B2-Chapter 10: Landship.

B2-Chapter 10: Landship.

Perhaps the best sleep I had ever enjoyed ended with a rap on my door. I woke, eyes bleary and mood surly as a pleasant dream I could not remember was cut short. Whoever woke me better have had a good reason to do so.

Zheli was the culprit, I found.

Mornin. She bustled in with a smile. Need food from the cellar.

I groaned, remembered this was what I had hired her for and opened the door wide. Lidya was getting an order to build a proper food storage bumped to the top of her list. Aside from the dark-haired cook, there was little activity about the farmyard. Tash had declined a bunk in the storage house with Artyom and instead opted to sleep in the haystack near the pasture.

Gol may have factored into that. Ishila had given instructions to treat him with caution, but the cantankerous beast followed Artyom closely. Anyone that got too close to the felinid received a warning of bared fangs. Most did not press closer. Gol might have accepted myself and Ishila, but he was still very much a wild monster, I had to remind myself.

And I did not have a solution to that as of now. With that in mind, I approached Artyom. While he looked excited, I could smell the nervousness on him. Indecision, a touch of fear. He was nervous around so many people. Not entirely unwarranted.

Mornin I greeted him with a smile. Or my best imitation of one. I need you and Gol for some work.

Yes-yes? He perked up, tone hopeful. I explained that I needed seed delivered to the Langills section that had been cleared yesterday. There remained a few bags inside the storage shed. Ishila had assured me they had not gone bad, and I wanted them there for seeding to start as soon as those oxen were brought.

Ill need you to stay there and watch them until the plow gets there, I could almost feel the palpable relief that entered Artyoms body as I spoke that sentence. It all but flooded his scent as he excitedly promised me it was no trouble at all. The felinid really didnt like being around other people. I left the duo to sort that out and went to wake my resident drow.

Tash stirred awake as I kicked the pile of hay, one hand lazily raised to bid me good morning. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

Such early? He yawned and blinked at the sky. You are a cruel master. I approve.

I was not sure how I felt about the smugness in that last sentence, but chose to ignore it. I needed to be done with some chores before Ishila came, and he was the one to do them.

They are intimidating, yes. He gestured at the taur-cows over a cup of brew I offered. Hard-headed and temperamental. But I will yoke them, eventually. Such things need time.

Time is well and good, but I need milk.

Healing milk would be my standout, my secret, I had decided. It was something I realized no one else could replicate. Something that could make me invaluable, should I become -and stay- the lone supplier around. And for that, I needed cooperative cows, if only so I did not have to keep wasting my Skills freezing them in place to drain them. As it stood, Tash was my best solution to this.

There was also the very slight complication that the next harvest was days away. The immense fortune that had landed squarely in my lap had rocketed the growth of my crops to unprecedented levels. The monster-plants in particular were overgrown now as no one had approached them save for ishila feeding various specimens.

I wanted those plants separated and transplanted into a contained space for growth, but that was a future project. For now, the order to steer clear from any and all monster-plants was firmly implanted in every worker here. The fool who had lost his hand yesterday stayed the exception, not the rule.

Ishila found me soon after as I hunched over the vegetable patch, pots to one side and spade in hand.

S-sean told us to clear the rockpiles from the field, Mister Garek. I managed to get an explanation from him after a bit of nervous stammering. Directions to move it elsewhere given, I headed off to track down my over-eager foreman.

Seemed like the logical thing to do. The human frowned at me after I brought up the subject. I sighed, pinched the bridge of my nose between two flat fingers, and waited before I spoke.

There are certain things about my farm that may not make sense. But I require you to trust my decisions, and clear anything with me first. Am I understood? I bit blunt, but I would rather he be cautious than overeager. While, yes, clearing rockpiles from fields seemed like the logical thing to do, it was not, in this case. The sentinels had been disturbed by the rocks movements and would take some time to reform.

That aside, everything seems to be in order. i commented after a moment of awkward silence.

Yah. Theres a crew breaking up land at the Nielsin property,and your orc girl took the oxen down to Langills to start plowing. I have another crew working at Mush Creek to rip out the dam there and get something flowing. he frowned. The crop land theres still fresh, old couple there just didnt have the gumption to remove the dam and get water to their crops.

Explains why they sold it for so cheap. I remarked, already knowing full well but just repeating the information.

Aye.

With that, I left him with further instructions and set off to check in on the loggers.

Lidyas crew was nothing if not efficient. I recognized none of them, as she had promised to supply her own workers. But their work spoke for itself. Multiple saw pits were already dug, thick logs placed over them and notched so trees could be lain into the groves lengthwise and split with a pitsaw. One man worked inside the pit, another up top as the saw frame they rowed back and forth cleanly split logs down the middle.

As I watched, a log was finished, and with a yell, its halves kicked off to either side. The man inside the pit heaved himself out, covered in wood dust, sweat, and dirt. Another log was loaded into the notched cradle, and back into the pit the first man went.

Two more lads grabbed the split halves and hauled them towards a construction site where the foundations of a dormitory had very much taken shape. A tree crashed out of the woods, predated only heartbeats by a bellow of Timber! This too was dragged to the saw pits and heaved onto a pile to await being split.

It was back-breaking work. Hard, fast-paced, and demanding of all the endurance a man had.

I was all too happy that it did not require me. Coin could buy a man many things, and this was one of them. And I would be a fool not to partake.

Good wood. Lidya remarked as she strolled over, dusting off her hands. I could only vaguely make out what she said over the pounding of hammers and the constant rasping drones of saws being worked.

Good work. I nodded.

A laughing caw sheered through the air, and my insides dropped. Something was about to happen, and nothing that I would be fond of.

Something turned out to be a carriage being pulled up the road by a team of exhausted horses that struggled to tow a massive steel box behind them.

Gods Above, what now? I groaned as a rider galloped towards me. Whatever this was, I had little desire for it.