《Limits》Chapter 11: No One said it was Easy
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I woke upo very erly the next day. I had no breakfast to eat, therefore I could only go outside to complete my tasks. I arrived at the well, and noticed a couple of buckets laying around. I took a looked at the map, and decided on the route I would take. With my route decided, I filled the first bucket with the water. When I took it out of the well, I immediately noticed that the water was leaking from it. The bucket had holes in it, the water was coming through them like through a sieve. I checked the other bucket, and it happened again... Then again… until I was left with only one bucket. 'These motherfuckers!' I thought. They obviously did this on purpose. With two buckets, I would only need to make 50 rounds from the well to the households, but with one bucket, it became double of that number. 'I understand that they want me to work, but this is just plain wrong!' I thought. I vowed to myself, that they will pay for it one day. It took me around half an hour, in order to deviler the water to ten households. This meant, I would need about one and a half hours, to complete this task. Even if I finished in the next hour, I still had to make it to the Woodcutter's Lodge. This alone would take me a few minutes. I was angry, but could nothing about it. Although walking with one bucket instead of two was easier, covering the households a bit further from the well was more time consuming. I had to walk more as well, which didn't preserve my strength either way. I managed to finish the task, just a few minutes before I was supposed to start my job at Woodcutter's Lodge. I tried timing myself. Thanks to that, I figured out how long it would take me to arrive there. I needed around five minutes, to get to the Woodcutter's Lodge. The lodge was nothing impresive. A simple house made from wood. It had a few windows and a simple door, but nothing else really. Shortly after, a middle aged man came out of the lodge. He said, "Follow me". I followed the man behind the lodge, where he pointed at an old and tattered axe, then said "Go to work. Next time when you come here, just start doing your job". That was all the explanation I got. He simply left me there, with a dull looking axe, and a pile of logs. 'Of course they wouldn't give me anything sharp' i thought when i checked the axe out. My guess was, they didn't do it because they were scared. Although i had a weapon in my hands, the reason it was dull, was probably not that. Just like with the buckets, they simply wanted to make my life more difficult. I started splitting the logs into halves, then splitting the halves again to obtain quarters. After a few minutes of work, I began to sweat. 'This axe is shit!', I exclaimed in my mind. I had to use more strength, just to split the stupid logs. The worst part was that, I had no straength to begin with. I was already quite weak, and they even had the balls to give me that shit axe. I was really angry, and slowed down my pace. The task didn't specify the amout, so I would do it as slowly as I could. Even though my pace was slow, after about half an hour of log splitting, I had enough. 'I need a break. This is just stupid. That axe is as good as piece of scrap, yet they gave me that as a tool. Bunch of bastards' I thought. I dropped the axe, and sat on the stump while shaking my hands. A few minutes passed, when I heard someone shout "GO BACK TO WORK!". I looked around, but found no one. 'Who the hell shouted that?' I asked myself, and picked the axe back up. Even though I was tired, I persisted for about an hour, beforew I had to drop that axe again. This time the voice screaming "GET BACK TO WORK!", appeared later. 'It seems the longer I work, the longer breaks I can take' I thought. I picked the axe up again, and resumed my log spliting task. I persisted with the task, until it was time to have my proper break, and breakfast. Supposedly, I had a half an hour break, but I still had to return. Besides that, going to my next task, also took time. They didn't seem to care about that, and counted this as break anyway. Back at my house, I noticed some food waiting for me on the table. A bowl of porridge, and two stale breads. I also got a glass of water, which was not food. I was too hungry to care about that though, and devoured the food like an animal. I was not satisfied with that, and felt hunger anyway. I laid down on my bed for a bit, before I would need to leave to carry out my next task at the Workshop. My break finished too quickly for my liking. With no other option, I left the house, and headed towards the Blacksmith's Workshop. The workshop was a bit different, than what I saw in Freemount Village. It was actually inside a house, and not outside it. This struck me as weird, but perhaps the house was converted to be a workshop. Inside, a large muscular man said to me, "Grab the hammer from that wall over there, and come back here". I did as instructed, and grabbed one of the hammers then returned to the blacksmith. He said, "Watch what I'm doing carefully, this will be your job from now on". First thing, he took a few lumps of some kind of ore, and threw that into a furnace. He then retrieved a molten liquid, which he poured into some sort of mould. He then cooled it down a bit, but not too much. It was still red hot, but not molten anymore. Next he took out the metal I assumed, from the mould and hammered it. He did it for couple of minutes, until the metal got flattened out completely. He then placed it into the furnace again. When it melted, he took it out to repeat the same process. He did that three time, before melting it again then pouring it into a different mould. He submerged it in water to cool it down, producing a lot of steam. He had four large barrels with water, and submerged the mould into each of them. The last barrel produced no steam really, which meant the metal must've cooled enough. With that taken care of, he pried the metal from the mould, and it was an ingot. This was my job supposedly at the Workshop. When the ingot was ready, he turned towards me and said, "Now that you know what to do, this will be your work from now on. Remember, to repeat this process three time, and then cool it down complately". He said no more. Instead he packed some stuff and left. I was left there alone, and I was actually glad about that. 'So, better get to work then' I thought. It wasn't overly difficult to remember what he did. Therefore, I started repeating the process. I melted the ore, then poured it into the mould, and then the problems started. When I hammered the bar, it was very hard to flatten. I had to use a lot of strength, just to flatten it completely like the blacksmith did. I was out of strength, and decided to rest a bit. This time, I didn't hear any voice saying I should be back at work, therefore I rested for a bit longer. It took my about an hour, just to actually create one ingot. I watched the blacksmith's demonstration, which mean I already lost some time beforhand, and another hour just to create one ingot. 'I don't need to worry about the ammout though. The list didn't state the amount either. Just do whatever the blacksmith said. I will make one more, and that's it... If I can make it at all' I thought. Ultimatelly, I managed to finsih the second ingot too. I was tired, and rested till the end of my work. A few minutes before I left, the Blacksmith returned and asked me to show him my ingots. I showed him the two ingots I created. He asked "Only two?", to which my only was a nod. He then examined both ingots, and said "You may leave now". I did just that. On my way to my house, I thought 'My next task is working in the fields. I need to rest properly now'. I had a feeling that they were saving the best for the last. Of course in my case, it would be the worst. I had no food to eat, therefore I could only lie down on my bed.
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