Chapter 134: Corps Of Engineers
"It looks like it's all shale underneath the surface. If we cut the top layer away, we can make a nice ramp to the bridge." Karl called up to the others.
Hawk left his space and took off into the sky to survey their intended path, now that Karl seemed certain that this way would bring them across the river.
"Well, the remains of the blockage are a good height above the water now, so should we set a temporary bridge?" One of the students suggested.
"Not yet. We want it to be further from the water so that it doesn't wash away in the next rain. How many pickaxes and shovels do we have?" Karl called back.
"There's a whole bundle of each. I think that they were prepared for all the passengers on a trip to help out." Sister Betty called back.
"Sister Betty, you lovely, gentle and kind soul. Do you suppose that you could enchant these tools for us to help keep them from breaking when we work at full strength?" Karl asked with his best pleading voice, which had sometimes worked on the teachers at school.
The muscular cleric laughed and rolled her eyes.
"Of course I will. Divine Tool is one of the spells I am best with, and as I'm stronger than any of you with magic, you shouldn't be able to break the enchantment while digging." She replied.
The warrior began climbing the wire back up to the top, but Karl just took two running steps down the log and launched himself up the five metres to the point where he could walk safely.
"That is so cheating. Do you want a pick or a shovel? They will both cut through stone once I enhance them." The cleric asked as Karl made it back to her.
"I will keep the pick. Now, we just need to map out the route, so everyone knows where they're working toward." Karl explained.
Hawk circled back, and sent a pair of [Shred] attacks into the grass, leaving deep furrows in a straight line to the crossing.
"That works too. Turn that into a smooth slope, ending at least five metres above the water level as it is now, and it should be good. I think the water is still higher than normal, thanks to the storm, so it should be enough for the bridge to survive awhile."
Sister Betty took out the two bundles of tools and activated her spell, which made them glow with the same holy light as the guards' weapons during the battle at the railroad.
Karl moved near the edge of the cliff and swung the pick, shattering the stone and tossing it down the hill.
"That's too easy. I should take one of the larger shovels." He called back to the group, who smiled in impending victory.
Unfortunately for them, they didn't all have Karl's strength, so while he dug out large amounts of stone and the ground shook with every hit, most of the warriors didn't move much more than a shovel full.
They tossed it with ease, like loose cotton, but Karl's strength was making short work of the job while the others stood beside him.
"Wait, I have an idea. I know another spell called [Impact]. It sends vibrations through things, and I use it to knock targets over. If I use it on Karl's shovel, he can turn the whole slope to gravel." Sister Betty offered.
"Alright, everyone, please step back. I will see how well this works." Karl agreed.
The cleric added the spell, and Karl felt the possibility in the shovel as he hefted it. The vibration was directional, and proportionate to force. So, when he focused and put all his strength behind the hit, it should break up a large area at once.
Karl stepped halfway through their intended path, and carefully angled his strike.
The shockwave carried through the stone, and the hillside slid away, turning to gravel and piling up at the foot of the cliff. In a single strike, they were half done the work of creating their route.
There was just one problem. To create the slope they wanted, they would have to create far too much broken rock. The bus wasn't some extreme adventure vehicle, despite its wide and thick treaded tires. Steep angles didn't work for it, and Karl's second strike created a large amount of gravel with nowhere to go.
"Well, now we just need to move this gravel to the far side of the pile and finish the ramp. It should be a decent slope when we're finished." He informed the group.
"Well, Karl and Betty did the worst of the work, now it's our turn." One of the mages laughed.
A large grey golem formed out of the loose stone, then scooped up an armload of rocks like it was a backhoe.
"Gravel Golems aren't the strongest in combat, but they can change shapes, a little like the Sand Golems. It's limited, but flattening the arms into a bucket is no problem. Since it's all gravel, I just need to add more magic, and he can move all of this.
If it were dirt or mud, it would be much harder, since it's not the Golem's element." She explained.
The Golem scraped a path through the crushed shale rock and pushed it off the far end, giving the warriors the right idea. They moved up with shovels and piled the gravel in the middle of the four-metre wide path for the golem to move to the river.
They finished with a steep slope that ended four metres above the river when the gravel was gone, but they had a smooth slope to that point.
"Now we just need to cross the river and build up a bridge footing on the far side." Sister Betty reminded them.
Karl jogged down the slope and jumped. The flying leap put him on the far side of the river with ease from his elevated start, but the bank here was much more shallow, so they would have to build something up and not just pile loose rock.
As he was considering it, Karl heard laughter from the far bank.
"You lot are fast workers, but not exactly the corps of engineers, are you?" The driver asked.
"What do you mean? It's sturdy, we shook the rock to settle it, and it's not going anywhere." Karl shouted back.
"Have you ever seen the spout of a jug when you tilt it? That's what you created here. As soon as it starts raining, the water is going to pour down that ramp you cut into the hillside in a glorious waterfall." He laughed.
Sister Betty began to giggle. "I see the problem now. Alright, we need to cut ditches on both sides of this ramp so that the water has somewhere to flow that isn't the road itself. If we are going to leave this here for others, they should at least be able to use it."
She got the others back to work, digging through the stone to make deeper spots at the edge of the ramp, and sloped sides so that they didn't collapse on the road. While they did that, Karl looked around for his options.
He had plenty of logs on this side as well, and that gave him the idea.
[Thor, come here and work. I want you to toss a bunch of logs from this shore toward the bank directly opposite the ramp. Then I will dig a pit in the hill for material, and fill the gaps with stone. Once it's high enough, we will make a bridge deck.]
The happy Cerro came vanished into his space, then came back out with a happy trot, and immediately ran over to push a broken log toward the jam with his two upper horns.
A flick of his head tossed the broken log on top of the pile, though it strained his prodigious strength.
"I will get you the chain so you can pull them." Karl laughed, as he realized that his plan underestimated the weight of a full tree.
Thor shook his head, and went for smaller logs that had been shattered before their arrival. They would make good filler, Karl thought, and picked out a spot to begin digging gravel to throw into the pile.
The two of them worked well together, and after a while, even Rae came out to lend a hand, in her own way.
She made a silk harness for Thor, and then attached the logs to it with thick ropes of spider silk. The initial effort was exhausting for her, but once it was done, she just cut the rope, and then sprayed spit on the end, which caused it to liquify and mend around the next log.
Within the reach of the Bloodbath Spider, its web was a versatile magical tool, not just sticky silk.
That let Thor move some longer trees into position, accelerating the process, as Karl threw gravel at it from a spot upstream. It took them under an hour to have the ramp sorted out, and then it was time to work on the bridge deck.
Sister Betty clapped her hands to get the attention of the others as they finished making what she thought was a sturdy enough footing for the bridge.
"I have picked out four trees, all of them long enough to cross the river. Now, you need to do the hard work, gentlemen. Plane off the top third of each log, so we can place them to create a flat driving surface, and then we have to drag them into position."
"Got it sister. We're ready." The warriors called back, sweating with the exertion of digging ditches and reinforcing the gravel slope as much as possible for the last hour.