Journal 3

Journal 3

        THESE PAST FEW DAYS have been busy.  There is almost no organization at all in this town.  Hell, it's not even a town, minus a few buildings.  It's a tent refugee camp.  Not knowing what to do, I got into an argument about getting electrical power up and running as well as a quarry.  I later find out that we have the resources for neither and apparently the only diamond dogs in the area were turned to stone by a cockatrice.  Apparently there's some caverns under the town that need to be explored as well.  I decided to help set up the farms for a few days, then tried my hand, hoof now, at construction, considering the lack of housing.  Still no running water, though.  Something has to be done about that.  Whatever free time I had was spent practicing my magic.  I'm beginning to grow sick of the candle lighting exercise.  Especially since just casting a light from the horn seems much easier.  Still, practice makes perfect.  After about three days, I'm able to change the shape of the solid magic ball that I found I could make from earlier.  Wishing to have something to use for my job, I try and make it into a buzzsaw blade.  It takes work, but at last I'm able to do it.  Trying to work the shape is like changing the shape of an object in a 3d modeling program one slider bar step at a time.  Bloody annoying.  I then try to get it to spin.  This takes me another day's worth of practice.  Still can't get it to move in any direction as all my focus is keeping it spinning, but at least it's a start.  I also tried testing it out.  Turns out my blades weren't sharp enough, so back to the drawing board for another several days practice until I get the right sharpness and the rotation up to speed.  I share my newfound discovery with the other unicorns hoping to get construction done faster.  Anything better is than using a manual saw, even if you are using it with telekinesis. It takes them several days to get it down, too.  The ones that care anyway.

       

        And even with that done, after a week almost no new homes have been built.  I did help construct some docks, where a wanna-be sailor was looking for a pirate crew.  He was interested in hearing that I used to be in the navy.  High Tide, I believe his name was.  And he was already missing an eye from a botched magic attempt.  At least he has the sad pirate look down when I told him, "NAVY stands for Never Again Volunteer Yourself."  He then muttered something about going to look for his eye and stumbled away.  It rained tonight.  Fucking leaky tent and muddy ground.  At least we finally have someone taking care of the waste.  I hope he knows he's sitting on a goldmine with that job.  The waste will be useful to resell to farms and tanneries later on, not to mention whatever else gets thrown away.  Still, this conditions literally stink.  I decided to have an inn built across from the train depot to get a roof over the smarter ones' heads instead of waiting for homes to be built.  Much to my surprise, it was completed rather quickly, while I was helping with other projects.  It's a simple two-story wooden structure that will have to be renovated at some point if I ever want it to succeed.  Coming in the main entrance, a small common area is available with roughly made tables and benches for sitting.  The check-in desk doubles as a bar and there's a small kitchen as well, on the far left side of the room, which leads down to a cellar.  Behind the bar is the office, which also doubles as my sleeping quarters for right now.  As for the rooms, for lack of a better word, are spartan.  They contain just a hastily made bed, bedpan, and a small closet that will be converted into a Roman-style bathroom once we get running water.  The toilette will be near the entrance and a shower-head will point towards the center on the far wall with a sloping floor that drains in the center.  Room windows face either east or west, with the exception of the middle rooms.  All in all, there are 8 rooms, all on the first floor.  It seems from now on, I will have to manage the inn come evening or when new arrivals show up.  I didn't want to run the damned thing, just get a roof over my head, but still, it's guaranteed to make money once we finally get some, and I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

        As expected, it fills up rather quickly, and I was about to start adding onto it when all major construction was ordered halted until we can brace the land underneath us.  Homes and small structures can still be built, but it seems like the majority of these sperglords like living in tents.  With construction at a standstill, my time is freed up to see what's coming in on the trains.  I'm able to get a few barrels of cider, some sugar, yeast, and a few bottles of ethyl alcohol from the medical supplies.  I also scrounge up a few mason jars with lids and some tubing.  Good enough to start making hard cider.  I add the sugar and the yeast to the barrels and setup the tubing and jars as fermentation locks, keeping the tubes in place with some putty.  The ethanol I will keep for later when someone wants a harder drink.

 

        Also during my down time, I designed a coin backing if we ever decide to mint our own currency.  Little did I know a new arrival showed up, trying to get a banking system going.  While this seems good, Pretty Penny wants the currency to be in sticks until we're able to mine precious metals.  There are not enough facepalms in the world for this.  Nova Flux, the town planner argues against this (finally, someone somewhat sane!) while others want a Marxist state to distribute the bits to the people equally.  Or if they do work.  Or just have the government (what government? It's mostly chaos out here) give it to the businesses and have them distribute it.  The majority agree that we don't need a coin right now and worry about money later.  My design instead is to be used for the militia, which I consider joining on the weekends to get into shape and give them someone with a military background if the need arises.  Still, these two mares are going at each other, possibly due to that time of the month coming up, so I decide to defuse the situation by offering half-priced drinks at the inn.  I hope my cider's sat long enough for some fermentation to take place.  That seems to distract them for now, but I foresee many fights in the future between those two.  Especially since Pretty Penny comes off as an unlikable cunt.  We finally started to water tower up, too, but still no good way to distribute the precious liquid throughout the town. At least there's progress.