Demesne 231 - Stone Finishing (Patreon)

In the days that followed, the work continued on. Despite how… unsightly… the results were, Lori couldn't deny that simply pilingthe stone like that from the bottom up was getting the wall built a lot faster. Normally, simply piling up stone like that wasn't productive for her, since it would get unstable the higher she piled it up… unless she let it settle out naturally. Which made a pile that was wide at the base, too thick for the kinds of walls she usually needed to build. Except now that was exactly the kind of wall she was trying to make…

…

It was still unsightly. Even so, it was built, and it was better than nothing.

Fortunately, the masons that Rian had enlisted to assist her and organized were taking care of that unsightliness.

Lori kept glancing sideways at the stonemasons working on the wall, using long cords, weights, what looked like spikes driven into the dirt to hold the cords steady, and ladders. She left them a sizable amount of softened stone at the beginning of each day, the binding heavily imbued to last all day. They used shovels to move relatively large batches of stone and slapped them down onto the surface of the flood barrier, to fill in spots that were too low under the guidelines of cord that they had set into place. Where her attempts to make a smooth slope were too high, they used heavy metal chisels and wooden mallets to trying and level it down, or at least mark it for her to get at later.

For trying to smooth the surface of the walls, they alternated between using the wide, flat shovels modeled after she stone shaping too and metal hand tools that seemed a bit too small and delicate for working with softened stone, but the masons handled them deftly, and despite the fact that they could lift small amounts of the softened stone because of the weight, their quick, experienced movements meant they were making steady progress.

Part of their speed was because of what Lori had done to provide warmth. Rather than leave a binding hanging in the air—which would have been dangerous is someone walked into it—Lori had added a binding of firewisps to the completed portions of the wall, combined with a binding of airwisps that that kept a steady, hot breeze flowing parallel to the walls length. It wasn't perfect, but it was sufficient for keeping the areas where work was actually being done warm.

This allowed the masons, plasterers, volunteers and Rian—because of course he was there—to work without gloves, and some actually removed their winter robes and shirts. After the past few months of winter cold, it was very strange to see men with bare arms covered in sweat as they worked outside. Their discarded clothes were all pilled off to the side, marking a sort of border where the warm air didn't reach. The lack of warm clothing allowed them to move quickly and deftly, and the flowing warm air was able to mostly keep snow from melting on the stone they were working on, preventing water from being trapped.

As for Rian, he was helping by moving stone around with a shovel and placing it were the masons indicated. He was down to just a shirt, and he looked so happy to be warm. Sometimes one of the masons would give him their tools and he'd—very slowly—do what they had been doing while the mason put on their winter robe and went off, presumably to the latrine.

While Rian moved much, much slower than the masons and plasterers did, he actually seemed to know what he was doing when using their tools. Admittedly, the results were visibly inferior, but that seemed to be more from a lack of skill and experience rather than incompetence, and when the mason returned they very quickly corrected any defects, while Rian watched intently before going back to moving stone.

They usually managed to use most of the stone she provided them by the time it was time to stone working and go inside for dinner. There were surprisingly few bubbles of air that needed to be removed when she checked over their work before removing the binding on the stone at the end of the day.

It was fascinating to see them work as they put the finish on the stone flood barrier, but Lori knew better than to take more than glances. She still had more wall to build, taking stone from her stockpile and pushing it up the wall to pile it on top until it settled into place. It was a bit too high in places, going over the height she was trying to reach, but she that was fine. Getting rid of stone from the top was easier than trying to push it up—since when doing the former, gravity was in one's favor—so she left it for now, focusing on getting the rest of the wall the correct height and width.

Getting the length of wall that paralleled the river completed took only another day and a half, and most of that time was getting the air and water out from between the layers of stone after she placed them, and then properly fusing the stone together. She erred on the side of making the stone spread out a bit too wide, since as the wall progressed getting stone around to the other side to add mass to any flaws on the river-facing side became more and more annoying. There was more wall to skirt around, after all.

Never mind trying to get the stone to go over the top of the wall to get it to the other side. It was still stone, after all, and essentially pushing a large mass over a wall and trying to get it to drop down onto the other side… no. Too dangerous, too much mass. It would be far too easy for something to go wrong, some weak point breaking and then the mass would fall over the edge. Given that the dock and the water hub shed was on the other side of the flood barrier…

Yes, deliberately having excess stone on the wall so she could just trim it down later was the better option.

The result was an utter, unsightly mess of piles of stone on top of piles of stone, but it was the right height, about the right width where it mattered, anchored solidly to the stone foundation fused to the bedrock, and had no folds, hollows, bubbles or pockets of air, water, mud, snow, or anything else that threatened it's structural integrity.

When it was done, Lori was actually torn between working on smoothening out the wall's slope so that it would look flat and even, and continuing to build the rest of the wall, before reminding herself of the issue of time.

She also had to leave gaps in the wall while she built. After all, she couldn't block off the laundry area yet, since people still needed to do their laundry, so she was leaving that for last so she could build some stairs into it. Stairs that she wasn't quite sure how to make with stone without it ending up becoming slippery…

In case a sudden and abrupt thaw did happen, she intended to pack both gaps full of stone and hope for the best.

All in all, it took her six days of work to get the stone piled up into proper walls, even with the necessary gaps. That was far, far faster than she would probably have been able to finish if she had persisted trying to build the wall when she had begun. It took another three days of working with the masons and plasterers to smooth and level and surfaces of the walls. Lori started from one end and systematically fixed the bumps that the masons hadn't been able to chisel away, before assisting the masons by being the one to move softened stone onto the surface of the walls for them to shape and level, helping with her own stone-shaping tool as needed.

The only words exchanged to her were directions on where the craftsmen needed her to place stone. With their assistance and expertise, the surface of flood barrier finally managed to achieve a neat, flat slope in appearance, with a squared-off flat top that might not have been strictly necessary, but was far from unsightly and uneven and looking like piles of rolled wet clay stacked on top of each other.

Then, one final day and a half of work finishing the portion of the flood barrier near the laundry area. On the advice of the stonemasons, the stairs that she integrated on either side of the flood barrier there were inscribed with patterns. They weren't any particular shape, simply lines and whorls and in one instance the pattern a broom's quills made when it was brushed over the softened stone. The idea was to give the stairs a rough texture that would give feet traction on the wet stone, as well as providing depressions on the surface for water to sink to so that it wouldn't create a slippery layer.

And… it was done. The flood barrier that protected her Dungeon, and the buildings near it were complete. Well, not completely. She'd have to make a secondary water hub shed to let them draw water from the river when there was a flood… but from what she recalled of some of the waterways she'd passed in the city of her birth after a heavy rain or storm, the floodwater was usually murky and filled with debris, so the quality of the water would not be the best. Lori would have to see when the flood actually came. Should something similar also be the case… well, that's why they had a reservoir in her Dungeon.

"Ah," Rian sighed happily as they sat down for dinner that evening. Now that they were back inside the dining hall, he was back to being wrapped up in his winter robe, which had some stains on it from all the work. There was still a sheen of sweat on his face, which combined with his sensitivity to cold was probably why he was shivering slightly. Next to him, Mikon sighed and shook her head in exasperation, taking his towel from around his shoulders and wiping his face. "Finally, we're done! Now we no longer have to worry about the Dungeon getting flooded."

Lori frowned at him. "How did you get that idea?"

Rian blinked and stared at her with a comically horrified expression, one made more comical by how Mikon was in the middle of wiping the sweat from his cheek. "But… but… we're done! We made the wall and the stairs and everything! I was there! You were there!"

"We finished raising the flood barrier near the Dungeon's entrance, yes," Lori said. "Now I have to raise up another flood barrier near the tannery, to keep water away from it." It shouldn't take long, and since the ground was a little higher there, the barrier wouldn't have to be as high.

"Is there any chance you can be more relaxed about that flood barrier's appearance since you probably won't have to look at it ever again?"

Lori gave him a flat look.

He sighed as Mikon started wiping the back of his neck. "Yeah, I didn't think so. I'll organize people to dig up the soil there once you point out where the wall has to go and set up some bindings to keep us warm, I guess…"

Lori nodded. There was also having to build a binding to drain water from inside the area of the flood barrier, since a wall that can keep water out could also keep it in, and given how it was still snowing, that meant water was getting in. If she wasn't careful, her Dungeon might end up being flooded anyway…

She would also have to partially demolish the wall once the flooding was over and the rains began, but that was a concern for the future…

Through the sounds of the dining hall getting ready to eat, Lori heard someone cry out, and a shift in the tone of the dinner conversation. She turned her head in the direction of the first sound, frowning. "What is it?"

Rian had stood up, and when that wasn't enough to let him see over the crowd, stood on top of his bench as well. He peered over people, then sighed. "Unless I miss my guess, that's the sound of another woman's water breaking. Again."

Lori considered that, and sighed. She got up and headed for her room to get the warming stones so she could start binding firewisps into them while she ate…