Chapter 107: Playing With Fire
Tera needed stones more than clay, and in greater quantity.
Flat stones for paving, smaller stones for filling gaps, and finer fragments for mixing into the sealing paste. The clan members were sent to the lake and the stream to collect as many as they could carry.
They returned with armfuls of rocks in varying shapes and sizes, and Tera’s heart sank a little when she surveyed the haul. Many of the smaller stones were round and irregular, not the flat pieces she would have preferred for lining a channel floor. The medium to large stones were solid and heavy, good for anchoring, but far too big to use as they were.
Breaking them down was another problem entirely.
A beast’s strength was formidable, but strength alone didn’t crack stone the way Tera needed. The males smashed rocks against other rocks, and while it produced some usable fragments, the results were inconsistent. The large stones barely even shattered at all. The rest barely chipped despite being struck with enough force to dent the earth beneath them.
Tera needed rough fragments, and she needed pieces she could pack tightly into gaps and press into the clay paste.
The smashing method was producing more frustration than results, and the deadline was not getting any further away.
It took Tera one night to come up with a solution.
She laid with her husbands and children in her shelter, her mind cycling through everything she knew about stone, heat, and the physics of thermal stress. It was dangerous. It was the kind of idea that, in her old world, would have required safety equipment, controlled environments, and at least a form of liability insurance.
Here, she had hoes, beast men, and a system.
The next morning, she gathered the clan and explained her plan.
Some of the males went pale. Others leaned forward with the wide-eyed excitement of creatures who had been told they were about to do something that might explode.
Which they actually were.
Xavi and Ermin were neither pale nor excited. They were insanely alarmed.
Obviously, they refused, and Tera spent the better part of an hour explaining, reassuring, and eventually pleading. She promised to keep a safe distance. She had the system on her side, she would be able to use it to safely interrupt the process before its breaking point.
And she promised she wouldn’t be anywhere near the fire when the water hit the superheated rocks.
They agreed, reluctantly and with visible displeasure that lingered on their faces for the rest of the day.
The fires were built deeper in the forest. Medium to large stones were placed directly in the hot flames and left to burn for hours until the heat soaked into them thoroughly.
The burning flames went on till the following day, closely monitored by Tera and the beasts in batches. The rocks had been pulled from wet environments, the lake and the stream, which meant they held moisture deep in their cores. When heated, that trapped moisture would expand. And when cold water was poured over the superheated stone, the rapid temperature change would create thermal shock.
The stones would crack.
Or explode and release shrapnel if one was too late.
It especially did not help that there were more than ten flames heating numerous stone batches.
Most importantly, Tera had the system working overtime to monitor the flames and the breaking point of the rocks.
The attempt to kill the first flame was terrifying.
The males had built the fire high and hot, and the selected stones sat in the centre of the blaze, nearly glowing with absorbed heat.
Tera signalled for the water.
Two males approached with water skins, their steps cautious and their ears flat. Even the excited ones had gone quiet now that the moment had arrived.
"Pour it slowly," Tera instructed, stopping the males at a safe distance. The system’s scan fixed on the stones’ thermal readings. "Start from the edge, not the centre."
The first stream of cold water hit the heated stone.
A sharp, violent crack split the air, and several of the males flinched hard. Fracture lines raced across many stones, and multiple chunks the size of Tera’s head broke away and fell into the embers with a hiss of steam.
Another pour. Another series of cracks, deeper this time. The stones started to split into smaller pieces, and this process was repeated until the fire dried out.
The same thing was carried out with the other flames, and within minutes, the air was filled with plumes of smoke and steam.
Batches of stones broke apart into dozens of usable fragments, and they were left to cool.
Once they had cooled enough, the stones were broken further with cooler stones. Tera didn’t want to risk using the hammers until the stones were completely cold.
Tera was nearly giddy.
Her plan had worked.
By the time they had processed every large stone that had been gathered, the pile of usable fragments was enormous. The males stood around it, sweating and covered in stone dust, staring at the heaps of broken rocks with stunned looks.
They had just bent the laws of nature to their will.
Even Xavi and Ermin, who had spent the entire process hovering at the edges with tense jaws and watchful eyes, seemed reluctantly impressed.
With the materials finally gathered, Tera moved on to testing.
She created small paste samples using different combinations. Clay and sand. Clay, sand, and fine stone fragments. Clay, soil, and water. Each sample was shaped into a small disc and left to dry, and after each one set, the system analysed its structural integrity, water resistance, and projected longevity.
Some crumbled, some held but leaked. Some sealed well initially, but the system predicted they would deteriorate within weeks.
By the end of the fourth month, after dozens of small tests and adjustments, Tera finally settled on a solution she trusted.
She was not going to use a single method.
Using one approach for the entire length of both channels would burn through her limited materials faster than she could afford. Instead, she would adapt the lining to each section’s needs, using heavier reinforcement where the water pressure was greatest—the basins—and lighter treatment where the flow would be faster.
She laid out the plan clearly for the clan.