Sixth Son: Villager in Another World 20

I broke out a part of the mud dome to pull out the charcoal. Most of the wood blackened properly into irregular shards of charcoal. The bottom was still a bit sodden and not very well burned, since it was close to the damp ground. That was not a problem, since I could dry it out and heat it into charcoal or burn it. Seeing that there was nowhere else to store it, I ended up stacking the charcoal back into the oven.

Since both the raw materials and fuel were already near the stream, I picked the same area for the kiln. The next afternoon, I built another mud oven. The day after that, I dug clay from underneath crumbly stone and shaped it into some bowls. After letting it dried overnight, I lit another fire and fired the clay.

While tending to the fire, I occupied my hands by making cordage. It was necessary for tying the head onto a hatchet or other tools, lashing together poles, bundling together sticks, used for fishing, or any other other number of things. I could never have enough cordage.

I let the fire burn out on it's own. The bowls seemed to have firmed up, so I left them in the oven to cool down naturally and lessen the thermal shock. I managed to finish my project just in time to avoid the burgeoning storm clouds. 

Out of the six bowls that I had prepared, two cracked in the kiln. One more broke as I tried to remove them. A fourth was had melted like a model for a famous Dali painting, but made it out of the kiln. The fifth and sixth were intact. However, number five broke when I tried to fill it with water. Number six dribbled water, but it washed out to the characteristic orange red of earthenware. One out of six wasn't good, but I could still call it a success.

I kept the shards to number five as well as fourth and sixth ones in a hand basket. I put leaves between the ceramic and tied them to the basket with the cordage. See, I told you that I couldn't have enough of the stuff. The remaining usable charcoal went into a back basket, and I carried the lot back home.