Chương 105: 104: Settling In

1st, & 2nd of Merlotus, Year 2 The full day of Bhealtaine went off without a hitch. We had a good time. Emily and I sat at the mayor's table with Lewys and Castell. The mayor and his wife made more than one joke that made Lewys uncomfortable. Their daughter stoically pretended not to hear any of them. At 10 a. m. on June 2nd, we met up with all the people who were heading back to the homestead. Baddon and Delyth had their own horses, as well as a small two-wheeled cart with all of Baddon's Craftsman gear.

I couldn't help but notice there were three good-sized travel trunks in the cart. If they were mostly Delyth's clothes, it was another ominous sign. Oh well, I told myself. She's not contractually obligated to do anything, and she could wear whatever she wanted. Baddon's horse was a chestnut so dark it was almost black. Delyth's, which she was sitting side-saddle on, was a beautiful light buckskin with a white mane and tail. It was a striking animal.

Jac was wearing his full Lancer kit while sitting astride his trained warhorse. It wasn't quite as large as our draft horses, but it was considerably stouter than our riding horses. It had to be to carry Jac and his armor. The man was kitted out like a heavy cataphract from Byzantium. He had a full metal breastplate, with an open-faced helm, and metal greaves and boots, but had splint mail arms that provided more mobility.

His high-backed saddle and stirrups that covered his feet and lower legs allowed him more mobility in the saddle. That looked to be important since in addition to a saber and lance, he had a fairly large war bow with huge arrows. His horse had quilted armor with metal bands running in strips on its front, but none on the rear. I assumed that was so he could easily kick back, but I wasn't exactly a mounted combat expert.

He also had a grey draft horse who was hitched to a wagon that carried his own suitcase of clothes, as well as his distilling equipment, and Bryce's brewing equipment. There was a large wooden tub, a copper kettle, and some new barrels for finished beer among other items. I'd bought malts, barley, and hops for Bryce, but they were in my wagon. Bryce was in the driver's seat. The wagon seemed entirely too overloaded, and I looked at it dubiously.

"Why don't we move some of that stuff over to my supply wagon?" I said.

"Your wagon seems like it has too much stuff for your poor horse." Jac looked at his wagon, then mine, and nodded. Bryce hopped down, and we moved the still out of Jac's small wagon. I helped him jam the still into the wagon containing the oil, seed, and supplies we'd picked up in town. Once we were done, I looked up at Jac and said, "I have an industrial sized Alchemy lab, if you want to use it." Jac smiled, "I'm not gonna say no to that. But I'd still like to bring my own along."

"Sure thing," I said.

"You can keep this one in your cabin, or we can build something for your still and Bryce's brewing stuff." As I shifted the bee boxes to make sure they still fit snugly, Jac brightened up.

"Ho, John, I wasn't aware you had a Beekeeper class."

"I just got it," I said, shading my eyes as I looked up at the man mounted atop his warhorse.

"Figured I'd see if I could get some honey." Jac smiled, "I actually have my Beekeeper class at level 20. I can give you some advice, and I can even help Bryce make some mead."

"That would be great," I said.

"I'd love some advice. I've never dealt with bees before. Mead's a bit too sweet for my own tastes, but I'm sure it'll be a hit with most." He smiled, "It doesn't have to be overly sweet." Jac looked at Bryce and said, "I'm certainly glad we have someone I can trust to drive the wagon back. It will allow me to take Squirrel here and do some ranged scouting." That name had me grinning.

"Hey Jac, will you tell Emily what you named your warhorse?" I said it loud enough for her to hear. She looked over, and I looked at Jac expectantly. He frowned, but said, "My warhorse is named Squirrel." Emily looked a little ill and just shook her head. The name was silly, but I didn't think it should have caused quite that reaction.

"What was the inspiration for that name?" I asked. Jac also seemed a little confused by Emily's response, but he turned his eyes towards me as he smiled fondly.

"When he was young, he was a little too squirrelly any time something jumped out at him in the woods, it truly spooked him. Everyone told me to get rid of him, but I had faith, and now he's been a truly amazing horse for the last fifteen years. He would walk alongside us the entire way and never stray from my side." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"That is a good name then," I said, making eye contact with Emily, who just shook her head from her horse. I swear she was looking slightly ill, but when I asked her if she was okay, she said she was fine. We stopped at 2 for lunch, then arrived back home around early evening. I offered Baddon and Delyth, as well as both Bryce and Jac, rooms upstairs with us while we waited for Baddon and Zack to build three more cabins for us.

That would mean kicking Laeth out early, but he'd mentioned he'd be fine going back to the bunkhouse Bryce and Jac said they'd be fine sharing the bunkhouse Laeth had been in. The other was Tieg's squad's home. Laeth decided to stay with us for now. In the end, I decided I wanted ten cabins built, and told them I didn't want an extra bunkhouse, since I felt bad making anyone stay in them, but Emily reminded me we needed three bunkhouses to buy 5 plots of land.

We could build fifty cabins, but we'd still need those three bunkhouses for some darned reason. Now that we had walls to think about, space was at a premium inside said walls, and unused buildings weren't ideal. Emily, Seamus, Rupert, Baddon, Jac, Bryce, Cara, and I all stood around the island counter in the kitchen, surrounding a map of the homestead as we settled in to decide where things would go. We already had a row of five cabins, all of which were already filled up.

We had 2 bunkhouses behind the cabins, and one at the end, but that was the one that burned down. We decided to add the third bunkhouse to the south of the other two, and then add three more cabins in line going south. Then the final two would be at the end of the bunkhouses. That would give us a line of eight cabins in the front row, and then three bunkhouses and two cabins in the back row. They'd be about an equal length. The little brewery/distillery would be built just south of my alchemy lab.

I wasn't doing anything that should blow up, and space was getting tight. I didn't want to interrupt my L-shaped animal corridor coming off the north side of the barn, so that's where things had to go. Emily asked where we'd be putting the administration building we'd need next year, since we were going to buy at least three more plots of land. Once you got to six plots of land, you had a farm estate, not a simple homestead or farm. You needed to add an administrative building that was not part of the farm manor.

You also had to make the sixth plot have a forty-acre barnyard area. That was okay because we needed more silos and equipment buildings as well. I was thinking that we'd buy the second plot on the south side that would give us a C-shape, then probably the two plots to the north, where our animal corridor was currently set up.

There wasn't too much of a difference ground-wise, but the riverbank was a bit lower there, and seemed easier to do some engineering work if I needed to build a dike for another inflow ditch to irrigate. Once we bought those three plots, we'd be up to 700 acres already! That was larger than the first three generations of the Ashman family homestead on Earth. Not bad for just a couple of years.

As far as extra housing went, once you got over five plots, you were simply required to provide a private cabin for every "specialist" and you couldn't house more than ten people in a bunkhouse. Obviously, no mixing of the sexes in bunkhouses. It seemed like the easiest place to put the extra administrative building would be on that extra northern plot nearest the river. If we wanted to make any of the new plots primarily animal-focused, that would be a good spot.

We'd have that corridor to move animals to the barn, and we could put the twenty acres of wheat we'd be required to grow there on the far north plot. I wasn't an animal expert, but it was always easiest to have as clear a path to move animals around as possible. The way things worked, if there was a crop growing, you couldn't move a domesticated animal through that spot, so we had to do our best to keep open corridors on all the plots we were required to keep open.

Baddon said that with him and Zach, they could put up a cabin in two days.

"I put up a cabin in two and a half days with just me, Colin, and Emily," I said. Baddon smiled at me and said, "I can tell that none of you have the Craftsman class." I let out a guffaw, yes, a guffaw, and said, "Fair enough." We needed to hire someone else to do the interior stuff if we wanted their durability enchantments. I could do the heating enchantment and a cold enchantment that would work fine when it was hot enough pretty soon.

That meant that I needed to speak with the mayor about getting us a Joiner and Cabinet Maker for the cabins in around two weeks. Seamus hadn't spoken, so I asked him if he was happy with his smithy. He said it was plenty big enough to support the homestead for quite some time, so I put that out of my mind. The thing everyone agreed on was that we needed another, much larger building for coal storage over where their work buildings would be placed.

At that, Rupert, who had stayed mostly silent as he sipped a glass of blackberry cordial, asked me. Have you ever looked into using coal as fuel for your tractor? My initial thought was, of course not. Then I realized I'd been a massive idiot. I had a chemical engineering degree. We'd briefly discussed the Fischer-Tropsch process in college. Germany had used it in World War 2 because of their oil shortage, and South Africa had a plant that uses the process.

It was wildly expensive to build a plant, so it wasn't widely used, but I was willing to bet that my Alchemy Lab would have some way to make diesel from coal. I wished that the lab showed all the possibilities before you put an ingredient in it, but if something had never been tried on Talamh before, it just didn't show up.

"Rupert," I said.

"You just might be a genius. To the alchemy lab!" Emily let out a sigh and said, "It's getting late, you can go to the lab in the morning."

"Oh, but I'm gonna have trouble sleeping if I don't try this out." I said, definitely not whining… Emily sighed again and said, "Alright, just go see if it's possible, then take a bath, and come up to bed." She looked around and said, "In fact, I'll show everyone staying in the manor to the bath houses. My linens are clean, and I'll not have them stained already."