Chương 197: 194. Designs

"The outer structure of the second block was already finished up a few days ago," Duvas explained.

"Since Taniok and his apprentices had started working to fix the new wooden bunks on one side of the block, many villagers - mainly those who had been working to build that same longhouse - asked me to allow them to live there in the nights on the other side. I saw no reason to disagree, since the roof was already completed and it was safe enough to stay inside by then.

By now, it is already half full, with the villagers moving in steadily to live inside that block, since even sleeping on the wooden floor inside that block is much warmer than their damaged huts in the village."

"That was a good decision," Kivamus praised.

"Once the second block is completed by evening, then including the first one, we can house nearly two hundred and fifty people in total there - even if just counting those who have been allotted a bunk. Including those who are sleeping on the floors, it would be even higher. However that still leaves nearly fifty people in Tiranat would still be living in their huts in the village, with the remaining fifty or so people staying inside the manor."

"That sounds accurate," Duvas remarked.

"We won't be able to house everyone in the longhouse blocks until we finish a third one, but even if we skipped the other projects which we need Taniok to finish first, that block won't be completed before the end of winter, so there is no point in starting it now." That's true," Kivamus nodded.

"There is no need to change our plans then. Tell the carpenter to finish up the smokehouse in a day or two, so that he can start working on the village gates after that. Once that is done, he can start the construction of the barn in the South for growing mushrooms, and only then can we think about starting the third longhouse block."

"I'll let him know," Duvas replied.

"Also, call up Cedoron here by the evening," Kivamus ordered.

"I have finished the design of the safety lamp but I will need to explain it to him thoroughly before he can start working on it."

"Of course," the majordomo agreed.

"That being said, he should finish the spearheads by evening anyway, so he would already be coming to the manor to give them to us. Taniok's apprentice will also start working on making the shafts once the second block is finished by evening."

"Hudan would be happy to hear that those spears will be built so soon," Kivamus commented. Duvas gave a nod.

"There is also another thing, my lord. You need to find some free time - either this evening, or maybe tomorrow morning, so you can inaugurate the second longhouse block as well."

"Is there really a need for it?" Kivamus asked.

"I already don't have enough time these days with my daily personal sword training with Hudan, and then drawing up these sketches. And what's the point of inaugurating it anyway if people are already living there?"

"It's still a big event for the villagers," the majordomo replied, "and they would be very glad to see their Lord coming out for this, not to mention it would temporarily distract their minds from the constant threat of the adzees in the night. You really should do it, my lord, and it won't even take too long!" Duvas urged again. Kivamus sighed.

"Alright. I don't have time this evening since I have to talk with the blacksmith, but we can do it sometime tomorrow."

"I'll make the arrangements then," the majordomo replied with a rare grin. Before long, Madam Helga entered the hall from an inner door with her hands holding up a steaming serving bowl. Clarisa was following up behind her, while bringing up other things as well.

"Food is ready, milord!" the young maid announced enthusiastically.

"I helped in cooking too!"

"That's wonderful, Clarisa," Gorsazo said, before he scolded, "but don't forget to finish up your homework!"

"I won't!" Clarisa replied with a grin. Kivamus smiled at the young maid who had been doing quite well in her studies.

"Alright then. Let's eat!"

It was already the evening of the next day, but it had been snowing heavily outside since the morning, giving Kivamus an excuse to skip today's sword training with Hudan. The guard captain was already too busy and exhausted making sure all the guards at the gaps in the village walls were alert and ready throughout the night, so he hadn't opposed too much when Kivamus had told him that he wouldn't be practising today. Did you know this story is from Royal Road?

Read the official version for free and support the author. Throughout the previous night, there were a few more howls of adzees audible in the village, but this time they had sounded like they were coming from a longer distance, which meant the pack of adzees was probably moving on in search of easier hunting grounds. So it seemed like the danger had finally passed, but Hudan had assured him that they would still keep the extra guards at the gaps in the village wall for another day or two, just in case.

Kivamus had also met with the blacksmith yesterday evening, and explained the design of the safety lamp to him in detail. Cedoron had been daunted at first after seeing the complexity of it, but he had shown the blacksmith that it was still just a combination of separate parts which could be made more easily, even if the final result looked more complicated.

Eventually, after taking nearly an hour to ask many more questions from him about the design, Cedoron had rolled up the parchment and accepted it as a challenge to make the safety lamp, and Kivamus was quite confident that the talented blacksmith would come through on his promises.

Earlier today, Kivamus had also visited the second longhouse block to inaugurate it by cutting another rope tied at its gates, and the gathered crowd of villagers had cheered loudly at the rare event despite the persistent danger of an adzee attack. It seemed like majordomo had the right idea after all. He had also decided to use today's extra free time to finish up the sketch for the waterwheel he wanted to be built here.

Thankfully, this was one of the simpler designs he had to work on, so just one day had been enough to finish it, and now Darora could start crafting it from tomorrow once he had explained the design to the young carpenter. Coming back to the present, the fire was burning brightly in the fireplace, with some extra small sized branches kept on the side to add more wood to the fire when needed.

Duvas had just returned inside after finishing the allotment of grain rations to the labourers for this week, while Gorsazo was waiting to start teaching Syryne when she returned from outside. Lucem and Clarisa were also sitting nearby on a bear pelt which acted as one of the carpets in the manor hall, although only Clarisa seemed interested in listening to Gorsazo's lessons to Syryne, even if she didn't have a high hope of understanding much of it.

On the other hand, Lucem had been pestering her to play tag outside, but a single scolding from his mother when she had come to deliver lunch was all it took to make him calm down and sit quietly. Taking a deep breath, Kivamus took a step back from the long table which doubled as his workbench, and looked at the sketch he had just completed. After a lot of thought, he had settled on the design of what was called a reverse overshot waterwheel.

It was used to great success in Roman times on Earth to drain water from much deeper mines than what they had in Tiranat. Without access to any better power sources, the wheel would still have to be turned manually by a labourer stepping on the cleats one by one - which were just a series of horizontal planks jutting out to the side of the waterwheel - just like he was walking upwards on a staircase.

This way, the waterwheel would start moving by the labourer's weight pushing one side of the wheel downwards, thus rotating the wheel continuously. Of course, there would be cleats on both sides of the wheel, so that the force of two men's weight could be used at the same time to rotate it.

This rotational movement would make a series of small wooden boxes - which were basically cuboid shaped buckets - which would be attached at the circumference of the wheel to start dipping into the standing water one by one, thus filling them with that water. Once those boxes reached near the top on their circular journey around the wheel, the slight tilt of those boxes would drain the water inside them to a trough on the side of the wheel.

That trough would still need some extra planks to build, but it would allow the water which would fall steadily from the waterwheel's rotation to easily flow outside the mineshafts through that trough, where it would simply flow down the hills. Because this waterwheel needed to be strong enough to support two men's weights as well as that of the water it would be lifting to a height of nearly three meters, it would have to be fixed on a sturdy wooden stand.

However, he had designed it in such a way the wheel could be assembled and disassembled easily and quickly. That would allow them to shift the whole arrangement of the waterwheel to another mineshaft where water was gathered. This design, while sounding complicated, would be very simple for a skilled carpenter to make, since it only required him to connect the wooden planks and beams in a specific arrangement to build the whole waterwheel and trough arrangement.

He was confident that Darora should be able to build it in around a week with the help of his apprentices, now that there were more than enough iron tools in the village for everyone. Before finalising this design, he had also thought about making a hand cranked pump of some kind, but that would need to be built of iron for the most part, and that was something he wanted to avoid to save on the costly metal.

With the huge amount of water gathered inside most of the mineshafts, it would still take a long time to remove all the water from even a single mineshaft using that manual pump - probably as long as removing the water bucket by bucket - and that was time which they didn't really have. That's why he had wanted to build something which could remove water at a larger scale.

While it was still true that crafting this waterwheel would take another week, once it was built and installed inside a flooded mineshaft, he was confident that this waterwheel could remove all the water inside a single shaft within a day. Of course, the fact remained that Tiranat's coal mines had more than a dozen mineshafts in operation when they were still working.