Chapter 91: Sander

"Okay, sure. I will be right there."

Barely two hours after I made the first call, Pavlo already called me back with good news. Ending the call, I stood up from my bed, where I was studying different pictures of the runes. Even though I couldn't even go through a tenth of them, not to speak about all, I could already grasp certain concept hidden beneath them.

Putting the book safely away, I moved out of the basement, closing the door behind me. Even though I was fairly certain that no one would dare to attempt breaking through the concrete dome, one could never be too cautious. 

About two minutes worth of walking later, I finally managed to cover the distance separating me from the guest hall of the church. Over the last few days, the works on not only the mansion but all kinds of supporting building around were progressing faster than I could ever imagine. From the looks of things, now that this land was exclusively for us to manage, Baskars could use a lot of shortcuts that would otherwise consume a hefty portion of the time to deal with.

"Oh, you are finally here. I thought you would turn yourself into a hermit for a moment."

Catching my appearance as soon as I came into his view, Pavlo pointed his hand to the side. Following his directions, I took a look at a middle-aged man sitting in a simple chair. Contrary to what Ayda's world made me expect, the man didn't have the looks of a respectable craftsman. Rather than that, he was just your average dad in a family of four, working hard to give his kids the best education he could while occasionally attending summer barbecue with neighbours. 

"Meet Sander, he is a goldsmith but dabbles in jewellery quite a bit. I hope he will be able to help you out."

Introducing the man with quite a dosage of pride, Pavlo managed to take me by surprise by turning around in an instant attempt to leave. It seemed like he had some more interesting things to do, but I had some other plans for him.

"Pavlo, wait here for a moment. Also, excuse me, sir, I'm Krist, the leading priest of the local covenant. I was hoping you could help me test a certain idea out. Obviously, if it fails, you are free to talk about it, but if I will be right about that one thing…"

While keeping a huge dose of natural sympathy towards the man, I couldn't avoid bringing this matter up. If people or even machines from earth could replace the work of the skilled craftsmen of Ayda's world… This matter would be simply too huge to allow the man partaking in its discovery to just walk free.

"I understand. You see, your excellency, my business… It was already pushed to its limits by the apocalypse, but even then the government sought to shoulder me with heavy taxes, no different from extortion. If the idea fails, then there was no business, to begin with. If your excellency's idea succeeds, then I'm willing to devote my skills for our mutual benefit."

Just from those first few sentences that the man spoke, I could draw his character in my mind. Even though he was using the unofficial, respectful forms like your excellency, I was clear about how disillusioned this man was with reality. Just like he said, this matter was simple. If he could benefit and just live off his trade, he would happily lay his loyalty with me. 

"Great. I assume you got the tools I asked for as well?"

This was the only thing that I missed during the earlier call. Regretfully, it was quite an essential part of my makeshift plan to test something out. 

"Yeah, they are over there."

Pointing with his chin towards the other end of the room, Pavlo made me look towards a pile of boxes stacking up nearly all the way to the ceiling.

"Great. Let's start with the simple stuff then."

Pulling out a piece of paper that I brought with myself from the basement, I quickly drew the already familiar picture of the easiest possible fueling rune.

"All the carved lines should be equally wide. The thickness in the diagram depicts how deep it should be. Basically, for every level of thickness, you can imagine another layer that you need to carve out. Once you are done with carving the deeper lines, you can widen the ones at the surface if necessary."

This was the main hurdle behind carving out any more complicated runes or sets of runes. Operating only from the surface, one had to create channels under the surface, without mishandling the runes on the upper level. Thankfully, the rune that I just drew was that of a simple circle and a square written into it.

"Carving out something like this? It's a pretty easy task."

Taking a look at the diagram, Sander didn't wait for even a single second. Reaching out to his pocket, he pulled out a handful of precious stones. Some of them already polished, others still in their rough shape. 

"Should I start, or?"

Standing there with his hand full of gems reached out towards me, the middle-aged man asked with a serious look on his face.

"Before that, I would like Pavlo to give it a try first."

That was the ultimate test that I had in mind. Even if a skilled craftsman could somehow replicate the work of the veterans of the craft from Ayda's world, it wouldn't be enough to fulfil my needs. After all, there were only so many people of this trade that I could safely employ from the city. 

"Huh? Me?"

Pointing his finger at his chest, Pavlo looked at me with a dumbfounded expression. It looked like I managed to repay him for surprising me earlier on!

"Yes, you. You can get any help you want, but I need you to carve a single stone first. Then, mister Sander, I would like to ask you to replicate the pattern from the picture on all the stones left from Pavlo's attempts!"