23 - Construction Season

The next day, we all worked together collecting clay. It was exciting to see progress, and everyone felt it. The whole day was spent bringing clay back for the kiln, with Thomas and Juliana staying back to shape all the clay, according to instructions I got from returning to the Builder. Silence filled up the spiny pink plant with ice melt, and brought a second to also fill up later.

It wasn't finished that day, but we had it done by the next noon. After another lunch of blended meat in a leaf wrap, I returned to the inner sanctum with the Ancient.

His cloak fluttered into existence around my shoulders, and he moved us to the Builder again. I resisted taking control back. I needed to trust him.

*You have come back again.* The Builder greeted us.

"Yes," I replied, "We have built the kiln as you instructed."

*Good.* His voice was gruff as ever. *You can use it to make pottery - don't ask me about how. But you can also use it for brick. That is why I had you make it. Now take a mix of sand and clay,* he showed me a series of images - what kind of sand I was looking for, as well as clay, and how to mix them, including with water, *pack it into a mold, and fire it. This is what they should look like when they're done.* He finished by showing a finished brick.

One of the best parts of telepathic communication I found was that words and images could be shared interchangeably. So I got the full picture.

I bowed my head in respect to the Builder. I had shown him respect in each encounter, so he started showing respect to me. "Thank you."

*Just go make use of my knowledge. And maybe send a in mortal that loves the intricacies of construction.*

"You will know if they are near before we do." The Ancient replied.

*That don't change the request. Send 'em quick, y'hear?*

"We will try," I answered, before leaving the inner sanctum.

The others were outside, taking a break. It had been a few days of hard work, and our sense of accomplishment was properly tempered by our exhaustion. Almost to spite their exhaustion, they got up when they saw me.

"What's the plan?" Thomas asked.

"Brick," I replied, "we'll need more clay, with sand and water to make bricks."

"Thankfully, that's all in about the same place," Katie said.

I nodded.

"Before that," Juliana interjected, "Try this on."

She held out a leather shirt, made of hide from a furred monster that Silence had killed. I took it, and removed my cloak and cut-up tunic. The gouges had been annoying over the past several days, but I didn't dare go shirtless. Katie's face was tomato-red as she watched me take off the old shirt to slip on the new shirt. It fit roughly well, with one sleeve feeling larger than the other, and barely reaching my waist. I stretched my arms up to find that the shirt was definitely too short. But it would do.

"Thank you, Juliana," I said.

"It was Katie's idea," she replied, "But since she was spending so much time exploring with you, I figured I could put it together. I probably didn't do as good a job as Katie would've, but I tried."

"It's a skill, like everything else. You won't be perfect at it your first few tries."

After that conversation, Katie, Silence, and I went to gather the ingredients for our bricks. Thomas and Juliana were staying behind to watch camp and start making brick molds, and I thought I heard Thomas say something about a table.

When we got to the riverbed, we overturned a pair of the spiny pink stone-plants, and filled one with sand, and the other with clay-dirt. Once full, we dragged our two buckets back to the temple clearing. Silence had one hand on each of them, I helped her with one, and Katie helped with the other.

We got back as the sky began to turn red. Juliana had just started setting up a fire, filling it with wood-shavings, which came from a pile near Thomas.

We set down the clay and sand, and I examined Thomas's work as Katie collapsed. He had a pair of finished brick molds sat ready for use: rectangular pieces of wood with smooth, brick-shaped holes drilled out of the centers. The inner corners were rounded, but that barely mattered.

"This is awesome." I said.

"I did the best I could with a solid piece of wood. It'd be nice to have nails for things like this. Or just to have metal at all."

"I know, but I didn't think any of us knew where to find it."

*Some of the Soulblades in the temple may know, if you were to just ask.* Ancient reminded me.

*I guess I can talk to them, assuming they'll talk to me.*

*The Smith is of a similar temperament to the Builder, though generally more jovial.*

*I'll have to keep that in mind.*

We ended that evening with full bellies and a few made-from-scratch bricks.

Days turned into weeks as we scrambled around our various tasks. Katie and Juliana used pelts that Silence caught and Thomas skinned to make replacement clothing, because most of their modern clothing was already wearing thin.

I was instead working on the bricks, which Thomas joined me in when there were no monsters to skin or clean. While the bricks cooked, we dug the cellar, where our meat could store with the aid of the Dragon's ice.

The cellar only took two more days, so the shoveling after that was actually for the foundation of our first building. We started laying bricks in the foundation trench after a week. We had the walls for a 15-ft by 20-ft room up to the middle of my belly by the time we had reached our two-month mark of living on this new world.

Two months. 60 days. A month and a half of working on the brick structure. If not for the count I had the Ancient start tallying, I wouldn't have believed it. Monsters didn't attack us anymore, at least not at camp. Silence had killed everything that was bold enough to approach, and she had set traps to scare the rest off. Part of that may have been the chill that came on the wind, though. If I had to guess, autumn was approaching.