Chapter 127: Repair Work
Kalli followed the others to the apartments, and then began to produce the items that they were going to need to finish the basic repairs.
The exterior of the buildings had already been a concrete finish, so hopefully they wouldn’t need to replace wire or any lower level materials, just the damaged surface concrete.
It would still need a lot of concrete and a lot of manpower.
But they had both.
"Alright, I will start you out with twenty gallons of the rubberized acrylic paint. That should get you started on the surfaces that are still in decent shape. Use it to seal up any of the joints that are leaking, and we will figure out new window glass and shutters soon.
The heroes are going to go collect wood later.
There’s already a quest for it, and we don’t have to use it for firewood, it just has to be suitable for it. So, they’ll get points, and they can carry large enough logs to make replacement shutters.
I know that we’ve got at least a few construction workers with woodworking skills here, and I can get you all the paint that you need.
So, let me know what colour you want to do all the shutters on the building. The paint for the walls is the original sandstone yellow."
"Before you go, we’ve got quests to turn in."
Kalli nodded. She was counting on that, it paid for all the repair materials that they needed to get the building beautified. The Academy buildings would need a bit of work as well, but most of the damage was to the window surrounds, as the walls were solid stone and the roof was metal.
The north sides of which were surprisingly shiny. The ash storm had scrubbed away decades of oxidation, and unfortunately highlighted the hail dents.
There were already heroes up on the roofs, checking for damage, or polishing the surfaces of the solar panels.
They had a protective coating on them, which was now terribly scratched, but the array was working, and with the polishing, they would be back up to full output again. Then, a bit of paint on the stripped wood, and they’d be good to go another round with the weather.
Kalli dropped the same batch of materials at the second apartment, so they could patch their leaking window frames, the roof, and start repairing the building’s siding.
The concrete was already being prepared.
That brought her back to the Academy grounds to check on her generator, and the power usage panel attached to it. That would tell her if the solar was working properly, and how much mana she needed to put into the unit.
The generator was practically at idle now, burning only 5 mana an hour, while the solar input was taking care of everything else.
That was an excellent start, given that they were still working on the panel array.
Of course, everyone was trying to save energy, as they didn’t know what had survived the storm. But a win was a win.
Then, the heroes started to come in to claim their quest rewards before heading out again.
It was the most industrious that she had ever seen them, and before she knew it, Kalli was watching two dozen men refinish all four sides of two apartment buildings at the same time. They had arranged long planks as stage platforms, and they had wooden trowels refinishing the concrete surface to prepare it for a fresh coat of paint.
The fact that all the old paint was long gone, blasted away by the storm, made their job far easier, and they had almost no prep work to do.
Surely, an engineer somewhere would have a fit about the thickness of the concrete layer that they were applying, or the makeup of the concrete itself. But as it baked under the dual suns, it was drying into a thick and solid protective surface.
Then, just as the sun went down, they started over at the top, rolling on a thick coat of paint that could dry overnight, with a final coat to go on in the morning.
That would effectively finish the walls, and they would just have to reseal the window frames and repair the storm shutters. It was the sort of concerted teamwork that they needed to keep the town intact, and the smell of hot tar told Kalli that the situation with the roof had been managed as well.
So, it was no surprise when just before dark they came for more materials, including more paint to finish the building. Ten gallons wasn’t nearly enough to complete the outside of the building.
So, Kalli gave them each thirty gallons more, to finish the wall and the second coat.
Added to that was another roll of tar paper, as that was the best thing that Kalli had for sealing windows. There were definitely better materials for the job, but the store didn’t have any of them. So, the construction teams were making do.
They had also devised doubled wooden shutters in place of windows, as they didn’t have a way to get more glass yet.
One set was just wooden slat shutters, that could be turned to let light in. Then an outer set of solid wooden shutters that could be locked shut in case of storms or cold weather.
It would take a bit more work to make them seal properly, but they did the job well enough for now, and they would protect the actual windows when the time came to replace them. Fortunately, they had a huge amount of firewood stockpiled now, as everyone wanted the point for the quest, so they would be able to feed the building’s central heat exchanger if they got a sudden cold snap.
The next morning brought even more good news.
The windmills that had been built during the storm were completed, and ready to be erected atop the corner towers of the Academy, where they would be in clean air at all times, and hopefully capable of supplying most of the needed power overnight.