Building this water wheel has taken most of my day. I was serious about finishing my bath setup today! I start rushing now that the complicated bits are done.
To start, tubes. I can make sand tubes in two separate ways – three actually if I add the open air V method.
Version one. The fastest method of making any shape I can imagine – glue junk together and just mold it with my hands. These tubes aren’t very pretty – have tones of wobbly parts…but with the tier of Triboadhesion I can permanently glue stuff together pretty quickly and mold/harden/mold/harden takes a relatively short amount of time.
Its kind of like playing with clay? Keeping the cement wet beforehand and gripping the molded chunks tightly lets me shape stuff. It kind of looks cool and drippy? Its hard to use.
Version two, The slightly slower but much more effective method of making straight pipes – as long as they are big enough…if I try making really small pipes it fails pretty quickly.
Step one. Make a burrito. Big old circle of temporarily glued sand. It works better with dry sand even if its harder to shape initially.
Step two. Wrap burrito in a coat of fast drying permanent cement. Happy little pipe.
Step three. Disable inside, turn sideways and dump the dry insides out upon the ground.
I wish I could reuse the inner bits – honestly this would be the fastest method if it weren’t for the amount of time I spend making the inner burrito.
Finally there's the open air V method – mainly gluing two planks at the corner with enough glue to be waterproof.
I decide to run a pipe through my perpetual oven. It's hard to try and regulate it so I just push for the hotter side of things making a pipe with a metal strip from a bucket to help transfer heat.
Nice and toasty water comes in the side of my bath over here and while its uncomfortably hot I can pour some cold water in as well.
At some point I grabbed my light rock to continue working. I’ve done all the upper areas I just need to finish off this bottom bit. Just a teaaannsssy bit more and we are done.
I have not made proper taps. Like, no dials I can spin to perfectly regulate the amount of water. Instead, it’s two plugs I can glue in and out to stop and start the water.
Hot pipe has a second plug near the top, so the heating pipe isn’t constantly leaching heat from the oven.
And we have it! It’s dark and I’m exhausted but the bath is made. I had to dump water into the bath to test it so it's mostly full of relatively warm water…
Nice midnight bath – probably closer to 1am.
Wow it's late. How did time pass so quickly?
I toss my clothes to the side for a quick dip. Product evaluation is important.
Mmmmm, I give it a 7. 7 out of 10. Points were lost due to how rough the bath is – even with my goopy insulation there’s still way too much sand in here…maybe it’s a good thing? I can scratch my back and rub my feet on it to really get in there. It’s hard to get truly clean without soap but there you go.
…
Okay, bath is grown on me. The initial assessment was too harsh. 8/10. All my soreness is floating away by the holy power of hot water. Baths are just so much nicer than showers. I don’t know why showers are more popular…how can you even feel clean when the water doesn’t soak you down to the bone?
Is this just a me thing?
Is everyone gasslighting me into thinking they think showers are superior?
Anyways.
Bath got a bit weird as soon as dairy joined me. It's hard to be mad at how happy he seems to be floating about…I think the only reason it feels weird is I know he eats germs. I’m never going to think about him drinking my bathwater again. Blank. Gone. What a good boy who likes swimming.
Who's a good boy? You are! Yes you are! Such a smooth little slime aren’t you.
…
If I spend any more time here I might just fall asleep. I have to get out. Its just so hard though…
Hey guys…I forgot a towel.
…RIP.
Ripperonie. Double RIP in pieces.
The open air is cold and I find myself shivering as I stumble naked towards the store using my nightlight.
Please sir, May I have a drying utensil?
…
Why! Why does the corner store not have towels? What about the fae market? I’m not even going to check the seed store…
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
It is empty as well.
Tripple RIP.
Well, If I check the more magical side of the cornerstore I can find a desiccation rod. Pricy at 5000 money. Way more money than I want to spend on simply drying myself…but a girls gotta do what she’s gotta do to get dry.
$500 lighter I slowly dry myself off with something halfway between a blow drier and a paint roller. Its not very fast but any water that touches it disappears after a second or two and if I keep rolling it about I start feeling dry pretty quickly.
I could keep this rod here in my inventory…but I think I’m going to stick it as close to my fire as possible. The drying magic will do wonders for keeping my fire going – plus side the bath is like a few feet away from the oven so it’s easy access!
…the double use does make me feel a bit better. Makes it feel like I didn’t just get ripped off. Its an investment. An investment to protect my second investment! Lets me dry off as well!
Alright guys, that’s plenty for tonight. I’ve gotten my second wind and I’m no longer tired…but just because I don’t have any responsibilities doesn’t mean I should wreck my sleep schedule.
Gotta be an adult about this.
Speaking of adult...I have to drain my bath. Its still warm so I'm not sure about draining it into the lake...
Maybe I'll leave it for tomorrow? Dairy is still cle- swimming about after all. Surpised he liked the heat. I half expect him to melt like the cheese he makes would.
Night you. See you tomorrow.
…
I wake to the sound of chaos.
Wanton widespread wicked wildness!
It’s early – way too early to get up. Something like 6am? Way earlier than a farmer like me should be forced to get out of bed!
Who’s out there making such a big racket?
There's enough light I don’t need to bother with the Lightstone as I peek out the front door.
What in the?
…
To cut a long story short. Its gnomes. My first farmhand is back and he brought friends…hundreds of them.
Somehow they seem to have gotten my bag of loose sugar – you know…the bag I keep locked up in my inventory. Literally a magical storage device that may as well be another dimension or something. How did they get it? What the heck?
Roughly 20 gnomes are huddled around my workbench laying lines of sugar down and snorting them up their noses with all the hyper focus of hard addicts.
My water wheel is broken. Seems too many of them tried to ride it like a Ferris wheel? It seems mostly intact – connections are smashed and it’s laying on its side but the most important part – the oven – is still intact and the rest is relatively undamaged even if it's lying in pieces.
My garden is in disarray. Some new badly made garden beds are placed beside the main section of beds I made and massive piles of dirt have been placed in the center of them. No…not just dirt magically appearing – transported. It’s been cannibalized from my perfect bed! Dirt filled with still sprouting seeds dug out of homes and dumped in mountains in their new locations.
Three trees lie killed and partially turned into sawdust.
A group of four gnomes have tied themselves upside down to the edge of my roof and started recreating a newtons cradle the two end gnomes giggling as they get pushed out and then smashed in again.
Several gnomes freeze as soon as they spot me and start running – not necessarily running away. Just running. They scatter and begin smashing into each other in a massive panicked brawl.
I’m very cross.
Let me tell you. Big mad. Pests might not have ruined everything but they’ve broken so much!
Four big strides towards the den of Sucrose addicts. “I’m confiscating this” I speak trying very hard to project no nonsense alpha gnome energy over these manic monsters.
“shhhhhhuuushuhuhhushuuhsuhshushuuhshushushuuhu?shuuhshuhshu!” one of them screams lunging for the bag.
“You my good sir are cut off!”
“Sugrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” The group begins to growl as soon as their vice is in my hands.
“Len! Len where are you?” I yell glancing about before this can get violent.
Hero bucket #1 swoops in and I toss the bag of hard carbohydrates towards his open center.
“Fly! Escape!” I urge watching as Len flaps aggressively rising up and away.
The growling pack yells various “sugar” battlecries then blur as they begin chasing Len around the planet.
This is unsustainable.
That bag was in my inventory! How did they get it? I know I already asked that but I didn’t even know it was possible!
Also…what am I even going to do? How can I defend my yard from these pests???!!
What should I even do guys?
Traps…don’t feel like they would work. I feel like unless I want to hard dip into lethal solutions trying to capture them is a futile endeavor. Like, they can get into whatever you want to call my world – a divine pocket dimension. They can get into my inventory. Another divine pocket dimension or something.
I start walking towards my garden surveying the damage.
It's…a lot.
There's so much broken in a single night.
I say broken…but presumably a lot of these plants will survive? I think it's best to transport these dirt mountains back to their original homes instead of trying to let them survive here…the new beds haven’t been magically fertilized so they still have tons of grass below them.
This…is going to take a while.
I have to save Len before then…
Without knowing what else to do, I fill a bag with sand and pull the sneakiest swap I can.
“Fly a bit further than let them see your decoy. I need a few minutes to fix this.” I whisper than loudly shout. “Continue! Run with the sugar, keep it away form those rascals!”
…
I don’t know if this is going to work but I glue a makeshift set of words on my half eaten sugar bag.
“Definitely not sugar.”
That will teach em.
Storing the disguised bag in my inventory I pray to the goddess that keeps them guessing then return to fix some of this damage. Today…is a waste.
…
Phantom breath cuts out a good portion of the monotony. Still – it’s a monotony I shouldn’t have to deal with!
Most of the dirt and seeds. Transported back to their original beds.
Most of the new beds. Fixed. Glued and demolished as best I could.
New bag of transmutation fertilizer? Bought and sprinkled over the new remaining beds. Nothing to plant here yet but I might as well set them up.
Water wheel? Repaired, Reinforced. Protected with several signs each stating “Boring water tool, not a ride”
Next the garden full of farmplots. It's protected with as many signs as possible. I think I made over a hundred – “Gnome free protection field.
There's no protection field. It is a tricksy lie. I don’t know how long this will last – I don’t even know if it will work! Worse…if the gnomes find out I’m lying I don’t think they’ll ever listen to my signs again.
What do I do? How do I protect my farm from the hoard!
…
Worse case we might have to move…but I don’t want to go back to the void inbetween slipstream thingy and this was the best option the goddess had for me... I don’t want to start paying that much money just to survive – best part of my current setup is the free rent.
Let’s brainstorm some solutions.
Who wants to move? Who has an idea to keep them out of my important things?
I’ll be listening – profiting from your mental energy. Just let me start phantom breathing some long irrigation pipes toward the farm. If I don’t do this while we talk I don’t think it will ever get done.
I know myself after all.
The big dumb.