Adobe Log

[withtherats]

As the group finishes eating breakfast one day, Bruno motions to some wooden frames and short half-logs off to one side. The Blank Men stand ready nearby.

"I'm going to take some of them today to that place I told you about, near the river, with the good soil - if, ah... any of you up for helping with the adobe? I can show you how to mix it and shape it; and once the sun's dried them enough, how to fire the bricks and roof tiles."

He side-eyes the Blank Men as he continues. "...I think they're up to the task themselves... but they won't work unless at least one of us is working alongside them. And there's several steps: gathering the soil and water, and some dry grass; mixing the adobe; shaping the adobe with the frames..." (he counts these off on his fingers, fidgeting as he talks) "...it'll go faster the more of that we can have happening simultaneously. ...And, um. I'll be honest: I'm not sure I trust them to get the mix consistency right. The bricks won't hold up if the mix is too far off."

Comments

[mad_larkin]

"It sounds straight-forward enough," Larkin says, "I can haul, certainly. And mix, though you'll have to tell me the consistency."

He hasn't made bricks before, but he remembers watching people make them, when he was a child. One of his neighbors, growing up, had built an outdoor stove by himself. It had taken most of a summer, but it had looked fairly simple.

[jinzhong]

"Sure," says Jackie. Not like he's ever done anything with soil and clay before, but hey, it's not like he's doing anything else that isn't chopping and hauling wood, and he wants to be more useful than he's been. He still feels like the least useful person around, but that's never been new to him. Always dragging behind.

At least here, maybe he can prove himself without killing.

"Hopefully the sun stays out. I mean, if it rains, the bricks are gonna fall apart, right?"