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Diary of a displaced soul.
Ch 16 Home Improvement Episode.

Ch 16 Home Improvement Episode.

I found the girl still on her moss bed, right where I left her. I couldn’t help but have my sight drawn to her every time I passed, but this time my eyes picked up on more than just her naked form. The bruises that had formed over her injuries were shrinking. While that was to be expected, it seemed to me that the bruises were shrinking faster than normal. I almost cursed my lack of foresight, as now I wouldn't have very reliable data on how much better healing was in a room full of plants that had healing properties that apparently could heal by touch or proximity.

I was beginning to wonder if she’d slipped into a coma, but my perception of time had become very skewed, without the sun, sleep, or even eating marking the passage of time. I had to pull up my calendar to see that only a day had passed by. Spending a couple days passed out might not be so bad, hopefully, and might not be a sign of a coma. I’d have to use a slime or spider to shake her awake though, if she kept on sleeping. No food for some days might be fine but I didn't know how well hydrated she would have been and I had no medical gear to try and rig up a saline bag, let alone the knowledge to craft something like that. With a frown, and a last glance at her prone form, I moved to the wall at the head of her bed and started my work.

I almost started to carve into the wall by hand, thinking to wing it and see what I could make, but I managed to stop myself and use my new blueprint tool. The damn thing was just proving to be more and more useful. I quickly pulled up the farm and started off by adding a single room, then thought about it for a moment. I could certainly just build a bathroom and call it a day but part of my plan was to endear the elf to me. A toilet would be nice but a suite, after living in that small ship, might be a better surprise for her.

I scrapped the single room and started out with a longer room, making it 20 meters long and 5 meters wide, going for something akin to a single wide trailer, at least in its dimensions. It still seemed small, but it would be a good starting point for me. I saved the simple template then began my work, keeping the window open to the side of my vision.

I decided to go with an airlock style front door, a big bulkhead to offer a feeling of safety. I’d have to figure a way out to lock it, something likely being in the list of components I'd been given the blueprints to. I made the doorway about seven feet high, a little overkill for the little elf but I figured a big door might feel a bit safer for most people. I didn’t stop to make the door itself, instead moving on and slowly working to carve out the stone by hand. It might have been less efficient than slime mining but it was a hell of a lot faster, stone disappearing quickly as I worked further in.

Then, something interesting happened. I began to see a hazy blue light as my hand reached into the stone, making me yank my hand back, though as soon as I had moved the light vanished. My first thought was that I'd run into some kind of plutonium or other radioactive material but that thought was quickly ignored as I eased my hand closer to where I had been digging. The blue light slowly started up again and began intensifying as I pushed further. I finally came to a conclusion as my hand pressed nearly a foot into the stone and the light suddenly changed to red. I’d found the boundary to my rooms design. Yet another handy part of my new utility tool had been found. I thought the tool was simply for design and mockups but now it showed I could easily find the boundary while working, at least if I did the work.

From there my new addition progressed nicely, following along the walls to make the entry area then chasing down the length of one wall so I could take stone in long sweeps, soon finding myself in a long empty room, twenty by five like i had planned, with the roof pushed up to fifteen as well, just to leave room for piping or electrical lines to be put in whenever i discovered cooler things in the future. For now it was just a drab empty space with more akin to a warehouse than a home.

For a later part I summoned a spider and ordered it to start making webs in long lines at the back of the room as I started to work on the layout, figuring I could collect the web for furniture, or something like it, later. For now I started at the entrance. The door went straight out into the farm so opening it would reveal the entirety of the house. An open concept, I think is what it would be called, wasn’t too bad of an idea, as I had no idea how elves preferred their homes or design principles, but it wouldn’t offer much of a feeling of safety or privacy. For now I marked out a mudroom, making it three meters long. Long lines indicated where i’d add stone and x’s indicated a door location, offset from the entrance so even having both open wouldn’t allow easy sight right into the house area. To add to the room I marked out a space for a shower and toilet. To be honest i was enamored with mudrooms, having one as a child had been useful for cleaning up after many adventures outside, both for my clothes and body. I could only assume a scout would end up gathering a good deal of dust and dirt on their equipment while delving into a dungeon and would appreciate a place to get their dirty armor and boots off before they tracked a mess into their house. Not to mention the mess they could acquire from killing monsters, so a place to hose themselves, and their gear, off was likely to be appreciated.

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As an afterthought I marked two squares for a washer and dryer, currently more a dream, and considered the space good and done. The thought of sticky monster bits had me looking towards my spider when I received a new notification. It was a simple upgrade to my blueprint skill that allowed me to add in walls to my room designs, also allowing me to adjust how tough the walls were meant to be, assumedly for traps or secret rooms. It was a nifty addition but I had another thing I needed to see too.

I approached the spider and sighed. It was doing exactly what it was meant to, laying out strands of web in long lines just as ordered. But I could see small droplets on the surface of the web. “Stop.” I spoke to the spider, a little disappointed in myself. “These wont work at all. These are meant to be used to create comfortable sitting surfaces, not trap the people that sit on them. Can you keep from adding that glue stuff to them?”

The spider looked confused for a moment before it started again and the sticky glue substance was gone. I was glad that silk could be made without having to wash the strands first, though I should have been aware of that considering the elfs bandages hadn’t clung too much to her, but another problem was apparent with the silk. It was nearly thick as a thumb, looking more like bone white strands of steel cable rather than the fine hair like stuff I'd often get stuck on when I was human. Despite its appearance though a quick touch proved it was a somewhat yielding material, even my dulled senses brought a soft touch to my fingertips. The stuff might not be pillow top mattress quality, but I was willing to bet that a net style bed made from the stuff would be much better than the thin mattress in the elven ship.

A final test, absorbing the silk, proved effective. It didn’t deposit as biomatter but as ‘sticky silk’ that was apparently ‘low grade.’ I didn’t need any extra information to know what low grade was, apparently my spiders just weren’t high quality enough to make the good stuff, or their enormous size actively worked against them in silk production. The information also gave me hope that they would be able to be mutated, possibly producing an offshoot that would produce much finer silk.

Without need of sticky silk in the house I collected it all to get it out of the way. I marked out a living room, grinning as I marked an area for a ‘fire’ place, intending to put moss there to illuminate it. I also marked out three areas that would make up stone chairs, padded with silk or made into silk net seats, I wasn’t sure which would do better at this point.

To better conserve the remaining space, I decided to make the kitchen and dining area pair with the living area, granted I couldn't do much of a kitchen. Simply lining the left wall with a countertop area was all I could plan for now, though as an afterthought I added in a sink space. I could easily make piping, after my practice with airlocks, and had confidence that I could supply running water throughout all the rooms that would need it, but I got another idea right out of the flintstones. I scored in a smaller area, meant for under the sink, where I'd station a slime in a shallow basin, allowing it to absorb gray water and food scraps.

With that done the dining area was simple. A square marked where I'd place a stone table and four smaller squares marked stone chair positions. I was beginning to wonder if i could use my biomatter to craft wood, or a wood like substance, but those experiments could wait for now, i had a bedroom to build.

The last four meters were saved for the bedroom, making me think I'd saved plenty of space for the job. With marks set, and silk absorbed, the space seemed large enough to make anyone happy, let alone someone who spent weeks or months in a small box. I moved to where I decided to place the bed, in the center of the room with the head against the far back wall, and started to mark out the space for it. I decided something king sized would be great, a nice expansive bed with plenty of room to get comfortable on.

It ended up fairly big, near seven feet long and six wide. It was a much bigger bed space than I'd ever managed to get for myself as a human and I thought I'd be utterly pleased with something like this. Hell, I had half a mind to try it out once I was done. I hadn’t had one of my sleeping sessions in what felt like a long time so i was probably due one. I also decided to add on what would be two night stands and a wardrobe. It all seemed a bit spartan, but it ought to end up being a comfortable enough place for her until he got new materials or construction methods. As it stood, if she wanted artwork or decorations then she’d have to supply them herself.

With a last inspection of the whole house area I was pleased with the results and started creating blocks of stone. While I could certainly create solid stone walls, I wanted to try a brick and mortar appearance for the interior walls, something to break up the appearance a touch. If I didn't like the walls, then I'd simply smooth them over and fill them completely in. With a roll of my shoulders I set about the task of building and furnishing the new place for my elven prisoner.