AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

“This much is enough. Let’s move to another section.”

Alfeur masterfully directed the workers to disconnect the earth compressor and move it to a new section. Although he was often visiting the construction sites all over the Capital, he missed being directly involved in coordinating a construction. The Minister’s work was essential to push AK to the next level, but he still longed for getting his hands dirty now and then.

One of the improvements and discoveries they got from building tunnels through the Green Mountains, was that instead of moving the excavated earth, it would be better to push and press it against the walls. Besides eliminating the process of transporting and discarding the earth, they also improved the quality and stability of the walls by a lot.

The earth compressor would compact the earth walls, which would later be hardened further to create an extremely hard layer. The wall would have a high level of stability while also preventing beasts from digging through it. Although they didn’t have experience with a waterway, Alfeur also expected that the hardened layer would prevent the water from slipping into the soil and creating problems.

To improve their efficiency and work faster, the construction workers were divided into three groups. The diggers would go first, using ten common excavators to loosen up the soil, while the next group would come with the compressors to push the earth against the walls. Finally, the last group would come with the earth-hardening tool to make the walls even stronger.

After finishing a section, the groups would go back to the beginning and dig another meter of soil and repeat the other processes too. In the beginning, they tried to do the three meters of depth of the waterway in one go but realized it would be too difficult. So, they decided to divide the work into layers of one meter of depth each. Because they didn’t want the water to start flowing from the river yet, they started ten meters from the river and would only connect the last part in the end of the project. They also pressed the last layer of dug earth against the bottom to also reinforce the waterway’s floor.

During this time, Karl and the other three resident Alchemists didn’t stay idle. They drew big Alchemy marks on large stone plates, which were placed inside the earth walls. Later, these marks could be used to transfer any underground effects, like blocking a section or even reinforcing damaged walls.

To preserve the drawings, the stone plates were put between two layers of hardened earth. Every 200 meters, the workers would compress and harden a thinner layer of earth, place the stone plate with a cable (now a thin metal line) connected to the surface, and then add another layer of hardened earth to seal the drawing. At the opposite wall, they would add another drawn stone plate in the same 200 meters mark to allow effects that needed to cross the waterway.

For now, they wouldn’t connect the cables to anything, nor would they leave them on sight. Later, they could return and easily connect the cables that would be buried close to the surface.

For ten days, all the available personnel were focused on building the ten kilometers of the waterway. Alfeur commanded 38 workers to dig and build through 12 hours a day, trying to cover almost one kilometer every day. Fortunately, they only faced three major attacks, from which, only one was from an earth digger beast. On that occasion, two workers were heavily wounded, but the wound healing ointment kept them alive.

On the 11th day, the construction team finally arrived at the location of the lake. However, the real difficult work would only start now. At this point, Alfeur redivided the work, putting their 30 excavators to good use and placed the remaining six workers to push the earth towards the borders. Although they followed the same one-meter per layer strategy, they would need to cover a larger space, so it would take some time before they could start forming the hardened containing walls of the lake.

Thankfully, on the second day of lake digging, the larger group of workers from the Capital finally arrived. After one day of rest, Alfeur distributed them into groups and improved their work speed by almost three times. Once they got to the lake’s walls, the workers repeated the same process of compressing and hardening the earth, placing stone plates at the same 200 meters distance.

The work was several times harder than the waterway. Instead of three layers of digging, the lake would have the form of a basin with three layers in the borders and 16 layers in the deepest part. Even so, they worked much faster, dividing the tasks and creating shifts to keep the digging at all times. They even started working in a part of the night to finish the lake in time.

At this point, the surveillance system had already identified the Kingdom’s forces entering the forest and the shadows were working to delay them as much as possible. Fortunately, the lake was ready and filled one day before the enemy arrived.

Although it took roughly four days to fill the lake, the team had already moved on to another part of their plan, which would take another two weeks to finish, but they would be able to do it while hidden from their enemies.

***

Lew cleared his throat but failed to get the attention of the Adventurers, who were happily drinking and playing. It was around noon, so most customers had gathered in the pub for the noon meal, which would replace their breakfast in periods of celebration and rest. Feeling a little embarrassed by the lack of respect for his presence, he insisted by knocking heavily over the counter.

Satisfied with the sudden silence, the Minister started talking.

“I would like to announce that the period of blocked access is over.”

The silence and staring revealed the Adventurers’ conflicted emotions, they would, of course, want to resume their hunting activities, but the celebrations would surely be missed. Additionally, the confused consumers seemed to be waiting for some sort of explanation. What had they done to keep unwanted visitors from getting to AP? Why was the access blocked during these last ten days? Lew enjoyed the undivided attention for a few more seconds before resuming his speech.

“I would also like to show you some changes and reassure you that our services will continue normally. Please, follow me…”

Lew didn’t allow them to ask anything as he left the pub and Office. The Adventurers exchanged confused looks before going after him. They exited the building and quickly located the Manager standing only a few meters away, pointing towards the forest. It took them a few moments to understand what he wanted them to see.

The shocked and paralyzed Adventurers were pushed out of the way by their comrades, while they stared at forest direction, trying to decide if they were crazy or too drunk. Lew heard many questions and cursing, but he waited for everyone to come outside before explaining.

“From now on, Adventurers’ Point is an island…”