I finished gathering all the lumber needed just before the sun started to set, much to the amazement of the entire village that had gathered to watch me work.
Once I gathered all the lumber and night was setting in, I finally asked some of the looky loos for some assistance to which they were more than happy to lend a hand so I requested them to round up as much ash from fire places as they could so I could mix it up with some soil and water to create the bonding cement for the temporary forge.
My caravan of people settled in with the towns people easy enough and all of them decided they would watch me work through the night, with that they set up a few fires around and used the empty wagons, random rocks or logs I wasn't using at that moment for seating as they watched and ate, with a few "are you sure you don't want any help m'lord"s weaved in every now and then
It took me about 4 hours to get the furnace together, but most of the time was waiting for the primitive cement to dry just enough to move on to the next stage of building, but all said and done it was a pretty choice temporary furnace, I made it extra big as to make it easier to make some of the big ticket items like plows.
Honestly I was so much smarter as a space marine than I could ever dream about being as a regular human, with my enhanced nogin I had the shed for around the furnace planned out in excruciating detail in my mind before I even started cutting the first log.
The only "tools" I used were my axes and my fist in replacement of a hammer to tap things into place, the rest were just unnecessary as I whacked together a shed in under 5 hours even taking it fairly slowly to make sure I measured cuts and lengths properly to keep everything where it should be like a giant homemade 3d jigsaw puzzle… no nails involved
The roof was a little tricky height wise, but with a little ingenuity and another trip to the forest for some more logs for a make shift heavy duty scaffold it was little issue…
A lot of the folk got tired of being amazed and eventually went home one by one throughout the night with only a few sticking around to watch me finish up on our towns new workshop.
And I was putting the finishing touches on the roof as the sun started to rise, and I gotta say...it's magnificent, even if I'll have to rip this down in like a year, this is the first thing I've built in my life that wasn't complete shit..
As before I died I never really built anything and in the 40k verse, well…..let's just say the space marine arts and crafts programs weren't really geared toward building anything but mountains of xeno and heretic corpses…..once as a joke I asked to start a space marine dance troupe…..And I had an interrogator at my door within 20 minutes accusing me of being tainted with chaos ….thank fuck I was a space wolf and spacewolves as a general rule hate the inquisition, so they backed me up and told them to fuck off…..learned that day there is no humour in the 41st millennium, only Karen's in pilgrim hats…and war too, can't forget the war…..
Anywho, back to my freshly built forge…..it's incredible for something whacked together in a day with no tools….it's perfectly uniform and symmetrical 80ft squared box shaped building with a 3 foot awning type extension wrapped around a sloped log roof with a stone chimney sticking out, a decent sized window on each side of the shed with a double barn door style entrance, not even mentioning the work benches I threw together and also coating the inner walls with primitive concrete to prevent any chance of a random spark causing a fire somehow
….I even ended up slipping two living quarters into the back for the blacksmiths to live in while they find something else…
I said it wasn't going to be pretty and generally it's not really, it's practical…..but looking around the village, this is by far the best building in this village by a very VERY large margin….it's a shanty town built with gnarled driftwood so it's to be expected…but hot dam does this thing stick out…
Turns out 3 people and two pups stayed the night to watch but fell asleep part way through, my right hand to be, will, who was looking after my new pups, all 3 were sleeping next to a fire in a pile of furs bundled together for warmth….
The other 2 humans who stayed the night were actually the smiths, excited their lord was personally building them a workshop and morbidly curious on how he was going to build it from scratch in a single night alone with no prepared materials… they were both asleep in furs next to some smouldering charcoals..
The sun was raising so that meant people were as well, and people were curious on how their new lord did on his overnight project and gathered slowly with shock no less than the time they saw me performing feats of strength no human could have…
The crowd was growing as I was admiring my handiwork, the whispers died down for a second as someone approached me….it turned out t be benjen the dirt fetching woodsman from the day before.
"Excuse me m'lord"
" yes benjen?"
" would you permit me and some of the other folk to have a look inside this magnificent building you've constructed m'lord?"
"Knock yourself out mate, I'm going to have a quick brekky and then start forging some farming tools so I can start educating those farmers on how to use em and what they need to do….hmmm I'll also rig up some pulleys for that fishing ship for bigger nets…that should increase food production some as well"
The last half of the sentence I was more talking to myself then to him…I don't think he actually knew what I meant by "knock yourself out" but he seemed to understand it meant he got the ok, so he and the people gathering around starting flocking inside to see what I'd built in a night and if the faint "oohs", "aahs" and "by the gods!" Being thrown around are anything to go by I'd say they were impressed
I actually ended up with a pack of 5 wolves, 2 bucks and a boar in my inventory last night while I was hunting lumber, so I walked around the back where no one could see me and dumped them out and called for benjen as his was the only name I knew of the people around that weren't asleep…
He popped around and gaped a little at the pile of dead animals before I hit him with " benjen, buddy can you have some people skin and butcher these for me real quick, I'm kinda busy, also I need a good amount of firewood delivered to the workshop to get the furnace running, you being a woodman and all, would you go pick some up", he didn't hesitate to let out a "yes m'lord" and ran to grab some people to take care of that for me, and most likely grab some fur for the furnace too
So I walked back around to where the blacksmith were and had woken up from all the noise of the people around, and I approached them
"Alright lads, get these slickly beaks around the new workshop to help you move in your gear, get the furnace started and start setting up, I want to be forging in the next few hours…I have a few things to do before I come back,so get to it"
A pair of "yes m'lord"s and they're off to get starting while trying to hold down their excitement at the new and fantastic workshop that was built in a night.
I plan on having some food real quick, and then gathering the town folk to execute those iron born for a bit of morale boosting and then finally checking out my loot from the ships before coming back here to get started on some of the farming gear.
I do have a bit of parchment and ink in my supplies, I'll also draw them some schematics to help them out once I show them so they can't possibly fuck it up....
I have so many ideas….it's just hard to prioritise, food comes first obviously, so refitting the ships and the new farm equipment are priority at the moment, after that I'll probably build those barns for the livestock….
Maybe after the farm equipment, boats and barns i might build a kiln to make bricks so I can start stock piling them, followed by hammering out a distillery to make some booze for coin?
Golds not really an issue, I mean I could always use more gold but I have a decent amount at the moment, so maybe hold off on that?
Hmmmmmm….get the lands semi productive and then raid the iron islands?...
Yeah…..I like the sound of that….hit them mother fuckers with the classic uno reverse
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