Apinsig
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Chapter 26 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2022-08-13 10:43:13 +0000 UTCI slept in a bit today. I had an excellent dream about how I can improve my defences, I should have noticed it earlier, but the goblins struggled quite a lot when trying to cross the main support.
So why not make it even more difficult for them and make it slippery? The same with the spike traps, so climbing it will be even more difficult.
Before anything today, I took a bucket and some vegetable oil and soap. This will make an extremely slippery mixture but not so easily washed away with water.
I had to use half of my remaining soap, meaning I will need to make some more. I deactivated the traps so I could safely go on the main support and apply the solution.
I covered everything using a rag that they could use to climb up or get them across with the slippery solution. This will make it slippery for at least a little while. I might need to reapply it every once in a while. I still have about half left in the bucket when finished.
After I went on with my usual chores of taking care of the animals, which got me a skill level in basic animal care. Then came the part of dealing with 9 rabbit hides and their meat.
This time I made the meat pieces small. They will most likely need to last me awhile and it’s always good to have more meat l can take with me that won’t spoil quickly.
As I smoked the meat and dealt with the hides, during the downtimes I was able to do some weight training thanks to me building it so close by.
Ability increases heavy training level 2
When the hides were done and drying, the meat was not ready yet. I didn’t need do actively watch it, just needed to come by every once in a while and put some more wood in. This gave me the opportunity to build the tar making structure.
The first question became where to I build it. Process of making tar will also require some monitoring, so I guess I will build it close to the smoker, maybe the other side of the road to the bridge.
But I might want to make the barn extent this way, so it might not be a good idea. Behind the main house towards the river, is where they did bonfires.
So, I can make it on the same side as the smoker just build more towards the bonfire side, leaving some distance between the smoker and the tar maker just in case.
I could use the same technique similar to making charcoal, but I wanted something more permanent and for that, it meant stones. But there’s sometimes a problem with stones. It’s that they can crack with too much heat.
But to fix that problem, I will just need to test them before I built with them. I still have so much stone left in the piles around the fields, so I won’t be running out anytime soon.
This will also require some testing because I want to see if I could make merging joints ability work with stone and meld them together that way. If so, this build will be a lot easier, and I can make it a bit more complex.
I actually don’t think I could pull it off if this doesn’t work and I will just need to make it the old way. I went and took the hatchet because doing it with the regular axe will be a pain in the ass.
I started by cutting out a brick like piece. On one side, I made a tongue and groove joint for both sides. I needed to be really precise and control piercing cut ability the best I can.
It was difficult to achieve a square cut and after multiple times of failing, I had to change the design to a V shape, making it a lot easier.
When I put them together and use the ability, I concentrated to merge together everything, even the flat part, trying to extend the range of the ability.
It worked, but it took more energy. I need some more practice. I think I could get a lot better at that. And it did hold it together quite well.
I could still pull it apart if I used most of my strength, but it will be good enough for the build. For the tar itself, I will currently need to use my firewood because the building logs I have will not be the best to get tar.
Luckily, the firewood I have is mostly fir and pine wood excellent to get tar out of. There’s also some birch, so I could get some birch bark stripping them to make the tar a bit more viscous.
I wouldn’t want to make it too thick. It still needed to be a liquid, but then it would stick better to anything it comes into contact with.
I will need to make it long enough that the firewood will fit so about 1 and a half meters long. It will be tilted with the opening at the top to load in more wood with a big lid and a small opening on the other side.
That’s where I will make a stone pipe that will deliver the tar away from the fire to a container that will be collecting that tar.
Around this structure will be a box like structure where I could put the wood that will burn and heat up the cylinder.
I want it to be surrounded because then I wouldn’t have to use so much wood to heat it all up. I could leave it open and just make the cylinder where the wood will go into, but I will need so much more wood to heat it up.
I want to make quite a lot of stone for the build, so it was time for the bull to do something he liked. I brought two loads, I think I will only need one, but I’m always in need of some stone around the farm.
Every brick that I cut out needed to be tested in fire and that was a good idea because one in every 10 bricks cracked.
I started by making the cylinder. I just had to cut the stones at a certain angle, so when put together, it will form a circle when done many times.
I used the same technique as bricklayers so the second row will be shifted forward. Continue to do that long enough and it will make a long cylinder. It was incredibly easy to do thanks to the ability. But it still took quite a long time.
When I was finished with the cylinder, it turned out to be 1 and a half meters across and tall. I got two levels in basic masonry for it.
For the lid I did still had to go out to the field to find an enormous stone to cut into the correct size lid and also to make a handle on it from stone.
I had to repeat that process another time because the first one cracked straight down the middle when tested it in fire.
To do all this testing uses up quite a lot of firewood. If I’m not careful, I might run out, especially after I spent most of it to get the tar I need.
But I didn’t start with the outside box quite yet because from my calculations the goblins will arrive soon, so I went on a watch.
But they didn't arrive before their usual camping time, so I went back to building. Making the box took straight bricks, and that didn’t require so much fine work.
So, before night I was able to get half done, and I even had some of the pipe finished. For the cylinder, I have one side hold up by a pillar so it would be at a 45-degree angle, making the tar flow into the small hole and the pipe after that.
After a quick dinner, I went to bed. Next morning, I quickly did my chores, then went on a watch. It took them a long to get here, longer than I expected.
There was 12 of them this time and to my complete delight, only one of them had a proper axe and another one had a hatchet, but that was it.
I might get lucky, and they will not have any more of them. I bet it will be a huge blow if they will lose this axe as well.
They were prepared this time. The ones that had the axe and hatchet had long sticks with them. They are going to set off the traps beforehand, so there is some intelligence somewhere amongst the goblins.
But it certainly wasn't here as they both started to cross on different sides. Now they both were extremely cautious, so the slippery surface didn’t make the fall off instantly.
I could see that they were struggling to stay balanced. And when they started to set off the traps with their sticks, they didn’t think of throwing them or releasing them before the spike traps hit.
When the sticks were hit by the trap, it caused them to lose balance and fall. First the hatchet one and then the axe one after that as well.
The five that were waiting on the bridge were angry when the first one fell in, but they were absolutely shocked when the second one also fell in.
It was a bit hard to hold back my laughter, but I managed it. They argued quite loudly for a bit before they all returned to the forest edge to talk to the leader that was waiting there.
I could hear the yelling from here like they were beside me. It took a bit before I saw one of the goblins try to run away from the forest.
Right after it, a goblin that I assume was the leader walked out and throw its spear through the goblin that was trying to run away killing it.
I guess he was not pleased with the results. Now all of them were walking back here. I wondered what was going to happen next, but I never would have expected what happened.
The leader started to cross himself. He moved angrily and as soon as his foot hit the slippery surface, he slipped and fell into the river.
I was just as dumbstruck as the goblins. It didn’t take him long for his struggles to end down the river.
The rest of the goblins were silent for a while before they started to move away. To my surprise, they actually picked up the goblin that the leader killed and brought it with them.
I watched closely, but I didn’t see anyone on watch. But even after they were long gone, I was still in a kind of a shock about how effective making the surface slippery was.
I wonder if they will give up on trying to cross for now. But only time will tell that. It was time to get back to building.
