15 Building materials - Part 1

As I predicted today the expedition arrived, the truth I knew thanks to the minimap, at all times I was observing its progress through it.

-hola Mors, as he has gone-

-The truth was quite quieter than I expected. At first, we thought that we would meet demonic creatures on our way, but we only encountered wild animals.

-Well, that's a relief-

-yes-

Although I already knew about this, I still had to appear somewhat surprised.

-Well, it seems that you have complied with my request- I said this with my eyes on the wagons. These were loaded with different sacks.

-If, as you asked us first we went to the sea, the truth was impressive, I had only heard stories of how it was but to see it personally was impressive-

He was happy for him, not many prairie people knew the sea. They only knew about him from the descriptions of the merchants.

-Well, leaving that aside, there we collected as much sand as you asked us. Then we went to the east face of the Pleiades where we picked up the volcanic earth, apparently as you guessed, the wind dragged the volcanic earth from the center of the Pleiades towards that place, otherwise we would have had to climb the mountains until we reached the foot of the volcano-

-It's good to know that he was right, and as for the other-

-We also brought the clays, this was just what we did yesterday, if we could clear the path of obstacles we could reach that area on the same day and return-

-You are right Mors, that was also my plan, when we have enough time, we will clear a path to the east, and not only to the east of the Pleiades but to the sea, because despite what you brought we will still need more-

-Well, that will save us a lot of time-

-yes, on the other hand, we already picked the limestone rocks near the cliff to the west-

-Well now that you have everything you needed, what we do-

-for the moment the group and you that left you will rest until tomorrow-

-thanks, but I want to go see the forge, the rest if you can go to rest-

While I was watching Mors go to the forge, I could not help but smile with resignation, this man does like the forge. I can not wait for the moment I see the blast furnaces already finished.

During the remainder of the day, ordered that the resources brought by the expedition be placed in an orderly manner, tomorrow we will begin with the constructions, first we will make the supports of the water wells.

The next day, I woke up early and had breakfast alone, I did not want to wake up my sisters so I went out in silence.

When I arrived at the place where the construction materials were found, there were already the people who were going to work with me to prepare the construction materials.

The first thing was to prepare the construction materials from the materials. My first goal was to make the bricks. This is because they would take longer to make them unlike other materials.

We use different types of clays, which we hit as much as possible until the rocks are smaller, when we had this size we had to start grinding them as the women do with the wheat, but this time with the small clay rocks. This work took us all morning until noon. In the end we were able to get a few kilograms of clay powder. We rested a couple of hours. After dividing the work into two groups, one would be responsible for putting little by little water together with the clay powder until a viscous mix was obtained, but not as much as mud. The other group was in charge of making the molds for the bricks. Once this was done, we continued to fill the molds with clay, by the time we finished, the sun was already hiding. For today it was enough.

When I got home, my sisters had apparently also returned from the magic classes.

-Hello-

-Hello Aren, how's it going? Ellen greeted me.

-well, we were able to fill enough molds, tomorrow we will continue making more bricks-

-Don't try hard Aren, it will soon start getting colder and I do not want you to catch a cold- Ellen could not help but worry about me. We met at the end of October and even though the weather in this area was not really cold during the winter, it still felt.

The next day, we continue doing the same, we prepare clay powder, then the dough, for midday unmold the bricks from the previous day and leave them in the sun, so they would be for another 3 days. We continue filling more molds. This process continued the following 3 days. Today we were going to move on to the next step with the first round of bricks we were doing.

While continuing to make the mass of the bricks and filling the molds, this time I would take care of the next step. The rest of the bricks in the sun was to remove the moisture from the bricks now it was necessary to cook them in the ovens, for this he needed the help of Mors.

-so we have to put the bricks to the kilns for a whole day, without stopping

-Yes, but you have to make sure that the temperature increases progressively and not suddenly until you reach noon. At that time for 4 hours or so you have to heat them to the maximum temperature, once you have to wait 4 hours you have to reduce the temperature. All this has to last a day-

-accordingly, I will have to organize shifts so that the oven is in operation throughout the day-

-has that each work shift works for 8 hours in this way each group will have to work once they finish the shifts of the other shifts in this way they can rest-

-according to what you told me-

I could leave this job to Mors, he has more experience working with furnaces than me, so I trust him.

Now what we have to do is wait until all the bricks we are making go through the oven. Meanwhile we prepare the other necessary material.

To be able to join all these bricks we have to make mortar, for this we will first make cement. For this we also made both the clays and the smaller limestones but this time it was not necessary to make them powder, then using two ovens that Mors left at my disposal along with the people who know how to use them. In the ovens we mix, both clay, limestone and sand. I asked the people in charge of the ovens to put the furnaces at a higher temperature. I needed the highest possible temperature, I did not want the three ingredients to reach the melting point, but they had to merge together to form a single piece. Luckily we did not take as long as the bricks, in 3 hours we removed the mixture from the ovens and placed it on top of some bronze plates, these would hold the temperature without melting. Allow the mixture to cool while doing this process again. By the time the sun was setting we were able to take out another 4 batches of molten mixture. Let people rest for today, tomorrow we would continue.

When it dawned, I went quickly to the ovens, when I arrived, Mors was already there.

-Good morning Mors-

-Good Morning-

-as the results have been- before my question Mors I passed a block of light brown color, when I held it I could verify that our work had been successful, the brick had come out as we had planned.

-Well, with this we can build the supports for the water wheel, Mors continues in this way with the rest of the bricks that will already be dry-

-Okay, with this we can also make those blast furnaces that you mention so much-

-ehh ... that you speak Mors- before the declaration of Mors, I was stupefied.

. you did not say Aren that when we had the construction materials we would start building the blast furnaces- Mors was somewhat surprised by my reaction.

-you are wrong Mors, these bricks are not good for this, what we need is another type of bricks-

Both I and Mors looked at each other for quite some time, then Mors sighed and went to continue his work.

I could not do anything for him, but it was true these bricks were not suitable. Once I checked the bricks I went to the area where I was making cement that we would use to make the mortar and join the bricks.

When I arrived I saw how they started doing the same as yesterday. Well, I like them to know what they have to do without me telling them.

I was able to concentrate now on converting the solid rocks resulting from the powder mixture. This powder is cement, if we put it together with the right proportions of sand and water we will get mortar to join the bricks. We are getting closer and closer to blast furnaces.