The post-lunch crowd was considerably smaller, and Andrew had gotten to know them a little better over lunch. Doug was still there, making decent progress with his water accumulation box. He had four apprentices, two of which were here inspecting the various circles Andrew had inscribed, the other two were apperently picking up the slack elsewhere. A couple of lumberjacks stayed behind to watch as Andrew finished the axe, and the rest were a mixed group of hunters, gatherers, and floating laborers. The camp was in many ways less organized than Andrew's. It seemed like the camp just loosely worked to accomplish whatever major goal George set out for them while taking care of themselves in small groups.

Andrew hopped down from the worktable where he sat for lunch and gingerly tested the cooling axe head. It was still hot, but not hot enough to burn him. "Alright everybody! I'm going to be finishing up the axe now, so pay attention if you're interested. This one is a bit more complex, and I rely on a few different skills to get it done."

Andrew grabbed the rough axe head in one hand, a piece of scrap hobgoblin metal in the other. He activated Siphon Affinity and steadily siphoned almost all of the fire affinity out of the axe head and into the scrap metal. He held the reddish piece of scrap up for the crowds inspection. "That was the same ability I used earlier, Siphon Affinity. This time I used it to pull the excess fire affinity out of the axe head into this piece of scrap. I'll be able to pull the affinity back out for a different project later. Fire affinity is actually pretty easy to come by because of this, so don't hesitate to come see me if you get any ideas."

Andrew set the piece of scrap down and grabbed an ingot from the box. "This ingot has been drained of fire affinity in the same way, but it still has plenty of metal affinity inside. I'm going to transfer all the metal affinity from this ingot into the axe head, keep an eye out for how they change with each siphon." Andrew said, activating Siphon Affinity again. He could pull almost the entire ingot's worth of affinity in one go now, but he intentionally slowed it down into several smaller waves so the crowd could see a more gradual change.

When he was finished he crushed the brittle husk of an ingot that remained and scattered the remaining dust across the worktable. "Adjusting the affinity of an object can have pretty significant effects on the properties of that object. Drain all the metal affinity from an ingot? It turns to into this crumbly garbage. The axe head hasn't physically changed quite as much. It has more of a silvery sheen to it now and it will conduct metal mana significantly better now. The more metal affinity it has, the better it will do, same as the water barrels earlier."

Andrew dusted off his hand, then grabbed the finished handle and hammered the rough axe head into place. Then he held the axe out in two hands. "The next skill I'm going to use is Empower Item. It's a bit cheap and it'll allow me to but a sharp edge on this blade and increases it's durability in general. It also makes it difficult for Jack's skill to work, so unfortunately anything I make with this is going to be tough to replicate."

Andrew activated Empower Item, closing his eyes and focusing his mind on the axe in his hands. He was finished in a moment and he opened his eyes to a polite golf-clap of approval. He gave a wry smile and sketched an awkward bow. "Thank you, thank you, but seriously, that's the only way I know how to make things like this so if any of you know someone with serious blacksmithing skills, send em' my way, alright?"

Andrew laid the finished product out on the worktable in front of him. "Now, on to the tricky part. You guys should be able to do something like this yourselves, but it takes a bit of practice. There are a handful of new runes you'll need to remember for this one." Dough climbed out of the barrel to join the rest of the crowd as they gathered around the axe on the worktable.

"I'm going to use a skill to carve this, but I assure you it's perfectly possible to do with tools. We can make you some if you want them." Andrew held his palm against the face of the axe and got to work inscribing a metal accumulation circle there. When he was finished he drew his palm back and let the crowd gather more closely to check it out.

"That's just one side, by the way. It accumulates metal mana in the same way the one in the dirt over there accumulates earth mana. The runes on the other side are a little more complicated." Andrew said, grabbing the axe and flipping it over on the worktable, leaning in to begin inscribing the other face.

He paused as he finished each rune and connector, explaining their purpose as he went. The battery rune which could be used to delay the flow of mana if small alterations were made. The trigger connector which would activate on a pulse of pure mana, and how easily it could activate while charging the metal accumulation circle. The expulsion rune which dictated the direction and shape of the released mana, and the expulsion connector from which the mana would actually be expelled. Andrew hinted at how the runes could be modified for other purposes, but didn't go into detail. He didn't have the time, and he wanted to give this seemingly reasonable crowd a good reason to visit their camp. The whole process took him longer than usual, nearly two hours with the added explanations and demonstrations. He stepped back to let the crowd play around with the new axe while he considered his next move.

I want to check on the new forge before Jason leaves for the day, that means I only have an hour or two left here. What can I do in that time?

"Hey Andrew, do you have a minute?" A voice called out, interrupting his thoughts. Andrew turned to see a woman approaching with one hand raised in greeting. She was wearing a looping scarf made from an impressively repurposed high-vis reflective vest and Andrew instantly recognized her from the morning crowd.

"Hey! You were asking about the walls right? What's your name?" Andrew said, extending a hand to shake as she closed the distance.

"Yep that's me! Maria! I worked as a civil engineer, before, and I have a lot of questions about how this 'earth mana' works. How much longer are you going to be sticking around?" Maria said.

"Uh, couple more hours maybe? Taking a look at those walls was next on my list actually. There's a couple of different ways to apply inscriptions and I'd have to take a look at what you've got before I could figure out a plan for it." Andrew said.

"That's great, I can show you around then! We've been building them sturdy, but it's still a palisade, lots of individual pieces." Maria said, already starting to walk in the direction of New Eden's small strip of wall.

"I'll be there in a sec!" Andrew called after her, turning his attention back to the crowd of people carefully examining the inscriptions on the axe. "Okay y'all. I'm going to go take a look at the walls now, Po'll be here to answer questions. I'll be back to answer more questions in a little bit, but then I'll be packing it up for the day. Anyone who wants to learn more inscription junk feel free to come visit. If any of y'all manage to replicate that axe, I'll show you how to make a mana rifle. Sound good?"

The crowd murmured a distracted assent and Andrew headed across camp to join Maria at the wall. It was a solid chunk of ten foot tall palisade. Tall logs were driven deep into the dirt to form the main structure of the wall, and a small trench of churned earth extended along the wall's line. There was a large stack of logs piled up nearby and several people were hard at work carving one down into some kind of brace.

"We melted down a copied axe head to make the first set of nails, Jacks been keeping us well supplied ever since. We don't have the machinery to drive the logs more than a couple feet into the ground though, jumping up and down on them only gets you so far." Maria said with a chuckle. "I'm not sure of exactly what they'll have to withstand so we're driving them as deep as possible. Have any ideas?"

Andrew and Maria spent the next hour wandering the construction site brainstorming ideas for improving it with runes. The simplest solution would be a small circle inscribed on each log of the palisade. It would take considerable time though, and adding another circle would double their inscription time. Andrew couldn't wrap one long circle around the whole camp, the mana cost would be astronomical and the circle itself would affect everything in the camp. After quite a bit of discussion they settled on something a little different. Her team would construct modular wall sections small enough to fit into a fairly large accumulation circle. Each wall section had three sharpened logs extending downward to serve as foundation piles. When they had a good batch of wall sections finished Andrew would send Po and Arges over to help them drive the walls into place. They would set aside a third of the completed wall sections for use in Andrew's smaller camp. Once the deal was struck Maria broke off to relay the new instructions to her team as Andrew headed back to the wagon.

There were a few people still gathered around, a Lumberjack named Paul stood sheepishly holding the finished axe alongside Doug who was peering into his box with a critical eye. His two apprentices were sketching out little copies of the other circles in the dirt nearby.

"Hey guys, I'm about to head back to my camp, but I'd be happy to answer any questions you have before I go." Andrew said.

"Can I keep the axe?" "You mind checkin' my work on the box?"

"Axe is up for grabs yeah, you're free to keep it, but I'd appreciate it if you let anyone who's trying to copy it have a look." Andrew said, nodding to Doug and heading over to peek into his box. The runes were very well done. Andrew pressed a hand against the circle and pushed a little mana in. It began to softly glow.

"Looks good to me. It wouldn't work if you did it wrong, this one is pretty simple. I'm glad you had me look at it first though, there are a couple circles that can explode if they're powered up with a flaws. Earth and water should be perfectly safe though." Andrew said.

"Thank you. You mind if I send a couple of my boys over tomorrow to get some practice in? Feel free to put em' to work while they're there." Doug said with a slightly raspy chuckle. "I'll be too busy makin more'a these the next couple'a days, else I'd join em too. Neat stuff you've got here. "

"Yeah, course they're absolutely welcome, send em on by tomorrow and I'll have somethin for them to do." Andrew said, weathering a series of rough, companionable shoulder claps from the sturdy man as he spoke.

Doug and his apprentices stuck around as Andrew and Po packed up their unused supplies. He pulled four basic iron ingots out of the box and handed them over to Doug before they left. They would be passed on to Jack Ryan for replication and their metal supply issues would be theoretically solved for the moment. They were heading out moments later, the sun just starting it's descent as they crossed the thinning strip of forest separating the two camps.