was embarrassing, but there was nothing to be done for it now. As a group builders tended to be a little soft and selfish. Brilliant, but that didn't mean self-sacrificing at all. The ones that had come were all special in that way. Just having shown up kind of meant they were better than the rest, to Tor at least. He'd had to go, but they did it just because it was the right thing to do.
It took an hour but Tor found the whole group of them using shovels to dig a latrine. He nearly laughed, but instead shook his head. They had restrooms, magic ones that would do the work for them and could be set up in seconds. Quietly he asked Sandra why she didn't just use one of those. Or really, set up a few dozen. She could get them from Ali after all.
“They're not mine? Plus that mean looking weapons instructor with the bald head told us to dig a latrine and pointed to shovels. I don't want to make him angry.” She panted a bit. Building was hard, but not very physical.
Tor could see that one then. If he didn’t know the man himself, he’d probably have done the same thing.
“Oh. Well, I can guarantee you that Kolb just wants sanitary facilities and would prefer to have the magic ones. We'll need more of them, I'll get some of those, and temperature plates, then we need to make copies. I'll be doing houses, with Sandra. I mean if you willing? It's just copy work, so no one should have a problem with it. No templates, but that won't be an issue, not for any of you, I can tell things like that now, it’s a magical skill I’m making up right now, the ability to know how good a builder is just by looking at them. Seriously though, just focus a little harder while working. Ten at a time at first and we should have this done in a few days.” Tor forced his voice to be confident and cheerful, because he knew that of the whole group, the only person other than him that had ever made a copy without a template was probably Lyn, the first year girl.
No one said anything, they just stared, except for her, she grinned.
“Beats digging ditches. Don't worry I can show you how to do it. He's right, it takes a bit more focus, but it isn't that hard. I've only done one at a time before though…”
Nodding Tor winked at her and grinned. A forced thing but real enough for an emergency situation.
“Again, just a little more focus is needed. Some of you can probably already do fifty or a hundred at a time, you just don't know it yet, but we need to start slow, since this is an emergency and quality counts. People’s lives are at stake here. Sandra, you're in charge, obviously, but would you be willing to work with me on this? Unless, I mean, you have a novel build that needs to be done to help out? I can do the houses on my own if that's the case.” It was all kinds of presumptuous he realized assuming she wouldn't have her own ideas.
She was a builder in truth and probably only months away from going out into the world on her own. The younger kids might have something too, he realized, so he quickly included them. Just because he hadn't been doing his own work at that age didn't mean they might not have an idea or two. Or fifty.
Sam the first year did, actually, an ambitious idea for a first build too. Probably too ambitious, but Tor smiled. It was definitely worth giving a try.
“I want to try and make a mill.” He said softly, nervous and shy about it.
Tor envisioned a full scale operation, big enough to grind grain for a whole town, but the boy meant something that would set up on a table top, and use shields that would grind together to turn hard grains into flour. Tor smiled and nodded, it was a good idea. It used parts of things Tor had made, his own original work, pretty liberally, but a lot of builders did that, it made sense not to quibble about borrowing a trick here or there, didn't it? There were only a few hundred good builders in the kingdom after all.
Nodding he had the boy draw up a working plan for it, a full template, so others could easily copy it and start producing them before they left, using a bit of charcoal from a fire, scraping sigils for it on a piece of damp tree bark. It would take the boy days to do it, and it might fail, but it was worth doing. Besides, if the guy couldn't get it right, Tor realized he could probably do it in a few hours. He had most of what he needed in his head already. It was better if Sam did it though. That he was willing to try was huge.
Tor made houses with Sandra who struggled to do batches of ten of them every four hours or so, and she wanted to stop when she got bored after the third set. Sticking his tongue out at her he pointed to what he had done by then, which was nearly twelve hundred of them, all glowing with their little red house sigils on them.
“Sure, it's easier to make copies of your own work. Granted. But Sandra, you're a sixth year. You have to be an example for the younger kids. Besides, this is an emergency and you're a builder.” He said it like that meant something, chin coming up proudly. The girl misted up for a moment then let her head raise a bit, proudly, gave a single nod and went back to work. She got faster after that too. A good bit.
Heh.
He'd known she could do it.
The next morning, earlier than he felt comfortable with, Tor contacted the palace to make his requests. This kind of thing was so awkward and hard for him, asking for anything always was, but people needed help here and if he didn't get over his own fear and suggest it, then nothing would happen. It took ten minutes for the King to get to the communications device once the Royal Guard nearest it realized that it was glowing, a bright blue thing that was hard to miss, but someone still had to be in the room with it to see. When he spoke the King sounded tired, like they'd gotten him out of bed just to talk to him.
Gods. Making the man hop to his commands now? How embarrassing.
“Tor?” Voice croaking and slightly raspy, a soft clearing sound came before the King continued.
“How are things in Cannor? Do you need anything?” Straight to the point and matter of fact.
“Hi Rich. Um, actually I need the men from Wildlands Station to build about two thousand homes as fast as possible. I could also use some fruits and vegetables for the people here. I think they can trade fish for it. Is that all doable?” It wasn't fair to dump it all on the King, who sighed mightily and didn't speak for a moment.
“I think so. I can get the military out to do the building. Hate to lose them from their regular work and a few leave days will be lost, so we need some kind of extra reward for them. I'll leave that to you though. Less work for me. As to the food stuffs… Can I get back to you later today? You're not having to do inhuman amounts of building on your own again are you? People can do for themselves…”
This got a satisfied and slightly proud chuckle from Tor.
“I have help this time. Building students from school came with us and are working diligently to make sure everyone has what they need. My part is basically finished for now. Um, if you need to get in touch with them a… woman, a sixth year student, Sandra Morris, is in charge. She's working right now, magical housing, but I think she's on her last batch for the time being.”
Tor agreed to leave Sandra in charge of his communications plate as soon as she finished up, since she didn't have her own yet. No one really did. Maybe she could build her own system, copying the one already in use, or possibly improve his or make her own unique one? Tor took a minute after the King broke off communications to look in on Sam who was floundering a bit, his mind had drifted and the field he was building fading. It was also flawed.
Shrugging Tor sat next to him, dropped into state and corrected the errors, then nudged Sam while holding the pattern. The boy came to with a jolt and a jump.
“Huh?”
“Sam. Feel the new pattern and hold it. You have this. You can do it.” Then he let go, making the boy scramble and fight to keep his hold, feeling all of this in the boys mind. He did it though.
The others had their copy work well in hand and had managed to get faster, spurred on by seeing what Sandra had learned to do, making groups of ten temperature plates every two or three hours. Guide was the slowest, but his work was very good and solid. Lyn was faster but a little sloppy. He gently pointed that out to her and got her to feel the difference. She looked down as if ashamed for a minute, so Tor gave her a pat on the back.
“Don't let it worry you, you know what to do, just increase the clarity of the field as you're working. You can do it. Now go, people are going to need these.” It could be hard to find out you needed to fix something, but it was always better to just do it and go on, than dwell on hurt feelings or embarrassment.
The idea made Tor want to laugh, but he held it in. For instance he was just so good at doing that wasn't he? Embarrassment had led half his life already practically.
With that done and feeling a lot more proud of “his” fellow builders than he actually had a right too, Tor went back to the dining facility and started washing dishes. The water was hot and someone had provided strong dish soap for them to use and natural sea sponges to scrub with.
The girl in charge was shocked when he came back and just started in with her, not asking what to do. He
