The next morning, I struggled to get out of bed. Eventually, I was able to roll out and make my way outside, breathing in the brisk morning air and using it to wake myself up.
My plans for today were very simple. First, get started on the fortifications. Then, I needed to start setting up a general-use workshop to use to work my way up to more advanced technology.
I'd build it near the river, using waterwheels to power various basic mechanisms. A mechanical hammer for metalworking, bellows for a forge, and more besides.
Wood reinforced to steel durability and quality would do for now. That way, I could make full use of Woodworking to plan the structure, bearing in mind hypothetical additions using materials not compatible with the ability.
I'd not likely do much more than break ground today, which was fine. I also needed to start working on basic fortifications, but I could probably get the others to help with that. A palisade would work well enough, if they could gather the logs while I dug the holes to anchor them.
I gathered a few people, Herrick, Symon, and a few others with any experience in construction to the Hall.
We sat near the comfortably warm hearth, resting on pelts.
"So," I began, "I have a bit of a project for us. Symon, you'd said you had studied architecture?"
The man nodded, "I'd added two steel links in my chain before leaving the Citadel."
"You want us to build something?" Herrick asked, excited at the prospect.
"Yeah," I replied, "We need some form of fortification around the camp to start. I was thinking either a palisade or a cut earthen berm."
Symon seemed contemplative while the others scratched their heads.
"What's that second one?" Jorni inquired.
I used my hands to form a curved shape, "Think a long mound of earth, a few feet tall. Then, cut it in half." I let one hand fall, forming the fingers of the other into a straight vertical. "We face the flat side outward like a wall. It gives us line of sight for archers while making any attackers have to climb the wall. Not any point in trying to knock it down, either, since it's just earth."
They nodded, satisfied with the explanation.
"The ground here is too hard to work easily," Herrick said after a moments consideration, "Either way we'd have to warm the earth before digging. There'd be less of that with the palisade, just a trench to sink it I think. With that berm… We'd have to dig up more and move it."
I shrugged, "It's work either way. I can dig easily enough, but I'd need help moving the earth into position and cutting lumber to reinforce."
Some looked disbelieving, but Herrick took it in stride. "Aye, I remember what you did with the sledges. If you can dig the earth as easily, we can handle the rest."
"Perhaps a combination of both options?" Symon verbally supposed, "Place a short palisade atop the berm. If we pile the earth up on our side, warriors would have cover from archers while being able to loose from an elevated position."
We took the time to envision it.
"Maybe?" I shrugged, "It would take more time and labor, but I see the benefits. We could, instead of a palisade, line the top of the berm with stakes. Less cover, but less work."
There was a muttering of discussion within the group.
"How long would it take?" Jorni asked.
I considered, light-granted training giving me the right numbers to crunch.
"Two weeks, less if we worked through the days. I can heal any injuries that might come, but I'd rather take a safe pace and not have injuries to begin with. For just the berm and stakes, eight or nine days, and three for the palisade."
Symon scratched his chin, "Hm, how likely would it be for raiders to start fires? A palisade may be vulnerable to that."
"Not likely," Herrick said, "Why burn what you can't take?"
"Mm, fair point." I nodded to him, "How often is it that a clan tries to kill another completely?"
He shrugged, "Not often. That sort of thing is much more dangerous than a raid. Leaves the attacker weak and vulnerable for a while." Frowning, "Maybe if the killers had enough warriors to keep strength afterwards, but that's rare."
"Alright, that means we can focus on deterrence in our defense." At the curious looks, I clarified. "Looking like too much effort to go after, too dangerous to attack. If anyone looks at us and knows they'd be bled badly if they tried anything, won't they avoid starting a fight?"
Reluctant nods answered me.
"Anyway, we should start on the berm. After it's done, we can look at adding more fortifications to it."
Murmurs of agreement from the group.
"I'll put together some digging tools and wheelbarrows. Symon, would you take a few and mark a line for the berm a decent distance from the village?"
He nodded, "Aye."
Nodding to Herrick, "Can you get a few people and start felling trees? We'll need lumber."
"Will do."
I clapped my hands, "Alright, let's get to work."
We left the hall, splitting apart. Herrick gathered his men and headed to the treeline, while Symon collected the boy Wynt and began marking a line around the village.
I helped Herrick with the first few trees, before taking one of the fallen trunks for myself. Cleaning it of branches and bark, I worked it into a few wheelbarrows and several shovels and pickaxes.
Depositing everything near the village, I did the same to another felled tree. I repeated the process a third time, at which point I figured we had more than enough equipment for our task.
The rest of the trees being felled would be used to make the wooden reinforcements for the berm, as well as the stakes to be put atop.
Once I'd finished with the wheelbarrows and tools, I started marking out a space near the river for the workshop. I'd probably need to dig a channel for the waterwheel, which might be a little bit of a chore.
There wasn't much else I could do for the future workshop at the moment, so I turned my attention back towards digging the earth along the line.
Pickaxe in hand, I swung at the frozen dirt repeatedly. It was much, much easier than I had expected it to be.
Measuring out six feet from the line, I dug a gentle slope down, piling the dirt up on the other side of the line. It wasn't much at the moment, only six inches deep at the line, but I was going to dig this far along the line to start and make further passes.
I worked like that for the rest of the day, digging about a foot down along the bounds of the village. It was great progress, but I still had a few more days of work ahead of me before it reached a good depth.
After a communal dinner, Grenwin continued my fighting lessons. I had relied too much on my really sharp sword over the more practical spear and knife during the fight yesterday, and she wanted to drill it into my head that I had more weapons on hand.
Over the next few days, the berm was made taller. Progress was much faster than I'd expected, and it was more or less finished on the fourth day.
The berm rose a good five feet above the ground, the top lined with sharpened wooden stakes. The entire structure had been reinforced, hardening to become hard as solid stone.
Two ramps had been left leading through the berm. Each was a good six feet wide. In the event of an attack, staked logs had been set aside to be moved to block the way.
It didn't feel like much, but apparently this kind of fortification was rare to find this far north.
The hunters had been bringing in more food lately, thanks to the sledges. We put up a smokehouse to help preserve the excess meat, and we found ourselves with a glut of animal fat, hides, and sinew. There would be plenty of soap in the future, and the sinew would always come in handy.
I was just finishing up a hide parka when I felt the constellations moving again in that other space. I still hadn't figured out whatever pattern there was to it, and I'd missed new lights far more often than I'd gained any.
This time, I was lucky and caught one of a decent size. I whistled in appreciation as it fell into orbit around me, and it seemed the greatest gift I could have asked for.
It was a ridiculous increase in my ability to work quickly, though it was somewhat difficult to quantify. Seemingly, I could perform two weeks of work in a single hour, and that rate scaled up if I worked in a team. The size of the team didn't matter, even with one partner I'd be able to accomplish two months of work at the same time. Better, this didn't assume only eight hours a day of work, but the full twenty-four. That translated to almost thrice as much getting done.
I ran the math in my head and came away awestruck. One hour of work translated to six weeks' worth of results. With a partner, that became six months in an hour. With an eight-hour working period, I could potentially get through almost a year's worth.
I itched, intensely curious to see how it worked in practice. With this, I could possibly build my workshop in the few hours of daylight left today.
A thought occurred to me. The vagueness in my impression of the light's effects hinted that it might work for more than just physical labor. Could I use it to practice a skill?
If I was remembering correctly, it takes about seven years for someone to master a skill. That was by modern standards, however, and I didn't know how that matched up to someone who had spent their entire lives developing a craft.
Regardless, if I dedicated eight hours a day for the next eight days, I should hit that level. Maybe.
Oh, if this worked for channeling, that would be a convenient shortcut for the months-long process of developing the ability. That, at least, was easy enough to do a quick test with.
Finishing the parka, I set it and the tools aside. Closing my eyes, I began the now-familiar mental exercise of a flowerbud drinking in light.
It was a peculiar feeling. Attempt, failure, attempt, failure, attempt, success. A pattern of attempts at the exercise in repetition. While I was fully aware in the moment, the memory of the attempts compressed itself, as though I'd only spent a few seconds at it instead of the hours I felt.
Still, I kept at it. One success out of ten attempts gradually became one in nine, then one in eight. Sometimes during the successes, I felt energized, my senses boosted to the point I could actively feel how my clothes felt against my skin, the cool air playing across the backs of my hands and my face, the sound of my heartbeat and breathing. It lasted moments, less sometimes.
It was still a result to be excited over. That wasn't just me touching the One Power, that was me actively holding onto it. A little bit, sporadically, but after only a week?
It had to be the new light at work, and I felt as though I'd worked more at this in the last few moments than everything I'd done before five times over.
At a glacial pace, I counted one success in three, one success in two, then breaking even at success and failure. It began moving the other direction, more successes than failures. The feeling of being filled with saidar, holding the One Power, was a wondrous sensation. Like warm light suffusing my body.
I kept at it until every attempt was successful. Until every time I went through the mental exercise, I could not only touch the One Power, but hold it as well.
The next stage of my training would be the more difficult part. So far, all I'd had to do was sit and meditate. Now, I'd have to try to hold the power during my day-to-day life and hold as much as I could before feeling any pain. I needed to be able to use it while distracted, in pain, in shock, at any time it might be needed.
Damn, but if I had had this new light before the slavers had come…
Blinking my eyes open, the doorway outside was curiously dark. Poking my head out, I saw the moon had risen high and a deep night had fallen while I was otherwise occupied.
That meant I'd been at this for hours. Six, maybe seven. I supposed that meant that I'd been working nonstop for at least nine months.
Walking outside, I walked down and around the berm, deep in thought. Reaching for saidar, I touched it with the ease of months of practice and held it. The night seemed to brighten subtly as it enhanced my sense, the sounds of the nighttime village becoming clearer.
The possibilities were incredible. Could I teach using this? That would be a group activity, so could I give the equivalent of twelve years of education in the span of three eight-hour days?
Practically buzzing with excitement, or maybe that was saidar energizing me, I tried to actively channel. Ethereal threads coalesced into the air around me, faintly colored. Brown, white, red, and silver. Those must be threads of Earth, Air, Fire, and Spirit. That association felt right to me, but maybe it was less about what I called them and more what I thought they dealt with?
With thin threads of Earth and Air, I reached out to the snow-covered earth beyond the protective berm. Slowly, a clod of earth the size of a fist pushed its way up out of the snow, before promptly silently exploding and splattering me with dirt.
I coughed, spitting out the dirt that got into my mouth. I certainly hadn't expected that to happen!
Belatedly, I remembered that untrained channeling was dangerous, not just to me, but to everyone around me. Feeling foolish, I released the threads of energy, letting them fade away into nonexistence. It tamped down my enthusiasm a tad, but I'd still done something with the Power.
I felt oddly vindicated. I hadn't told anyone I could do this, kept it private. I supposed I just hadn't really believed it was something I'd ever be able to do.
It was a good sign that I'd not dropped the Power when I'd been surprised by the little ball of exploding dirt. I was pretty sure that it would take some time before I could maintain a hold on it in any situation, but this was a good start. I'd have to try holding it while training with Grenwin.
Suddenly tired, I felt my control over it slip. I yawned deeply, making my way back to my rooms and all but falling into my bed. Sleep came in moments.
I woke late the next morning, my dreams feeling extraordinarily peculiar. Something about birds and a forest? It was extremely unsettling, but I couldn't remember specifics.
Checking over the aeroponics bay, I was surprised at how much growth there had been in little over a week. The layout of the room had changed, orderly rows splitting into sections for the needs of various plants. Every planter was still vertically stacked, and each was labeled with the plant growing in it.
I hadn't really looked at the seed packets when I was dumping them into the slot, so I was very surprised to find every plant I knew and many more besides. Spices, teas, a dozen varieties of rice, an incredible assortment of fruits and vegetables and leafy greens. There were even a few planters set aside that were growing trees, though it would be years before those would produce anything.
Interestingly, only half of the planters had been used. That meant that I could use the other half of the bay for staple crops, once the initial samples had grown and I could collect seeds.
I was leaning towards rice over anything else. That crop was a wonder, loaded with vitamins and minerals, grows very quickly, and had bountiful harvests.
I frowned, chastising myself. I should have measured the room first, found the square footage available. Then, considering the planters were stacked to the ceiling, work out how much cubic feet of growing space there was. Once I have that, I'd be able to work out just how much rice I could grow with the other half of the bay.
There was a pretty easy way of determining stride length. Take the height, then determine what four tenths of that number was. I was a little shorter than a five-foot spear by anywhere between three and six inches, which put my height at somewhere between fifty-three and fifty-six inches. Forty percent of that would be around twenty-one inches and twenty-two inches. So, my stride length would be short of two feet, call it a foot and nine inches.
Starting at one wall, I walked to the other across the space, counting my steps. I counted one hundred and thirty-eight, which would mean that the length of the space was somewhere close to two hundred and sixty feet. Repeating the process to get the width, I found it was almost half the length at sixty-nine steps. I snickered a bit at the juvenile joke, then did the math to get a width of around hundred and thirty feet.
That meant that the square footage was a little less than thirty-four thousand square feet. A little bit of geometry gave me an estimated thirty feet in height, an easy number to work with, and so the cubic footage of the room was somewhere around one million and fourteen thousand cubic feet.
I may have made a mistake somewhere, it wasn't like I had paper and pen to work it out on, so I double, and triple checked and got the same result.
The growing space utilization was pretty good in here, something like three quarters of the space was used for planters and growing space, with the rest for walking. Call it seven hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet of growing space, with half used. That left me with three hundred and seventy-five thousand cubic feet of space to grow other crops, but especially rice. Once the first harvest is ready, I'd be able to further figure how much it was possible to grow with the seeds I was given. Still, it sure seemed like it would supply plenty.
The exercise was helping clear up the lingering unsettled feeling from the dream earlier, which was nice.
Anyway, I was pretty sure that the total square footage was still less than a single acre, but when considered as thirty one-foot-tall slices stacked atop each other, it would probably end up being more than twenty acres of growing space. The conversion was an absolute pain, and I couldn't remember if an acre was forty thousand square feet or forty-five thousand. Fucking imperial measurements.
You know what, no, fuck that, I'm just going to use metric from now on. I should have been using it from the start, but the local system of measure was closer to imperial than metric. I had no explanation for why their measure for an inch was the same as I was used to, and that they still used twelve inches to the foot.
I'd been stunned when Symon demonstrated the length of an inch using his thumb, and he'd been surprised that I used it. Apparently the Essosi used differing measurement schemes.
Anyway, I could do imperial to metric conversions pretty easily. Ironically, it gave me even better numbers to work with, as the aeroponics bay was eighty meters by forty meters by ten meters, for a total of thirty-two thousand square meters. Easy.
I'd have to show the others this place and the fabricator eventually. It wasn't that I was keeping it all a secret, just that it hadn't really come up yet.
Considering I found myself with a glut of time, I could do so today. Leaving the pocket dimension, the cool morning air was bracing. A light snowfall had started, the sky an expanse of white-gray fuzziness. My new clothes kept me comfortably warm regardless, a successful test.
"Morning Maia," Ygdis called, coming forward to join me. It looked like she was preparing to go on a hunt.
"Hey." I yawned, "Have you seen Grenwin and Taegj?"
Nodding, she pointed in the direction of the village tree- a Weirwood, they had told me, a sacred kind of tree- "They're off over there last I saw."
"Thanks. Good luck on the hunt."
She grinned, clapping me on the shoulder and walking off.
I found Grenwin and Taegj around the fire. They waved me over when they saw me.
"Good morning," I said, taking a seat on a log.
"Morn'," Grenwin said while Taegj just nodded.
"Good you're here." Taegj looked self-satisfied, "We've been talking."
Grenwin had a pained expression on her face. "He thinks we should start gathering the local clans."
"That seems like a good idea," I said.
Taegj grinned toothily, "Aye, get more of the Free Folk together." The grin faded somewhat, becoming a serious expression. "I know what I said about freeing those slaves. I didn't like leaving them much, and I've been thinking on it. We need more people here, we've the food to go around, but we don't have the shelter or the clothes to take care of them. The local clans already have what they need to survive, we'd just need to build more shelter."
I considered the proposition. When it came to clothes, I could handle that, and building shelter was suddenly far more accessible than it had been even two days ago.
"That's a good plan. With help, we can put up a good-size hall in…" I trailed off, letting Woodworking do the calculations, factoring in the insanity that was the latest speed boost. "A couple of hours."
They both blinked at me.
"What? It's something new I got yesterday. With a team, I can get six months of labor done in an hour."
Taegj chuckled, which soon became a full bellied laugh, while Grenwin stared slackjawed.
"Ha! Bugger me, but Herrick was right! The Builder come again!"
"Can you really?" Grenwin asked seriously, eyes glittering.
I nodded, "Yeah. I can teach, as well. Six months of education in an hour, years in a day. I'd have to improvise some things, but overall…" I trailed off, shrugging. "There's still only one of me, but I can give us a pretty good boost. Oh, right, and clothes. I can make really good clothes. It's fallen a bit by the wayside, but if everyone is fine with me using what we got from the slavers, I could turn that into clothing that'd keep us nice and warm in any weather."
"I…" She swallowed thickly, "Wow."
Teagj seemed to be recovering from his good humor. "Alright, that's great. I can take Dagmoor and start spreading the word. You care if we take some of those spare tools with us for trade?"
I shook my head, "Take them, I can make more. Oh, I almost forgot the reason I wanted to talk to you two. You know that shelter of mine, beyond the door and portal?"
They nodded.
"Well, it's had a couple of additions. There's a great farm in there now, and it's growing quite a bit of food."
"Show us," Grenwin said, intensely curious.
"Alright, let's get Symon as well, he might be able to help figure out the yield we can expect."
Standing, they joined me as I went to collect the ex-maester.
Knocking on his door, he opened it, looking over the three of us. "What's this?"
"I have something to show you, a farm of sorts that's growing a lot of food, and I don't know how to estimate the yield."
He blinked, poking his head out the door and looking around. "A farm?"
"In the shelter," I clarified, putting a portal on the side of the hut.
They followed me through, and I pointed to the aeroponics bay door. "Through here."
Walking through that door, they all seemed confused.
"This is a farm?" Taegj said, "Looks nothing like what the kneelers have."
I walked up to the nearest planter, waving them over and showing them the sprout. "It grows plants using nutrient-rich water and twenty-four-hour light. In here, there's no blight, pests, diseases. Every plant is kept healthy, and it's all automated. The only work needed is to take seeds and dump them in that slot on the wall there," I pointed over at it.
Grenwin reached out and stroke the small plant with a finger. "I'd heard that some try growing food above the Wall, but nothing like this."
Symon examined the pots and made a noise of surprise. "Saffron? You're growing saffron?" He asked, seeming strangled.
I looked over at the pot he was examining. "Huh, so we are. Is it valuable? We have more spices besides."
"Valuable? A pound of it costs as much as the finest warhorse! It has to be imported from distant Yi-Ti, and you're just growing it here?"
Blinking, "That's good to know, I think. Really, I'm more concerned about the variety of food available to us more than trade value, but if it comes up, I'm sure it will come in handy?"
Grumbling to himself, he wandered down an aisle.
"So, it's going to take a little while before the first harvest, a couple of weeks at the very least." I said to the other two, "After that, we'll have to figure out how much we use and use that to predict how much we'll need to grow in the future." Waving at the stacks of empty planters, "Half the space is unused, and we can use it to grow crops with high volume and nutritional value. I was thinking rice."
They blinked at me, dumbfounded. Then, the questions started. How it worked, where the seeds came from, how much there would be, more and more.
I tried answering them all to the best of my ability while taking them on a short tour and pointing out crops of interest. They were quite interested in the rice once I'd explained the incredible varieties of uses for it. Grind it into flour, make bread or soup with it, boil it and use it as a filler in meals, more besides. My enthusiasm rubbed off on them I think, and they were eager to spread the news to the others.
Symon had done his own measurements of the space, coming out with numbers close to my own.
"A field of this size in the Reach would produce less than two bushels of food a year," he told me. "I've not studied agriculture specifically, you understand, though measuring the output of a lord's fields is a component of earning a rose gold link. Economics, yes? Given the state of these crops after only a week, I expect to see a yield far larger than even the best managed fields in the Seven Kingdoms. How much larger, I cannot say. You implied ideal growing conditions at all times?"
"Yes," I answered in the one opportunity he'd given me to speak so far.
"I see. And with no disease nor pests… We will have to wait for the first harvest to gain a firmer understanding of the yields we can expect."
I nodded, "Quite so. I need to start working on papermaking so we can keep track of the numbers. Do you know how to make inks?"
He blinked, surprised at the tangent. "Aye, I know of several. I'd appreciate access to fresh paper or parchment. I've considered writing a book on my experiences with the wildlings." He was quiet for a moment, "And it seems I've found myself in a position to chronicle a revolutionary figure."
I turned from the young cabbage I was studying, looking at him curiously.
"Revolutionary?" I asked, "I'm just trying to help these people out. Mutual aid, and all that."
He grimaced, "I think you'll find the perspective of others to be quite different. You arrive a week ago, and within a few days convince them to name you their Queen beyond the wall, as empty a title it may be. Tools were one thing, but we need food to survive. What will you think will happen when word gets around that we have an abundance of food and tools?"
"Well, I imagine we'll become both a target for those who would try taking it, and hope for people who would join us."
He nodded seriously. "Yes. Do you understand how radical the change over the last week has been?"
Shrugging, "I don't know how things were before I arrived, but I believe I see your point."
"Good. You represent a great change and that always invites opportunists."
I nodded. "Say, I had something else I wanted to run by you. I'd like to open a school, as I find myself with the ability to teach at a rapid pace."
"A school? Truly?"
"I believe that everyone should have access to education, and I have the means and ability to see it done. Why not open a place for learning?"
"I'll need to think on it. The Citadel is the only center of knowledge and learning in the known world, but I must admit the concept of establishing another appeals to me."
"Sure, take all the time you need."
After he'd satisfied himself with the state of the crops, he returned to his hut.
I gathered Herrick and the others I'd been working with about putting up another Hall, something they seemed excited about. The berm had been a great success so far, and they were eager to see what else can be done.
With their help, we were able to put it up within a few hours. A pace unheard of for a timber construction worked by hand, but it was the equivalent of a year and a half of dedicated labor by the group.
Trees had been felled, lumber processed, and the final structure was a large two-story affair. Like the original Hall, it held a hearth in the center and room to lounge and rest nearby. There were several offshoot rooms on the ground floor, storage for goods and food, as well as a good-sized kitchen.
The second floor was more of a loft set against the wall opposite the entrance. It was open without any rooms, and a tall balustrade kept anyone from falling into the space below.
I'd done all the woodworking myself, while the others had helped with final assembly. As a result, every inch of the place had been finished as though by a master carpenter and architect, and the building exuded a solidity unmatched by the smaller huts it dwarfed. The walls had all been reinforced, and the interior would always maintain a comfortable temperature, with or without a fire burning in the hearth.
We'd gathered a crowd by the time we finished, stunned people watching the building go up with awe. They explored the building, asking a myriad of questions that I did my best to answer. I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately, I reflected.
Some claimed it was the finest Hall in the world, and I was pleased by how much they liked it. Herrick was certainly taking the praise well, looking quite pleased with himself.
My next project was to convert the rest of the hides that Grenwin had gotten me into clothes. I had enough for several sets, and I could stretch that out by recycling some of the slaver's clothing. After a half hour's work, I'd made enough clothing for everyone in the village, in the style of the classic parka and trousers, gloves and boots.
I handed them out, most seeming appreciative. Apparently, it was rare to own multiple sets of clothing. Doubly so nice clothing, as they'd ended up at beyond masterwork quality, making their current clothes seem tattered by comparison.
Those who changed into the new clothes found them to be absurdly comfortable and unencumbering. I knew from experience; the difference really was night and day. I was certain that once the climate control aspect was figured out, my clothing would be very valuable for trade.
They were already making themselves at home in the new hall. I wasn't sure what we'd do with the old one, maybe use it as extra storage.
I spent the rest of the afternoon practicing my channeling. It was still hard to believe how much faster my progress was now, and it continued to be staggering.
By the time evening rolled around, my abilities with saidar had improved dramatically. Strength, speed, dexterity, and even the number of flows I was able to handle at once had all increased significantly.
I'd wandered off a safe distance from the village while trying to figure out some simple weaves. Small balls of fire were simple enough, as was using threads of air to lift and move objects. The next time we were attacked, I might even be able to restrain the attackers before any real harm is done.
I was most interested in trying to figure out Travelling. From what I could recall, it involved making two locations similar, somehow. I wasn't any closer to figuring out how, but if I kept working at it, I'd surely get there.
As it happened, having a particular Talent did not make me an immediate expert at something, nor did it really seem to help me figure out how to accomplish it in the first place. I knew logically what delving the earth was, but I had no clue how the weave was composed. If I ever figured it out, I'd be able to pull raw ore and minerals from beneath the ground. I was quite looking forward to that, it would solve a great deal of my resourcing problems.
That evening, we all took our dinner in the new hall. It soon became something like another celebration, the nightly music and storytelling taking a more hopeful tone than I'd remembered hearing from them before.
It almost seemed that after so long struggling for base survival, they had finally been given a chance to look to the future. They were well-clothed, the hall was comfortable and had no drafts, I'd gone through and given them a full health check with my nanites, and there was a surplus of food and luxury items like soap.
My thoughts turned back to the slaves. The slavers had likely left and taken them along by now, and I felt guilty for not pursuing them. If I'd had these abilities a week ago, we would have had more than enough space for new people.
Did it make me a coward for letting them go? I certainly felt it did. Even if we hadn't the space, I could have kept them healthy and housed in the pocket reality until we could build more accommodations. Maybe food had still been a problem, but over the last few days the hunters had brought back more than we needed.
I knew my initial reaction was spurred by adrenaline and shock, and that day still seemed hazy in my memory. I'd too easily been swayed by Taegj's arguments. In the future, I'd need to make sure I was able to decisively act in that kind of situation.
There would be more slavers, and pirates besides. They'd been a problem along the coasts and rivers for generations. The pirates, at least, were willing to trade with the free folk and were a major source of finished goods. Well, as major as a pittance every few years could be said to be.
I didn't feel any regret for how I handled the slavers we'd captured. They deserved worse. In the future, we'd probably be better off just killing them instead of going for a capture.
If only I could bridge the gap to higher technology. We could put up drones and radar stations to monitor the coasts, defend ourselves with firearms, maybe even have our own coastal vessels to chase down and board slave ships.
Not to mention the ease of communications! Basic radios would be far superior to having to deliver news and messages in person, and I could do so much better than just basic radios. This Mance character had spent nearly two decades gathering the free folk, and I could only imagine how much faster we could do so if we just delivered a means of communication over distance to every tribe and clan we can find.
Directional transponders, as well. Mance was somewhere in the mountains, but it was an uncertain destination and journeys in this climate were hard enough without knowing where you were headed. A simple guidance to show the direction of our gathering point would be helpful. Radios would also let us warn travelling groups about inclement weather, give them time to prepare and hole up.
Then again, if I could figure out Travelling, I could just open gateways to visit distance clans and move those who were interested in joining us then and there. Why travel for months through the cold snow when you can take two steps and be where you need?
Huh, now that I thought about it, we could probably completely bypass the Wall with that. Open a gateway to the lands south of it, head on through, and the Watch would be none the wiser.
Of course, Symon had warned me that the response by the northern lords would be extreme if we just showed up out of nowhere to settle unused lands. They'd come down on us like a bag of hammers, bringing every armed man they could and sending for more from the other southern kingdoms.
There were a few ways of avoiding a response like that. If we could take the Wall from the Night's Watch without letting word get out, we could feasibly take the region just south of it, lands traditionally held by the Watch known as Brandon's Gift. The northern lords rarely sent their people into those lands. South of Brandon's Gift was the New Gift, lands given to the Watch by some queen Alysanne or somesuch. All in all, there was a four-hundred-mile-wide strip of land separating the Wall from the furthest northern lords.
The Watch, and only the Watch, patrols the Gifts, and if we were to try to settle there by skipping the wall, they'd likely find us and word would get out. Neutralize the Watch, and we remove that threat while also being able to utilize Brandon's Gift without much concern over discovery.
It didn't even have to be a bloody conquest. By Symon's reckoning, serving the Watch is barely better than a death sentence. Those men were underfed, underequipped, and morale hovered somewhere just above rock bottom. They were, ironically, the only democratic institution around. All we'd have to do is offer our material support to them before we made any moves, work to mutually overcome the bad blood shared between them and the free folk, and establish ourselves as a group that has their men's best interest at heart.
If we did that, we could negotiate an alliance from a position of mutual aid rather than threat of arms, or potentially even fold the Watch into our own demesne.
It was all academic at this point, anyway. I nominally had responsibility for twenty people right now, and I'd need to work to gather more. Form a government, as well, as the more people we gather the more we're going to need some degree of organization. I wasn't sure how they'd take the idea, but I hoped to appeal to their practical sensibilities.
The worst thing I could think of would be to start gathering people only for schisms between groups to form, open warfare between people made to live too closely together. Without something to bind us all together, the whole venture would fracture in no time. Just relying on the idea of getting below the wall won't do, as once that's done and over, there'd be nothing stopping the people from breaking apart to go raid the prosperous lands to the south.
Maybe just start simply. From what I can gather, existing chiefs are tolerated as they're the most suitable to lead. Maybe roll the existing chiefs that join willingly into an administrative corps?
Alternatively, I could try to establish new subgroups for general fields. Hunters and gatherers, laborers, specialists and craftspeople, warriors, and so on. I didn't want to simply assign people to the groups, rather, it seemed best to allow people to move to and from whichever fields they wanted. Then, from within those groups, have them choose their own leaders. There'd still need to be an overall organizational scheme, but it would incorporate the existing cultural bias towards meritocracy and leadership by consent.
This all really would be so much easier with electronics. If I had a central civil database, I could just put the groups together and have people assign themselves to what they want. Maybe give everyone a portable computer with a network connection that'd allow for them to join or leave these groups, and potentially even easy access to a sort of community managed bulletin board of tasks.
Trying to do this with just paper records, or no records, seemed far more difficult. The ancient Inca used knotted rope to keep records, not that I knew how those worked.
Yeah, I think my priority should be building up that workshop, then bootstrapping myself to the advanced tech the lights had downloaded into my brain. Surely, simple electronics would function just as well if I merely scaled up the existing microchip designs I had available?
It was a little frustrating that I had none of the background knowledge I needed to really understand how it all functioned. Sure, I could plot out the steps required to fabricate anything from a simple optical processor to a massive submersible command center, but I didn't know enough to modify any of it. Worse, those steps I'd need required at least some existing industrial infrastructure. It wasn't something I could easily do from the tools and materials I had on hand, and as it was, I was just hoping I could figure out enough to meet the barest requirements to do more.
I wasn't even sure if it was possible without travelling the world to get samples of materials and resources I could scan with the fabricator.
What good was knowing how to make a simple generator out of an iron rod, copper wire, and a set of magnets if you didn't know where to get the magnets?!
For the iron and copper, I wasn't sure. I'd found some granite chunks nearby, and a two-kilo chunk had yielded a whopping forty-seven grams of iron. Plenty of other stuff, mostly aluminum and silicon along with some trace elements.
Training with Grenwin went well. Better than I'd expected, at least. We were both a little disoriented after cramming two months of training into an hour, but she quickly saw the benefits. She'd collected Ygdis, and then we trained again. I wasn't sure how much better Ygdis was after two months' worth of training, but I was seeing noticeable improvements in myself.
I managed to actually hit Ygdis with my practice spear for the first time during a spar, which was well worth the blow across the shoulders in response that sent me tumbling to the ground. Dirt and snow had never tasted so sweet.
Afterwards, I washed up with a bit of water warmed in a clay pot over a fire, then made my way to bed. I wasn't as exhausted as I was yesterday, but today had been plenty long.
That night, I dreamt oddly. A black bird had tried to steal a star that felt like it belonged to me and been burned for it. The little bugger had pecked at me after, as though blaming me for its own injury. Then came the parade of whimsical events, standing at the top of the world and seeing everything from on high while men and trees wrestled as far as the eye could see.
Needless to say, my sleep wasn't very restful.