Long Island

Chapter 30: A Storm and a Boat

Please Note: Statements between % something in italics % are game system messages. 

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Just like that, a week in real life passed. Raka spent all the time fishing and working on the house. And it was almost done. Thanks to some unexpected help. The twelve year old...

"I am thirteen!"

Right, so the thirteen year old son of Farun and Fawna, Fadan became unexpectedly interested in the construction. Maybe it was his frequent visits to their home to borrow tools or maybe it was his hard working attitude, but Fadan offered to work with Raka. As he was strongly built and willing to work for mere 5 coppers a day, Raka immediately hired him. Think it was exploitation?

Well, most of the work was still done by Raka, as he could work for a lot longer than a thirteen year old. No doubt his high stamina came into play. But the help was highly appreciated. Fadan was strong, could lift the heavy wood, hold on to beams as Raka hammered them into place and did all the stuff he couldn't have done without some help.

So it was no wonder that he regularly had lunch with Raka and his two animal companions.

"Why do you always call him monkey? Didn't you give him a name?" Fadan asked.

"Well...he has a name.." Raka replied.

"Monkey, what's your name?" Fadan asked.

"Screech...keech kich keech!" Monkey replied.

"Um..I don't understand." Fadan was confused.

"Nobby, translate" Raka said.

"His name is Screech keech kich keech!" Parrot said.

"....."

It was not surprising that monkey had started picking up Ilmentian language. It was an intelligent being. It had picked up the meanings of simple words like 'food', 'water', 'enemy', 'name', 'food', etc. Ofcourse, speaking was impossible.

Special mention must also be made of Guran. Without his accurate, practical and most importantly timely advice this house would have ended up like the difference between math and engineering.

"The foundations need to be dug the same depth. It's not ok to only make the pillars level.."

"You make the studs first. And then you join the other beams to it.."

"Consider wind. It can come from any direction.."

This was an island. A land-lubbering idiot like Raka could be pardoned for making mistakes. Not to mention it was his first time building a house of any sort. In most places, wind is not usually an issue if you are only building 1 or 2 floor houses. Islands are different though. Wind becomes a major issue. Especially, if you are likely to face sea storms and such.

That said, wooden houses cannot be expected to handle tornadoes. Even brick and cement houses don't manage to do that. Raka had made a design emphasizing strength anyway, yet he still modified it to make it even stronger. The changed design had started looking a lot like a bomb shelter, except made of wood.

He made single piece wooden windows with no glass. To open you had to manually push the window out. A hinge type mechanism installed on the top of it would hold the piece of wood as it swung upwards. Then a latch would hold the wooden piece in place. To close it, all you had to do was move the latch and it would close automatically. If the winds ever got really fierce it would move the latch and the gaps would close automatically protecting the house.