《The Petty Queen of Lull》Chapter 15
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Beyond directing farmers, I also have to direct our new stonemason Sossu.
I go to the town hall so I can have quick access to documents regarding the island while drafting up a plan for Sossu to follow. A stonemason requires materials to work, especially given what I want him to do. Whatever maps there are of the island are incomplete and imprecise and beyond that, there’s only a lot of written records describing the terrain and resources of the island.
This is how surveying was done back in old times, with no standards at all. Cartographers often times had no tools beyond parchment and charcoal, in richer countries, like ancient Egypt, they had some standard measurement tools and were able to correctly map a lot of stuff with scary accuracy. Back in the time of the Roman Republic, the Egyptians had already correctly measured the length of the Egyptian kingdom in stadia, their own standard measure.
This world has its own measurements, of course. In Aedhag the most commonly used measure for length is the feet, which is described as the average length of a grown adult human male's foot. Same as was done in medieval Europe back on Earth. Of course, once again, there is no accepted international or even local standard. In Aedhag the use of many other length measures like forthings, halfdans, quiplings and others I forgot the name of are also very common. In addition, without standardization, the conversion between them is very arbitrary. Forthings are commonly used for very long distances, and around 45.6 feet equal a single forthing, such a confusing conversion is not very good for accurate measurements.
Was it NASA that had an accident because of having to convert metrics into the confusing imperial system? If this world just had a logical decimal system, everything would be much easier.
Even within a measurement, it is hard to find any consistency. As I said, a forthing is AROUND 45.6 feet, because there is no accurate measurement of how long exactly a foot should be right now, it should be around 26 Earth centimeters, from what I understood, but it varies from place to place, person to person.
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Going back to the issue of tools, too. Ancient Egypt was a rich country while Lull is not. Our surveyors set out with just enough to draw a map and no measures beyond their own understanding of what feet and forthings are. There are incomplete measurements for how big the island is, but there is no way they are even close to accurate.
The glorious metric system is something we take for granted back in Earth, and right now I'm really feeling its absence, the best I can do is look at the written records about unexploited resources here and take the measured length to Algatolla with a very, very large pinch of salt.
Anyway, going back to the issue of resources. If nothing else, Lull is blessed with a fair amount of resources. There is limestone in the hills along the shore between Algatolla and Tristan. The beaches there very quickly give way to sharp hills that immediately jut out from sea level up some twenty meters; these hills apparently have a lot of clay in them.
Those are the two main ingredients for making cement.
Of course, beyond that, I also need to create enough heat for the calcining process to take effect. Otherwise combining the two just creates useless slurry.
Thankfully my interest in useless history gives an answer, there were many types of kilns used to make cement historically. As production ramped up in the 19th century, there was a quick burst of innovation and new types of kiln would be created almost every decade.
I can't recall the more complicated later designs, which is a shame as they obviously were more efficient, but I can recall the early beehive kilns and the later Johnson chamber kilns that replaced them. It will be a bit of a bother to create the bricks necessary, given the lack of infrastructure here, but with a chamber kiln we should be able to make cement.
I joyfully start describing a chamber kiln, pouring out my mind into paper in preparation for explaining it all to Sossu, only to remember Sossu can't read.
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That's right! That's right! That's not a problem I'd ever have back in Earth, I could just assume people were literate, at the very least. Here though, in this island of some six-thousand inhabitants, you can count the number of literate people with just your fingers.
I really need to think about education too...
Well, I should focus on this for now. I already have too much stuff to do and I'm rushing things as is. For now, just sweep that thought under the rug and come back to it later, that kind of thinking has never failed me, yup! Never.
I go ahead and start drawing a diagram of a chamber kiln that I can show to Sossu, if he doesn't understand writing, then drawings will have to suffice.
"Hm, you are a pretty good artist."
Casteddu looks over my shoulder, probably curious at what I was doing, "Is this some sort of kiln?"
"Yeah, it is a new design from Aedhag," I lie, no way I can explain to him where I actually learned this. "See here, the beehive shape at the bottom lets a lot of material burn at once, and the chamber above with a single exhaust on the opposite end lets the heat simmer and build up. This allows the heat to accumulate and become very high over a long period of time."
"Drawing well makes sense for an idle member of the nobility, but why do you know so much about kilns?" Casteddu prods me, god, can’t he be a little bit less suspicious? Having a skeptical person who always thinks rationally is pretty useful, but it's also very infuriating, we aren't compatible at all.
"You didn't have many friends back in Tatari, did you?" I say what's on my mind, with some contempt.
"What's that got to do with anything?" He's actually taken aback by what I said, wow, I was right wasn't I? That's a bit sad.
Not that I can shame him for it, I was a loner on Earth too for different reasons, maybe we are more alike than I want to admit.
I sigh to give me a couple more seconds to think of an excuse, "I saw the new prototype kilns while visiting family in Oisin a while back. I was interested in them so I talked to the supervising masons and bought a few books on the subject before coming back. It was just my passing fancy, that's all."
"You were so interested in them, but you didn't think to hire one of the masons and have it built before now?"
"Uhh," Is having this guy around the right call? He might actually find out I'm lying eventually from all this prodding. "It... Wouldn't be very nice to just pilfer craftsmen from my relatives, right? Besides, I had to take time to read up on the subject to grasp it fully, I couldn't have brought a stonemason from elsewhere that hadn't seen that type of kiln until I fully understood it myself."
"Ah, I suppose that's true. And Sossu just happened to show up at the right time."
"Yeah, yeah, a lucky coincidence, I'm glad I don't need to look for a stonemason now." Phew, dodged that bullet.
"Anyway, we both have work to do, please let me finish drawing this; I'd like Sossu to get started on this as soon as possible," I say and Casteddu finally lumbers back to his own desk, satisfied with my answers.
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Indestructible God King
Wang Ke is a money driven merchant who happens to have knowledge from modern-day Earth. He navigates through life with brilliant mind games, a silver tongue, a «uniquely powerful» energy technique, and a fair bit of luck. Having rescued and escorted an influential princess back to the Heavenly Wolf Sect earns him the privilege of becoming the Sect Lord’s disciple, who in turn would become his business backing and the dispeller of a curse which haunted him. However, this newfound position dragged him into conflicts with both the righteous and the demonic sects.He travels through those troubled waters with his craftiness, fooling both factions and in the process attaining prominent positions on the two sides. After all was said and done, money was still his top priority! Making money with Earth’s modern ways! How will this money-grubbing fellow influence the righteous and demonic balance, and the fate of the entire world?
8 334The Town Of Fairview
They say if your looking to disappear, money, power or even a good time if you look hard enough you'll find yourself at the town of Fairview a cesspool of sin, violence, greed and supernatural beings both physical and metaphysical here in this lovely town you will find what you are looking for but be warned everything has a price and if your not careful the town will eat you alive both figuratively and literally but then again when you're group consist of an apathetic demon possessed smith an entomologists wet dream a Scottish lass that can throw fireballs capable of burning through steel a British enchantress that may love her weapons a little to much and a Chinese alchemist a little too cheap for his own good the question is no longer can this group survive Fairview it becomes can Fairview and its supernatural inhabitants survive this group of destructive inhuman badasses the answer to this question is very simple put twenty on number two also do you guys sell cigarettes. Author note: Good news everybody a friend and I are working on our very first book that we hope you guys will love first I would like to point out that we were inspired to start writing this book after reading prehistoric barbarian our goal chapter wise is at least one chapter a week as were very busy with real-life events. But we do have goals such as maybe opening up a Patreon and even move our stuff to Amazon but that is a long road ahead and we may never even get there but I have my fingers crossed now before ending this author note not only do we welcome criticism we know it's the only way to improve and prosper anyways we hope you guys enjoy and we definitely hope we get far. A very big warning we don't constrict ourselves to a moral compass we will not limit our writing for any reason if we believe it entertaining it gets uploaded. besides it's all in good fun who doesn't like a good joke right. We also will not be pushing any type of political narrative to our story's this is just for entertainment.
8 107Reincarnated as a villainess ==Editing==
On her way home, Annie was hit by a truck to save a 6 Year old child... She thought its the end of her life, but what she didn't know that God granted her a new life,Annie woke up seeing 4 new faces, looking around to see a fancy room... As soon as she realize that she was reincarnated as the Villainess of the novel 'Melodic Fantasy'Will she ever survive in her own? Will she ever find her true love?
8 169Gaea : A World of Miracles
Gaea. A world where magic, system, classes, levels, and skills are common sense. A world of unlimited possibilities. A world of monsters and magic. Now meet Arthur, an orphan from Earth who lived a hard life. As he was about to die, he was summoned to Gaea. What would he do in this magical world? Would he spend his second life trying to enjoy the idyllic life he couldn't get in the first one? Or Would he be more adventurous and explore this brand new world? Let's find out.
8 187Looking for My Future
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8 192Payback! This Is For My Aibou!
When Prince Yugi gets hurt from his selfish, arrogant, jerkish half brothers, his mysterious and powerful admirer, Yami, sees a opportunity to get back at them, nobody mess his beloved light.
8 194