Life in the Reserve

The first few days in the reserve were unfocused and lost. Bjorn fought to regain his strength and composure, with little success. But, the need of his fellow rangers, many who had never worked the soil or done any form of carpentry or craft, soon brought him out of his depression. The reserve was vast and contained the remains of several farms. Abandoned in the early years of the war for the safety of life on the mansions, these farms were left to the elements. Most of the men had either gone off to war or remained working for the Barons. The huts and barns were in sad shape, falling in on themselves but some of the rangers were attempting to rebuild them. Bjorn watched for a few days, morosely, dejected, and then went to their aid. He first convinced the men that repairing those broken down buildings was a waste of time and instructed them to tear them down to the foundations and keep the useable lumber, brick and stone work to build new buildings. He then led them to the forest and here they began to fell new trees. 1

Here, in these abandoned farms the rangers discovered, while the people had left, the livestock had not and there were milk cows, grazing aimlessly, chickens running about and even a few draft animals, oxen and horses, all useful. They built a corral and barns first, living in tents and in caves about the property as they worked, then began on their own homes. Sturdy stone walls were erected and floors and roofs of split plank carefully crafted, with the same perfection as their ships. The men copied the repair of their ships to make these wood works, adding shutters and doors, and porches to their new homes. The forest supplied far more timber than they could ever need and they made plans to cut and sell the wood at the market.2

It wasn’t too long before they found the animals weren’t the only thing left behind by the former tenants, however. There were fruit and nut trees and grape vines all about, gone wild. The rangers wasted no time in topping and pruning the trees and building arbors for the vines. They decided to plant the young seedling trees in the orchards, removing the dead trees to give them room. When they began to chop these down they found a treasure waited. Not all the residents had parted. The bees, once kept by the people had stayed on. The dead trees were converted by these bees into bee trees and the men found they were filled with honey, enough to fill hundreds of barrels. A virtual river of honey flowed with the falling of each tree and it was all collected. The men had to make barrels for the honey, and for this a smithing station was put into action. Bjorn was the most experienced smith, thanks to the encouragement of Commander Maltac, and he made barrel hoops as well as constructing many of the barrels himself. His skills were also needed for staves, nails, and heads for building implements not previously purchased in the market. The men soon came to Bjorn for all manner of metal work, on tools and weapons. He repaired and sharpened everything from hoes to swords, woodsman axes and war axes. And, needed as he was, his spirit was rekindled. 3

For his own home, Bjorn preferred the caverns in the mountain reserve. He selected a cavern in the base of the Spinea range and, working at his forge, built the girders and carefully constructed the spine of his new home. Working long hours, pounding iron into fitting trellis he was able to construct a web that canvassed the inside of the cavern and erected a mammoth living space. He laid a hard wood floor, shelves and furniture and constructed sheds and a barn for himself. Satisfied with the cavern home, Bjorn bought a gigantic tub from another of the Rangers who had begun to build the most ornate cauldrons and tubs in all the realms. Made of pure brass with an iron cradle to hold it, Bjorn worked to make it the center piece of his cavern home. He bored out a small opening that allowed a hot spring to feed directly into it. With this, he only had to pull up a small hatch at the bottom of the tub to fill it with hot water. A spigot connected to pipes running back into the walls, tapping an underground spring, allowed ice cold glacier to flood in. This he could control with a small turn key device. Between the two he had the finest, coldest water and the best steamy hot water to create the perfect union for baths. He allowed the glacier water, melted by a hot water pipe leading under the glacier to fill barrels in a specially constructed building with additional pipes leading out into the fields, which fed the watering system for vineyards, the gardens and the ever increasing numbers of huts springing up all over the reserve. His achievements made Bjorn the most respected creator in all the settlement. The men soon had a plumbing system running everywhere through out the reserve. 4

As more rangers, from different divisions found their way to the settlement in the reserve, they took on tasks such as paving roads into the settlement and laying streets in grids. The men built a gigantic green house and Bjorn’s iron work was everywhere, the marvel of construction. Great planks, hand hewn from the forests, were employed in building a grand meeting house, board walks storage facilities and as women came to the settlement, a special dormitory home just for them. The women, most of them widows of rangers killed in the war, brought children with them. Some of the women had never married, having lost their lovers before they could be married. Still other women came, many quite young because there was a shortage of available husbands on the plantations. The rangers were delighted and took great pains in building the finest building in the settlement for them. It had two immense dormitories, private rooms for those women courting, a spacious dining hall and kitchens, drawing rooms with seating for all the women’s guests and a raised veranda that ran the length of the building. Bjorn did much of the iron work himself, quite pleased with the way his trellis and lamp hangers fit in, but, after each long work day was completed, he retreated to his cavern home with the love of a man who had found the greatest of treasures. 5

His cavern castle became Bjorn’s soul interest and his pride and joy. While others were content with oil lamps made in kilns, Bjorn’s lamps were of hammered brass with chimneys made from the great blue egg shells, from hatched swans of the Elosians. The dwarf elves brought the finest of these egg shells, carefully cut and shaped into ornamental lamps to the community where they were hung as street lamps, fueled by oil drilled from the tar pits nearby. Bjorn refined this oil for use in his own lamps, adding sweet plant sap to it to make a wonderful aroma when it burned. His own kitchen boasted a marvelous fireplace with iron hangers and spits, and a specially constructed hearth and oven made of hollowed lava stone brick, laid in such a way that a fire could burn within them. A pipe beneath the brick works allowed air to be pulled in by the heat of burning pitch and wood. Controlled by a flume, the rush of air could be raised and lowered to adjust the heat for baking, cooking and for heating Bjorn’s cavern palace in the coldest days of the Spinea winters. As he worked Bjorn grew in confidence and with Korok’s help, he hoisted the iron ribs of an ornate lattice ceiling into place, complete with chandeliers of fantastic design which he spent days carefully creating, hung from great chains of iron link. And, Bjorn was well pleased with his creation, the pride making him feel as though he was sovereign of his own kingdom. 6