Linus gathered the few pieces of equipment and brought them over to one of the free benches. After confirming with Hanna that there wasn’t any additional storage or special place for the ingredients he quietly excused himself and went in search of Archie. He didn’t find him in the barracks or dining hall but rather the office. Linus walked in to find him standing behind Galen’s former desk sorting through one of the piles of papers.

“Anything of interest?”

“Oh, hi sir. Not particularly, just seeing if he had previous shifts set up or some spare paper we could use to set them up.”

“Ah, good idea but we’ve got more pressing concerns. Their crafting hall has nothing in the ways of alchemy. I don’t know if I could even do anything with what they have here.”

“What about with what we brought?” Linus looks away sheepishly without responding.

“You do remember the few pieces of glassware we packed and all the seeds and clippings, right?” Archie pressed.

“Of course I do!” Replied Linus, fooling neither of them. “I just wasn’t sure where they were packed and came to find you to locate them.”

“Of course you do.” Archie dryly agreed. “Let’s figure out this shift line up then I’ll show you right where it all is.”

Linus huffed at the delays of important things but took a minute to grab a blank piece of paper that Archie had found and scratched out a quick rotating schedule consisting of the five military people left and Luke, with one person scouting each day and two people on guard duty at night. He offset the days so whoever scouted had a day off before they were on night shift for two days in a row then would have another two days off before scouting again. Hopefully back to back night shifts would minimize the impact on their sleep schedule and two guards on help avoid anyone falling asleep.

“Here’s your damn schedule, now let’s get to those alchemy supplies.” Archie just sighed at his master’s antics then led the way back to the barracks, up to a room next to the one that Linus woke up in. Lined up against a wall were both Archie’s and Linus’ bags. A few minutes of work from Archie had the few carefully wrapped pieces of glassware as well as a couple other alchemy instruments unpacked. They were soon followed by a heavy, brown leather satchel stuffed to its brim with a variety of seeds and numerous, sad looking clippings.

“This is much better but still isn’t a replacement for a real laboratory setup.” Linus griped.

“Well we aren’t in the Capital or Duchy anymore, you’ll have to improvise. Surely between your skills or empty skill slots you can figure something out.” Linus just nodded in response to Archie before he started gathering up the supplies to bring to the crafting hall.

It only took him three trips to move everything over but the whole time he was turning over Archie’s suggestion in his head. The clippings and seeds would start to address the lack of ingredients. [Mutation] would eventually give him new options from those. Additionally, he’d have to ask the rangers to keep their eyes out for any additional plants while out on their patrols. Even the occasional monster from the wasteland might be an infrequent but valuable source of ingredients.

As for equipment that’d be much harder to address. Glassware was the preferred material but he has no skills or knowledge related to it other than it was melted sand or something. Ceramic was the next option and he was even more clueless about it. Metal was adequate for some alchemy but it could also be reactive depending on the type of metal and the ingredients or solvents used. Other than that maybe stone or wood? Wood was not an option, it could react with or absorb his components plus he wouldn’t be able to heat it. Stone could handle the heat and durability, plus he already had [Basic Earth Manipulation].

He’d start with stoneware to have a working set then play around with figuring out glassware. [Basic Fire Manipulation] would be helpful for alchemy in general without the usual burners he’d have access to and would be helpful in making glass. But first he’d start with the plants.

Once the few pieces of equipment he’d brought were stored he took all the plant clippings and seeds behind the crafting hall. In between the building and the wall was a good stretch of land he planned to turn into his garden. He started to raise and compress the earth into stone walls for the garden beds. He’d built the first walls before he realized this approach wouldn’t work.

[Basic Earth Manipulation] didn’t create dirt and stone, it simply allowed him to move it. Making stone from the soil below him took a large volume of dirt to compress into the thin stone walls, then he still needed to fill in the boxes with soil. If he continued with his current approach there would be a very deep moat around his garden and potentially undermining this section of the wall. With a sigh he made his way to the gate to fetch soil from outside.

Of course nothing in the godforsaken fort could be easy. Once he’d gotten to the gate he realized he didn’t know how to open it and probably shouldn’t leave it wide open and unguarded the entire time he fixed his dirt problem. Since he didn’t see anyone out and available he made his way back to the crafting hall and waited for Hanna to pause in her work before asking her to come open the gate and wait by it.

Once that was settled he strode out towards the woods and off the trail a bit to avoid digging up the cleared area. He started pulling up dirt left and right to build a big pile in front of him, then was stumped on the best way to transport all this dirt back into the base. Obviously this much dirt would be a pain so he started compressing it into a stone block. As soon as it was formed it started to sink a bit into the soft dirt it was sitting on. Linus knew there was no way he was pushing that all the way to the gate and around the outpost to his garden area, even with [Basic Earth Manipulation] to help.

At first he shaped handles into the top edge of it and flipped the block in the right direction, repeating several more times before giving up. While flipping was much better than pushing it he’d still exhaust himself on the first cube and by his rough calculations he’d need at least 8 of these cubes, probably more. He decided to start pulling up more soil and compressing into stone blocks while he thought about the problem.

The shape and the weight was the problem. Maybe if they were shaped like boats it’d distribute the weight better and be able to be dragged easier, though then he’d just be making big stone plows. Could he use the horses to pull them? No, definitely Luke and probably the scouts would yell at him for misusing the animals. If not a boat maybe a sled shape? If only the ground was frozen and the stone wasn’t so heavy. A cart would be really ideal if it wouldn’t be so weighed down and complicated. Though the cart wasn’t really necessary, only the wheel.

With that bright though Linus stopped pulling up dirt and turned to the 4 blocks he’d already compressed to stone. Reaching out to the first cube he smoothed out the handles and rounded the edges until he had a thick disc standing on its side. With a push he had it rolling with hardly any resistance. It started to pick up speed as he pushed and started wobbling side to side as it ran over roots and ruts on the forest floor. A minute later his stone disc had tipped over and circled a few times before coming to a stop on its flat side.

Another sigh and a heave later the disc was back on its edge rolling towards the fort gate. It took four more correctional heaves and their subsequent rolls to get the first disc through the gate. As he walked back to the 3 remaining stone blocks and thought of all the additional ones he needed to create and move he knew the disc wasn’t going to serve him well.

For the next iteration he made the disc with a small diameter but longer length, more of a thick pole than an actual disc. While its stability was much better he found it catching on far more roots, bushes and tree trunks. He used that approach for twice more before he stopped and tried to find a happy medium between the disc and the rod. As he was shaping the stone he finally figured out the obvious ideal shape and almost smacked himself before turning all the stone cubes he’d formed into spheres. From there it was much easier to move all the stone he needed, rolling them through the gate until he had enough within the walls to support his gardens and then some.