He could offer to help the force mages who are digging (it's not much harder for them to dig when the ground is frozen) in preparation for laying down pipes. Or meet people.

No one seems to be looking for him, though.

Back to work, then. After paying Mahan to sterilize his blood-drawing gear. "You'll see stuff like this in chapter... I think it was 12."

"Can't wait, let me know when you're interested in translating more."

"So much to do, so much to see... I certainly will."

And now back to work for real.

He builds a little igloo to protect his expanding inventory of tools.

Anything interesting happen in the next two days?

Not that he'd need to leave his work for. There's argument and an explosion and Selar rants for half an hour but none of it gets in Nick's way if he doesn't want to get involved.

Oh, but now he's curious, sounds like a fun time. What happened?

Someone came up with a brilliant idea for water heating that was supposed to work better and faster than the standard way with no need for any defense magic on the plumbing. Selar thinks Saraisan the heat mage should have caught the flaws and refused to help and wants her replaced. Saraisan insists she was giving a demonstration of why the idea was so bad, to make sure they didn't go with it and have a mess like this after all their pipes were buried and ready for use.

Valanda settles it before it gets any worse.

Nick forms an opinion on the water heating idea: Yep, that gets you explosions. Have they heard of blowoff valves? They could use some blowoff valves. And maybe pressure joints.

"How much would you like for helping with the plumbing?"

"Good plumbing and sewage is really critical for a good city, and since it looks like I'm gonna be living here, only forty-eight rings an hour for consulting on plumbing and sewage systems. And now's about time I gave someone a civil engineering lesson, anyway, though I'm almost done with the calculator."

"That works. I think Ahgari is your best bet for someone who'll be able to understand and apply your ideas quickly. I'm not sure where he went, he was supposed to be helping. A ring to the first person to--"

"Over that way," says Mahan. "He said to copy Erasi's plumbing and when they wouldn't do that he started running. Bet he comes back now that the yelling's over."

He runs off to intercept. Ahgari.

"Hello again. Valanda hired me to teach you what I can, if you'll have it. Did they do any calculations before just throwing lots of heat and pressure around?"

"I'm not sure if they did. Maybe. What does he want you to teach, common sense or plumbing?"

"Civil engineering, which were I'm from we used to build tunnels that could fit elephants and buildings with forty-eight stories with no magic and bridges more than a mile long and artificial lakes, canals, and so on. With no magic. Also plumbing, though I suspect I can't teach you nearly as much about that."

What an unimpressed large predator this is. "And you know how to make these things safely? You know what you're doing, you don't just know what you've seen done and think it can't be that hard?"

He's not intimidated one bit. "I have fourteen years experience doing such things, six as a foreman. I know how to do it safely, I know to include margins of error and double check everything and also have someone else check it all, I know when I'm trying something that's over my head. And I'll show you all of that if I have to."

"Good. I'd like to know whatever you have to teach. What do you think it's best to start with?"

"I don't want to insult you but it might be best to start with what I consider the basics and skip past all the things you already understand. Just so I don't assume you know something and it turns out, not so much."

"Agreed, thorough is better."

He finds an unused spot in a tent and some paper and starts talking.

He's very thorough. They have some clever mathematical tools, but in the end dirt is dirt.

Pipes are not just pipes. The behavior of water and steam in pipes is something they understand pretty well, apparently.

Ahgari listens. This is outwardly indistinguishable from ignoring Nikolas except when he asks questions.

"...And that about covers the basics. I'm not sure what all the desiderata of the plumbing is to make more detailed suggestions at this time."

"The biggest consideration we have that you don't is accessibility for different species. I think besides that it's not much different. We're going to want to support at least an average-sized city here eventually, so tens of thousands of people, maybe someday as many as Mar Geru, and it might be better to overestimate than to underestimate. People will expect to be able to get enough water to drink and bathe and in a place with winters like this they'll expect it warmer than snowmelt."

They can start working on a plan to do that safely, then. His knowledge of budgeting and project planning is a bit thrown by the different world and the availability of magic. From pipe materials to accounting for permafrost melt to sourcing the water. It's a big project.

How are they planning to get that much water and store it, anyway?

"If not from rain or the ocean we'll make it. It's one of the things a structure mage can make out of thin air. Some places store water in towers, do you think there's any reason to expect that not to work?"