnace. It surprised me that most of his helpers were female.
“Fab, Patch. Howsit going?” Maggie Rockthane nodded to us and then called for Rory as we approached.
Fabulosa crossed her arms. “Good, so far. Nothing to report. Where are all the boys? Shouldn’t they be doing the heavy lifting?” She gestured to the block of stone they carved from the ground.
Maggie frowned. “Wha, this? This waern’t nuthin. I put the lads to the solid stuff! Choppin’ ‘n haulin’ wood.”
It surprised me that these people didn’t consider quarrying hard labor.
“We lasses work faster than ‘em anyway! I’d have kicked Rory off the job, but he’s got nuth’ else to do without a forge, and we like to make him feel useful.”
Rory grunted in irritation, and several of the dwarves tittered.
The blacksmith squinted at them before speaking. “I’ll give the hens their due—they’re fleet workers. No one beats Maggie’s cleavage, but they know hee haw about making a pure roastin furnace!”
Fabulosa, who sported more cleavage than anyone else, crooked an eyebrow. “What’s Maggie’s cleavage got to do with anything?”
Rory exchanged questioning looks with Maggie and Fabulosa before gesturing to the stone. “Not that kind of cleavage! I’m talking cleavage!” He gestured to the stone.
A chorus of soprano cackles erupted.
Maggie grinned at Fabulosa’s confusion. “T’was a proper masonry comment. Cleavage is how we square a stone—hacking off bits until it’s blocked. Don’t worry, lass, none of us measure up to your bosom.”
The group shared another round of laughter at Fabulosa’s expense.
While Fabulosa blushed, Rory turned the conversation toward the project at hand. “This looks the nearest stone to take—at least, without fissures.”
The ladies already sawed through a refrigerator-sized block with wire. They wedged wooden blocks underneath it to prevent their hands from being crushed. The size and weight seemed way beyond what any small group of workers could move.
Fabulosa gestured to the stone. “How are y’all going to haul that big o’ block to camp?”
Rory balked. “Gads, naw! We’ll won’t be moving the stone so far, lass. Naw more than a few dozen yards from here. Those pikes will lift it, slowly out ‘o the ground.” He gestured toward a stack of trimmed, straight logs about fifteen feet long and half a foot thick.
As the person in charge of prioritizing buildings, I wanted to know his plan. “You’re going to forge everything by Hawkhurst Rock?”
“Aye. It would take longer to haul this stone to camp than to forge a plow.”
“Don’t you need a building to do it in?”
Rory shrugged and waved his hand. “I need naught but a roof to keep me metal dry. Slap one up, and I’ll do fine.”
“What’s the cart for, then?”
“We used it to bring the anvil, bellows, and ingots down here. Gunny and his lads are building a woodpile to make charcoal. We cannae forge anything ‘til they finish days from now.”
Rory’s mention of charcoal made me cringe. High-heat fuel accounted for another resource we’d forgotten to buy in Belden. Smithies needed coal or charcoal to melt metal because wood wouldn’t burn hot enough.
Their emaciated state didn’t deter the ladies from tackling the enormous block using nothing more than long wooden pikes.
Even though they didn’t need it, Fabulosa and I helped them level the pikes to raise the stone. It surprised me that doing so wasn’t difficult. The long wooden levers gave us a terrific mechanical advantage, and lifting them together made the work easy. We raised it a few inches before sliding thin wooden supports under it. We repeated the operation and slid another layer of support. Inch by inch, we levered the block out of its stony cradle.
We used the long levers to maneuver the block 20 yards away into the grass.
I looked at the cavity where the block once rested. “We could use that as a bath, no?”
Maggie cocked her head. “Maybe for the first person—unless you’re the type who likes another’s stink.”
It had no easy way to fill or drain it, so I saw her point. The bathwater would get ugly fast.
“How about a quenching pit?”
Rory laughed at my idea. “I’ll not need one that big. Not yet. I’m more concerned someone might fall in. Packing it with dirt would be a betterment.”
After we finished positioning the block, Rory began chiseling. The quarry experts took no umbrage but missed no chances to poke at the blacksmith’s middling skills.
His work looked good to me, but the masonry crew pointed out ways to improve his work.
After Rory suffered enough, Maggie raised both of her hands. “Lasses, let our blacksmith be. He doesn’t trust anyone who isn’t Rory Blackhammer to raggle out a forge.”
Rory grunted but said nothing.
While the dwarves packed the torodon cart, Fabulosa and I walked to the cairn to check for signs of water monsters. We encountered nothing but a peaceful shoreline, so we returned north to camp.