Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

"We'll take the one outside the walls."  Shasta translates for Karsh.

Considering the amount of animation I'd seen between them during that conversation, I honestly expected the response to be 'We'll take neither, we're leaving'.  I wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth though, so I hurried us onto the next topic.  I produced a piece of parchment and a piece of charcoal shaved down to make it useful for writing.  I divided the parchment into two parts with a charcoal mark, one smaller, and meant to help layout their yard, then the rest to roughly design their house.

"Alright, first we need to decide on the shape and size of your house in your lot.  If you want to discuss it, then let me know how you want it to look, we can sketch it on this piece of paper.  Keep in mind all the rooms you'll want, and the basement space," I say while holding up the parchment.

After Shasta translates, Karsh and his wife discuss the topic for quite a while.  While they do, I contemplate the consequences of what I'm doing.  On one hand, it's almost certainly necessary to make a custom house in order to keep them satisfied here.  On the other, it's surely going to cause there to be a demand for custom houses.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as I can train at least one of the stone shaping goblins to take over that job.  Then it's just a matter of money.  If I didn't think this dwarf would be valuable, I wouldn't be doing it.

I wrapped up my internal monologue just about the same time Karsh and his wife finished their discussion about their house.  Through Shasta, we communicated various details about the design and necessities for the house.  There were many features that I would expect, such as multiple bedrooms, a place to go to the bathroom, a kitchen, and a root cellar.

There were also many features I didn't expect.  They want a wood privacy fence around a portion of their backyard for airing laundry to dry, and where their kids can play safely.  It seems like they live in normal, albeit shorter, houses.  They also requested that the walls not be plane, but be etched to look like blocks, since that is what houses in the dwarven country are made from.  It's doable, but that's going to be a pain.  They also requested it only be one story tall, so their house is going to end up taking up a lot of the available space of their lot along two edges, leaving a minimal yard cut out from the remaining corner.

All the bedrooms will have shuttered windows, and they'll have a door at both the front and into the backyard.  Compared to the houses we've lived in up until now, it's quite the luxurious place.  Goblins don't have close family units though, so a lot of this sort of design is superfluous for us demons.

After everything was written out and designed, I ended up using an additional two pieces of parchment, and we'd spent quite a few hours out here discussing.  I'll be busy for quite a while working on this house, as will the carpenter.  Before that though, I'm going to get Karsh introduced to our forge and the metal we have available down here.

I invited him and his wife to see the forge, but she declined, so we took her back to the inn before continuing to the forge.  Once there, he seemed initially disappointed, followed by excited.

"The ingots you sold last year were made here?" he asked and Shasta translated.

"By a different dwarf, yes."

"I'll be honest, it's a pretty low quality forge and furnace.  However, if a forge this quality could produce that metal, I'm fired up for what I'll be able to do with a proper setup!"

His words stung my pride a little, but he's right.  I basically made this furnace and forge from theory, so I'm sure he has much better ideas of how to make a better one.  Hopefully he's a quick learner in languages, because otherwise trying to communicate designs for a forge will be hard outside of schematics.  Doable, but hard.

Finally, after a full day, it was time for dinner.  Karsh didn't seem to mind the fact that his dinner was mostly fish and a small amount of swamp beets, but his family and especially his kids, didn't seem to thrilled with the meal.  Hopefully our imported crops grow well this year so they can have a taste of their homeland.  Either that, or they find a type of fish they love to eat, or at least that they can stomach having for every meal.

Before Shasta and the crew left, I asked her to wait around for a little bit and help translate for Karsh while he got to work at our furnace and forge area.  Thankfully she agreed, and so I brought Karsh some of the ingots I had made before.

"Such a waste..." he said.  When Shasta translated that, he put his hand over his mouth realizing he'd inadvertently let that slip.

I let out a small, dry, chuckle.  I knew I wasn't making the highest quality metal, but to hear it stated like that still stung.  Although I suppose I got Thermal Hands out of the ordeal, so it wasn't a total waste.

"I know it's not the highest quality, but hopefully you can make do for a while with this.  During the winter we can't access more ore, but in spring we can get you some to work with.  If you need any molds or casts made for things, let me know.  As for things we could potentially use, pots and pans, nails, and spearheads.  Once we have fresh ore, I'll have more complicated items that I'd like made."

After I said all that, Karsh looked visibly disappointed.

"Think of it this way, you'll hopefully have a better forge and furnace by the time you get to work with the higher quality metal."

After I say that, Karsh's mood lightens a bit and he asks, "So, what do I do for fuel?"

Right, I should probably show him around the auxiliary parts of his job.

"For the time being, you can pull from our charcoal stockpiles for free as we have a massive excess and I'd much rather have completed metal products available.  In the future, we have a bunch of charcoal kilns, but you should ask about cutting trees down before you do so.  I'll show you to the various stockpile locations."

After Shasta finishes translating, I start leading him to the various different locations where we're storing charcoal.

"Before I forget," I begin while pulling out a few cords of coins I prepared overnight, "Everyone starts out with some amount of currency in our country, due to the way we reproduce.  This is six times the amount an average goblin would start with, since you have a family of six.  You're welcome to sell the items you make to anyone.  Otherwise, I'll give you a stipend as long as you're working on things I need.  Sometimes I do free work if I think it's valuable to me or the community, but I'll generally charge you for my labor moving forward.  I'm going to be setting a general debt for the construction of your house, but I won't have it accumulate any extra debt and, as long as you're working on things for me, I'll generally just reduce it until it's gone."

Karsh looks a little worried about all this information. "Is this a lot or a little money?  Also, do I need any permissions to use anything?

"The market is a short distance from where your house will be located, and the food is cheap, if a little repetitive.  Money shouldn't be a problem, but if you have issues, let me know.  I'm also going to give you a bunch of stone tablets that are lightly colored so you can use them to draw things with charcoal to help with communication until you learn the language."

It seems like I've assuaged some of his concerns for now, but it's clear that the gravity of moving to a new country is starting to set in for him.  I just hope that he doesn't decide he wants to leave.  Well, he'll basically be stuck here for a year once spring comes, since ships can't seem to make it here any time but winter, so I'm sure that's also a bit concerning.

After I've shown him to where he can find the charcoal, as well as where the kilns are, I'm greeted by a pleasant surprise.  The eagle came down to feed, and when it did, Karsh's face lit up.

"The eagles really do protect this place!"  he says.

"Well, the eagle, singular.  It lives up on the mountain and has protected us in the past."  After my half-truth, Shasta gives me a side eye, but doesn't say anything.  I pretend not to notice however, and shortly after we say our goodbyes to each other.  Shasta and her escorts head off along the new road, no longer encumbered by cargo.  I head off to make some stone slabs out of lightstone, and leave Karsh to his own devices for the day.