ADAD Chapter 14: First week status report

 The oasis, after just a week of rune terraforming, was now one hundred times its original size. Anastasios had not allowed any shacks to be built, rather, he used the stone that they mined from the river's surroundings, to get new stone houses, that would be sturdy and cool.

The people had all wanted to move in closer to the water as soon as possible, so they had only asked for food in exchange for them building the dimensional pockets.  

Anastasios went to Darius, who was making a bright new rune. The demon had taken one look at the river, and had proclaimed it too thin. So, now, he and Harvey had their heads close to one another, and were planning how to make it broader, and rise it up, so they wouldn't have to dispose of the stone. Seeing as, the stone was a valuable resource, and the population would need more houses, in due time. 

"Have you two eaten?" Anastasios placed the plate with bread and cheese next to the two runesmiths.

"We don't have time for that, Nastia," Darius said, but he allowed himself a peek at his soulmate's lips, and a small smile. That smile did things to Anastasios, that he was too embarrassed to talk about. Like, make his knees go soft, and his heartbeat go wild.  

"Eat, now," Anastasios commanded, forcing his heart to slow down. 

"Fine, we will take a small brake," Harvey said, giving up on trying to weave in Nordic runes with Chinese hieroglyphs. "How is the budged now?"

"We are running on Darius's money," Anastasios said, as he rubbed the back of his head. "But the people have jobs now, and they are no longer expecting that I just hand them the food or water." 

"Which is something you shouldn't have done, to begin with," Prisila chimed in, from her spot by a blackboard. "It is good that they didn't like the handouts, and living in shacks. If you had to hire pixies to do their job, Darius would have gone broke." 

"I know. Sorry," Anastasios mumbled, and Prisila sighed. 

"We need to find something to trade. Noah told me about a land called Egypt, in the human realm, that is dominated by a desert, but is still fertile thanks to the Nile River. How far along are you two to widening the river?" Prisila asked, and Harvey was the one to answer. 

"We are doing our best, but we simply don't know where the spring is. If it is big enough to support such a wide river, or if we are going to end up with a dried up river bed and oasis," the Fey said, and then pointed at the half-finished rune. "But we found out that there is ice under the sand. Tons of it. Still, it is so deep under the sand, that I don't know if we can manage to use the water." 

"Professor Nobura did say that Gorgon used to be a rainforest world, long time ago," Anastasios said, thoughtful. "So, there is water, but we can't use it?"

"We can. But I don't know how stable the surface that we are standing on will be, if we begin to melt the ice," Darius said. Then, he scratched his nose. "Perhaps, if we teleport chunks of the ice to the surface. Somewhere that it could melt..."

"Are you saying that we should strive for more rain, and for the possibility of Gorgon becoming a rainforest again?" Anastasios asked, excited for the first time in a week. 

"Well, a rainforest means fruit trees, lumber, and the like. We can trade plenty of things, if Gorgon is no longer a desert realm," Prisila said. "That said, we will still need to wait for the trees and the like to grow." 

"For that, we will have to start now," Darius said, and then he pulled out a new sheet of paper. "Harvey, a general rain rune starts with a teardrop, right?"

"Do you know how much blood will be needed to get rain in a desert?" Harvey asked, ready to discourage his friend. "We don't have that kind of money, or resources." 

"We do, actually," Noah interrupted him. "There is a certain species of snake on Gorgon. I think it is a relic of the past of the realm as a rainforest. It is gigantic, and must have plenty of blood."

"You think we can bring something like that down?" Anastasios asked the human wizard, who nodded.

"It is also old. It is so huge, that it doesn't have any natural predators, and that is probably why it is still alive," Noah became saddened then. "Not that I feel like we should pick on the weak, but this might be our only chance." 

"We bag the snake, and then end up with a monsoon," Prisila said, and then looked at the sand under her feet. "That doesn't seem like enough, though." 

"We will need to import soil from somewhere," Timothy said, and then looked at the map that was next to him. "There are a couple of deserted realms, that look good enough to be scavenged for soil. Hey, Nastia, why weren't you given one of them, instead of this dump?"

"It would have been too easy, if I have been given fertile realms," Anastasios told him, and sighed. "They wanted me to prepare for everything." 

"So, we have to build teleports to these other realms, and get the soil," Prisila said, and then looked at the first dimensional pocket that had been built. "I say we start off small. One pocket at a time." 

"Then the water will be wasted. We have the chance for only one monsoon, Prisi. There are no other snakes, bar that one," Noah said, and Prisila sighed. 

"We won't be done with the importing this year. And we will need to use the little water we do have to make certain that the soil we get from the deserted realms doesn't turn into sand," Prisila mused, and then clapped her hands. "Come on, then. Offer the people new jobs. Runesmiths, get the teleports and the rain rune done with. Nastia, you, I, Dari, and Tim are going snake hunting." 

"Sir, yes, sir," the boys chorused, and Prisila marched towards the housing area. She needed at least an hour out of the sun's rays, to cool down, and then she could start working again.