[b]C) Improve Infrastructure[/b]

[hider=Five houses and a couple hundred people]
The several groups of hunters eventually returned to the shore where the rest of the Ards awaited. Fortune had favored the tribe, for the men had brought back a variety of game, small and large, perforated by arrows and impaled by spears. After skinning the animals, a fair few were immediately roasted and eaten. The rest of the meat was preserved through drying and smoking.

Now that the Ards had a small stockpile of food, they set about building shelter to protect themselves from the cold wind's bite and provide some much needed working space. They would build their traditional longhouses, just as they had done in their previous homeland. A squat hill that overlooked the coast were the site chosen by Danr to be the site of Njor. The hill offered a decent view of the surrounding area and were the most defensible spot in sight, while still being close enough to the coast to allow easy access to the sea. The hill was also fairly flat on their top and had no large boulders or trees that would impede construction.

Unfortunately, the lack of trees immediately accessible on top of that hill posed a problem. The warriors that bore axes were once again set loose to fell trees in the nearby forest, though they now needed entire logs of lumber for construction rather than mere twigs for firewood. As such, the strongest men were organized into teams to help carry the lumber to the top of the hill. Some of the largest of the trees took a dozen men to move, but in the end a sizeable pile of lumber was accumulated.

All of the Ards worked together to begin building one great mead hall on the very center of the hilltop to be the heart of Njor, and four much longhouses arranged around the central hall. The longhouses were much smaller than the central hall yet still huge when compared to the houses of most other people; it would be extremely crowded, but all the some 250 Ards would live inside of these five buildings until more housing could be created. All of the buildings would have frames of solid wood, with entire trees used as beams and support pillars in some places. Between the wooden frame of the walls, a mixture of hardened mud and turf would be used as those materials were easily accessible and would effectively insulate the buildings. The roof would be made of dried grass and foliage carpeted over light wooden rafters. For floors, the Ards simply pounded the dirt beneath the buildings until they were hard. Perhaps when their tribe was more wealthy the floors could be made of cobbled stones, tiles, or even planks of wood, but until then such luxuries could not be afforded.

The longhouses were divided into four sections: each had a central hall with a firepit in the middle and many benches and tables around the fire, with bedding along the walls. The end of the longhouse behind the central hall was to be used for storage, and the end that one entered was reserved for use as a working space. At this point the Ards had no industry and nothing but a little bit of food to store, so the storage rooms and work spaces were temporarily being used as sleeping areas. The longhouses were large and warm, but with about fifty people in each longhouse and a hundred sheltering in the mead hall, calling them crowded would be an understatement. Still, conditions were far better than they would be if the Ards were forced to continue sleeping in the open, exposed to the elements.
[/hider]
[hider=Summary]
Now that they have some food, the Ards are building four longhouses and a central mead hall atop a nearby hill. The warriors with axes are chopping down trees from a nearby forest and a large amount of manpower is being used to simply carry the logs up to the hill.
[/hider]