Kaia the Argent Wing Chapter 68 (Patreon)

The next two days saw my friends and I going out to fell tree after tree in the area directly surrounding the tower. There was a small part of me that was worried about chopping down too many trees, but the woodland area extended out into what used to be the outskirts of the suburbs and even beyond. There were enough trees that a reforestation effort wouldn't be needed for a decade or more.

While we were cutting trees, I had a few mages digging out several post holes in the area that used to be the finishing line for the track… track? What did you call the running track that surrounded our football field? Anyways, I figured it was the perfect place to put some more workshop stuff. It was opposite the forge and the entrance to the workshop, but far enough away that sawdust wouldn't like, catch fire or anything.

When we had the lumber we needed and the holes dug, I ordered six thick old trees to be shoved down them. Those six trees would be the supports for the sawmill. With them in place, I had us all work together to drive an axe down the middle of three different trees. That was fucking hard work, and it ended up being that I had to stand behind the axe and kick it down the lengths of the tall, straight trees. One tree split strangely, and we had to throw it away, so we actually split like three and a half of them.

Oh, and I broke two axes doing it. One was just the handle, but halfway through the last tree, we hit an odd metal spike buried in the wood and it cracked the axe blade. Fishing both the axe and the spike out of the tree took half an hour. The spike I put to the side, because it was made from a silvery blue metal that nobody recognised. Which, given that it'd been buried inside a tree that hadn't existed on Earth until recently… well, I had questions.

Oh, and it was only after we'd effectively torn three trees in half with axes and a team effort, that one of the carpenters from the workshop saw us as he was heading to lunch. He asked us in a bewildered tone, why weren't we using the squiron saws that April made a week ago. I wanted to scream, and not at the carpenter. No, I wanted to scream at myself. I knew about the saws because I helped her make the damn things, but so much had happened that I forgot they existed. My friends started joking that I saw everything as a problem to be solved with an axe, after that.

Anyway, from there we carved—using an axe, much to my friends’ amusement—matching notches into the vertical and horizontal supports. Then when we had them fitting together nicely, we used squiron nails to fix them in place.

That was about the time that April, who'd seen everything from the forge, wandered out with a blade as long as my leg that she'd just made. Her idea was that it was thick and beefy enough that it could be fixed to something and the logs could be shoved into it, splitting them much more easily. Then, later, she informed me that we could grind teeth into it and use it as a saw. I loved the idea, but again, I wished I'd thought of it before we did the first three trees the hard way.

Once we had the three H shaped support structures done, I used the blade to much more carefully split five more trees, for a total of ten halves that were used to link the supports together and create a log run in the middle.

That was when April brought out the real saw blade. Now, to say creating the blade had been painful was an understatement. April spent an entire day just hammering the thing out perfectly flat. We didn't have the knowledge—or frankly the tech—to make circular saws, so I opted for the old fashioned reciprocating saw. It was basically your typical two person saw, but powered mechanically.

Using some heavy duty mounting brackets, I fixed it to the saw frame, then to a rudimentary crankshaft. For now, it was driven by the jank bicycle setup we used to use for the forge before we hooked the mini steam engine up to a blowing coil thingy.

Then, we just had to test it. The first log went into the run, and I hopped on the bicycle. The bicycle broke the moment I used any real strength. Awesome.

I ended up laying under the run, operating the crankshaft manually. It worked! Now we just needed a real way to power it.

As I was climbing out from under the log run, I heard a bassy, strangled sound from the direction of the workshop door. Charles stood there, eyes bulging. Oh no. Did I do something wrong?

Everyone watched apprehensively as he stormed over. “What the hell is this?” He demanded.

“Uh… a sawmill?” I offered tentatively.

He stood there, stunned for a full five seconds while his jaw opened and closed.

When I shuffled restlessly, he gave me a bewildered look and said, “I meant a table, maybe a workstation… not this… this… ode to pioneers past!”

“I mean,” I shrugged helplessly. “One it has a roof on it and some sort of power… it'll be better, right?”

I watched in amusement while the muscles in his jaw clenched and unclenched. Finally, he and rather suddenly, he began to laugh. It was a full throated belly laugh, and soon he was wheezing from the exertion.

“Well, I'll be damned, kid. That's on me, I'd say,” he said, still chuckling. “I'll be givin’ you more precise orders next time, that's for dang sure.”

“So… should we keep it?” I asked, unable to keep from grinning. His laughter was about the best praise I could've asked for.

He returned my grin with a toothy one of his own. “You're goddamn right we're keepin’ it. Finish her off while I see about gettin’ you some sorta engine, yeah? Might take us a week, but seein’ as you're operating it by hand, well, we might get us some use outta it afore then.”

I nodded and, as a thought hit me, I asked, “Say, sir. Could we make a more compact steam engine with squiron? It's tougher than normal iron or steel, right? So it could get to higher pressures?”

He gave me a look. “Yer describing a bomb, kiddo.”

I flushed red, but I was certain the idea had merit, so I pushed on. “I mean, we have pressurised welding gasses just sitting in storage…”

“Kaia,” he said, with uncharacteristic patience. “Those’re half the psi of a car tire.”

“Oh,” I said, nonplussed. “I still think—”

He held up a hand. “Little lady, you're welcome to try, and I'll be over the moon if you make it work, but I ain't letting you bring such a thing near the workshop.”

I frowned. “What counts as “making it work?”

“If yeh can throw the pressure bottle ten yards in the air and it don't explode when it lands,” he said after a moment of thought. “I know you got the Strength to do that.”

“Okay, that's fair,” I said with a happy smile.

He shook his head, and while focusing on the sawmill, replied, “Yeah, yeah. Finish the sawmill afore you go blowin’ yerself to bits, though, you hear me?”

“Aye aye,” I agreed, matching the overly piratical turn of phrase he used.

He gave me a stern look, but opted to ignore it. With a final glance towards the carnage of the sawmill project, he turned and shuffled off in the direction of the cafeteria. Gosh, but he was fun. It seemed like my very existence amused, frustrated, and confused the poor old dude.

When he was out of sight, Scotty sidled up beside me. “I feel like every time I see that guy, you've worn him down a little more.”

“That's the plan,” I said, grinning broadly.

“Sneaky little shit,” he laughed.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Okay, let's get this thing finished. We'll gather some of those grass-bamboo-reed things tomorrow to thatch the roof.”

We finished the rest of the frame in significantly less time than it took to build everything previously. Then, all we needed was some thatching and the rudimentary sawmill would be complete, barring the steam engine.

The next day, we did just that, except we ran into a problem. Nobody knew how to do proper thatching. Rather than mess around trying to skill myself or my friends up on the matter, I tapped our overabundance of idle hands. With the Captain's endorsement, I put out a job call for people willing to give thatching a try. Then, I left them to it. Gosh, but it was good to delegate.