"You can't think of anything that would help?" asked the scholar sadly. In his robes and sash, many scrolls were stashed, and his face indicated there may have been one too many sleepless nights in recent time.

The librarian sighed. "Look, I and many other leading thinkers have examined all of your schematics as thoroughly as you have. The dams are remarkable works of engineering; they are merely old. I can't think of a way to build them better than before!"

"But they are literally made of timber and clay! There has to be something stronger, because those aren't working! I didn't promise Phylarch Yakol Chay to rebuild his dams, I promised to fix them!" The scholar looked distraught.

The librarian winced. "You might've bitten off more than you can chew my friend. There are few things stronger in water than Tetk'in engineering. Metal would work, but this isn't Utaria; we don't have enough solid iron to build a wall!"

The scholar began to plead. "Come on, you must have something! This is the greatest library in the world! There must be something in our body of knowledge that answers the question; there must!"

"Your first mistake, discipulus, was assuming that even the greatest library contains all that is within the body of knowledge." Said a voice from the entrance to the room. The librarian, already facing that way, gasped. The scholar whipped around, only to have a similar reaction when he saw who stood before him.

"P-praetor Antonius! What an honor!" sputtered the scholar.

Antonius gave a reserved chuckle. "Former praetor, thank you. Do not deify me; it's demeaning to my humanity. Besides, I am here today as I am on many days; a scholar and a man." Antonius paused. "Though, if I am being honest, my appearance here is not mere serendipity; I have been informed of your little quest."

Antonius began to pace the room as he talked. His voice carried both authority and ease, as if he had been orating for so long that he didn't notice he was doing so. "I have visited Tz'amtanak'al on very few occasions, but even from the first time I was invited to that beautiful city by former Ajawlil Ek'muwan, I could not help but marvel at the ingenuity of its citizens. You see, we Hellatii have a certain fondness for architecture. In my youth, I used to admire the massive harbors of my homeland, and as an adult my appreciation for such works has not diminished. So when word came to me that a scholar, hoping to strengthen the Tz'amtanak'al dam, was causing a fuss in every order library across LUX, I had to come for myself."

The scholar risked speaking up, though it took a failed attempt and a light cough to make his voice audible again. "Are you saying you have something that can help?" Antonius chuckled. "Yes and no. My admiration for architecture is little more that that; I am no engineer. But the men of by tribe are doubtless suited to the task. I can no longer command them to help, but I doubt I would need to. Every Hellatii at their core hopes to make something in our society greater than it was when they originally touched it. I'll have my tribesmen contact you. They may not be scholars, but they will have what you're looking for."

Antonius exited without another word, leaving the two speechless. Finally, the librarian spoke up. "Well, that isn't the Antonius I remember."

True to his word, the scholar was approached by Hellatii architects in short order. And the help Antonius had promised certainly came. According to the Hellatii, the Hellatii had long held the knowledge of creating artificial unbroken stone; concrete. While remarkable, this was not news to the scholar. What was news however was what they revealed next. Apparently, the Hellatii once held the secret to concrete that would try, even underwater, as if it was atop dry land. The Hellatii admitted no-one had used this concrete for as long as they remembered. The formula wasn't exactly written down, and it wouldn't be cheap, but the scholar was ecstatic. It was a starting point, and a very promising one at that! Not only did he have actual architects and a strong versatile material, but he could begin work with the water in place! Everything was lining up for the saving of the dams!

Meta: This is a shorter one and TBH I'm not happy with it, but I needed to get this part out of the way so I could move on to the dam part of saving the dam. Part two in a series of posts on the saving of the Tz'amtanak'al dams. This is establishment for an in-progress technology.

Previous part here