Chapter 151: You learn by making mistakes

Not everything was ok. At least not from Pierce's point of view. Initially the stegosaurus, excited by the fact that Sobek had given him such an important assignment, had launched into the work at three hundred and sixty degrees almost without thinking. He had asked some sauropods to cut down some trees and then with the help of other stegosaurids, especially kentrosaurs, he had torn it to pieces. Unfortunately, things hadn't gone well at all. The stakes obtained were far from what Pierce had imagined. Many of them were crooked and dull. However, the stegosaurus told himself they were okay and had them covered in clay, then planted them on the ground. The problem, however, was that he had limited himself to making them sink a bit into the ground. Result? The pickets didn't hold up for a minute before they collapsed. Pierce was disappointed, but he wasn't discouraged. He made a second attempt, but this time he got Blue to help him. Since he had to use his tail to tear the tree apart, he asked the velociraptor to coordinate the work, since he could see how the pegs were coming. This time things got better. The pegs still weren't quite the shape they hoped for, but they were much sharper. Pierce took this as a sign that he was heading in the right direction. When it was time to plant them, Blue suggested that he dig a little, so that the stake would go deeper. Pierce took his advice and using the massive spines on his tail and paws made a deep hole. He then got some albertosaurs to help him plant the pegs, since they had more mobility than him. This time the pickets held up for an hour. However, from the first ten minutes it was clear that something was wrong: in fact they were starting to move, despite having remained anchored to the ground. Eventually, these stakes also collapsed. "What did we miss?" Pierce murmured, looking at the ruined work. "What did we do wrong?" The stegosaurus was now more pessimistic. He hoped that his first important assignment would be a success and that it would impress the pack leader, but until now he had only achieved failures. Blue also did not know which way to turn. He had thought thoroughly about the problem, but he couldn't figure out what they were doing wrong. "Maybe we should dig deeper," Pierce offered uncertainly. "In this way the pickets would last longer" Blue shook her head. "It would be useless. We would have to take larger pegs to make them protrude far enough from the ground, and then the weight would unbalance the structure again" "So... we have to lighten them?" "It would be an idea" "What if we dug them inside? We could ask some small pterosaurs to do it" "This would make the wood brittle. It would break due to the weight of the fireproof mud that we will pour over it" The stegosaurus and the velociraptor no longer knew which way to turn. They could not modify the pegs without damaging them, but at present there was no possibility that they would remain anchored to the ground. "What if you try to modify the terrain instead?" The two dinosaurs were so startled that Pierce reacted instinctively and wagged his barbed tail. "Hey! Be careful where you point that, you fool!" protested the newcomer. "Oops... sorry" Pierce murmured embarrassed looking at his interlocutor. It was a triceratops, and both Pierce and Blue knew it. Her name was Eema and she had been in the pack no more than two weeks, but she had still integrated so well that everyone knew who she was by now. Eema was quite advanced in years, at least for a dinosaur, but despite this she was as energetic and strong as a little girl. "Umph. Okay, I accept your apology" Eema grumbled, glaring at poor Pierce. "As I was saying before I was so ignominiously interrupted, why don't you try to modify the terrain where you are working?" "Uh? Change the terrain?" Blue murmured. "What are you saying? It's always earth, isn't it? " At her words Eema burst out laughing. "The last time I heard such nonsense, I was still young enough to have children!" she said in laughter. Pierce and Blue looked at each other confused and partly embarrassed. They didn't understand what the triceratops was saying. "Not all terrains are the same, my dears" Eema explained when she managed to stop laughing. "And you can easily see it for yourself. The one near the river is soft and slippery, while the one in the forest is hard and tough. And these are just two of the many types of terrains that exist. If you keep building on that muddy ground, then your pickets will never hold" "But we have to build here! It's the packmaster's order" Pierce protested. "Then change the land you have at your disposal" Eema answered. "But if we replace the mud with earth, the earth will immediately become mud..." Blue murmured. "There is no land that does not turn into mud" "Really?" Eema looked amused. "And the one you have there?" Blue and Pierce looked at the spot indicated by the triceratops. Eema was looking at the clay they had brought to cover the stakes. "Oh, no, that won't work!" Pierce said immediately. "It is capable of stopping fire, but becomes liquid again if it comes into contact with water..." "If there is an earth that can stop fire, then there will also be one that can stop water. It's simple logic" Eema said. Pierce didn't look convinced, but Blue was interested. "Well, that would make sense" she murmured. "Everything has its opposite. Sky has soil, earth has sea, water has lava, and plants have animals. Maybe there is a land that remains hard even with water, and we just have to find it" "Do you think you can?" Pierce asked. "I can try" the velociraptor answered. "Maybe we could mix different types of soil. A very hard land could come out..." Blue immediately went to work. She asked some ipsylophodons to bring her various types of earth collected from the most disparate places and made several experiments. She put them in contact with water, solidified them in the sun, tried and tried again. And in the end, incredibly, she succeeded. Using a mixture of clay, earth, sand and water she was able to form a special mixture that once solidified in the sun for a day became very hard. "I left it in the sun for just one day, and that's already the case!" she said when she showed it to Pierce. "If we left it for a week, or even a month, it would become very robust!" Pierce was over the moon. They had found the solution! "But how do we replace the soil with this?" "But it's very easy: you dig a moat and then fill it with that" Eema said. "Then, before it solidifies, you plant your pickets. And so once solidified they will have joined it" Pierce considered and agreed it wasn't a bad idea. In fact, it was brilliant, and he was surprised that it was also so simple. "Thank you, Eema" he said, then he swallowed his pride and asked: "Um... would you help us? We would like a few words from you every now and then". Even though the pack leader had entrusted the job to him, Pierce realized he had many shortcomings, so rather than doing the bad job he preferred to admit his inability. Eema smiled warmly. "I'd love that. I don't see why not" And so, a third person joined that strange construction group. In the following days the work proceeded quickly, mainly thanks to Eema's advice. Pierce had asked many dinosaurs for help to get the job done. Although initially it seemed an easy operation, he soon realized that he needed a lot of manpower. The construction of the moat had been prepared as if it were an assembly line. The sauropods dug, the ceratopsids and ankylosaurids broke and moved the stones, the large carnivores with their mouths tore off roots and vegetation and the small theropods removed the last remnants. With this method the construction of the moat proceeded very quickly. Following Eema's advice Pierce had wanted it to be at least two meters deep, so that the mixture they would pour into it could remain well anchored in the right place and not be affected by the power of the elements. Blue produced the mixture at a fast pace. She had hired several other dromaeosaurids as helpers to speed things up. She had decided to call the mixture 'false rock', since it was artificially produced, while as regards the clay that was spread on the pegs, given its properties, she had named it 'fireproof powder'. It was more difficult to build the pickets. Following Eema's advice, Pierce gave up being in a hurry and stopped trying to make several pegs from the same tree at the same time; in fact it took a lot of concentration, coordination and commitment to do a good job. In addition, Eema pointed out to him that the thorns of the stegosaurids were suitable for cutting the tree to make the stake, but not for carving the tip and making it sharp. For that, something sharper and more curved was needed. And that something was the claws of the spinosaurids. So in the following days the labor camp was filled with spinosaurs, baryonyx, suchomimus, irritator, sigilmassasaurus and many other spinosaurids who carved the pieces of wood using their long, curved claws, suitable for creating a tapered and sharp point. While the stegosaurids built the pegs, the spinosaurids carved them; then everything was brought close to the moat under construction. Since it was still a test, Pierce had decided to dig only twenty meters to see if it would work properly. On the day of the test, the dinosaurs poured the 'false rock' into the moat and then planted the stakes there; after which they waited. To make sure the pegs did not slip as the mixture hardened, Eema proposed using rocks as a counterweight. Two days later the mixture was completely dry thanks to the sun. The dinosaurs removed the rocks, and this time the pegs remained in their designated position. Even after a full day of waiting they didn't move an inch. The idea worked! Pierce was over the moon. Blue even more. Eema was glad to see them so happy. Over the next few days Pierce coordinated the creation of a much larger moat and had hundreds of pickets prepared. After a few weeks, an impenetrable line of pegs half a meter thick and protruding two meters from the ground, so close to each other as to be practically attached, cut the forest in half for at least a kilometer. At the turn of the month, Sobek decided to take a look at the work he had done. The result could only please him: that line of defense would have been a major obstacle for human beings. Once the pegs were covered with fireproof clay and hidden with some greenery, they would have been a perfect fortification. "So you used this 'false rock' to make the ground harder?" "Yes, pack leader" Blue said. "I created it by mixing earth, sand and other substances" That 'false rock' could very well have been some kind of primitive brick, Sobek reflected. A compound of clay and other elements that once hardened became extremely hard. It seemed to all intents and purposes one of the first bricks created by man, although it probably had something different since it hardened more quickly. "Well, what about... a great job. My compliments, you did really well" But Pierce shook his head at those words. "Pack leader, I ask your forgiveness. I know you have placed your trust in me, but I must confess that I was not the right person for this task" he admitted, then he pointed to Eema. "The credit is above all of him" "Nonsense. It was a team effort" the triceratops said embarrassed. Sobek looked at Pierce's face. The stegosaurus evidently thought he had let him down. Instead Sobek retorted: "If you relied on his advice, then I hadn't misplaced my trust. You were the right person for this task" Pierce looked up in surprise. "For real?" "Of course. In times of need, you did not hesitate to ask for help. You realized that you do not know how to do the task entrusted to you in the right way, and instead of being dominated by pride, you preferred to turn to a person who knew more than you. This means having acted correctly" the spinosaurus replied. From the beginning Sobek had imagined that neither Pierce nor Blue would be able to do the job well, but he had wanted to see how the situation would evolve, and he was not disappointed. Asking for help was not at all a cause for shame, on the contrary, it was a source of pride. This did not detract from anyone's abilities: just as an engineer could not do the work of a bricklayer, in the same way a bricklayer could not do the work of a plumber, and a plumber could not do that of an electrician; to build a palace everyone needed the collaboration. So seeing that the dinosaurs had been able to organize themselves, divide up tasks and work properly was a cause for joy for Sobek. Pierce looked beaming. He had expected a reprimand for turning out to be inadequate, but instead the pack leader was complimenting him. His chest was swollen with pride. Sobek turned to Eema. "So you are the real architect of the fence?" "No. As I said, it was a team effort. I have only given a few suggestions" the triceratops answered. "Do not doubt the abilities of these two young men, pack leader. I simply have a few more years of experience" "I've never doubted anyone's abilities" Sobek replied. "Eema, I still have to congratulate you. Tell me, would you be kind enough to continue assisting Pierce and Blue as they continue with the construction?" Eema smiled and nodded. "Very gladly. I have nothing to do anyway" Sobek was pleased. Pierce and Blue were too. With the help and advice of Eema, the fortification would have improved even more. In the following days the works continued, but not only. While the fence was taking shape Carnopo at Sobek's request organized patrol teams and Rambo created a communication system between the various teams thanks to the flying reptiles. In addition, Blue had begun to study other blends more thoroughly, hoping to find some material that would be fireproof in the future. And Pierce had proposed to Sobek the construction of other palisades, thus creating a large system of defenses that would have made life very difficult for any enemies. Sobek was pleased with this, but a new event was about to take place. In fact, Apache had returned bringing with him every winged reptile of the continent. And with his return, Sobek knew it was time to reveal the truth.