They had polished each skull until it shone like ivory, and bound the pyramids with building clay so that they would stand through the years.

Unlike the plains clay, the building clay was reddish-brown, without the purple tint that usually signified some degree of landpoison.

Building clay walls requires wood instead of stone, which usually is more abundant in the beginning of a game, but they are also weaker than stone walls.

The other women fashioned crude pottery out of the surplus building clay, rolling it into long cylindrical shapes and then moulding it and smoothing it; baking it hard.

They had to learn how to cook for batches of a hundred on open fires, mastering the technique of building clay ovens which didn't collapse, and binding up carcasses of sayce and danderil (a gazelle analogue) to be spit roasted.