With each passing day, the temperature dropped considerably, yet the plants still grew and were just as before. Foin was already mostly finished with his boiler; he only needed to fill it with water and also its valve. He built a pipe leading out of the cave, which had a shrinking diameter the higher it got, and then on the top, he moulded a little case, in which he put a cap.
Under normal circumstances, the cap was closing the pipe, but it was easily lifted with human force, and Foin planned it to be lifted by steam should there be a problem. Previously, before going to sleep, while making some tea, he would fill his inventory with water from the river.
By the time Foin was done with the boiler, the level of the river had considerably dropped, but fortunately, he managed to gather quite a massive amount of water already, so drinking during the winter cold would not be difficult.
During the last day on the surface, Foin once again looked around his farm, and, for the last time before the winter, he harvested. The girls, Énilo and the goblin had been given their own tasks, which were gathering as much grass as possible and transporting them down to the underground base.
The temperature was so low that Foin, in his usual dress, was quite cold; though it was not unbearable, it was noticeably chilly. But even in the colder weather, he still worked diligently. And once he had harvested everything, except for the élion flowers, he put everything into his inventory.
He still had some extra peteaches, which he remained after the completion of the boiler, so he used another one to make some sort of trap door. A big round lid, which he could use to seal off his underground base's entrance.
And once everything was ready, though the girls were still gathering grass, he walked over to the boiler. He was ready to fill it with water with the help of his inventory. It would take a monstrous amount of time to fill such a large tank with buckets, and the only opening was so small that it would be impossible to do, but with the help of his inventory, he could do it easily.
He lifted its lid, looked down into the pipe, and let down a small amount of water, which was about the volume of the pipe; he could hear loud spaces as the water landed, so he repeated the process multiple times.
After the tenth time, he got impatient and increased the volume, and after a few minutes of filling, he was able to fill the tank to the top; the lid just barely touched the top of the water. At which he only sighed. After quickly opening his inventory, he brought it along the length of the pipe. He wanted it to be full, but he wanted the water to be mostly in the boiler. He believed that if the water were in this place, it would cool down much faster.
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"Phew... It is finally done... We have plenty of water and food and will most likely have a warm base. Now we just need to make some beds and clothes, and we are good to go..."
Foin sighed as he was looking at his inventory. He sat down by the pipe and just looked at his now empty garden, and then his gaze slowly shifted to the composting pit. It used to be quite empty, but now, it was full, so full that he was thinking about expanding it after the winter.
Just as Foin moved his gaze, the stronger gust of wind moved his now considerably longer hair, and it started raining. Foin slowly looked up at the clouds covering the sky. They were all dark, so he predicted that it would rain heavily soon. He had harvested with such focus that he didn't even notice how dark it got.
"Ladies, let's go down!"
Foin shouted, knowing fully well how far the goblin and Énilo had gotten already. After a few seconds, the two of them came at great speed. The goblin was running, hugging a large pile of fresh grass, while Énilo was faster and flying in front of her. The two of them stopped by the passage down.
Foin waved at them, telling them to go down as he himself started going there. Once there, he started climbing down, but before he was down, he pulled the lid above the hole and only then did he climb down.
Darkness: Everything was dark as the only source of light had been closed. Still, Foin was able to see to some extent. He headed towards the passage, which headed lower; that was where they stored all the firewood. The passage led to a large room which was mostly filled with wood. There were three different piles.
The first and largest pile was made of already chopped and ready-to-use larger chunks of wood. The other was made of sticks and the roots of the trees, and the last, which was small, was made of larger slices of wood, which could still be cut into smaller sections.
Foin grabbed two larger pieces of wood and a handful of sticks and roots. He wanted to make a fire to light the base up a bit. He had previously tested that the chemistry in this world was different. The smoke was not at all harmful and had no effect. As a result, he was ready to set the fire up in the middle of the base.
With the help of his axe, he chiselled off quite a bit of wood from the two larger ones. Since he used a normal toll, he didn't make that much sawdust, so he didn't bother to collect it on the surface; that is why he was making some to start the fire.
Once he was done, he put some sticks on the ground; then he put the sawdust, then he quickly grabbed a few strings of grass and covered this with another few thin sticks. He still had fuel in his lighter, so it was easy to ignite the fire.
While the fire slowly spread across the sticks, he quickly brought a few smaller pieces of wood, as well as larger sticks as well. Then, the fire was slowly fuelled with larger and larger pieces of firewood.
Once the fire was burning quite well, he slowly looked around. The goblin was sitting next to the large pile of grass, which stood in the corner. Énilo was hovering not far from him and was excitedly watching him.
"Alright, I know that we have a source of light; I think it is time to start up the boiler!"