15 - Building Camp

We slept in the opening hallway of the Temple, to keep dry. The Ancient had offered to keep watch when we mentioned it, and the others said the Sorceress and the Angel were willing too.

We made bedding from the scaled leafberry strands, which made the night much more comfortable.

The next morning, Thomas and Silence were ready to head out.

"You sure you don't need us to help build everything?" Thomas confirmed.

"Of course the help would be nice, but we need tools. We can't do everything with only swords." I replied

"The Sorceress was offended by that, but you have a good point." Juliana said.

With that, and brief goodbyes, Silence and Thomas left.

"We have three days to wow them before they get back," I said to Juliana and Katie after the others were well out of earshot.

"So... How are we going to put those together into a structure? We don't have nails." Katie said.

My excited smile froze. Curses. So many things I had taken for granted, like nails, we would have to design ourselves. At the moment, we had no nails, let alone a hammer, no glue.

"We could tie the joints together," I suggested.

"I'd like to not commit my life to a flimsy piece of hand-woven rope. We're talking about houses here, right? The whole thing could come crashing down if we put too much strain on any one rope." Juliana countered.

As she explained, an idea occurred to me. Something random I picked up from high school Woodshop 101. "Then let's not rely on the rope. Just use it to support the joint."

"What are you talking about?"

I crouched down and cleared the ground to draw on. I drew a pair of shapes in the dirt. They were both like blocky 'L's that could have been shaped from logs.

"We cut the logs to join together, then use rope to support it." I explained as I drew log shapes with partner-log-sized notches in the middle of the segment.

Juliana seemed stunned. Katie looked between me, the pile of logs at the edge of the clearing, and my drawing in the dirt excitedly.

"Let's start with a blueprint. Do we have a large leaf and charcoal to draw one up?"

"We don't have any big leaves, but I know where we can find some that are as big as the other ones we found." Juliana answered.

We set Katie on pulling apart, then braiding the fibers, then Juliana and I went to pick some leaves for bedding and for writing on.

"Is there something I did?" I asked her while we were coming back.

"What do you mean?"

"You challenge most of what I suggest. Do you dislike me or something?"

"Oh, it's not that. We would have very different conversations if it were something like that."

"Do you mind telling me what it is, then? Do you not trust my suggestions?"

She shook her head. "our decisions now are super important. If we simply charge in with the first idea, we could get hurt or maybe disabled. And, you come up with better ideas after I challenge the first."

We returned to camp with idle chatter. When we arrived at the Temple, and our camp in front of it, I took some charcoal from our firepit, and went to work drawing up simple blueprints. The basic idea was that we would make two pairs of standing triangles, and support a post between them, then drape bark overtop and make simple tents. We could tune them up from there, but anything more ambitious would probably require help from Thomas and Silence when they got back. Simply having a set of five tents that would withstand rain and wind would be good enough.

"How are we going to keep them standing up?" Juliana asked, pausing from braiding a piece of rope to look over my shoulder. "The two legs on both ends could just buckle one way and bring down the whole thing."

I thought a moment. "We could attach this to a tree," I gestured to one of the top corners, where the across bar connected to the crossed support legs, "or we could make cross-supports like this," I drew shorter posts that connected at the middle of the legs and extended out and to the ground.

"The tree would make it more wind resistant, and with the tree top, less rain could get through too."

"That's a good point. We should probably pick the bulkiest trees."

"How would we attach it, then?"

"Drill a hole here, and loop rope around the tree?"

"If we notched the tree, we could just get rid of those legs entirely, right?"

"I guess that could work."

*And how do you intend to 'drill a hole' in a piece of wood? I barely understand the concept you are attempting to convey, and I don't know what means you intend to attempt this with.* The Ancient added.

*Don't worry about it. I'll show you.*

Juliana and I went to the pile of lumber, and picked a larger tree that Silence had felled. It was about six inches across at one end and narrowed out after ten feet. After scraping off the bark and branches with my sword, I put the point of the Ancient at the widest part, with plenty of material at the end. I twisted the Ancient into the wood, making a growing hole. It was impressively easy, most likely due to the Ancient's sharp edge.

I stopped at an inch and a half, which was as wide as I wanted the hole, but narrower than the Ancient's blade. I had Juliana try it, but the Sorceress's curved blade was also wider than we were looking for.

"Katie," I called. She looked up from her rope that she was weaving, "Can you and the Angel help me with something?"

She put down the strands she was working on, picked up the Angel, and came over. "What is it?"

"Our blades are too wide to drill all the way through this log. I was hoping you'd let us borrow yours to get it done."

Katie looked to her blade. After a moment, she asked, "You sure? Okay."

She looked back to me and handed me the Angel, thrusting the hilt to me, with the blade pointed away from either of us. "She says it's okay. Just don't hurt her, okay?"

"I'll do my best." I said.

Katie nodded, and returned to her fibers. Though instead of sitting down on the temple's front step again, she moved her workspace closer to the pile of logs. I gently twisted the Angel's glass blade into the wood, puncturing through in a matter of minutes. I selected another tree of similar size and repeated the procedure. Once satisfied, I chiseled at two pairs of thicker trees to be cleaned and have notches that fit in each other.

And before we realized it, it was noon.